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,” he 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.

“He took some dogs to the young lady at Rose Cottage,” said Tom.

“Purchased especially for her,” added Clayton, the valet. “And the household is wondering why.”

“I ’spect it’s to chase off the goats,” said Tom. He smiled. He’d enjoyed the goats’ spirited resistance to being herded.

“But why is his lordship supplying them?” Clayton replied. “That is their question.”

Arthur considered it a hopeful sign. He’d come to Frithgerd on a mission, and his recent experience suggested that a lively young lady could be just what was needed.

“Everybody’s making up stories about why she’s inherited Rose Cottage,” said Tom.

“What sort of stories?” Arthur asked.

“The usual drivel,” answered Clayton, his round face disapproving. The valet had been with Arthur for more than twenty years, and the earl valued his canny insights as much as his personal services. “She’s somebody’s mistress, or discarded mistress, or the old lord’s love child, or a disgraced cousin waiting for a baby to show. People have such common minds.”

“One of the grooms reckoned she was a hindoo who used her foreign magic to wreck the old lord’s ship on his journey home,” said Tom. When the other two turned to stare, he added, “The first sight of her put an end to that tale.”

“You can’t fault his imagination,” said Arthur.

“It’s not going to be easy for Miss Pendleton to settle into the neighborhood with gossip like that flying about,” said Clayton.

Arthur nodded. Clayton looked unassuming, with his wide cheeks and snub nose. Many failed to notice that his brown eyes were exceedingly sharp. “That’s one reason I’d like to find out more about this legacy,” he said. “Let’s get that letter off.”

With a bow, the valet departed. Arthur led Tom downstairs and out into the gardens. They walked a while in the mild June air, silently companionable. On the surface, they had little in common, the earl thought. And some people were bewildered by his friendship with a boy born into the slums of Bristol who didn’t even know his own last name. But when he’d encountered Tom on a visit to Somerset a few weeks ago, Arthur had been impressed by his sunny temper and active curiosity.

The lad was so eager to learn and experience. He was inspiring, and Arthur enjoyed his candid opinions and manner. Other noblemen might have called it effrontery, but there were many dry sticks in the House of Lords. Arthur hoped to help the lad to a bright future, whenever it became clear what sort of help Tom really wanted.

“Perhaps you can include Rose Cottage in your rambles,” he said. Tom spent a good part of each day outdoors. He was a natural rover and didn’t like to sit still.

“Spy on them, like?” The lad sounded unhappy with the idea.

“No. More keeping a watchful eye, and perhaps becoming a friend.” Arthur had no doubt he would; friendship was one of Tom’s gifts. “Isn’t the maid Kitty about your age?”

Tom snorted. “Don’t go matchmaking for me, my lord.”

Arthur raised his eyebrows.

“It’s all very well to look sideways, but I’ve watched you at work, haven’t I? Getting your nephew leg-shackled.”

“That was all his idea.”

“Was it now?”

Arthur laughed. “Mostly. But I had no such idea about you and Kitty. Why, you’re barely fifteen.”

Tom nodded. “Long as we’re clear on that, I don’t mind. It’s odd, this legacy, ain’t it? Folks usually know why they’re left things.”

“They do.”

“I might go on over there now.”

“A splendid idea.”

Tom veered off, and Arthur continued his stroll. When he saw a curricle pull into the stable yard, he walked in that direction and observed the return of his host. Whitfield looked disgruntled.

Daniel made no remark when his houseguest fell into step with him as he headed for the house. “So you took Miss Pendleton some dogs?” Macklin said. His tone was bland.

“How did you know that?”

“Someone in the household told my valet,” the earl replied.

“Have they no better things to talk about?”

“Our dependents are interested in everything we do. For the goats, was it? Tom thought so.”

“The goats, yes,” Daniel said.

“And general protection, I suppose. For an unmarried young lady, living alone.”

He might as well have said that Daniel should take care about visiting her. Daniel fought down a spurt of anger. He’d heard bits of the gossip about Miss Pendleton. One neighbor had asked him smiling questions that had verged on the offensive. For her sake, he shouldn’t go walking alone with her. So he was to be deprived of that pleasure, as well as all else. Daniel frowned, wondering where that thought had come from.

“Have you found any earlier records about Rose Cottage?” the earl asked. “You were going to look.”

“I tried, but Frithgerd’s records are a jumble, to put it charitably. We appear to have no filing system beyond shoving estate documents into whatever cubbyhole is nearest to hand at the time.” Daniel’s anger, finding a convenient target, expanded to fill his chest. “I can’t answer half the questions I’m asked, because I can’t find the information I need. So, no, nothing about Rose Cottage.” Not to mention the fact that his father had never told him anything or lifted a finger to keep the place in order. “There are only so many hours in the day when I can be reading and sorting.” Without going stark mad from frustration and boredom, he thought. As they entered the house, Daniel turned toward the estate office. The weight of the task descended on him. “I should get back to it.”

“It sounds as if you need help.”

Did Macklin intend to offer his services? Daniel couldn’t imagine the earl delving into Frithgerd’s papers. It would be like having the Chancellor of the Exchequer overseeing his efforts. “I need a new estate agent. No one informed me when the last one left.”

“I could ask among my friends, if you like, see if anyone might be able to recommend a good agent.”

