Earl to the Rescue

by Jane Ashford

  Whitfield’s laughter died. Penelope felt its departure like a new bereavement. “He was a friend of my father. More than I realized.”

  Her visitor’s father was a sore subject. Talking of him would lead to questions about her legacy, and then on to arguments. She didn’t want to fight with him. What else to say? “I don’t suppose you know where I could get a dog?”

  “A dog?”

  “Or perhaps two. Watchdogs. To bark at the goats if they come back and chase them off. I can’t always count on a troop of irregulars to wade in.” He looked bemused. She didn’t blame him. “I supposed you had dogs at Frithgerd.”

  “Yes.”

  “Not that I would take your dogs away, of course. But someone must know where you got them. Or perhaps there’s a litter…not that puppies would be of much use against the goats.”

  “The combination would be pure chaos, I imagine.”

  A picture rose in her mind, puppies romping among the hooves, the resulting havoc. “It would, wouldn’t it?”

  “You might be better off with geese,” he mused. “They can be quite—”

  “No!”

  Whitfield blinked.

  “I hate geese,” Penelope admitted. “I was mobbed by a…a gaggle when I was four years old. They nipped at my hands and my hair and terrified me. Philip had to beat them off with a stick.”

  “Philip?”

  Penelope swallowed a wave of sadness and resentment and deep chagrin. Now she’d done it. Why had she mentioned his name? And how could she expect to avoid it? “My brother,” she said. “He’s dead,” she added before he could ask where Philip was and why she wasn’t living with him.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She had to change the subject before he moved on to the awkward questions. But her mind had gone blank. Or rather, it had filled with memories of interrogation. Her hands were shaking. Lord Whitfield would notice that weakness and wonder what it meant. He would insist on knowing.

  But he didn’t.

  When Penelope glanced up, she found surprising sympathy on her neighbor’s blunt features. He seemed puzzled, yes. But he also looked as if he knew it could be horridly painful to speak of a family member. How had he learned this? She was moved by the oddest impulse. She wanted to take his hand.

  Emotion trembled in the air between them. His brown eyes didn’t drill into hers as others had tried to do, she noted. He was sturdy and muscular, but he didn’t loom. She suspected him of more kindness than he would admit. Tears stung at the idea.

  Then Lord Macklin came in, trailed by Tom and Kitty with a fresh pot of tea. Everyone sat down. The gentlemen began to recount the highlights of the chase. Kitty lingered to listen. Macklin made joking comparisons to a military campaign, while Tom acted out some incidents with broad gestures. There was a good deal of laughter.

  Penelope joined in gladly. She welcomed the light mood and, even more, the interruption. It gave her time to remember that these were not her friends and safe confidants. She’d made that mistake before, and suffered for it. Lord Whitfield had been quite sharp about the Rose Cottage legacy, and he probably would be again. He was the major landholder in this part of the country and could make things difficult for her. Lord Macklin had practiced charm, but she knew nothing else about him.

  And so Penelope donned her social armor and smiled and chatted about nothing for twenty minutes more. When she bid her callers goodbye, she was cordial and distant. And if Lord Whitfield looked dissatisfied, she simply couldn’t help it.

  “An interesting young lady,” said Macklin as the men rode back toward Frithgerd together. Tom trailed a discreet distance behind them.

  “Yes,” said Daniel. He was aware of feeling disgruntled, and that he had no justification for such a state.

  “Quite a conundrum,” the earl went on. “When was the legacy to her added to your father’s will?”

  “It was part of the original document, made ten years ago.”

  “Was it indeed? And yet you knew nothing of it?”

  “My father didn’t share such details with me. Not enough time between his various journeys.” Daniel heard the bitterness in his tone. He spoke again to dispel it. “Of course, I was told the main terms. The disposition of the estate and so on.”

  His older companion nodded. “So still a mystery. One might profitably make inquiries about a landowner named Pendleton who lived north of Manchester, I suppose.”

  “A landowner?”

