Tavern Wench

by Anne Ashley

  Emma didn’t attempt to deny it. She would dearly have loved to share her wonderful news with her friend, but having given her word, she refrained, merely saying that she had every reason to be happy. She had very much enjoyed herself at the party the previous evening.

  ‘Yes, it was pleasant,’ Deborah agreed, before casting her a further arch look. ‘I cannot help wondering whether you would have enjoyed the event quite so much if Mr Grantley had not been there, however.’

  ‘If he had not been there, my dear, neither would I,’ Emma was quick to point out. ‘It was he, might I remind you, who managed to wheedle an invitation for me.’

  ‘That’s true enough, I suppose,’ Deborah again conceded, before it suddenly occurred to her that the inn seemed strangely quiet. ‘Where is everyone today? Surely you’re not here on your own?’

  ‘Not quite. Samuel is upstairs, resting. He’s been overdoing it again, moving those hefty barrels in the cellar, and now his back is giving him trouble. Josh has taken both Martha and Lucy into Salisbury in the wagon to buy some urgent provisions. Harry, as I’ve already mentioned, is over with Sir Lionel and Ben…Mr Grantley has been called away on urgent business.’

  ‘Well, it sounds as if he’s returned,’ Deborah remarked, catching the sound of a carriage drawing to a halt.

  Emma, however, knew that it could not possibly be Benedict, and so went through to the coffee room in time to see a tall stranger enter the inn. He was young, no older than twenty-five or six, she guessed. He was undeniably handsome, and his thick mane of blond hair enhanced the healthy tan of his complexion.

  ‘Good day to you, ma’am.’ His voice, like Benedict’s, was deep and rich, but unlike Benedict’s contained just a trace of an unmistakable accent. A dreadful possibility occurred to her. ‘I was informed that I could obtain a room here.’

  ‘Yes, indeed, we do have a room, sir,’ she answered, swiftly marshalling her thoughts. ‘How long will you be staying?’

  ‘That I couldn’t say for sure.’ His lips drew back to reveal white, even teeth. It was a dazzling smile by any standards, and strangely reminiscent of a certain other gentleman’s. ‘At least a week, I should say, although my plans at this stage are uncertain. Does that cause any problems?’

  ‘None whatsoever, Mr…’

  ‘Ashworth, ma’am…Richard Ashworth.’

  Deborah, who had followed Emma through to the coffee room, was only partially successful in suppressing an exclamation of surprise, and the strange little sound alerted the young lord’s attention to her presence in the shadows, for which Emma was exceedingly grateful. By the time he had cast appreciative, twinkling bright blue eyes over her friend’s sweet face and trim figure, and had returned his gaze to her, she had managed to regain sufficient control to prevent her acute dismay from surfacing.

  ‘I am pleased to make your acquaintance, my lord.’ After executing a neat curtsy, she held out her hand which was instantly held for a moment in a gentle grasp. ‘My name is Emma Lynn. And this,’ she added, gesturing to a shyly smiling Deborah, ‘is my very good friend Miss Hammond.’

  On discovering that his lordship had travelled from London in a hired carriage and, more surprisingly still, with no servants to attend him, she arranged for the post-boys to bring in the luggage, and then led the way upstairs. Fortunately she was not left to cope on her own for very long, for no sooner had she shown Lord Ashworth into the bedchamber next to Harry’s than Martha appeared upstairs and took immediate charge, leaving Emma free to return to the coffee room to discover a surprisingly dreamy-eyed Deborah gazing into space.

  ‘Evidently you are impressed, my dear friend,’ she teased, wondering how often her own face had worn just such an expression in recent days.

  ‘W-what…?’ Deborah finally emerged from her dreamlike state. ‘Oh, yes. He’s so very handsome.’

  That was certainly true. Yet it was strange, Emma mused, as she accompanied her friend to the front door, that the handsome young lord had not caused her own heart to skip a beat.

  No sooner had she returned to the kitchen, after seeing Deborah scurrying off down the road, than she caught sight of Harry, dismounting the horse kindly loaned to him by Sir Lionel for the duration of his stay, and rushed outside to have a quiet word with him.

  ‘Harry, thank heavens you’ve returned! I don’t know what on earth we’re to do! Lord Ashworth has arrived.’

