Chapter 4
“Have you scrubbed the floor?”
Meredith looked down at her red hands then at the sparkling, cold stones beneath her feet. Was it not evident? “Yes, Uncle.”
Caspar Ashdown, only brother of Meredith’s mother, frowned, his forehead turning to a veritable furrowed field of concentration. “Do it again,” he said tightly, each word a bite. “It shall be beneficial for you and your soul. Cleaning is pleasing to God. It is particularly important for women who are the source of all sin.”
She felt her eye begin to twitch so she glanced down quickly, attempting to appear humble. Over the last months, she’d managed to find a way to simply disengage from such infuriating language. “Yes, Uncle.”
He nodded, placed his hand on her head in blessing then picked up his prayer book.
As soon as the old man hurried out of the cottage for one of his five mile constitutionals where he spent time with prayer, God, and the cold wind to wash away his sins, Meredith propped her hands on her hips. She considered simply not bothering with the floor again.
He’d never know, after all.
In truth, her uncle was one of the least observant people she knew. It was one of the few things which had made her life livable. For all that he made her life difficult, he was often absorbed with his ponderings. He rarely noticed when she went to the village as she often did or when she, herself, walked up into the bens.
She glanced to the door. Perhaps she might read the novel she’d hidden under her mattress. It had been very difficult to come by it, but she’d procured it in the village quite carefully.
Now seemed the best time to read when he’d be off for hours. Yet, she found herself thinking.
Thinking of a man who was more a god than a man.
John Forthryte, the new Earl of Mooreland and her uncle’s patron, had the shoulders of Hercules and the cunning of Mercury.
The offer he’d made whispered through her mind.
She could go to London. London!
Turning slowly, she surveyed the spartan cottage which had been her home these many months. The loneliness sometimes had seemed a daunting and unending prospect.
She knew her cousin, Harriet, would be horrified to see the conditions she was living in.
She received letters every week from her and she’d watched her cousin rise to a veritable star of the ton. Emmaline. . . The cousin that she had so horribly wronged, though through no real intent, had not written.
That was why she’d not mentioned the severity of her conditions to Harriet.
She deserved punishment.
Luckily, she’d made friends in the village where they had welcomed her with surprising generosity. She also loved the landscape, which was moving beyond all imagining.
Still, this was beginning to feel mad, being trapped with her uncle. What good was she accomplishing here? She’d polished stone floors for months and listened to his speeches on the feckless nature of women time and again.
Was it time?
Yes, she realized. It was.
She was done whipping herself for only wanting a bit of passion in her life.
Good God. If John Forthryte could be awarded an earldom, she could blazing well be allowed to find a good match in London.
And if the Duke of Huntsdown felt that he owed that to her? She wasn’t going to stop him. . . Because, frankly, with some reflection, he did need to atone.
For he’d gotten it all wrong, hadn’t he? And in the worst possible way.
She’d never forget the way he’d condemned her cousin, Emmaline, as a whore on her wedding day. . . Which had resulted in no wedding at all.
No. It had been she, Merry, who’d bedded one of the gentlemen of the party, not her cousin. But she and Emmaline bore a shocking resemblance and there had been a plot afoot.
The plot had succeeded. John’s plot. But even she realized that John had not meant it to go quite the way it had. Or if he had, she’d seen the pain and regret in him as he’d schooled his brothers in their arrogance.
But after months under her uncle’s roof doing penance, she was no longer willing to play the martyr.
She’d made a mistake! What human soul had not? Hers had been one of flagrant miscalculation and it had ended badly. But staying here in this unkind house was going to solve nothing.
So, instead of trudging up to her small room in the hopes of reading a few chapters of her delicious novel, she marched to the door. She grabbed her dark cloak and headed out in the brisk Highland afternoon.
The sun was already a golden blaze, lowering in the sky, setting the sea loch afire.
She didn’t have too much time if she was to return home by nightfall.
But she had to do this. It was time she seized her future with both hands. And seize it she would. But this time, she wasn't going to be a fool. She knew exactly how to make sure of it. A smile tilted her lips.
Oh yes.
A little education would go a long way. And John Forthryte owed her. And she wouldn’t let him forget it.