At first he had been disappointed that he would have to settle for a sedate drive on country lanes, as opposed to an energetic ride cross-country along the hunt trails. But by the time he called for her the next day, he was prepared to enjoy the drive simply because it gave him a chance to be with her.
“Is there anywhere in particular you would like to see?” he asked, as she settled herself into the carriage.
“I am at your disposal,” she said.
Remembering her comments from yesterday, he was not surprised to see that she was wearing the same dark brown walking dress she had worn the day he had seen her in the village. He supposed it could be called serviceable, although ugly was the first word that came to his mind. The dress was years out of fashion, and did nothing to compliment Anne’s figure or complexion. But he held his tongue, knowing Anne would not appreciate such a sentiment.
“Let us just see where the road takes us,” he said.
He drove her past the home farm, where he had introduced Ian to jumping. Then he took her past Sir William Dunne’s, so she could glimpse the folly that the Dunnes had added to their property. Finally, because the day was so fine, he showed her the woods where his workers were harvesting timber, and he explained how, for each tree taken, the workers planted two more to ensure that there would be timber for generations to come.
She seemed genuinely interested, so he began to describe for her his various enterprises. “People see the estate and they think of the tenant farmers or perhaps the home farm,” he said. “But it is more than that. There is the timber, the gristmill which serves farmers for miles around, and, of course, the livestock.”
“Horses,” she said. “You always wanted to raise horses.”
He grimaced, thinking of his selection of Ajax. Ajax was a good mount, but Freddie had entirely misread the character of the animal when he chose him. “No, I fear any enterprise that relied upon my skill at choosing horseflesh would be doomed to failure. Our livestock consists of the dairy cows. And soon we will have the goats.”
A peal of laughter burst from her. “Oh, Freddie. Goats?”
“Yes, goats. Martin Lansdowne, my agent, has conceived a plan to have the cottagers raise the goats and then sell their wool to a felt manufacturer. Apparently, it is not just any goat hair that is required, but a specific kind of goat.”
“I see. Thoroughbred goats, as it were,” Anne teased.
“Well, he is seldom wrong about these matters,” Freddie said, defending the absent Martin. “In any case I agreed to give it a try, so he’s off now, arranging to buy a few dozen of these goats. We’ll offer them to any of the tenants who wish to try their hand at goat-rearing, in exchange for a share of the profit from when we sell the wool.”
It was a good plan. The end of the long war with Napoleon had brought peace, and a flood of cheap foreign com flooding into the British markets. This in turn had led to the harsh Corn Laws, which had caused many a landlord and farmer to fall on hard times. Beechwood Park had been spared, in part because they had had the foresight to diversify their interests. If the goat scheme proved successful, it would help diversify them even more.
“I am certain that you would not do this, did you not think it a wise investment. But I can not help picturing you as Frederick, viscount of Goats. You must admit it has a fine ring to it,” she teased.
She chuckled, and he began to laugh as well, enjoying the easy camaraderie that made it possible for her to tease him.
They drove on for some moments, until they reached the top of the hill where two lanes intersected. There he turned the carriage around, until they were facing the way they had come. The valley lay spread out before them. From here they could see nearly the whole of the estate. Below them and to the left lay Beechwood Park, with its magnificent gardens and manicured lawns, leading down to the lake. Beyond the lake were the woods and the home farm, and then the tenant farms that stretched to the borders of New Biddeford.
“This is my favorite spot,” he explained. “Sometimes, when I am troubled, I will come here and look down into the valley until the world makes sense again.”
Anne squeezed his arm in sympathy. “You have a great deal of responsibility,” she said. “And you came to it much too young.”
He nodded. “I was scarcely older than Ian when my father died, and I became Viscount. Overnight I was responsible for all this,” he said, with a wave of his hand. “My mother, my five sisters, Beechwood Park, all our tenants and servants and laborers—all dependent on me. I think you were the only one who understood how frightened I was.”
“I know,” she said, softly. “But you were trying so hard to be brave that I never let on.”
The Dowager Lady Frederick had been determined to instill in her son the traditions of his ancestors. Day and night she had drilled into his head the words that she lived by. Duty. Responsibility. She had no patience for a boy who wept for the father he had lost, or who confessed that he was afraid of being sent away to school. Such weaknesses were for lesser mortals.
But whenever he felt he had too much to bear, he escaped to visit Anne. She expected nothing from him other than his friendship, and offered her friendship in return. She had been the one saving grace during those dark times.
“In those days I think I hated my mother,” he confessed. “But because of, or perhaps in spite of, her, I have come to love this place. This is my land, and these are my people. I can think of nowhere else I would rather be, no better way to spend my life than caring for the land and passing it on to my children.”
It was all he had ever wanted. All he lacked was a woman to share his life with him.
“This land is all that I ever wanted,” he said aloud. “But what is it that you want?”
Anne opened her mouth and then closed it, as if uncertain of what she should say. After a moment’s reflection she said just one word.
“Choices,” she said.
“Choices? But what would you choose?”
