by Bliss Bennet
“You do not wager, my lord? Not at all?”
If she had not been staring at him, her mouth a rounded “O” of surprise, she never would have noticed the expression of unease that crossed his mobile features, for it disappeared in an instant, vanquished by another easy smile.
“Not often,” he replied, picking a leaf off a nearby tree and running it through his fingers. “And certainly not when money is involved. Although I must say London’s gaming hells often serve the best wines and spirits in the city.”
She gave herself a shake. “Then you have not come to rusticate to avoid your town creditors?”
“Is that the rumor being bandied about? Sorry to disappoint, but no. Yourself?”
“What, am I in debt? Certainly not.”
“Very good. Although I would defend you against the bailiff, or the tax-collector, if one were rude enough to interrupt us during this lovely country stroll.” He flung up his walking stick and poked it in the air as if it were a sword.
“I’m honored, my lord, but there is no need. And I am afraid I am the one who must interrupt our walk. For here is Mrs. Hawley’s cottage. Do you remember her? She once served in the Saybrook House kitchens.”
“The short, round woman? The one in charge of the baking?”
“Yes. She’s grown quite rheumatic and has been pensioned off to live in a tenant cottage. One of the older ones, I’m afraid.” She darted a glance at him, to see if her words affected him at all. But his expression remained unclouded. Had he not read a word of what she’d written in her letters, about the shameful state of the old cottages? “I visit with her every week and read aloud to her from the Bible.”
“Many an entertaining story in the Good Book. But I daresay Mrs. Hawley would benefit more from a competent thatcher than from a dramatic reader; her roof looks as if it is about to tumble down upon us,” he said, his eyes narrowing at the sight.
“Your roof, not hers,” Harry said. “You are the owner, after all.”
Lord Saybrook frowned. Holding out his cane, he gave the low-hanging thatch a tentative poke. A shower of rotted hay and weeds tumbled down about their feet.
“Damned poor excuse for a roof.”
“Indeed.” She waved a hand to clear the dust from the air, then knocked on the cottage door.
“Come in, miss,” a cracked voice called.
She entered the cottage, shivering despite the warmth of the day. Mrs. Hawley’s one room was always damp—the gaps in the thatch, and the cracks in the clay walls, allowed the rain in, but the broken windows, patched with rags, kept the sun out.
“Good day, Mrs. Hawley. I hope you won’t think it too forward of me, ma’am, but I’ve brought you a visitor.”
The old woman, her eyes white with rheum, peered through the dim light at the tall figure beside Harry.
“Now Hawley, do not say you’ve forgotten me already. And you the first one to capture my heart! I could never forget you, nor the bite of of your holiday gingerbread. How do you do, ma’am?”
The older woman rose, her eyes squinting. “Lord Saybrook, is it? Young Theo that was?”
“Yes, and you are kind to allow me to enter your house, knowing as you do how often I was wont to steal a handful of any sweet that came out of your oven,” he said as he led her back to her chair. “How devastated I was to hear your baking days are behind you. The Saybrook kitchens will never smell as tempting as they did when you graced them with your presence.”
The odor of Mrs. Hawley’s cottage was not so tempting today. Harry pulled the near-overflowing chamber pot out from under the sagging cot that served as the woman’s bed and emptied it in the outhouse, then looked about for other chores she might tackle. The older woman did not often allow her to help, but today she was caught up in the pleasure of her unexpected visitor and paid Harry no mind.
She shook her head. She’d assumed the new Lord Saybrook would be awkward with the elderly woman and disgusted by his surroundings. But instead there he sat on a small stool by her feet, chattering away as if he were a boy with his beloved nursemaid.
Busying herself with cleaning and sweeping, she left the entertaining to Lord Saybrook. Mrs. Hawley’s favorite passages in the Bible—the torments of Job, the locusts of the abyss, and other such terrifying stories—made reading to her more of a chore than a pleasure.
