Reforming Lord Neil: A Regency Romance, Inglewood Book 5

by Britton, Sally

  Clapham cleared his throat, lowering his eyes. Perhaps he had forgotten that Neil’s accent marked him as someone perhaps even above himself.

  “Quite true. But I do believe we understand one another when it comes to matters of honor, and of a woman’s place in a family.”

  “Do we?” Neil affected a bored expression. “Mr. Clapham, if there is something you wish to say, I do wish you would spit it out. I am not an idle conversant.”

  Twin spots of red appeared on Clapham’s cheeks, but he cleared his throat and leaned closer. “I have wondered, Mr. Duncan, where you are from. I have asked here and there after your name, and no one knows a Mr. Duncan. You can see then, I am merely concerned for my dear sister-in-law’s reputation.”

  Neil chuckled, somewhat darkly. “Mrs. Clapham has nothing to fear from me, sir. I am nothing if not her humble servant.” He did not lower his voice, did not lean closer, but spoke as though the topic were free for all to hear. “Mrs. Clapham is a fine lady. I honestly doubt you are truly concerned about her wellbeing. It is more likely, to my way of thinking, that you are concerned about your own. I gathered from our first meeting, and from what has been said of you by others, that you were all too happy to see her gone from your house. One must ask oneself, why? Why make her feel unwelcome, bid her farewell most happily, only to come back and insist she is not behaving as she ought? It is most curious behavior, Mr. Clapham.”

  Clapham paled. Then took a big gulp of his tea. He grabbed a sandwich. “There is nothing curious about my interest. My departed brother would expect no less.”

  That rubbed at Neil’s temper. How could the man claim to honor his late brother’s memory by turning out his widow? “I rather think any man would expect a great deal more of the person who is supposed to look after his wife.”

  The other man snapped his mouth shut upon the sandwich, then choked. After a moment of gasping, during which Neil only raised his eyebrows and waited, Clapham took hold of himself. “I beg your pardon.”

  “I do not give it.”

  People thought Neil was conniving. This man was hiding something, and it involved Teresa.

  “Mr. Duncan, I have done what is right for Mrs. Clapham. It is she who decided to leave my protection, to take up her pitiful inheritance.” Clapham squared his shoulders. “I am trying to keep my eye upon her, to make certain no one takes advantage of her innocence and naïveté. You are a man practically living at her property, from what I understand of the matter.”

  “You understand very little.” Neil tapped his fingers on the table impatiently.

  “What if I asked you to leave her alone?” Clapham asked at last. He attempted to sound sly and knowing. “To go your own way? Perhaps all that is keeping you here is the hope of funds. My sister-in-law has no money, as you must know.” The man reached into his coat and pulled forth a small bag, full and heavy with coins given the sound it made when it hit the table. “I can give you the means to get beyond this place and strike out elsewhere.”

  Neil chuckled, thinking of his mother’s necklace, his own coins, the earring he had not even sold yet. “I have no need of such a paltry sum.”

  Expression hardening, Mr. Clapham swiped the money up and tucked it back in his coat. “Then what will it take to be rid of you?”

  Slowly, Neil rose to his feet. “I come and go at my will, Mr. Clapham. Before this meeting, I might have forgotten all about you. But now, you have made me curious.” Neil bared his teeth in a grin he knew would make Clapham shake in his boots. It was all a ploy, of course. He had no power on his own. No one who owed him favors. But Clapham did not know that.

  “I can see we are not friends, Mr. Duncan.” The horrible excuse of a gentleman stood and offered an abbreviated bow. “I hope we will not become enemies.” He took his sandwich with him out the door.

  Neil remained standing still, thinking.

  “What was that about, lad?” Putnam asked from his chair across the room.

  Higgins looked out the front window. “He’s headed south. Back to where he came from.”

  Uncertain, Neil tapped his fist against his thigh. He had no one who owed him favors. But there were people in his life who were unfailingly good. At least two such men, who happened to be married to the only two women of Neil’s acquaintance who might actually like him the smallest bit. Those men also had a penchant for justice.