  “I would say that Miss Pendleton comes from the gentry. Do you disagree?”

  Daniel shook his head. The signs of her upbringing were unmistakable.

  “And she said she grew up north of Manchester.”

  “She had a brother named Philip, now dead.” Immediately, Daniel felt as if he’d betrayed a friend. She’d looked so stricken when she’d mentioned her brother. But for God’s sake, all he wanted was to understand why she was here.

  “That should help. Inquiries will take a little while, of course.”

  They would take less time for Macklin. He knew everybody. “I suppose it will do no harm to investigate,” Daniel replied.

  The earl raised an interrogative eyebrow.

  “I don’t intend to make any change,” Daniel continued. “She can have the house. I just want to know why Papa left it to her, not take it away.”

  “Even if the reason is disreputable?”

  “It isn’t!”

  Macklin turned to look at him.

  He’d spat the words as if his own honor was being questioned, Daniel realized, and he felt unaccountably angry. “I can’t believe that it is,” he amended. “Or, if there is some irregularity, it won’t involve Miss Pendleton. She isn’t that sort of person.”

  “Of course not.”

  Daniel resented the amusement in the older man’s voice. He kicked his heels and urged his mount into a gallop.

  Four

  Penelope’s cough improved markedly over the next week, confirming her hopes that it would soon be gone altogether. Through the warm June days, she made arrangements with the neighboring farm to purchase milk and eggs and found the daily help she’d planned to hire. The young man who took charge of the garden had to chase off the goats a second time, and he recommended a fence. Foyle argued that this was giving in to the marauding animals, but Bob said it would help keep off rabbits and other intruders as well.

  A widow who lived nearby agreed to come in half days to cook. Mrs. Hart was glad of the addition to her income and the company. She enjoyed teaching her skills to Kitty and Penelope, and Penelope soon discovered that baking was a pleasure. She produced a good loaf of bread on her third try.

  She told herself she was resigned to her small new life. She couldn’t help missing the social round that had been part of her girlhood, but if she needed a topic to occupy her mind, there was always her unexpected inheritance. She examined every inch of Rose Cottage, from the small space under the roof to the earthen cellar to the nooks and crannies of the barn. She found no secret compartments or hidden documents or clues that led to some other location. Through her gratitude, the mystery nagged at her. Why had a man she’d never met, indeed never even heard of, left her a house?

  She was considering the larger crevices in the front garden wall and wondering whether any of them might hold secrets when a curricle swooped up the lane and stopped before her. Lord Whitfield held the reins, with just a groom up behind him. “Good afternoon,” he said as the groom jumped down to go to the horses’ heads.

  Penelope was concerned to realize how glad she was to see him—not just as someone to talk to, but for his own sake. That was not a good idea.

  He stepped down, turned, and reached back into his vehicle. “I’ve brought you the dogs you wanted,” he said, lifting two young hounds down from the curricle and placing them at Penelope’s feet. “Walk the horses,” h
e told the groom.

  “Staying for a bit, are you?” Penelope couldn’t help saying. He might be the lord of all the land hereabouts, but he wasn’t in charge of Rose Cottage.

  Her noble visitor looked startled. “I thought I’d introduce the dogs.”

  “See that I can handle them, you mean?”

  His expression gave him away, but he wasn’t foolish enough to agree out loud.

  One of the dogs nosed Penelope’s skirts. Both were white with brown and black patches and ears that hung below their jaws. Though they had long legs and large paws that promised further growth, they weren’t puppies. They surveyed their new surroundings with bright eyes, sniffing at the bottom of the wall and the flowers in the front garden. “Foxhounds?” asked Penelope, recognizing the breed.

  Lord Whitfield nodded. “They are. But some dogs don’t want to hunt. The farmer who bred these two said they just don’t have the urge. He thought they’d be happy as family watchdogs. He…umm…altered them.”

  Penelope bent and extended a hand. The dogs came over to greet her, interested.

