Antonia gathered up her skirts and ran after Jem as he scuttled out through the kitchen and into the back yard. The old gardener did indeed look terrible as he slumped on a log, his face ashen, his gnarled hands wringing the hem of his smock.
‘Johnson? Are you ill? Donna, could you fetch him some of the port wine?’
The old man struggled with his emotions and finally found his voice to utter a string of curses which caused Antonia to clap her hands over her ears. Seeing her reaction, he controlled himself with difficulty and growled, ‘Begging your pardon, ma’am, but it’s more than flesh and blood can stand, that it be!’
Donna hastened up with a tumbler of wine which he swigged back in one gulp. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. ‘God bless you, ma’am. Real gentry, you are, not like that bastard up at Brightshill.’
‘Johnson! Mind your language, please.’
Jem interrupted when Donna began to tut tut and Johnson to splutter again. ‘He’s had a shock, see, Miss. It’s his other three sons. They’ve been sent to Quarter Sessions by the Duke for fighting with his keepers. And they’ll be transported, sure as sure, to Botany Bay – and that’s miles away, Essex at least.’ Jem’s eyes were huge with the wonderful horror of it all.
‘And our Sim withering away in Hertford gaol these last three months,’ the old man moaned. ‘And all due to the Duke’s terrible hardness. Now he’s took all my boys. Starve, I will, and their wives and little ones along’a me.’
‘No one is going to starve,’ Antonia declared robustly, her mind trying to place the Johnson families amongst her tenants. ‘Are there many children?'
'Fifteen at the last count, ma’am,’ Johnson said gloomily. ‘And young Bethan in the family way, I’ll be bound, the bold young hussy.’
‘That’s one of his granddaughters,’ Jem supplied helpfully. ‘I expect the father’ll be Watkins up at the Big House.’
‘Well, he will just have to marry her,’ Antonia said firmly.
‘His wife’ll have something to say about that – he’s married already with six children,’ Jem said.
Antonia’s brain reeled. There were ways and means of keeping the families from starvation, but they needed their menfolk home as soon as possible. Really, she could not comprehend how Marcus could be so harsh, all for the sake of a few pheasants. Obviously the men were in the wrong to have gone on to his land, but she knew only too well how ready his keepers were to attack. Look at the way she had been manhandled. And he was employing a married seducer of innocent girls into the bargain.
‘Those brutes of keepers,’ she muttered. ‘l am sure your sons were only defending themselves. I shall speak to the Duke directly. Jem, help Johnson home and go by the kitchens with Miss Donaldson on your way, I am sure there is some food you can take for the children.’
Antonia swept inside on a tide of high dudgeon, calling her maid. No doubt the Johnson clan were among the more feckless of her tenants – there had to be a few in every village – but if they were kept in poverty, they were bound to be tempted into crime.
An hour later, attired in her best walking costume, parasol furled and gripped like a weapon, she marched up the steps to the front door at Brightshill and pulled the bell handle.
‘Miss Dane.’ Mead the butler bowed respectfully as he held the door for her. ‘How may I be of assistance? A warm day, is it not?’
‘Most clement.’ Antonia was feeling more than a little overheated after her furious walk to the house and she suspected that her hair was coming loose under the brim of her bonnet and that her face was flushed. ‘I wish to see the Duke.’ She was in no mood for polite chit-chat about the weather with the upper servants.
‘I will ascertain whether His Grace is at home, ma’am. Would you care to step into the white salon while you wait? I will send refreshments.’ He ushered her into a cool, high-ceilinged chamber and bowed himself out.
Antonia was not inclined to admire the charm of the room, a confection of white picked out in gold to match the ormolu that enhanced the delicate French furniture. During the hot walk up to Brightshill, she had decided angrily that not only could she do without the responsibility for three wives, fifteen children and an old man – not to speak of the unfortunate Bethan’s predicament – but that the Duke of Allington was entirely responsible for the entire sorry coil.
By the time he joined her, she was well beyond any awkwardness at meeting him again. He closed the door behind him, and walked slowly towards her, a look on his face that she could not interpret. Surely not tenderness?