“And tell me, ma’am, whatever led you to adorn your abode with sticks?” Lord Saybrook asked as Harry brushed the last of the dirt out the cottage’s door and set the broom in the corner. He pointed up toward the rafters where the sides of the roof were supported with branches. “Never say there wolves about, threatening to blow your house down?”
“Ah, my lord, such a one for a joke you are. No, no wolves, only the wind. On rough days, the walls do shake, and I’m afeared of the thatch falling down altogether. What if I were asleep in my bed? Why, I’d be smothered for sure.”
Lord Saybrook’s eyes narrowed, his gaze fixed not on the old woman, but on Harry. “You would not. For I’ve particularly forbid anyone to perish by virtue of falling thatch on this estate. Now, if you were to smother me in gingerbread, perhaps I would reconsider.”
“Ah, has that new cook not baked any sweets since your return? You tell her, Miss Atherton, tell her Lord Saybrook enjoys a jam tartlet, and bread and butter pudding with currants if she can get them. And, oh, do not forget the Shrewsbury cakes.”
“Or the gingerbread,” she said. “I understand that is a particular favorite of his lordship’s.”
Lord Saybrook rose and donned his hat. “And next time Miss Atherton visits, I will be sure to have the kitchens prepare some for her to bring to you. For I am not the only one misses its delicious spicy sweetness, I’ll wager.”
The old woman’s cackle followed them out the door and down the rough path to the lane. She smiled. She couldn’t remember when she’d last heard the woman laugh.
But her companion’s easy good humor seemed to have been left with Mrs. Hawley. He took her arm and led her away with quick steps until they were well out of sight of the group of tumbledown cottages of which Mrs. Hawley’s formed a part.
With a jerk on her arm, he pulled her to a halt. “What could your father mean by such a travesty? Housing that frail old woman in such a dank, dark hovel?”
“Hovel? But my lord, Mrs. Hawley’s is one of the more sturdy of the peasant cottages that grace your estate. And to have the entire building to herself, when others of similar size hold six, seven, even ten members of a family—why, many would find it the height of paradise, what you so carelessly term a hovel.”
“Why have they not been repaired, then? Or torn down to make way for more habitable buildings?”
“They would have been, if your father had not been so ill during the final years of his life.” She felt her face burn with indignation. “Or if you had deigned to answer any of the letters your steward sent you this past year, asking you to authorize the expense of new cottages.”
“But I thought—I mean to say, I assumed—” Lord Saybrook took off his hat and ran a hand through his tousled hair. “After my father’s funeral, I told Atherton to use his best judgment, and do whatever he thought needed to be done for the estate.”
“Father did hire an architect to draft plans for new cottages and paid for his services with funds on hand. Which is why he hasn’t undertaken repairs.” She stepped closer, her hands clasped tightly to her chest. “But how could he proceed further without your approval? Few stewards would presume to authorize such a large outlay of their employer’s funds without his written assent. Especially a steward learning the ways of a new owner.”
“But of course I would have approved!” he nearly shouted as he waved an arm in agitation. “Do you think I have no care for my tenants?”
Surprised by the emotion in his voice, she gentled her own. “How, though, was he to know, without any letter from you?”
Saybrook stared at her, then groaned and turned away. Bracing his arms on the sp
lit-rail fence, he hung his head between them. “All those letters, and I just shoved them in a drawer—”
“What? You never read them?” What kind of landowner was he, to completely ignore the reports that her father—well, that she, in guise of her father—had sent him?
“I thought it for the best to keep out of it. I’d just muddle things up. Far better to let Atherton see to it all.”
But her father could not see to it all, not any longer. And soon she would not be able to hide that fact. She had not been able to convince her father to give over his duties, but perhaps Theo Pennington might. If he could only be persuaded to take on the responsibilities of his position.
“Every land owner has a duty to his tenants, and to his property. A duty no steward can, or should, completely fulfill,” she said, laying a hand on his arm. “My father needs you, my lord. And so do your tenants.”
