Scandal's Heiress

by Amelia Smith

  “Ho!” Griggs said. “Mary there! Bring us more ale. We'll be here all night!”

  “I don't know that I have all night,” Thomas said. “I mean to reach Lawton this evening.”

  Mary, a barmaid with more gray in her hair than brown, wove her way across the taproom with a half-dozen tankards of ale. She looked at Thomas, then questioningly at Griggs.

  “I'll buy his lordship a pint!” Griggs said.

  Thomas held up a hand. “Now, I'm only an heir, not 'his lordship' yet.”

  The barmaid startled. “Sir Thomas?” she said. “Blimey. Well I'll just add it to his lordship's tab, then.”

  “I'll pay now,” Thomas said, reaching into a concealed pocket in his breeches. “I can't start back with debts, now, can I?”

  The barmaid, Mary, set the tankards down on the table and took Thomas's offered coin. She bit it to see that it was real, then tucked it into her bosom. “We do appreciate that,” she said, assessing Thomas guardedly. “We do.”

  Thomas nodded slowly. It might be that “his lordship” hadn't been paying his bills, even in this nearby establishment. If so, it didn't bode well for the estate. He took a deep drink from his tankard. It was good ale: dark, strong, and sweet with barley. He set the tankard down on the table and looked at the men across from him. Griggs, the miller, was heavyset and had cheeks like a fat baby, except for the scraggly beard growing out of them. The farmer beside him was thin, just shy of frail-looking. There were three others, who looked as though they might be brothers, or at least cousins. One had the rough, blackened hands of a smith, another wore a yellowed apron – a baker, and the third smelled faintly of pigsty, even over the sweat, smoke and ale of the tavern.

  “So tell me,” Thomas said, “what news?”

  #

  Thomas left the tavern as the sunset faded from the sky. The waxing gibbous moon had risen, and the clouds had cleared, so he and Polaris could see the road well enough. They had just reached the ridge when the boy, Jimmy, came into sight. He ran with a steady lope, back towards the village, but slowed at the sight of Polaris.

  “Are you Sir Thomas, then?” he said, as he came abreast of the horse.

  Thomas pulled almost imperceptibly on the reins and Polaris stopped. He really was a beauty of a horse, he thought, for about the thousandth time that day.

  “I am,” Thomas said.

  “So why didn't you say so?” the boy asked. “And why are you riding alone?”

  Thomas laughed. “Your elders down there in the village might say those were impertinent questions. They seem quite on guard against impertinence, there in the tavern.”

  “I'm sorry,” Jimmy flinched.

  “Don't be. It's only natural to be curious,” Thomas said. He didn't like much of what he'd heard, but it was only half-tales, most of the time. Indeed, the cheeriest news had been that the new mistress of Lindley Hall had taken up residence, and that she was a great favorite of the people there already, despite having only arrived three days before.

  “I'll be going, then?” Jimmy said.

  “But I haven't answered your questions,” Thomas said. “I didn't say that I was Sir Thomas because I've been traveling alone, and I didn't want to mark myself as the kind of man a robber might profit from. I'd rather people take me for my horse's groom, so that I can ride alone, and see a bit more of the country. It's been a rather enlightening journey, and I've enjoyed it.”

  Jimmy nodded. “I'd love to travel,” he said.

  “But your parents would worry,” Thomas said. “And now, I'm off to meet my father again. Safe journeys to you, Jimmy.”

  “Thank you, Sir,” Jimmy said. “Good night to you, Sir Thomas.” He saluted, then ran away home.

  Polaris continued on at a walk. The road was in indifferent repair, nearly good enough for an occasional coach or carriage, much better suited to farm carts. Lawton was in a remote corner of the country, but it had decent cropland and excellent pasturage. His great-grandfather on his mother's side had prospered, and the estate had supported several generations well, until now. When his grandfather's only son had died in a hunting accident, his granddaughter Heloise, Thomas's mother, had become heir to the title.