  Even if it was Neil who presented them with the issue, they might help for no other reason than for their enjoyment of righting wrongs.

  The chance was worth it, in this instance, if he could help Teresa.

  Neil went to the kitchen, pushing through the door without preamble.

  “Mr. Jones.” The startled proprietor jumped to his feet at the unexpected address. “I need paper and pen, sir.” Neil took several coins out of his pocket. “And the use of a quiet room to write a few letters.”

  “Of course, Mr. Duncan.” Jones showed Neil to a staircase. “The family parlor is just upstairs. Follow me, sir.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  At first, Teresa had feared her candid conversation with Mr. Duncan would lead to unpleasantness between them. Instead, he behaved as he had from the first. He was cordial, a gentleman in every way, with his occasional witty turn of phrase.

  Caroline had taken to following him about as he worked. The dog, christened Muse, followed them both. That made it easy enough to find where they were.

  One afternoon, a few days after Teresa and Mr. Duncan’s conversation, she went in search of her daughter to insist upon a geography lesson. Mr. Duncan, with a wheelbarrow full of stone, was going about the irrigation trenches in the farm. The rain had abated, but water still stood in areas where it should not. At breakfast, he had informed everyone at the table of his intent to discover the reason for the blockages and get the water moving as it should.

  Teresa suspected that Mr. Putnam had come by to point out what must be done, and how to do it. While she had thought to ask the old farmer to advise Mr. Duncan, she had hesitated. Would a man used to prestige and position listen to a poor, old farmer?

  It seemed Mr. Duncan was not too proud to do so, a thing which intrigued her.

  Teresa went down the line of fence where the brambles grew, spotting the gentleman, girl, and dog. Rather than call out, she approached slowly and listened to their voices drifting up to her.

  “Avez-vous déjà rencontré un Français?” Caroline asked, stopping Teresa where she stood.

  Mr. Duncan removed a large clump of weeds with his shovel, then went to the wheelbarrow to lift a flat stone. He answered her daughter in French. “I have met any number of French people. During their revolution, hundreds of Frenchmen and their families came to England to escape Madame Guillotine. Their families still speak French.”

  Caroline picked up a smaller stone and followed him. He appeared to be lining the place where the invasive plants had grown with rocks.

  As a headache had begun to build behind Teresa’s eyes, she had no wish to shout to draw their attention. Coming all the way toward them, Teresa spoke in French, too. “I see you are having a French lesson today, ma petite chérie.”

  When Mr. Duncan looked up at her from where he crouched, wrist-deep in muddy water, he dared to wink at her. “I told her she could only follow me about today if she agreed to speak French.”

  “Mr. Duncan says my accent is charming,” Caroline added with a grin.

  Though amused, Teresa tempered her reaction to a tight-lipped smile. Then she pointed up the hill. “Let us hope your geography lesson will be just as charming. Your grandmama is ready to bake, so you ought to join her. I believe you are discussing Spain today.”

  “Yes, Mama.” Caroline curtsied to Mr. Duncan. She went up the hill, plucking a wildflower as she went. Teresa watched her daughter, and contentment settled in her heart. Caroline grew more kind and loving every day, and she had a gentle soul. If Teresa accomplished nothing else, as long as her daughter grew into a happy and generous woman, an
y trouble would be worth it.

  “Your daughter does you credit, Mrs. Clapham.”

  Teresa turned to see Mr. Duncan, out of the mud with dripping wet hands, watching her.

  “I think her sweet nature came with her, Mr. Duncan. It has been my privilege to watch her grow.” She felt a cough tickle her throat and hastily turned to cover her mouth with her handkerchief. “Pardon me.”

  He gave her a momentarily concerned expression but continued the conversation. “I have often wondered about the nature of children.” Mr. Duncan stepped over the rivulet of water, now rapidly disappearing through the irrigation canal. “If we are all a product of our family, why does one see so much divergence in childhood temperaments?”

  With a raised eyebrow, Teresa tucked her handkerchief away. “Any woman will tell you, Mr. Duncan, that their children come into this life with personalities. We only mold the medium we are given, as parents. I know a woman with six children, each of them different in temperament and talent, though all raised by the same good lady.”