  He appeared mildly surprised. ‘Well, what of it? What has his arrival to do with us?’

  ‘Nothing, of course, except…’ Grasping his arm, Emma drew him a little away from Josh, who had taken charge of the mount and was in the process of removing the saddle. ‘Ben left for Worcestershire this morning. He expects to be away for a week.’

  ‘What the deuce has taken him there, do you suppose?’

  ‘He expects to discover something which might shed light on poor Dr Hammond’s death. But that’s not important now. Before he left he charged me with a message for you. He seems to think that Ashworth might be in some danger, and wants you to keep an eye on him. Which shouldn’t be too difficult an undertaking as he’s putting up here.’

  Harry’s perplexed expression quickly changed to one of surprise. ‘Deuced odd, that, wouldn’t you say? Why didn’t he go to the Hall? He’s the rightful owner, after all.’

  ‘Yes, I thought it strange too,’ she admitted. ‘It even crossed my mind that he just might be an impostor, but Martha’s timely arrival quashed that foolish notion. She took one look at him, and said he was the image of his father, whom she remembers well, of course.’

  Emma frowned as a thought suddenly occurred to her. ‘What did strike me as most odd was that he travelled here in a hired carriage and without any personal servants.’

  Harry shrugged. ‘Don’t see anything strange in that. Ben and I did precisely the same thing. We didn’t bring our valets either. And as for the carriage…well, I expect he thought there’d be carriages enough at the Hall, servants too, come to that.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps,’ she conceded. ‘But I still think it strange that he chose to put up here. You’ll need to ask him why.’

  His jaw dropped perceptibly. ‘Dash it, Em! I can’t go asking questions like that! I don’t even know the fellow.’

  She brushed this objection aside with a wave of her hand. ‘That is precisely why you must befriend him. In fact,’ she went on after a moment’s thought, ‘it might prove a blessing in disguise that he has chosen to stay here. It will be a great deal easier to keep track of his movements. You’re not dining with Sir Lionel tonight, I hope?’ She experienced a certain amount of relief when he shook his head. ‘Good. It will offer you the golden opportunity to become acquainted. Ashworth too bespoke dinner.’

  ‘In that case you’d better join us,’ he suggested, much to her intense astonishment.

  ‘I can’t do that, Harry! It would create a very odd impression.’

  ‘No, it won’t,’ he argued. ‘We’ll tell him you’re a friend of Ben’s. Which is no less that the truth,’ he added, when she was about to protest further. ‘I know! We’ll tell him you’re a close friend of the family, or perhaps a distant cousin,’ he went on, evidently warming to the notion. ‘You’re slightly eccentric, and rather than accept charity from any member of the family, you’ve taken work here. And Ben has come to Ashworth Magna to talk some sense into you, and try to persuade you to return to the bosom of your—’

  ‘Stop, stop!’ she interrupted, her expression clearly betraying acute dismay, as she raised both hands in a gesture of defeat. ‘All right, you win—I’ll join you for dinner. But kindly leave any explanation for my presence, should the need arise, to me!’

  If Lord Ashworth did indeed think it most odd that the young woman whom he no doubt imagined to be the daughter of the house should take her seat at the dining table, he possessed good manners enough not to betray the fact when Emma joined the gentlemen in the parlour that evening. More surprising still was that Martha raised not the least objectio
n. Evidently she had taken an instant liking to the young man, possibly because she still retained fond memories of the father he so resembled.

  If the young Lord Ashworth had inherited his temperament from his father too, then Emma well understood Martha’s fondness for the late Mr Ashworth, for there was absolutely no reserve whatsoever in Richard’s manner, and he insisted that all formality was swiftly dropped.

  Emma was more than happy to oblige him, but did not hesitate to add, ‘I fear that you must accustom yourself to your title, Richard, for most people will insist upon addressing you in the correct manner.’

  One broad shoulder rose in a dismissive shrug. ‘All depends on whether or not I remain here. We don’t have much use for titles back home.’

  ‘Do I infer from that, that you do not intend to make England your permanent home?’ she asked, after she and Harry had exchanged startled glances.

  ‘My plans are uncertain at the moment,’ he was honest enough to admit, for which Emma admired him greatly.

