by Jo Noelle
He committed to renovating the dowager house on the other side of the estate earlier than previously planned. The new roof could begin immediately with decorating following on its heels. She could be settled there when she returned from London’s Little Season in two months’ time. He set himself to writing letters to tradesmen until it was time to change.
When the group gathered for dinner, Simon noted the seating arrangement had Cora too far from him for conversation, and a large bouquet centerpiece obscured his vision of her as well. It wasn’t until after the meal that he would get to speak with her. He called for the soup to be served, then found himself hurrying through that offering and each that followed. This might be the fastest dinner the house had experienced in its six-hundred-year history.
When the ladies separated from the men, and the servants appeared with port to be served, he announced, “We won’t linger this evening, gentlemen. No doubt the women found the traveling fatiguing and will seek their beds early.” The eyes of a few men were round with surprise, but Everett’s looked as if he was laughing behind them.
He might feel the same as Simon, answering in agreement, “Let’s join the ladies.”
The women appeared to have barely settled as they walked into the drawing room. Simon particularly appreciated his mother’s apparent surprise.
Simon’s eyes quickly found Cora standing at the far end of the room as he stated, “We missed your company, ladies.”
The group dispersed, settling into small conversations, and Simon considered the best way to gain Cora’s company. He greeted each grouping around the room, though briefly. He hoped the conversations didn’t seem as hurried as he knew they were. Each time he moved from a group, Everett stepped into his place. With his obligation satisfied, Simon joined Cora and May, who quickly excused herself.
“I haven’t had a moment to myself yet to retrieve your letter, so I’m very curious about it. You mentioned that it reveals a special location.” Cora said. “Is it a place we could visit?”
Simon nodded at the question.
Cora asked, “Will you satisfy that curiosity tomorrow?”
“Of which location do you speak?” Simon’s mother spoke over his right shoulder. He turned to find her taking a final step to join them.
“Nothing of interest,” he answered. Was her plan for the coming days to interrupt his every conversation with Cora?
“As I expected. You’ve a room of guests you invited—as a surprise to me. Since you didn’t engage me to be the hostess or even tell me you were having a party, see to them yourself. You don’t have the privilege of secluding yourself in a corner.”
Although Simon doubted that his mother’s concern was for the other guests, he extended his arm to Cora and escorted her to a group.
Within the hour, more than a few of the ladies yawned behind their fans. Everett approached Simon. “I’d like to make use of your office for a meeting with Lord Radnor if you won’t be using it.” Everett’s expression seemed confident, but a wavering edge to his words revealed some apprehension. “I asked him for a meeting, but I have to let him know the place.”
“Of course. Does Lucy know?”
“I told her I’d be meeting with him. I made clear my affection for her, but I didn’t ask the question. Not yet.”
Nervous energy snaked through Simon’s muscles even though it wasn’t his happiness being determined. He clapped Everett on the back. “Good luck.”
The next morning at the appointed time, Simon led Cora out the door on their adventure to find the mystery location.
The driveway scooted alongside the kitchen garden and then farther out to the formal gardens. Cora nudged him and pointed toward the small pavilion with white Roman columns where Everett and Lucy stood within each other’s arms. Simon decided that she must have said yes.
“I suppose they’re engaged now. Should we be hearing an announcement soon?” Cora smiled up at Simon. “How long are typical engagements?”
“Two weeks if they register civilly, three weeks if they have banns read, or only days if Everett purchases a special license.”
“That wouldn’t surprise me. And Lucy would probably welcome it.”
“Indeed.” Simon imagined he would feel much the same.
It was only a two-mile walk to Nanny Kate's cottage, but the road was slippery and full of puddles from the rain last night. Simon and Cora would have been a muddy mess by the time they arrived. Instead, they sat atop the curricle, well out of the way of the muck flicking to the road behind them. The large wheels were sloshed and sucked in the mud, and the horses’ feet did the same.
As Simon approached the field overlooking the small cottages belonging to the tenants, he began taking measure of each building, checking the thatch of the roofs, the slant of any walls, the condition of the rock fences, even which homes had smoke in the stack and which didn't. He made a mental list of repairs he thought might be needed soon as well as tenants he needed to check on. He'd have to get back here soon with his estate manager.
“Stop!” Cora rose to her feet, holding to Simon’s shoulder to steady herself as he pulled the horses to a stop. “This is it.” Her face was bright at her discovery. “The picture in my room.” She pointed along the horizon. “The small hill, the stand of trees just there, and the river. There are more homes, but this is the place, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
“I can see why you wanted a hunting party to come out here,” Cora said, pointing to the trees and fields on her right. “There are red birds everywhere. Are they on the list for hunting?”
“Yes.” Simon turned to see where she pointed. “Those are red grouse. The hunting season for them starts August first, so we'll hunt rabbits now and then grouse. If we don’t, the estate will be overrun, and I’ll have to give the fields over to them entirely.”
Cora looked at him with wonder in her expression. “There are so many.”
“Yes, we’ve fed them well this year on the remnants of the harvest. The tenants have had a good crop. If we want that next year, many of these birds have to go.”