  He made a thoughtful hum of sound, then placed his shovel over the double handles of the wheelbarrow, pushing it further down the hill. Teresa followed, somewhat curiously.

  They had come to another place with standing water, overflowing from the narrow ditch. Mr. Duncan stopped there, lifted his shovel, and went to work on a patch of long, wild grass. He dug around the plant, ignoring the water and mud that flecked his boots.

  “Thank you for doing this,” Teresa said. “It was not even on your list.”

  “No, it was not.” He sounded pleasant, despite the labor he undertook. The shovel came up, filled with mud. He tossed it aside, stuck the shovel in the ground, and leaned upon it as he regarded her. His hat was tipped at a rakish angle. “Mr. Putnam must make his own repairs and replace some thatch upon his roof this afternoon, weather permitting, and he has said he will show me the way of things if I will assist him.”

  “That is kind of him.” Teresa tucked a loose strand of black hair back behind her ear. “Mr. Duncan.” She swallowed, wondering why her voice sounded rather tight. “I am terribly sorry that you have not yet received word about—about whatever it is that keeps you here.” She had not exactly meant to say such a thing.

  Mr. Duncan ducked his head, and she saw a muscle in his jaw tighten. “Do not trouble yourself, Mrs. Clapham. Things will resolve themselves, sooner or later. I have written to other acquaintances. Perhaps they will help me sort matters out.” He stepped around the shovel and went to the wheelbarrow, taking up another large, flat stone.

  “What are you doing, precisely?” Teresa asked, watching with fascination and perhaps a bit of admiration, too, as his forearms flexed beneath the stone’s weight. He knelt in the large puddle that had begun to recede and put the rock into the middle of the ditch. They were at a place where the flow of water seemed to turn in order to make it through the middle of the field before running downhill, and eventually to sea.

  “Whoever dug the irrigation ditches originally did a fair job, according to our Mr. Putnam, but it has been two years or more since any work to maintain the integrity of the ditches was performed.” He stayed crouched there, resting wrists on knees and looking up at her. “If the larger growths of greenery are cleared, and stones put in place to keep them from coming back, it will all flow downhill as it ought.”

  The pounding in Teresa’s head increased abruptly, enough to make her forget herself and put her hand above her brow where it most hurt.

  The gentleman stood, green eyes wide, and approached. “Mrs. Clapham, are you unwell? You have turned terribly pale. Except…” He wiped his dirty hand on his trousers. “Forgive me, madam.” He put the back of his cool hand against her forehead, and she leaned into it with some relief. The touch felt quite wonderful, not only due to the difference in temperature.

  “You are burning with fever,” he said, his eyes darkening.

  “It is nothing. I am merely overtired.” Yet even as she spoke the excuse, Teresa could not think of a thing she had done to wear her body out. Her chores that day had been light.

  Mr. Duncan’s frown deepened. “Come, let me walk you back to the house.”

  Teresa took a step back. “I am perfectly capable of walking back up this little hill, Mr. Duncan. Though I do thank you for your concern.” She cleared her throat again. It hurt to swallow. Botheration. Teresa did not have the time to fall ill.

  “Then go up the hill, madam.” Mr. Duncan’s smile seemed sad, somehow. “You are perfectly capable, as you said, of doing things without my assistance. Please drink some of your marvelous herbal concoctions and rest.”

  The sincerity with which he spoke touched her heart. And reminded her of how gently he had pressed his lips to hers in the kiss that never ought to have occurred. She went hot all over, then shivered with cold.

  “Yes. Yes, I must be ill,” she said aloud. “Good afternoon, Mr. Duncan.” She turned about and started up the hill. The hill she had climbed hundreds of times, and come down with ease less than a quarter of an hour before. By the time she made it to the top, the house within view, her state had changed drastically.

  Forehead and back of the neck wet with sweat, her heart pounding, and her head as thick with fog as a marsh on a summer morning, Teresa stumbled the last few steps to the kitchen door.

