Chapter Twenty-Three
“I’m sorry, Mr. Sparks.” Cat kept her voice low so the men clearing away the sooty rubble wouldn’t hear. “We’ll rebuild the granaries, stronger and larger, using new methods.”
“It is not the loss of the structures that is worrisome, my lady.” Mr. Sparks scrubbed a hand over his soot-covered chin, dislodging black dust from untidy stubble. She’d never seen him unshaven before. “It is the loss of the grain. The tenants were depending on it for livestock until the harvest.”
“We’ll rebuild the store of grain, as well. The trustees will purchase enough to feed the livestock.” They would. They must. “They’ll understand what is needed.”
“Yes.” Mr. Sparks’s sigh was heavy, the strong chin at odds with the defeat in his eyes. “Yes, they will.”
Dread fell into the base of her stomach. “You don’t think so,” Cat said flatly. She turned to look up at him. The wind had shifted while she traveled home and the breeze was cool and sharp on her cheeks.
“Actually, I do. The trustees will do what is necessary, but nothing more.” He angled his head to return her gaze with hooded green eyes behind round spectacles. “The trustees will protect your inheritance, my lady. Make no mistake about that. But—” He went silent.
Cat did not need the words.
“The tenants will worry there isn’t enough to go around,” she said softly. Cat breathed in and trapped the air in her lungs just as she was trapped. Anger boiled beneath her skin, but she let the breath out slow and smooth. “I know many tenants will have a bit set by of their own grain, but not enough.”
“Aye. Not enough for the livestock and their own bellies.” Mr. Sparks rubbed the back of his neck and surveyed the men working together. Diligent laborers and farmers beside blacksmiths and shopkeepers. “That sort of worry causes difficulties between neighbors and friends.”
“Use my pin money, Mr. Sparks.”
“You have little left until you receive next quarter’s installment.” He looked sideways at her. “You spent it on the roofs.”
“I will ask for more.” She huffed out a breath. “I will tell the trustees I need new gowns.”
“My lady.” Mr. Sparks’s smile was kind, but resigned. “If you raise the issue, the trustees may request to review the dressmaker’s bills. Or they may speak to your uncle.”
He was right, and her stomach burned with that knowledge.
“But didn’t you hear? I’m to be married.” Bitterness rode on her tongue, sharp and acrid. “The Marquess of Hedgewood. Surely that deserves new gowns.”
“I had not heard.” She felt more than saw Mr. Sparks become motionless, think, then move again. “My felicitations.”
“It was not my choice.” She lifted her face to the sky, breathed deep of the charred air. That, too, was bitter. “Wycomb signed the contract without my knowledge, and furnished Ashdown Abbey as payment in the event of a breach.”
“Ah.” A world of knowledge lay in the single sound. “When is it to be?”
“Before my majority.” She looked over the steaming desolation in front of her, the wooded area beyond and, in the distance, the walls of Ashdown Abbey. Cheerful spring sun bathed all of it, gilding even the ruins with gold light. “I agreed to proceed with the wedding so that I could keep the Abbey.”
“I see.” A deep sigh. Another. “This is not what your father intended.”
“I wouldn’t know. He never saw fit to tell me his intentions.” Her fingers curled into her palms and she turned away from the sunlight. Toward truth.
“Your father—”
“Had his reasons. I know. I have been told time and again. Bugger that.” The words slipped out before she could think. Mr. Spark’s eyes widened so they were nearly as big as the lenses of his spectacles. Cat was instantly contrite. Not about the sentiment, of course, but his shock. “My apologies, Mr. Sparks.”
“Er. Yes.” He coughed, and she heard the amusement there. “I imagine you learned it from your father, my lady. It was his favorite, ah—turn of phrase.”
“So it was.” Her lips twitched, remembering her father ranting in his office about unfair taxes or a bad crop. He always waited it out, because he believed if one worked hard, life would turn out all right it the end.
Silence moved between them, punctuated by the grunts and calls of those clearing the mess of smoking wood and thatched roofing.