  “I thought I’d get them accustomed to—” Daniel began, but she’d snapped her fingers at the hounds and led them away. He followed the three of them around the cottage to the kitchen door.

  There he waited with the dogs. Almost as if he was a dog himself, Daniel thought, amused and a bit irked.

  Miss Pendleton emerged from the house with a small dish of chopped meat. “What are the dogs’ names?” she asked.

  “The farmer called them Jum and Jip. He names his litters by letter. You can choose other names if you wish.”

  “I see no reason, particularly if they are accustomed to those. Jip!”

  One of the dogs cocked an ear. Penelope held out a morsel of meat. The hounds crowded up to her, and she gave the treat to Jip. “And Jum.” She fed the other. Then she headed across the yard, holding the dish well up. When one dog started to leap for it, she said “No,” in a tone that brought instant obedience and roused Daniel’s admiration. She didn’t require his help, he realized. Yet he had no wish to leave. Watching her take charge of her new acquisitions was a positive pleasure.

  Miss Pendleton led the dogs into the small barn. “Sit,” she said.

  Daniel knew the command was an experiment. She had no way of predicting what the hounds had been taught. But she sounded absolutely certain they’d do as she asked. Jip and Jum sat.

  “Good,” she said, giving each dog a tiny bit of meat. “Good dogs.” She led them around the barn. “You will live here,” she added, showing them the front stall.

  The tramp of footsteps on a narrow stair in the corner heralded the entry of her manservant. Foyle was his name, Daniel remembered. The old fellow glowered at him.

  “These are Jip and Jum,” said Miss Pendleton. “Our new watchdogs and chasers of goats.”

  Foyle came over and crouched with more agility than his craggy face predicted. He held out his hands. The dogs sniffed and licked them, wriggling with delight when he ran his fingers over their sides. The man couldn’t be as grim as he liked to appear, Daniel thought, if dogs liked him so readily.

  “Good bones,” said Foyle.

  “Do we have a bit of rope?” asked Miss Pendleton.

  Foyle found some, and she made improvised leashes for the two dogs. Then she led them out of the barn. Impressed and increasingly fascinated, Daniel went with her. She didn’t dismiss him.

  She walked the hounds down the lane to the side of the Rose Cottage property and then along the northern edge. She knew the boundaries to an inch, Daniel noticed. He admired the precision and resented it just a little, reminded of the enigma of his father’s legacy. When either dog showed an impulse to mark a tree or stone, she stopped and allowed it. “I’m encouraging them to learn their territory,” she said after a while.

  “I know.” Did she think he hadn’t noticed or didn’t understand? “You’re good with them.”

  “We always had dogs,” Miss Pendleton replied. Her tone had gone nostalgic.

  “Which is the first you remember?”

  “My mother’s lapdog, I suppose. Though it’s more what I’ve been told than a real memory. They say Pug stood guard over my cradle and scarcely let the nursemaid near me.” She blinked and looked self-conscious, as if sorry she’d revealed any detail of her past.

  Daniel spoke before she could withdraw further. “My earliest friend was an outsized dog named Stranger.”

  “Stranger?”

  “Because he was one. No one knows, to this day, where he came from. I found him when I was out walking with Nanny and dragged him up to the nursery. Even though he was twice my weight. And covered in mud.” Daniel smiled, remembering. “I was positively foul to everybody until they agreed I could keep him.”

  “Your parents didn’t want you to?”

  “Oh, they weren’t around. My parents were great travelers. They were always off on some trip or other.” He pushed quickly past this admission. “I had to convince Nanny and the housekeeper, which was not easy, I must tell you. Stranger had teeth as long as my hand. The cook thought he was a wolf.”

  “You were how old?”

  “Four or five. Somewhere in between.”

  “He doesn’t sound like a pet for a child.”

  Daniel shook his head. “Stranger had the sweetest temper in the world. He’d hold my fingers in his mouth and never think of biting down. He pulled me out of a slough once.” They reached the back boundary of the property and turned, pausing for the dogs to examine and mark a tall oak. “Best friend I ever had,” Daniel added.