  * * *

  Repairing a leak in a thatched roof was not nearly so complex as re-thatching an entire roof. Neil stood on a ladder over the corner of Mr. Putnam’s cottage.

  “The truth of the matter,” Putnam said as he worked new straw into place, “is that the last time we had thatchers to work here was thirty years past. The very tops of the houses and the corners are seeing problems. We just need to send for a thatcher that’s worth his salt.”

  “I cannot say that I have ever seen a thatcher at work.” Neil used bent sticks, shoving them into place, to hold the straw where Mr. Putnam put it. “If you know how to do the repairs, could you not do the entire rooftop yourself?”

  Putnam leaned his elbow on the roof, atop his own ladder, and fixed Neil with a narrow-eyed gaze. “Thatching is an art, Mr. Duncan. ‘Tis no easy thing to do a good, quality job when you aren’t bred to it. I can fix this leak, here, and it will be set for a year or two. But a true thatcher can lay an entire roof that will last the length of a man’s lifetime.”

  Neil looked over the roof, gray everywhere except where he and Putnam had fixed the leak. “This straw has been up here for thirty years?” Nearly as long as he had been alive.

  “Aye.” Putnam started down the ladder. “And it’s time to do it over, I’m thinking.”

  “Are thatchers difficult to find? Is it an expensive undertaking?” Neil climbed down as well, his mind already on Teresa’s roof. She had said the only leak was in her bedroom. He now knew how to remove the thatch, replace the wood, and recover it with straw. His work likely would not be even so good as Putnam’s, but if it held long enough to have a real thatcher come recover the roof—

  “It’s a dear cost, and one we must pay if we are not tenants. I’ve heard it’s a year’s worth of rents and more to have a roof recovered. My father won our land through his hard labor to our baron. I believe Mrs. Clapham’s land came through a family trust, and so there is no landowner other than she.” He shrugged his wiry shoulders. “Most of us know to start putting a bit of money by before it’s needed.” Putnam stared up at his patch job with a deep frown. “I could pay before winter comes.”

  Teresa would not have money put by for such a thing. Especially considering how worried she had been over making enough merely to get through winter.

  Neil immediately remembered his mother’s second ruby earring. It might not fetch enough. The job sounded as though it would cost well over one-hundred pounds. If the earring did not suit, the necklace would be at least worth two-hundred pounds.

  “What are you thinking, lad?” Putnam asked, his clear blue eyes serious. “Will your Mrs. Clapham have the wherewithal to re
place her thatch?”

  Neil cleared his throat. “It’s not really my business, is it?” He took the ladder off the roof and slowly laid it down, allowing Putnam to pick up one side. There was no use discussing the subject with the old farmer.

  Teresa would not allow him to pay for her rooftop’s replacement. Not outright. “Is fire a concern for a roof such as yours? I would think clay tiles or tin might be a better material.”

  The old man snorted. “The whole building is made of wood. It’s all likely to catch fire. But think on this. Clay is hard and brittle, and we’d have to find a way to get it here. Same with tin. And can you imagine the noise of rain on a tin roof?” He scoffed. “Thatching has been part of our homes and our lives for hundreds of years. I cannot see people changing such an important thing any time soon.”

  Neil returned to Bramble Cottage with less than two hours of sunlight left. He would have to wait to make the necessary repair. A new board, a bit of hammer and nail work, and then carefully dried straw roped back into place would take more time than the sun would allow.

  Muse appeared the moment Neil’s foot stepped onto the property. She approached him cautiously, as though uncertain as to what sort of greeting to give. Neil whistled and bent down, and she hurried toward him with her tail between her legs. Poor girl would need more time to learn she was wanted. He rubbed at her ears, praising her quietly until her tail started to wave back and forth.

  She followed him with more energy after that.

  He went to wash himself for dinner. He pumped the water from the underground well into a pail, then took that pail with him to the back of the barn where he had created something of a washroom for himself. A tall table held a basin, chipped pitcher, and a bar of soap. On a nail just above, he had hung the shaving pouch provided by Teresa.