“What do we do?” Cat raised her face to the sky again, to the blinding sun that refused to dim despite the wreck of the granaries it shined upon. Fear would be building among the tenants already.
“Nothing, my lady. We let the trustees determine when to rebuild the granaries, and we let them determine how much wheat and corn to purchase or import from your other estates—the cost will be dear, no matter which choice they make, with the price of grain being high at present.” Mr. Sparks rubbed the back of his neck, conveying soot to one of the few clean places left. “The coffers will withstand the loss, my lady, as long as we can get the release from the trustees.”
“Will the tenants’ hearts withstand the loss?” she murmured into the sunshine, offering her fears up to the shining beacon. There was no response. Not from the beams warming her face or from the man standing beside her.
She needed to think. To settle. The walk back to the Abbey was short, if she went over the open fields rather than the lanes and roads crisscrossing the land, but those moments could be used to gather herself.
Her father had always said a good walk would solve most of life’s problems.
“Excuse me, Mr. Sparks.” Turning to the man, she smiled into the bespectacled face. “I’ll return this afternoon, but I need to be at Ashdown Abbey.”
…
Jones had never seen anything of such magnitude.
From the innyard on the edge of the village he could see all of Ashdown Abbey, the valley it was nestled in, and the surrounding farmland. More was hidden beyond trees, beyond the river ribboning in the distance.
“Oi! Sir!” The innkeeper called cheerfully, wood and iron bucket smacking against his calf as he strode past Jones. “The mail coach won’t be by for another three hours at least, if yer lookin’ to travel.”
“Thank ye, sir.” Jones lapsed into the local patter, nodding his thanks. “I’m jest lookin’ for a bite to eat on me way through.”
“Where’s yer horse, eh?” The innkeeper smacked his buckets down in front of the water pump set in the center of the courtyard.
“Down at th‘ blacksmith’s. ’E threw a shoe.” It was true enough. He and the horse had spent the night in a thatch of woods, one of them rolled in his greatcoat and the other snorting out his disgust at the lost shoe. “Helluva great house, there.” Jones set his hands in his pockets and nodded toward the Abbey.
“’Tis. One thousand, six hundred four acres. And a half.” The innkeeper surveyed the valley view, chest puffing out as if he were the owner. “The half being part of a land dispute back in 1513. Those ruddy Froggans—neighbors ta the north in those days—stole that half acre and the Ashdowns ne’er did get it back.”
“Shame.” Jones’s lips twitched. Ruddy Froggans.
“Aye. There ain’t no male heir, neither, which is even more of a ruddy shame. Earldom went to an idiot cousin, so the family only kept the ol‘ barony. ’Course, ’tis the richest in Britain just the same.” Huge hands worked the pump. Up, down, up, down. Water splashed, clear and sparkling in the sunlight, cascading into the bucket. “The baroness, she’s a right good sort though. Rumor is she used ’er pin money ta pay for cottage roofs, as she’d promised they’d be repaired this year.”
Jones didn’t speak, but simply took in the tiny cottages north of the expanse of stone that was Ashdown Abbey. Beyond that, field upon field of green and gold patchworked over the countryside.
All of it hers.
Every haystack, every tree, every blade of grass—and every person living and working there. Hundreds of people.
How did she live with that responsibility?
“Does she—” He stopped, not sure what he wanted to say.
“The baroness?”
“It is not important.” Jones shook his head, looking back to the Abbey and its surroundings. It was a vast, immeasurable estate she was protecting—and more acres in other parts of England.
It might as well be another country, another world.
“Shame she weren’t born a man.” The innkeeper huffed. “Though if she had been, she might not have that sweetness about her.”
Jones turned around. The pump still moved, up, down, driven by those competent hands. Cheeks pink from exertion, the innkeeper exchanged one bucket for the another.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Got ’er father’s mind and ’er mother’s sweetness.” Up, down, with arms corded with muscles. “Ne’er saw someone take ta the earth and the people the way she did, even as a girl.”