  The Lawton line of men seemed to be plagued by hunting accidents, Thomas reflected. For now, he had no desire to continue that part of the family tradition, any more than he wished to continue his father's habits of neglect and waste. It felt, for the moment, like a new adventure, a rather challenging business enterprise, and a chance to redeem his mother's inheritance, if he could. He would never be Richard, of course, never be the blessed and beloved firstborn son, but he would do his best.

  With that thought in mind, he rode up to the door. A curtain moved in an upper window. In the still of the winter night, he heard a bell ring from somewhere deep inside the house. He dismounted. No groom appeared to take Polaris's reins. That in itself was worrying, and even in the moonlight, he could see thin cracks in the house's stonework, flaws which should have been repaired. Ivy twined over some of the windows. Finally, a lamp flared to life in the hall and the door opened.

  “Sir Thomas? Welcome home, Sir.”

  Thomas squinted into the light. “Tim?” he said.

  “The same, though I usually go by Fowles these days.” The butler stepped outside, carrying a lantern. “I am sorry we are not all here to greet you,” he said.

  “Indeed,” Thomas said. “The house seems a bit dark.”

  Tim, his brother's old friend, nodded. “It's a pity.”

  “Mother said that things were bad here, but...”

  “The staff mostly left here after she left for London. They were more loyal to her than the old man. There'd been no wages paid for two years, and after Christmas, I think we all just gave up hope.” Tim reached for Polaris's reins and led the horse around to the stables with Thomas following. “One of the men still comes now and again to see to the stables, and it's a quiet time of year in the gardens, in any case.”

  “I had no idea,” Thomas said.

  Tim shrugged. “I stayed on for want of anyplace to go. Besides, someone's got to look after the old man. Betsy's still in the kitchen, no family, either, and Nestor's still the manager – I think your mother pays him wages out of her pin money.”

  Thomas calculated, wondering what sum was owed to all the servants. “I'll speak to him tomorrow.”

  “You'd better speak to your father first, Sir Thomas, if you don't mind, Sir.” Tim swallowed. “I think he may not have much time left.”

  “What is it?” Thomas asked. “The clap, or―”

  Tim shooed the notion away. “No, it's consumption. And a bit of gout. He scarcely leaves his bed.”

  Thomas frowned. “So the only thing that could keep him home was sickness.”

  Tim didn't comment. He opened the stable doors and led Polaris to a reasonably clean stall. There were only a few odd farm horses here, now that the carriage horses had gone to London, and a couple of cows had been moved into the barn, too, looking a bit above their station in the horse stalls.

  In silence, Thomas and the young butler settled Polaris in for the night. Tim found a little bit of grain in a hidden corner, away from the main stores, and they pumped water into a bucket from the well in the yard.

  “I'll see to him myself in the morning, Tim,” Thomas said. “I suppose I should get used to calling you Fowles.”

  “It's up to you, Sir,” Fowles said. “I don't think I should call you Tommy anymore.”

  “I wouldn't mind too much, but...” Thomas looked up towards the dark windows, grudging, neglected eyes. They'd stopped in the stable yard. “We'd better go in.”

  “Certainly, Sir Thomas,” Tim said.

  “Then let's go.”

  Fowles led him back around to the front of the house, warning him of an uneven paver in the path, just before he might have tripped. He pointed out a few things that were still in good repair; the terraced rose garden, the ha-ha, the upper pastures. “And the roof's no
t bad,” he said.

  “Well, that's good,” Thomas agreed.

  Entering the front hall, Thomas could smell a hint of mustiness. “You say the servants only left after Mother came to town.”

  “Well, after she went to collect Lady Caroline. You've heard about her... condition?” Tim asked.

  “I have,” Thomas said. Tim, Fowles, waited. “She looks well. I hope that the child is a boy, for my own sake as much as for my cousin's memory.”

  Fowles nodded. “It would be a fine thing, to be duke of Windcastle, but this place...” he waved his hand. The furnishings were draped, the bannisters dusty, even though the servants had been gone less than a fortnight.

  “Yes,” Thomas said. “I think I should go see Father now.”

  The younger Fowles led the way up the grand staircase to the master suite. A faint moan greeted them as they opened the door.