“Indeed. Lord help us all,” he whispered. But he loosened his grip on the fence rail, then gave himself a brisk shake, as if he were a dog shuddering off the rain.
“Best be about it, then.” His smile was back, although tempered by a wry, almost pained cast. “If you will excuse me, Miss Atherton?”
Harry matched his bow with her curtsy, then watched as the stiff-backed figure of Lord Saybrook strode with determined steps back toward Saybrook House.
“Ah, Miss Atherton, thank thee for listening to my old mam and her jawbation. How angry she is, with all this talk of doing away with Oldfield Feast.” Mrs. Tollerton, the wife of one of Saybrook’s tenant farmers, gave Harry a weary smile. “No matter she’s far too frail to go gadding about any fair herself these days.”
Harry frowned as she stepped onto the path outside the Tollerton cottage, where she’d just spent the past half hour sitting with the woman’s bedridden mother. This building was not in such disrepair as Mrs. Hawley’s cottage. Had Mr. Tollerton had taken it on himself to make all necessary repairs? If so, he should be duly reimbursed.
But the Tollertons were far more interested in the annual village feast, and Reverend Strickland’s determination to do away with it, than in the condition of the estate’s cottages. Mrs. Tollerton’s old mother had just taken great pains to inform her of all the details of the rector’s plans to cancel it, with all the outrage her infirm frame could muster.
Harry latched the gate closed before turning back to Mrs. Tollerton. “One cannot blame her for her complaints, ma’am. Hard, it is, to fear a tradition she’s known all her life might be taken away, especially for no good reason.”
The woman shook her head. “But Reverend Strickland and the others, they say it’s become so sinful, the feast.”
“We will just have to persuade them otherwise, won’t we?” she said in as bright a tone as she could muster.
When Mrs. Tollerton only pressed her lips more tightly together, she rushed to add, “I’m certain Lord Saybrook will put a stop to such talk now that he is back in residence.”
Of course, such words were nothing more than wishful thinking. And Mrs. Tollerton seemed to know it, crossing her arms over her bosom as if the arrival of the lord of the manor were something to be warded against rather than welcomed.
Before the woman could give voice to any more doubts, Harry wished her a good day and set off down the road. She really should stop at the Webster’s, and the Sisson’s, too, before ending her weekly round of visits. But her eagerness to hear the results of Lord Saybrook’s conversation with her father made her impatient. Holding her skirts high above her half-boots, she hurried back towards Saybrook House.
Before the turnoff to her father’s cottage, an unexpected chorus of male voices, bellowing in less-than-tuneful song, brought Harry up short. Good heavens, Reverend Strickland hadn’t taken it into his head to hold choir practice out in the fields, had he?
Following the sounds, she tucked herself tight, squeezing through a small gap in the hedge bordering the road. These gardens in the back of Saybrook House had once been Lady Saybrook’s domain, but since the viscountess’s passing, they’d fallen into sad neglect. Today, though, four under gardeners, each armed with a spade or a pick, toiled away at a carefully pruned bed at the end of the cultivated lawn.
What in heavens’ name were they doing, digging up perfectly healthy shrubs? She picked up her skirts and marched across the dusty fields, then down the back garden’s stone pathway, cursing at having yet another problem to worry over.
But her steps faltered as she grew close enough to make out the words of the men’s song.
Oh, when that she awoke all in the morn, and found her love was snoring,
These words unto herself she then did say, "You shall pay for your wooing.
All the money that you haven't spent in wine,
Well, the rest of it, it shall now be mine,"
Then she left the jolly sailor for to pine,
A-riding down to Portsmouth.
And she stopped altogether as she caught sight, right in the middle of the pack of men, singing louder and with more brio than all the rest put together, their new employer, Theo Pennington.
“Ah, have you ever heard this verse, fellows?” he asked, then took up the song again in a deep, warm baritone.
And when that he awoke all in the morn, and found his love was missing,
These words unto himself he then did say, "I have paid for my kissing.