The innkeeper stopped pumping, let the last of the water run into the second bucket. Puffing out a breath, he wiped wet hands on the grayed, worn apron tied about his waist.
“You knew her as a girl?”
“And her father before her.” The innkeeper bent over, grasped the bucket handles. Water tipped over the edges as he stood again, landing on his boots and recoloring the leather a darker shade. “We were boys running the same land. Me father’s a cottager.”
“Ah.” There was a great deal Jones wanted to know, to ask. But he did not. There were so many words they stuck in his throat, vying for a release.
“Come in for that bite, eh? Me missus has a good a thick stew and bread today.” The innkeeper sloshed away with his buckets, whistling through his teeth. He entered the inn through the rear door, bellowing for a bowl of stew before he was over the threshold.
Jones threw one final glance at the great house larger than the War Office. Larger than even than the Royal Pavilion or Carleton House. Perhaps even Westminster.
This was where she had been born.
He been left at the front door of a foundling hospital.
Hunching his shoulders, Jones set his course to follow the innkeeper’s and ducked into the common room. Half a dozen men ranged at the counter, another half dozen at the tables. Locals, by the looks of the conversation passing between tables and stools.
Jones took a seat at the counter between a man half his size and twice his age, and a young man who looked as if he’d grown a foot in the last week and forgotten to eat. He nodded to each, then to the innkeeper behind the counter.
“Thet stew will be right out, sir.” The innkeeper reached toward the tankards lining a shelf behind the counter. “Ale?”
“Aye. Many thanks.”
“Ya be needin’ a room?”
“No.” Jones accepted the tankard and drank deep of the bitter ale. “The horse should be ready soon, I think.”
“Horse threw a shoe.” The innkeeper leaned to the side to explain the circumstances to Jones’s new companions. “Down at the blacksmith’s now.”
“Well, sir, you couldn’t have found a finer village or pub to throw that shoe.” The old man cackled. “Though things’ll be a mite tight around here soon.”
Black looks all around. Counter patrons to innkeeper to tables patrons.
“Eh?” Attention pricked, Jones cocked his head in question.
“The granaries of the big house burnt down. Right down ta the ground.” The old man thumped his tankard down beside his empty stew bowl. Uneasy murmurs rippled through the common room. Silence rippled in their wake. “Grain’ll be scarce soon. Them trustees were jest here not more’n a week past, but the muckworms won’t help.”
“Muckworm sounds—” He wanted to say ominous, but he wouldn’t have known that word without Angel’s books. “Not good.”
“’Tisn’t.” The innkeeper leaned down, ready for a bit of unfortunate gossip. “The old earl put the estate in trust, see? Typical, o’course, ’cept our baroness knows what’s what. She could have managed it all—would do better than Prinny at managing the country. Right smart girl, our baroness.”
“What’s that to do with muckworms?” Jones set his arms on the counter, as if ready for his own bit of gossip.
“Oh, they don’t care none about us, see?” The boy to Jones’s left had his face nearly in the stew bowl, shoveling it in as if it might be his last meal. “Them trustees, the uncle—the uncle is the worst. He’s our baroness’s guardian, but he’s less smart than the trustees.”
“Uncle?” This was what he’d come for. News, information, opinion. All of it would be important.
“Aye.” The boy swung to face him as he spoke, the old man doing the same a moment later. Jones leaned back so he could see both. “That uncle, he’s tricky,” the boy continued. “They say he disappears in plain sight and drinks blood. It’s why his eyes is so scary. And I seen him riding late at night like demons was after him.”
“Codswallop.” The innkeeper wiped the area in front of Jones. Again. Once more. Nothing changed on the bar top. “The uncle is a bastard by choice, begging yer pardon.” He nodded to Jones. “The old earl was fooled, as the bastard’s nature t’weren’t out until the old earl died. Eh, but our baroness is an Ashdown. She knows what’s what, and she’ll do what’s right.”