  A grumble rustled the bed. “Go away.” In the lamplight, the pale, thin figure barely ruffled the counterpane, propped up on a pile of pillows. He coughed, shaking and rattling.

  “Go away,” he repeated.

  Thomas approached the bed. If it weren't for the hostility in the voice, he wouldn't have believed that this frail being, scarcely tied to life at all, could be his father. The old man's eyes were closed, and he frowned. Thomas reached for his hand. He jerked at the unexpected touch, and opened his eyes.

  “Who are you, some new quack sent up from London?” He coughed again. “Insufferable woman.”

  “Would that be my mother you're referring to?” Thomas said.

  The man on the bed straightened and looked at him, opening his eyes for the first time since they'd entered.

  Fowles cleared his throat. “I thought it best to leave it, in case it wasn't you, after all.”

  Thomas frowned.

  “What am I, seeing ghosts?” Thomas's father complained.

  “I'm back from India, Father,” Thomas said. “I thought you would have heard. I'm sorry to see you like this.”

  “Don't lie to me, I'm dying.”

  “I've seen other dying men, too,” Thomas said. The man in front of him, though he still had a thread of life left, was fighting a losing battle.

  “Have you then? Think that makes you a man?”

  Thomas looked back to Timothy, who stepped out at the briefest signal. He probably didn't want to hear this conversation any more than Thomas wanted to be having it. There was something defeating about the whole situation. He wanted to rail at his father, but this near corpse of a man begged pity, even as he spat out his old venom with every bone-shaking cough.

  “I'd had no intention of coming back,” Thomas said.

  “You were dead to me. Now I'm dying, and there's no one else to pass this wreckage on to.”

  “There's Nathan,” Thomas reminded him.

  “He's worse than I ever was,” his father said

  “Is he?” Thomas said.

  “It's all yours now.”

  “Well, actually, it's Mother's, what's left of it,” Thomas said. “Besides, you're not dead yet.”

  “Close enough. Your mother might be a baroness in her own right, but she's not man of the house. Never was, can't be.” The speech was too much for his frail voice, and he collapsed into another fit of coughing.

  Thomas reached for his hand again. This time, his father stiffened, but didn't draw away so quickly. His hand felt cold, even after Thomas's long ride from the village had left his own fingers nearly frostbitten. He just sat there, holding his father's hand by its icy fingertips. He seemed to be sleeping. A lone candle burned on the bedside table. It guttered as a draft blew in, and Thomas reached into the drawer below it for a replacement. There were only three more candles. He set one in a spare candlestick and lit it from the old one, before it faded entirely away.

  In the brief flare of light, his father's eyes opened again.

  “You do look a bit like Thomas, but I don't see so well anymore.”

  “I'm sorry we parted so badly.”

  Thomas's father shook his head, ever so slightly, which set off another cough, but he swallowed before it took him away entirely. “No, don't be,” he said. “I thought you had backbone. Misplaced backbone, but stomach. You'll have to do.”

  “I suppose I'll have to take that as a blessing.”

  The old man nodded, almost imperceptibly, and coughed again. When he'd stopped, he opened his eyes, looking straight at Thomas. “Go away. Let me die in peace. And... do something for this place.”

  “I'll do my best,” Thomas said.

  His father grunted. “Go,” he said.

  #

  In the morning, he found the old Lord Pently sleeping, attended by a quiet physician from a nearby town. “I'll call for you if he wakes,” the doctor said.

  “Shall I send for my mother?” Thomas said.

  The doctor shook his head. “There won't be time for her to get here from London. And she knew, chose to go with that young widow instead,” he said, scornful that she'd abandoned her husband in the end. Maybe the doctor couldn't see how that was for the best. Thomas suspected that his parents hadn't ever liked each other much.

  “Call me if he wakes,” Thomas said. He couldn't find fault with the doctor's treatment of the old Sir Pently. His father had been lucid last night, if not pleasant. He had laudanum, but not too much of it, so he was as comfortable as he could be. Between the consumption, the gout, and his long years of debauchery, it would have taken impossible feats to prolong the Sir Pently's life.