She has robbed me of my gold watch and purse;
She has given to me something ten times worse.
Don't you think that I've a reason for to curse,
A-riding down to Portsmouth?"
The under gardeners roared with laughter as, with the last lusty syllable, Theo Pennington tossed a shovelful of soil over his shoulder. It landed by her boots with a thump, raising a cloud of dust all about her.
She jumped back, a sound part outrage, part embarrassment squeaking from her throat. She’d expected to find him hunched over the estate ledgers, not mucking about in the dirt like puppy at play.
“Why, Miss Atherton. Have you come to join our merry band?” The outrageous man had the audacity to grin at her as he leaned against the handle of his spade. “They do say to work in one’s garden is the best of exercises.”
“Lord Saybrook! Whatever can you be about, digging in the gardens, and singing such, such—such unsuitable songs?” she sputtered, wishing she could shake off her embarrassment as easily as she could shake the dust from her skirts. Thank heavens the under gardeners had turned back to their spades. “And where is Mr. Pickett? Does he know you’ve stolen away his laborers and are digging up his careful plantings?”
“Bah to Pickett and his dull symmetrical landscaping. I pay the man now, and if he doesn’t care to move the plants to where I want them, well, he can just go to the devil.”
He wiped a sleeve across his forehead, the linen of his shirt stretching tight arose his chest. Goodness, where was the man’s coat? And his waistcoat? She felt her already fiery blush spreading deep into the roots of her hair.
“Never did listen to anything my mother suggested, nor yours, did he, the old reprobate,” Theo muttered, shoving his spade into the ground. “Why should I consult him?”
No, Mr. Pickett hadn’t, had he? Harry remembered all those drawings and plans Lady Saybrook and Mrs. Atherton had worked on together, hoping one day to transform the Saybrook gardens from the austere lines in which they had been laid out when the house was first built two hundred years earlier to something more flowing and inviting. But Pickett had dismissed them, every one. And since the late Lord Saybrook’s political commitments kept him and his wife in town far more than in the country, the viscountess had never been able to convince her husband that offending the old gardener would be worth the trouble or the expense. Pickett, traditionalist that he was, always came up with some excuse not to implement even the small changes Lady Saybrook persuaded her lord to approve.
And then both her mother, and Theo’s, had been taken away . . .
“To where do
you want them moved?” She raised her voice, for Theo had already moved to a different part of the bed. “Wait, do not dig so close to the roots. You will kill that rose bush!”
“This prickly thing is a rose?” He gave the scrubby shrub a poke with the spade. “Looks rather unpromising to me.”
“It won’t bloom until later in the summer. But when it does . . .” She drew in a lungful of air, as if the flowers’ sublime perfume already hung heavy about her.
“Mother did love the smell of roses, I remember,” he said, his wide mouth turning up at the corners. “And I’m certain Mrs. Hawley will, too, when we plant them right under her window.”
“Roses under her window? How will that help repair her roof?”
“It won’t. But I’ve had a talk with your father, and told him to have the necessary repairs made to Mrs. Hawley’s cottage, and any other in such poor condition. He has the funds on hand for it, he assures me.”
Did he? She wasn’t so certain, herself. But she did not wish to contradict her father, not in front of so many of the estate’s employees.
“And after Haviland takes a look at the estate books, we’ll see what can be done about building anew. But in the meantime, why not share the beauties we have with those who have none?” Lord Saybrook sank his spade deep into the earth, then grunted as he hauled out another shovelful of soil.
She took a breath. She’d almost forgotten his idea to have Haviland Mather review the Saybrook ledgers. “Mr. Mather is to audit the estate accounts?”
“Yes, he’ll be here on Friday. And all will be taken care of, much to my relief. Now, do you remember those dutch flowers, the ones that come in spring?”
“Tulips?” she asked, her head spinning by the sudden change of topic. Would she have a chance to review the ledgers before Haviland took possession of them?