  “The best?”

  He supposed it sounded odd. “There weren’t many other children about the place.”

  “You must have made friends at school.”

  He shrugged and nodded. “Stranger never understood about school. Always thought he should come with me. In his last days, he hung on till I came home for the holidays before he…went.” Daniel’s throat thickened. Why had he told her that? This story had been meant as a diversion, not exposure. He gave his companion a sidelong glance. Miss Pendleton drew confidences like no one he’d ever met before. How did she do that?

  “It’s so hard when a beloved animal dies,” she replied. “And they seem to feel the same. My father’s old spaniel pined for months after he died, and then just lay down one day and never got up again. Philip said—” She broke off, biting her lower lip.

  Her brother was definitely a sore subject. The way she avoided speaking of him didn’t seem like simple mourning. Daniel couldn’t puzzle out her tone. He wanted to ask. He wanted to know more about her. But he knew she didn’t wish to tell him. A familiar sting of annoyance made Daniel pull back. He’d had more than enough of people who insisted upon remaining distant, in every sense of the word.

  “How many dogs do you have at Frithgerd now?” asked Miss Pendleton in a more reserved tone.

  Daniel matched it. “Just four. Two who are good for hunting rabbits. And two who hang about the stables.” He hadn’t had a really close bond with a dog since Stranger, Daniel realized. They turned up the other side of the Rose Cottage land, heading back toward the lane.

  “You don’t keep a foxhunting pack?”

  They would chat now, Daniel thought, as acquaintances did. And neither would be any wiser at the end. He’d learned that lesson long ago. “No, though I sometimes go out with the local hunt. We have an interesting stone-wall and grass country. Do you hunt?”

  “I? Oh, no.”

  She tried to make it sound as if the mere idea was ridiculous, but he thought she was familiar with the sport. The sharp desire for more information about her surfaced again, not only because of his father’s legacy to her. He couldn’t resist. “Did your brother?”

  Miss Pendleton stiffened. She turned away from him. “What have you got there?” she said to the
dogs. They’d found a dead hedgehog and were nosing the remains. “Leave it!” She pulled them along and walked faster. She did not answer his question.

  Daniel burned with silent humiliation. His parents had been just the same, on the rare occasions they’d spent time together. As if a query was an embarrassing solecism, better off ignored. He didn’t need this. Rose Cottage lay ahead. It was past time for him to go. And not come back. Even if Miss Pendleton encouraged him to do so. Which she clearly wouldn’t. He searched for bland phrases. “Ralston, the farmer who bred the dogs, will probably be by to see their new home.”

  “He’s welcome to.”

  She sounded like a different person—grander, colder—letting him know he’d overstepped. Deuce take her and her reticence, Daniel thought. Yet another part of him continued to wonder what had happened to bring her here.

  Back at the barn, Foyle had arranged an ancient blanket over some straw as a dog bed and set out bowls of water. Miss Pendleton removed the ropes. The dogs drank noisily.

  “You need a gig or a dogcart,” said Daniel, looking around the empty building.

  “Foyle is handling it.” The words came out sharper than Penelope would have liked, but Daniel’s question had roused her fears again. Exposure might be inevitable, but she wouldn’t make the mistake of offering too much. She could still hope that the recent past would remain buried.

  She turned and strode toward the house, feeling him at her back. Their entire conversation had been more intimate than was wise. She couldn’t go walking about the neighborhood with Lord Whitfield, alone. Country people gossiped. She knew this from the loss of many people she’d thought real friends. She couldn’t get into the habit of expecting him to visit, or of needing his help. Loss was far more painful than solitude, Penelope thought, and he belonged back at his great house, not here.

  * * *

  At Frithgerd, at that moment, an informal conference was taking place in one of the bedchambers. Arthur Shelton, Earl of Macklin, handed a letter he had just sealed to his valet and glanced over at young Tom, who sat by the window waiting to join him on a tramp about the estate. “Our host has gone out?” Arthur asked.