‘Antonia,’ he began, then must have seen the stormy expression on her face, for he stopped, his brows drawing together into their familiar hard line.
‘Don’t you Antonia me,’ she snapped. ‘I have come to demand that you release my men immediately.’
‘Your men?’
‘Job, Boaz and Ezekiel Johnson, the men you have had dragged off to prison, leaving their families to starve.’
Marcus stared at her in apparent incomprehension. Antonia stamped her foot in exasperation. ‘For goodness sake, it was only yesterday! Do you sentence so many men that you have forgotten them already?’
‘Please sit down, Antonia.’
Antonia glared, but she sank onto the sofa behind her, her legs suddenly weak with reaction. Marcus appeared about to speak again as he pulled up a chair opposite her, but he was forestalled by the entrance of a footman with lemonade and orgeat.
By the time the servant had left, Antonia felt calmer, but as she sipped the cooling drink her hand was still shaking.
‘Now, perhaps you can explain to me why it is a matter of concern to you that three violent rogues are about to receive their just desserts?’
Antonia met the hard eyes, remembering with a shiver the day she had been dragged before him as a poacher. ‘Just because they had a set-to with your keepers – who are all too ready to use violence themselves – does not make them violent criminals. These men have families to support. Why can you not relax your implacable opposition to a little local poaching? You do not need all those birds, and this is a time of such agricultural hardship.’
‘The law is the law, Antonia, and should be observed. You do no good with your meddling. I am sworn to uphold His Majesty’s peace – what would you have me do when it is broken?'
‘Meddling? Can you show no mercy? You may uphold the letter of the law, but there are moral laws as well and I hold you entirely responsible for Bethan Johnson’s predicament.’
‘And what might that be?’ he enquired, only the whiteness around his mouth betraying the mounting anger within him.
‘She is with child.’
‘I assure you, I am not the father. I have no recollection of the wench, and whatever your opinion of me, I can assure you I always ask their name first before seducing village virgins.’
Antonia found she was on her feet, her cheeks burning. ‘How dare you speak to me like that?’
Without answering, Marcus strode across to the fireplace and tugged the bell pull sharply. Antonia turned away from him to hide her flushed cheeks and stared out stormily across the tranquil park. Behind her she heard him order, ‘My curricle, at once.’
A furious silence hung in the room until they heard the crunch of gravel beneath hooves. Marcus took her by the elbow in a none-too-gentle grip and marched her out of the door and down the steps to the curricle.
‘Where are we going?’ Antonia demanded when she found herself seated on the high-perch seat. She had not struggled with him in front of the servants, but she had every intention of demanding he let her down the moment they were out of sight of the house. ‘How dare you manhandle me? Stop and let me down at once.’
‘No, there is something you should, and will, see.’ All she could see of Marcus’s face was his grim profile.
‘If you do not let me down, I will jump,’ Antonia threatened, gathering her skins in readiness.
In response, he transferred the reins and the whip to his right hand, throwing his left arm across her to pinion her to her seat. The horses, unsettled by the sudden shift of balance, plunged in the shafts and broke into a canter.
Antonia felt herself thrown back against the seat, his arm like an iron bar across her. ‘Do not be such a damn fool,’ he snarled, controlling the horses one-handed.
It was only a few minutes before he drew up in front of a lodge at one of the side gates into the park. Another vehicle, a modest gig, was standing outside. As Marcus handed her down, Antonia recognised the local doctor emerging from the back door of the lodge.
‘Your Grace. Miss Dane, good day to you. A bad business this, but he is young and strong and will come to no harm in the end. I will call again tomorrow.’
‘Thank you, Dr Rush. Whatever he needs, he must have. You will send your account to me.’
The doctor mounted into his gig and drove away with a polite wave of his whip. ‘Why have you brought me here?’ Antonia asked, an unpleasant foreboding overcoming her anger.
‘To see the handiwork of your innocent and starving tenants,’ Marcus replied tautly. He pushed open the door without knocking and ushered her through.