“Yes, all right.” He needed to get hold of himself, Daniel thought. “Thank you.”

“I’m happy to help.”

The earl’s benign tone and expression roused echoes of the dinner he’d arranged in London in the spring and the sympathetic talk that had unexpectedly followed. The occasion stood out in Daniel’s memory as one of the exceedingly rare times when people had spoken to each other with naked sincerity. He still didn’t understand how Macklin had managed that.

“It’s so very pleasant here,” Macklin went on. “I do wonder that your parents were forever leaving home.”

Those last three words shook Daniel like a sudden loss of footing. He found himself asking, “Do you have any idea why they traveled all the time?”

“Not specifically.”

Of course he didn’t. Disappointment welled up, along with an odd kind of relief. It would be worse to discover that they’d confided in others and not him, Daniel realized.

“But I’d wager a good deal that it was due to your mother,” Macklin added.

“Why do you say that?” He’d just assumed his father made all their decisions.

“A theory only,” said the older man. “But your father never showed any interest in leaving England before he married. Of course I only knew John from the age of eighteen. But we spent a good deal of time together during several seasons in London and some country visits, and we talked as young men do.” He smiled. “In our cups and out of them. Grandiose plans and impractical dreams.”

Intrigued by this glimpse into his father’s youth, Daniel immediately wanted to hear more. What plans and dreams? He knew so little about the two people who had created him. For the first time, he was glad that Macklin had come to Frithgerd.

“John didn’t speak of travel,” the earl went on. “Not even the grand tour of Europe, which was popular then. He was more interested in horse racing and boxing matches, if I recall correctly. Then he met your mother.”

“At the Duchess of Rutland’s masked ball.” Daniel had heard this story, at least. “Papa was dressed as Mark Antony, and she was Cleopatra. They took it as an omen.”

Macklin nodded. “They didn’t seem to mind how that story ended.”

“What?”

“Assassination? Flight? Eventual disaster?”

“They’d thought of the same era,” replied Daniel, confused. “Their minds ran in a similar way.” This was one of the few family legends he possessed.

The earl shrugged. “John was certainly smitten with Miss Walsden, as your mother was then. A beautiful girl. And your grandfather’s opposition was oil on the flames, of course.”

“He objected?” No one had told Daniel this. “Why? I thought Mama was born into some ancient line.” His mother’s parents had been dead by the time he came along. She mentioned second cousins a time or two, but Daniel had never met them.

Macklin nodded. “Like your own. And like yours a small family, with few representatives. John told me your grandfather would have preferred a prolific clan. He was worried that the Friths were dwindling and wanted to repopulate your ranks.”

“That sounds positively medieval.” Was this the reason he had no siblings, Daniel wondered. Was his singular status some sort of rebellion?

“He was a rather archaic figure. I remember one evening when he hunted John down at an evening party and lectured him—in front of a group of young friends—about the weight of history and responsibility his name carried. He felt John must see how much more important this was than the latest odds at Newmarket. Calling it a weight was a mistake, I always thought.”

He smiled as if to share a joke, but Daniel was too absorbed by this glimpse into the past to laugh. “So my grandfather’s objections to the match made no difference?”

“No. John wanted Serena Walsden. He offered for her, and she accepted.”

“Good for him!”

“Perhaps she was. She certainly broadened his interests. Most girls talk chiefly about themselves, don’t you find? But Miss Walsden was full of information she’d read. Much of it was about faraway spots and politics, if I recall correctly. I never knew her well.”

Daniel remembered his mother enumerating the sights she’d seen in Jamaica or New York or some other far-flung destination. She always had a ready list, though he’d never gotten much sense of the feelings these places had evoked in her. She could go on and on, however, in a continuous, unvarying flow. If Daniel dropped a few details about his own life and interests into the conversation, she’d received them in the same manner, as if he was listing points in a school essay. She made him feel like some tedious acquaintance rather than family. As for his father, he’d clearly been more interested in pleasing his wife than in listening to his son. Together, they’d formed an outwardly cordial but ultimately impenetrable front.

He’d resented it, Daniel acknowledged, even more than he resented their constant travels. And so he’d begun avoiding Frithgerd and everything to do with it. Which had hurt only himself, in the end, he thought wryly. It had left him ignorant about his responsibilities when they fell upon him.

“I never spent much time around her,” the earl went on.

It took Daniel a moment to remember that Macklin was speaking of his mother.

“They were married and came down here. After you were born the following year, they started traveling. It was difficult to catch a glimpse of John after that.”

Daniel knew that problem all too well. He’d thought of himself as a boy at the mercy of a father with wanderlust. But was he instead the product of a woman who had produced an heir as required and then set off to do as she liked for the rest of her life? Regardless of what anyone else might have wanted?

He felt slightly dizzy, as if his brain was shifting inside his skull. In the confusion, something struggled to well up. It felt like danger.

He grew aware of his position, standing in the corridor outside the estate office, engaged in a conversation that ought to be private. He pushed his bewilderment aside. There was no point in repining. And there was so much to do. “If you’ll pardon me, I should get back to work.”

“Of course,” said Macklin, stepping away.

Did he look smug? But why should he? Daniel went into the office and shut the door behind him. Immediately, he felt oppressed by the litter of documents. His grandfather had chosen precisely the right word, he thought. His heritage was undoubtedly a weight.