Cora sat back down, and Simon called to the horse to move on.
She was quiet. A little furrow formed between her brows. Simon wondered what she was considering but waited to see if she would speak up. He could see his destination down the road, and excitement was building for him to make this important introduction to Cora.
Simon pulled the curricle to the side of the road in front of the small home, jumped from his seat, and tethered his horse to a tree that would allow it to graze on the grass nearby. Then he turned to Cora to help her from her seat.
The high-seated curricle made for an uneasy descent for women and the full skirts they wore, but Cora gathered them into one hand, then placed her boot on the topmost mounting step.
“Catch me,” she called as she sprang from the step.
Simon’s hands circled her waist, and he slowed her jump. In the end, she was face-to-face with him as she slid down his length to the ground.
“That’s quite a step.” Each of her words sounded deliciously breathy.
If they were somewhere more private, he might take advantage of her being so near. He thought the look in her eye said that she might as well.
Simon stepped back and offered his arm to Cora. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.” They walked up the path. The cottage door opened, and a gangly youth came out.
“Thomas, is that you?” Simon asked.
The young man's head dipped. “Aye. Mum is putting on some tea and asked me to see you in.”
Simon extended his hand. “You know, the last time I saw you, you were no higher than this.” It hovered around his own waist. “You were wet up to your knees, and you had a hat full of fish.”
“Yes, Your Grace. Poaching, I was.” Thomas pulled his hat from his head and wrung it in his hands.
“It seemed like a good time to give you leave to go fishing on the estate.”
“My m
um still keeps that letter.”
“Miss Rey, may I introduce you to Tom Cooper. Tom, this is Miss Rey.”
“Pleased to meet you, miss.” He led them back to the house. “This way, Your Grace.”
Together, they entered the cool shadow of the modest home.
“Is that my Simon?” The familiar voice called from the kitchen as if echoing from his past. My Simon. The words enlarged his heart. The woman standing inside the kitchen was his support, his solid footing in a family and home where he was at the margin. With Nannie Kate, he was loved and protected and doted upon. Here in this cottage, more than in Leavensfield Court, Nanny Kate was the family he always came home to.
When Simon had been sent off to school, her services were no longer needed as a nanny. She married and quickly had two children. The oldest was a daughter, who would be about seventeen now, and the second was young man who had greeted them. Simon was happy that she’d had the opportunity to have children. She was a doting mother to him as well as her own.
She was older now than his memories had preserved her. Gray hair had completely overcome the brown. Her eyes had little lines that deepened when she smiled but were as bright as he remembered.
They sat together in her kitchen—the two women he loved the most, sharing oatcakes and a kettle of tea. He knew that this woman’s good opinion of Cora was more important to him than that of his own mother. From the easy conversation and frequent laughs, there was acceptance on both sides.
“My daughter, Kirsten, is getting married,” she said. “Oh, it won't be a fancy affair, but we're happy just the same. He's been the apprentice of the blacksmith.”
“When is the wedding?” Simon asked.
“In a few days,” she remarked, refilling Cora’s cup.
Simon reached out and patted the older woman's hand that rested on the table near him. “I’d like to provide a dinner if you'll allow me,” he said.
He noticed the older woman's eyes becoming cloudy, and her other hand settled the kettle, then rested on top of his with a gentle squeeze. “You’d do that for us? Would you?”
“And more. I’ll see a small amount settled on her husband as well. I only need to know how many people will attend, and I'll have my staff begin preparations.”
“You're a good one, you are, Simon.” She lifted her apron and swiped the cloth across her eyes.
The visit concluded, and they were back in his curricle and underway home. They’d been silent for a few moments when Cora said, “This is your favorite place on the estate because of Nanny Kate, isn’t it?”
Simon nodded and answered, “You can't choose your family, but she did choose me.” He reached back to his earliest memories and continued. “Nanny Kate was there. She anchored me to my past and even now gives me strength—confidence that somehow I’ll be able to do this.”
“She probably knew you better than many others and knew your character.”
Her words and smile encouraged him to go. “My father had dismissed me as irrelevant, possibly as soon as I was born. My mother didn’t seem to care about nurturing until years later when my sisters arrived. And my brothers seemed to be aware of the family’s indifference, only noticing me to mock me. But Nanny Kate was my rock.”
“I’m so glad you had her.” Cora hugged his left arm.
Simon was too. “She taught and counseled me, and if I needed help, she would try to find a way. She could coax a smile or laugh from me even on the saddest days. When death altered my family and my future, specifically, Nanny Kate was the only one who put her arms around me with tenderness and understanding.”
“Thank you for introducing us. It’s an honor.”
Their carriage topped the small rise and sloshed back through the mud toward Leavensfield. In the drive, Simon recognized his sisters, Lady Atkins, and Wetheridge arriving. He’d chosen this week for the hunting party because his family had plans to be busy in London with whatever affair Lady Atkins had planned. Not only had his mother’s plans changed, but apparently his sisters’ had too. And they brought Wetheridge along. Simon didn’t believe in coincidences.