“I do not know,” she said. “I envy you, for you have found what you want while I am still looking. But I would like to know that someday, should I find my heart’s desire, I would be free to choose.”
She must have sensed that he was puzzled, so she tried to explain. “All our life is a series of choices. When you are young, it seems as if the world is before you, and you can do whatever you want. But each choice you make is like a turn on the road, until one day you find your path has narrowed, and there are no more forks in the road. Yet you can not go back.”
“I see.” He thought he understood. Whatever choices she had made, or had been forced on her, Anne was now an unmarried woman raising a child. Her past transgressions would shape any future that she might have.
He released the brake and shook the reins, and the horse started down the hill. “I wish things could be different,” he said.
“So do I,” Anne replied. “But I stopped believing in wishes long ago.”
Seven
Anne’s days settled into a routine. Mornings were devoted to Ian’s lessons. After lunch he would be set free to play, under the watchful eyes of Samson or one of the other servants, while Anne supervised the servants who were compiling the household inventory or wracked her brains trying to understand her father’s account books. Her father had acted as his own agent, which meant that there was no one who could advise her. And in the last months of his illness, he had neglected much that must now be put to rights.
As she had since her arrival, Anne made a point of stopping her labors each afternoon and joining Ian for tea. If the weather was fair they would go for a stroll, or she would watch him as he played. Occasionally Freddie would join them. He often called without ceremony, just as he had in the old days. But these days he was always accompanied by a groom, and she, mindful of appearances, made certain that there was always a servant to play propriety.
When she was otherwise occupied, Freddie proved himself more than willing to entertain Ian, and the two had formed
a fast friendship. They had gone riding on several occasions, and the other day he had taught Ian to fish. The pair had returned muddy but triumphant, bearing three of the smallest fish Anne had ever seen. They had both seemed enormously proud of themselves, and after taking a deep breath to stifle her giggles, she had heaped them with all the praise that the two mighty fishermen seemed to feel they deserved.
If not for Freddie, Anne would have felt truly alone. There were the servants, true, but she could hardly ask their advice or depend upon them for conversation. And although there was no repeat of the earlier scene at the lending library, neither did the villagers go out of their way to befriend her.
She found herself leaning more and more on Freddie’s strength. When she was unable to make heads or tails of her father’s estate books, he not only lent her the services of his own agent, but spent an entire afternoon patiently going over the books with her.
It was frightening how quickly Freddie had become a necessary part of her world. The days when he did not call seemed unbearably dull. She could not imagine how she had survived without his friendship for all these years. For six years she had sacrificed her own dreams to care for Ian. And though she would make the same choice again, it was only now that she realized just how much she had given up.
And so, knowing that her time here would soon be over, Anne tried to savor each day, to store up memories to last for the years to come.
In the end, her idyll lasted nearly a month. Then, early one afternoon, Freddie was shown into the drawing room. He smiled as he came in, but his smile seemed forced and quickly faded.
“Your pardon, Miss Webster, but I wonder if I might have a word with you?”
“Of course,” she said, wondering at his sudden formality. “Pray, take a seat.”
Freddie’s eyes flickered toward the maid who had shown him in. “It is a fine day. Perhaps we could stroll outside, to take some air?”
Whatever he wanted to speak to her about, it was something he did not want to say in front of the servants. “I will need but a moment to fetch my bonnet.”
She returned, tying the straw bonnet’s strings under her chin as Freddie waited patiently by the door. Then he took her by the arm. He led her outside, onto the side lawn. He seemed to have no particular destination in mind, but instead stared fixedly ahead, showing no inclination to speak, though she could feel the tension in his arm. As the silence stretched on, her imagination supplied her with half-a-dozen reasons for his grim mood, each more unlikely than the last.
Finally she could bear it no longer. “Is Lady Frederick well? And your sisters and their families?”
Freddie gave her a quick glance. “Yes, Mother is well, and my sisters were all fine at last report.”
“Then what is amiss? Something is troubling you. I can feel it.”
He took a deep breath. “I don’t know how to tell you this.”
“Ian?” Her pulse quickened though logic told her that nothing could have befallen Ian. She had seen him not an hour past, playing with his toy soldiers in his room.
“No, nothing has happened to Ian. But this concerns him.”
Anne forced herself to attend his words.
Freddie raked his free hand through his hair, something he did only when he was nervous. He would not meet her eyes.
“I am afraid I have done you a grave disservice,” he said. “Only this morning I was informed that the village gossips have now decided that my interest in Ian, is, er, is a fatherly interest.” He stopped walking and began kicking at the ground with the toe of his boot. “And there is more. By all accounts, you and I are said to have resumed our illicit relationship.”
Freddie’s face was scarlet with embarrassment. He looked at her, misery in his eyes. “Anne, I am so sorry. I never meant to add to your troubles.”
His words shocked her, but shock quickly turned to anger as she realized the implications of his words. “Those, those sanctimonious prigs!” she exclaimed. “Not content to drag my name in the mire, they must now blacken yours as well.”
It was completely unfair. Freddie had done nothing save be kind to her, and now he would suffer for his gallantry.