  Whether or not it was an innate dislike of unnecessary formality, or the fact that he was enjoying very much the food and wine, and perhaps the company in which he now found himself, Emma wasn’t perfectly certain, but Richard seemed not in the least reticent to talk about himself and his early life, and she found his lack of reserve very refreshing.

  Surprisingly she discovered that he had been born in England and had lived here for more than a decade. After tragically losing both his parents in a smallpox epidemic, he was sent back to Boston to live with his maternal grandfather whose wealth had been derived from trade.

  ‘The truth of the matter is, I don’t think I would be sitting here now if my grandfather hadn’t passed away last year. Although,’ he added with a wry smile, ‘he surely would have insisted that I saw to my obligations, and at least came over for a short while, even if I didn’t choose to remain.’

  ‘You know, Richard, I find it most odd that you had no idea that you were the rightful heir until a few months ago,’ Harry put in, his mind dwelling on this one fact, after all that he had learned. ‘Didn’t you ever meet any of your relations when you lived in England?’

  ‘No, never. I can remember my father telling me that he had a brother and sister, but he never talked about his family much, at least not to me. He told my grandfather once that he didn’t think too highly of his brother, considering him a bit of a weak-natured character. And by all accounts he disliked his sister intensely. The story my grandfather told me was that my father caught his sister once tormenting a cat. It had scratched her, and she had captured it and imprisoned it in a box, and was torturing it by prodding a stick through a hole in the wood. He tried to stop her, but he was several years younger than she was, no more than six or seven at the time. Isabel turned on him and beat him with the stick. My father, by all accounts, never forgave her for it.’

  Harry looked appalled, and faintly sceptical, but Emma had little difficulty in believing the story, for an image of Isabel Ashworth’s expression on the evening of the party, momentarily hard and icily merciless, flashed before her mind’s eye. No, she had no difficulty whatsoever in supposing it might be true, and she strongly suspected that, had he been present, Benedict wouldn’t have doubted the truth of the tale either. He certainly did not trust Isabel Ashworth, of that Emma felt certain, for had he not referred to her as a coolly ruthless woman?

  Swiftly changing the subject, Emma suggested that Harry might take Richard over to meet Sir Lionel in the morning, and then left the gentlemen to enjoy their port, and discuss whatever it was gentlemen chose to discuss when not hampered by female company.

  ‘Miss Emma is sure a fine young woman,’ Richard was not slow to remark, after she had left the room. ‘Are all the females in these parts so pleasing on the eye?’

  ‘About the same as anywhere else, I should say,’ Harry responded, regarding his pleasant new acquaintance over the rim of his glass. ‘But I wouldn’t get any ideas where Emma is concerned, if I were you.’

  Bright blue eyes began to twinkle. ‘No…? Wouldn’t be treading on your toes, I suppose?’

  ‘Good gad, no!’ Harry didn’t hesitate to assure him. ‘Not that I don’t think a deal of her… Emma’s a great girl, one of the best!’ He gave vent to a wicked chuckle. ‘I’m very much looking forward to the day when I can call her “Aunt”, for unless I very much mistake the matter it will not be very much longer before my dear uncle Benedict finds himself caught in parson’s mousetrap. And very willingly caught too, I might add.’

  It took Richard a moment only to digest what he had been told. ‘In that case I’ll not attempt to encroach on your uncle’s—er—territory. I’m sure there’s more than just one pretty girl in these parts.’ Memory stirred. ‘In fact, there was one here when I arrived, a darling little thing, with big brown eyes and dark brown hair, who barely reached my shoulder.’

  ‘Ah! I expect that was my mother’s goddaughter, Deborah,’ Harry announced, having had little difficulty in interpreting the description. ‘I’ll take you over to meet her and her mother tomorrow, if you like?’

  With a lazy smile tugging at his lips, Richard reached for the port. ‘The idea of remaining in this little country of yours is becoming slowly more appealing.’

  Chapter Ten

  Satisfied that she had carried out Benedict’s instructions to the letter, Emma was quite content to leave Lord Ashworth in Harry’s care during the following days. She was not in the least surprised to witness an ever-increasing bond of friendship developing between the two young gentlemen. She wasn’t in the least surprised, either, to discover from Harry, who always furnished her with a daily report of their comings and goings, that Richard was more than willing to call on the Hammonds whenever they passed the red brick house, and that he was betraying a marked partiality for the sweet-natured Deborah’s company. What did leave her somewhat nonplussed, however, was his lordship’s seeming reluctance to take up residence at Ashworth Hall.