“Aye, she will, if she has the chance.” This was shouted from a table behind them.
“True enough.” The old man to Jones’s right moved closer, opened his mouth—and stopped when the kitchen door swung open to reveal a tall, wide woman with rosy cheeks and a bowl of stew in her hands.
The previously attentive patrons listening to the conversation suddenly became attentive of their meals. Nothing but quiet and the clink of spoons against bowls was heard as the innkeeper’s wife plunked a bowl in front of Jones.
She studied the room. Frowned. “What bit of mischief are you all up to now?”
“Nothing!” The innkeeper started rubbing the bar top yet more vigorously. “Just letting our newcomer here know what’s what about the big house.”
“Well, that’s a simple tale.” Chafed and red hands settled on the woman’s hips, gripping their ample girth. “The old earl had a choice. Give the baroness everything outright and hope some rapscallion didn’t turn her head, or protect the barony so she could marry a man she loved. He protected it—only them trustees and thet uncle are in league or summat. Our baroness is a good girl, but they don’t give her leave to do what needs doing.”
“Don’t the trustees do it?” He knew the answer of course. The baroness had said as much—but he wanted to know what these people thought. Those who bore the brunt of the trustees’ short sightedness.
“Them?” The innkeeper’s wife snorted. “They don’t understand as much as a flea. ’Tis all numbers back in London.”
He couldn’t disagree. Dipping his spoon into the bowl, he retrieved beef and carrot and potato. When they hit his tongue, his mouth exploded with flavors he couldn’t have imagined—herbs, spices, onion, butter. It was home and flavor, heart and comfort. All in a single mouthful.
He must have made a sound, because the innkeeper’s wife laughed.
“You’ll do, sir.” She folded those work-reddened hands over her apron. “The door is always open to a man who enjoys my stew.”
“It’s—it’s—”
“Aye, ’tis. My missus is a fine cook.” The innkeeper beamed first at Jones, then at his wife, round face splitting with the grin. “She’s also clever, an‘ she’s right about our baroness. Why, she were out just this morning, standing over the granaries.”
“Helped carry water, too!” Came a shout from one corner or another of the common room. “I saw her wit‘ me own eyes. Our baroness does right by all the generations of Ashdowns, going back to the first Mary Elizabeth Frances.”
“She does,” the innkeeper agreed. “Thet uncle of hers, though—don’t trust ’im a wink. He’ll put a knife in yer gullet as soon as look at ya.”
Jones dipped his spoon into the stew again, blew on it to cool the heat. “What’s ’e like in London, I wonder.”
“Dunno.” The old man next to him leaned forward. Bushy brows rose, their lengthy hair bristling with the movement. “But I ’eard tell ’e turns into a demon with red eyes. Nine feet tall, they say, and ’e can freeze you with a look.”
“Oh, thet’s foolishness,” the innkeeper’s wife scoffed, waving away the tale with both hands.
“’T’isn’t.” The old man sat up straight and jabbed his fork at Jones. “I ’eard it from me wife’s cousin’s son’s nephew, who came up from London just last month. A demon, they say in the rookeries.”
“What the hell was he doin’ in the rookeries, I’d like to know?” The innkeeper settled his arm on the bar top, squinting at his customer.
“The boy? Or Wycomb?” The old man held out his empty tankard, jiggled it from side to side in an unspoken request.
“Both, eh?” The innkeeper accepted the tankard and began to fill it from the barrel spigot behind the counter. He didn’t take his eyes from his customer, though he seemed to know just when to turn the spigot so the tankard didn’t overfill.
“Boy was paid a ha’penny to deliver a message. ’E takes on odd jobs on th‘ docks from th’ East Indiamen, ’oping ’e’ll get a job when ’e’s older.” The old man shrugged. “Dunno why Wycomb was in the rookeries.”
Jones continued to spoon the stew into his mouth, but his ears were buzzing. It wasn’t the red eyes or ability to freeze that caught Jones’s attention.
Rookeries.