Chapter 20
Cora
The organization of the hunt was fascinating to Cora. A good number of the surrounding gentry also joined the hunting party. The gamekeeper, dressed in a brilliant red coat and black velvet hat, directed the beaters, shooters, and hounds with the precision of an army commander. What Cora wouldn’t give to wear jeans that day. The men had the luxury of pants tucked into their Hessians while the ladies’ mud-covered skirts swung heavily around their boots.
They hunted close to paths and roads to ease the women’s movement—knee-high grass and way too much skirt proved noisy to navigate, frightening away the game. The beaters, driving the rabbits before them, appeared in the field soon after the shooters were set up in a long stretch of a line. Then they were sent off to another field as the shooters began. Finally, the pickers and hounds retrieved the fallen quarry.
At the end of the day, Simon reported that they had bagged more than three hundred rabbits. The hunters celebrated and congratulated each other.
Cora was sick. There was no way that the rabbits’ lives would not be wasted. It hadn’t been apparent to her how much had been taken since the shooters moved on to the next field before the pickers and hounds had all the game recovered. She resolved that today was her first and last experience with Victorian-era hunting.
The guests chattered around her, but Cora withdrew. How could Simon knowingly put her in this position? She felt betrayed. The hunting party re-gathered at the carriages for the ride home. As he did when they had come to the fields that morning, Simon sat across from her. Different from that morning, she ignored him—pointedly. She wanted to chew him out but would hold her tongue until other people weren’t around to give them an audience.
When she glanced past him, she saw concern. She wondered if he wanted to say something as badly as she did. It had better start with “Please forgive me … ”
Simon lingered as the women were handed out, then extended his arm to Cora as they walked toward the house. He veered off to a flowerbed with an iron bench.
“Are you upset with me?” His voice was low, and his eyes darted around to see if anyone else idled in the area.
There was no one. She took a deep breath and blew it out between her pursed lips to calm her voice. Every bump and turn in the carriage had annoyed her, adding to her already agitated mood. “Of course I’m upset with you,” she hissed. “More than three hundred rabbits for a group that’s less than thirty? We’d each have to eat ten rabbits. You knew my rules for hunting. I wish you’d warned me—I wouldn’t have come.”
“Why would you expect to eat ten rabbits?”
Cora stood and threw her hands in the air. “Exactly! I wouldn’t.” She stomped toward the front entrance, then back toward him as he rose from the bench. “And neither will anyone else at the house party.” Barely restraining herself from poking her finger into his chest to punctuate each word, she added, “That is my point.” Instead, she walked away without looking back.
She kept to her room for teatime and for dinner, requesting that a tray be delivered with only rabbit. So many things seemed right about living in this century—slower pace, appreciation for culture, music, and history, and Simon, who made all of those things more important. But many things didn’t fit—women’s fashions that were generally ruffle-covered torture devices, education, civil rights, hunting practices. Perhaps the longer she lived here, the less intrigued she would be by the experience. That’s all it was supposed to be—an experience, not a commitment.
The sky was tinted dark when May came to her room. “We missed you at dinner.”
“I had a lot to think about.”
“Anything important?” May flung herself into the green striped chair by the hearth and popped one leg over the overstuffed armrest. Cora though that if May weren’t wearing miles of silk, she would look just like a college roommate. Cora su
pposed that in May’s other century, she probably had roommates, too.
“Just unraveling the mysteries of the universe.”
“Oh, just that. Well, don’t give it too much time. Fuzzballs don’t unravel.”
“I thought time was the fuzzball,” Cora quipped in return.
“The universe is time. Anyway … ” May stood to leave, but fished her hand down her cleavage, withdrawing a letter. “Simon thought I could get this to you.”
“Thank you.”
“I felt a bit like an English spy carrying secret documents for the war effort.” She handed it to Cora. “Will you go with us tomorrow? We’re hunting red grouse. It’s the opening day.”
“I don’t think so.” She was fairly certain the answer was no, but she didn’t care to say so yet.
When May left, she slid her finger under the wafer and opened the letter. The salutation made her gasp.
My Love,
I am terribly sorry.
Simon
P.S. I should have explained the hunt to you. I had no idea it was so different in England than you would have experienced in America. Our family’s estate is large and has many people dependent on it for their lives and income. Perhaps it is not so at your home. Nevertheless, the rabbits taken today will benefit many beyond the stones of Leavensfield. Some were dressed and packed in the icehouse to be used later. The rest were delivered to the homes round about to be eaten by dozens of families, many in great need. The hunt seasons feed more than the souls in my home or even my employ. It is a rare time of plenty for those who might live very modestly otherwise. Even a few lucky hounds will feast, too. Some rabbits were dressed out for dinner this evening, a rabbit fricassee, a rich, tender meat resting in a creamy mushroom sauce—my favorite meal. I asked Cook to save you some in the larder in case you felt well enough to eat later. If you decide not to come down before the clock strikes eleven, I shall have no choice but to eat it myself in honor of one of your own hunting rules. I think I shall be at the door to the kitchen garden precisely at ten fifty-five, should you wonder.