  Apart from one brief visit to his home on the morning after his arrival at the inn, he betrayed no inclination whatsoever to make a return visit to the ancestral pile, although he did accept a written invitation to dine there three days later, informing his aunt that he would be bringing a party of friends. Consequently Emma, much to her surprise, found herself once again travelling in a carriage, with Lavinia and Deborah Hammond, to Ashworth Hall.

  ‘I must say, I never expected to be making a return visit,’ she admitted, after seating herself beside her friend in the smart equipage very generously provided for their use by Sir Lionel Brent.

  ‘No, nor I,’ Deborah confessed. ‘We are becoming quite fashionable, are we not?’

  Emma followed the direction of her friend’s soft gaze to see Richard, astride the mount he had hired from a stables in Salisbury, riding alongside the coach, happily chatting away to Harry.

  From what she had gleaned thus far, Richard had appeared very contented to accompany Harry and Sir Lionel on visits to various families in the area, and by all accounts he had left a very favourable impression. Emma found no difficulty in believing this, for Richard was undeniably a very likeable young man, amiable and charming. He certainly appeared to be enjoying his visit to the area, though whether he would be content to remain as a permanent member of the community was a different matter entirely.

  ‘I do hope Richard decides to make his home permanently in England,’ she remarked. ‘I think he would be a great asset to the community.’

  Lavinia appeared faintly surprised. ‘You think there is a possibility that he might not?’

  Emma shrugged, unwilling to commit herself. ‘I’m not sure. He doesn’t seem in any hurry to take up residence at the Hall, you must admit.’

  ‘I can understand his reasons for not doing so,’ Deborah surprised her companions by announcing. ‘He explained to me that he would much prefer not to take up residence whilst his aunt and cousin remain under the roof.’

  Emma was faintly surprised, and
turned towards Lavinia for confirmation, but that lady merely lowered her eyes and began to make a great play of rearranging her skirts.

  Well, well, well! she mused. It appeared that little Deborah was on very good terms with Lord Ashworth. It would be agreeable to think that the relationship might deepen, and she did not suppose for a moment that Lavinia would try to prevent any such eventuality. None the less, she knew that lady well enough to be sure that she would never attempt to promote a closer bond developing between them, but would allow nature to take its course.

  It was so very sad, Emma reflected, turning to stare out of the window as they passed through the gateway leading to Ashworth Hall’s impressive park, that Deborah had been denied the opportunity to enjoy the London Season which had been planned for earlier in the year. Deborah had mentioned on more than one occasion that her godmother, Lady Fencham, was very much looking forward to bringing her out in the spring. Sadly all the well-laid plans had had to be abandoned when Dr Hammond had died in the autumn. It was then, Emma clearly recalled, that Lavinia had begun to think seriously of making her home in Bath, where she hoped Deborah would have a greater chance of meeting personable young gentlemen. Emma did not suppose for a moment that Lavinia ever imagined that a very eligible parti would one day be living virtually on her doorstep. She smiled to herself. Early days yet, of course, but one never knew!

  As the carriage drew to a halt, Emma abandoned her musings, and accompanied the others into the house. As though he felt his uncle would have expected it of him, Harry positioned himself at her side. She felt moved by the gesture of support, but was forced silently to concede that dear Harry was no substitute for Benedict. She missed him so very much, more than she would have ever believed possible. He had been away for less than a week, and yet it felt more like a year. How she wished he would return!

  Fortunately her appearance this time prompted no raised brows. Even Clarissa, who no doubt had been forewarned to be on her best behaviour, managed to utter a polite greeting. The only faintly awkward moment occurred when they entered the dining room. Cedric Ashworth, evidently having been accustomed to doing so whenever visiting the Hall since the late Lord Ashworth’s demise, had been about to take the seat at the head of the table, and had had to be reminded by his cousin Isabel that the place now belonged to the head of the family. The embarrassed silence which followed, as Richard seated himself, was quickly broken by Sir Lionel who proffered a mild joke.