  Thomas followed the dusty, once-familiar halls to the dining room. Like the rest of the house, he found the table and chairs draped in dust covers. Not sure what else to do, he rang the servants' bell. He waited. It seemed like an eternity before Betsy, the cook, burst through the servants' door, dusting flour from her hands and looking flustered.

  “Sir Thomas!” she exclaimed. “We didn't think you'd be up for breakfast, not after your hard journey.”

  “I always rise early, at least, compared to Nate, and I imagine compared to my father,” Thomas said.

  The cook shuffled uncomfortably.

  “It's a habit I got in India,” he explained. “Always cooler in the mornings there. Would there be a bit of bread about? Maybe some tea?”

  Betsy nodded, dusting the flour on her hands off onto her apron. “I'd think you'd want more of a proper breakfast than that, but we haven't got anything on hand. I just put a few loaves in the oven, for us, what servants are left. Didn't know what you'd be wanting. Mr. Fowles has gone into town for a chicken for tonight, Sir.”

  Thomas nodded. He knew that his arrival was a bit of a surprise, coming with so little forewarning, but hadn't expected the servants to be so visibly put out by his presence, nor that the larders would be so near to bare.

  “Chicken. A chicken would be fine,” Thomas said. “I'm quite used to ordinary food, common food these days. You don't need to put on full dinners for me. I could even eat in the kitchen, if that's easier.” It was a concession he would not have thought to make, ever, as he was growing up, nor even when he was in India, and certainly not in London. Posing as a groom for the past few days, if only by implication, had changed his perspective a little, not to mention traveling alone from India to Gibraltar. He could tell that it would be a hardship for Tim and Betsy to serve formal meals, as well as providing broths and possets for his ailing father and feeding themselves.

  “You would come to the kitchen?” Betsy gulped. Having swallowed the idea, she nodded. “Come on, then. At least it's warm, and I've got that bread to watch.” She hurried away, as if half hoping he would change his mind and stay in the closed-up dining room. He lingered behind her, checking one of the drawers where the good silver had been kept. Some of it was still there. He wondered if the servants had absconded with it, or whether his relations had sold it off to pay their debts. He certainly hoped that the manager would arrive soon. If he had to extrapolate on his own, he'd guess that the house stood as well as it di
d only through force of habit, sheer inertia.

  If the grand staircase had been dusty, the servants' stair between the dining room and kitchen was worse – not filthy, but with a deeper air of neglect. He wished that his mother had told him, but then wondered how much time she'd really spent here since Richard's death. It was as if the whole house had died with him... except, thankfully, the kitchen. Thomas opened the door into the cavernous old kitchen, built to serve a large, noble family, their guests, and a small army of servants and farm workers. A bright fire burned under the oven, and the central worktable gleamed, freshly scrubbed. A basket of eggs hung just inside the door, and a kettle whistled on the hearth.

  Betsy didn't meet his eyes. “Here you are, Sir,” she said, pulling out a stool. “I'll have tea for you directly. The bread won't be long, and Timmy's bringing butter and milk back with him. He won't be long.”

  “Thank you, Betsy.”

  “We're out of sugar, I'm afraid, but there's a bit of honey I was saving for the Sunday pudding, only I didn't know you were coming, Sir.”

  Thomas sipped his tea. It was bitter, and not very good tea, to begin with. “That's all right,” he said. “I'll have this cup as is, and wait for the milk.”

  Betsy sighed with relief. “Good, thank you, Sir. I wouldn't know what to do for the pudding if I didn't have that honey.”

  “Listen, Betsy,” Thomas said. “I know things must have been hard here for a while, but I hope I can set things right.”

  She frowned, skeptical. “They weren't so bad when your brother Richard was here. I think the Sir Pently kept up appearances for his sake.”

  Thomas took another long sip of tea, trying to ignore the rank taste of something, maybe dung or bark, which smugglers must have cut into it. “But they were only keeping up appearances?” he thought aloud. “And Richard didn't notice.” It was strange, to think of Richard as having flaws, but he'd always been so optimistic, so sunny, that it wasn't too much of a stretch to see that he might have simply ignored anything that didn't suit him.