Freddie blinked, as if uncertain he had heard her correctly. “You do not blame me?”
“Of course not,” she said. “You have done nothing wrong, unless friendship is now a crime.”
He seemed to relax when he realized that she did not hold him responsible for this. “Still, I am afraid this is partly my fault,” he said. “I should have known my frequent visits would set tongues to wagging.”
There was some truth to his words. An unmarried woman did not normally entertain gentlemen callers. Certainly not while she was living alone, without any chaperone or female relative to lend her countenance. But this was not an ordinary circumstance. She and Freddie had been friends for most of their lives. And they had not exchanged so much as an improper glance, let alone conducted an illicit affair.
“I suppose it does not matter that we have done nothing wrong,” she said. “Appearances are all, and character matters for naught. Why is it that so many prefer to believe the worst of others?”
She was no longer surprised about the gossip concerning herself, but how dare they accuse Freddie? She felt herself shaking with fury. Freddie gathered her hands in his and gave them a brief squeeze of reassurance.
Then he linked arms, and they began to walk again.
“If you think it best, I will not call here any longer,” he said.
“No,” she said quickly. “Do not stay away for my sake. The damage is done, and what we do now will not change their minds,” she explained. She would not let malicious gossip deprive her of his friendship.
He nodded. “I had come to the same conclusion,” he said. “But there must be something I can do to put things right. Name the deed, and it is done.”
Anne knew he was sincere in his offer, but there was nothing he could do to set things right. She knew from bitter experience that people believed what they wanted to believe.
“Even if we told the truth about Ian’s birth, I doubt that anyone would believe it. My own father did not.”
Freddie raised his eyebrows, but true gentleman that he was, he did not ask the question that she knew was uppermost in his mind. She hesitated, having been long used to keeping her own counsel. Still it would be good to unburden herself, and now that he had been dragged into this, Freddie deserved to know the truth.
She took a deep breath, as she thought how best to begin. “My first Season did not go smoothly, as you know. It seems I was always putting my foot wrong. I was too young, I daresay, and soon earned a reputation as a hoyden. So when my sister Sarah wrote, saying how lonely she was, and how much she would like a visit from me, my father saw it as the answer to his prayers.”
Even now she could remember how puzzled she had been by her sister’s request. She and Sarah had entirely opposite temperaments. Even as children they had never been close. But a trip to Canada had seemed such an adventure that Anne had not protested the planned visit. Who could have known it was not a visit but exile that awaited her there?
She forced herself to continue. “When I arrived, I found Sarah was embroiled in scandal. To make a long story short, she was five months pregnant, and it was widely known that the child was not her husband’s.”
Freddie drew a sharp breath. “Indeed,” he said.
“Indeed.” There was no need to tell him the full depths of Sarah’s disgrace. Sarah had developed quite a reputation at the provincial capital. She was rumored to have had numerous lovers, but the rumors did not turn to open scandal until it was known she was pregnant.
“Sarah died giving birth to Ian. Her husband, Colonel Fitzwilliam, told everyone that the baby had been stillborn. I suppose he wanted to put the whole mess behind him. The colonel would have sent Ian to an orphanage, but I could not bear that. I took Ian myself, and wrote to my father to tell him the news.”
“But then, why the secr
ecy? Why did you not return home?”
“Because my dear father did not believe me,” Anne said, trying but failing to keep her tone light. “He thought the sun rose and set on Sarah. He accused me of giving birth to a bastard child and of trying to take advantage of Sarah’s death to save my own reputation.”
And here her reputation had hurt her, for it was Anne Webster who was known to have a wild streak, while her sister Sarah was the model of propriety. Sarah had never put a foot wrong in her entire life, or so her father had believed.
“But how could he?” The outrage in his voice comforted her.
“Perhaps this was easier for him than to think ill of his beloved Sarah. Whatever his reasons, he forbid me to return home. I would have been in desperate straits indeed if Colonel Fitzwilliam had not intervened. He settled an allowance on me and found me a place to live. I called myself Mrs. Webster, told the villagers that I was the widow of an ensign in the colonel’s regiment. We would be living there quietly still, if my father hadn’t decided to send for us.”
It sounded more generous than it was. In exchange for Colonel Fitzwilliam’s assistance, Anne had promised not to reveal to anyone the true circumstances of Ian’s birth. It was only with Ian’s inheritance that she had been freed from her dependence upon the colonel and could thus confide in Freddie.
She could see Freddie considering the implications of her story.
“Your father must have realized his mistake,” he said. “After all, he did send for you. And he changed his will in favor of Ian.”
“Yes, and named me as one of Ian’s guardians. But there, too, he did me no favors, for he made no reference to Sarah. Till the end, I think he believed that Ian was my child and not hers.”
She had told herself that it did not matter, but her father’s opinions still had the power to hurt her, even after his death. No matter that reason told her her father had been a bitter old man who had robbed himself of the chance to enjoy his daughter and his grandchild. Reason could not overrule her heart, which still ached for the approval that he had never given her and that now would never come.
Lord Freddie's First Love Page 6