Antonia found herself in a small but neat kitchen. A little girl was rocking a cradle by the hearth. She turned a tear-stained face towards them and Marcus patted her gently on the head. ‘Are you being a good girl and helping your mother, Jenny?’ The child, no more than four, nodded mutely. ‘We will just go and see your father. The doctor says he will soon be well, so don’t you cry now.’
In the back room, a woman was spooning water between the lips of the man laying on the bed. When she saw Marcus, she put down the spoon and laid the man gently back against the bolster. ‘Oh, Your Grace…’
‘Do not get up, Mrs Carling. How is he?’
Antonia realised with horror that the man so limp and helpless on the bed was Nat Carling the underkeeper. His head was swathed in bandages, his eyes were black and blue and his nose askew. He seemed barely conscious, except for a faint groan which escaped his lips every time he breathed.
‘In a deal of pain, Your Grace. The doctor says his ribs are broke, but his skull’s not cracked, thank the Lord.’
‘What has happened to him?’ Antonia asked, although, with a sinking heart, she could guess.
‘It was them Johnsons, the whole pack of them, Miss. Set upon him last night as he came home from the ale-house. Three against one, it was,’ the woman added bitterly. ‘And them with cudgels. If Vicar hadn’t have been coming back from Berkhamsted and disturbed them, my Nat’d be dead now, for sure.’
‘But why?’ Antonia asked, appalled, staring down at the bruised face on the pillow, the stubble stark on the deathly-pale face.
‘He’d reported them to the Duke for poaching again, ma’am. Setting snares all through his Grace’s Home Wood, they were, t’other night, bold as brass. Ran off when Nat and his old dog disturbed them, but he could see ’em by the moon.’
‘But to beat him so…’
‘And kick him, too,’ Marcus said grimly. ‘Let me have a look at those ribs, Nat lad.’ He eased back the coarse sheet and Antonia gasped at the sight of the man’s ribs, covered in bruises with the clear marks of hobnails on the flesh.
Antonia turned away, her hands pressed to her mouth, nausea rising. She heard Marcus behind her, talking low-voiced to the woman, assuring her the doctor’s bills would be met and promising that the housekeeper would send down food and cordials from the house daily. ‘One of the stable lads will come down and sleep in your shed, Mrs Carling. He can do the heavy work and help you with Nat. Now do not fret, he will mend soon.’
Outside Antonia gripped the side of the curricle, taking great gulps of the warn dusty air. Marcus took her arm and began to walk back into the park, leaving the horses standing. ‘You are not going to faint,’ he stated.
Antonia looked up at him, startled by his frigid tone. ‘What has happened to that man is terrible.’
‘Indeed it is, and much to your discredit.’
‘Mine? What have I to do with it?’
‘You have coddled and encouraged not only the deserving and unfortunate amongst your tenants, but the rogues also. They laugh at you for being so gullible. What did you think you were about?’ His voice grew harsher as she turned, hurt and bewildered, to look into his face.
‘But they were starving. I only sought to feed them.’
Marcus took her by the shoulders and shook her. ‘You fool, all you did was to teach them to steal. You have undermined the right of the law. Why did you not employ your own keepers? You could have instructed them to take the birds and distribute them to the deserving and those in genuine need and you would have given the keepers respectable employment besides.’
‘Why did you not tell me sooner?' Antonia stammered. ‘It never occurred to me to employ keepers because I had no intention of preserving game for sport. I thought I was doing good, helping my tenants.’
‘I did not know myself the lengths to which you had gone. Sparrow only told me today what has been the talk of the alehouses for weeks. I was coming to tell you of it this morning, but you were otherwise engaged.’
‘Why did not Sparrow speak to you sooner? I so wish he had,’ she said miserably. ‘I have misjudged the man.’
There was an uncomfortable pause. ‘He felt there was a degree of attachment between us that would make it impossible for him to speak critically of you without offending me.’
‘How foolish of him,’ Antonia replied between stiff lips.
‘Indeed, it seems so,’ Marcus said, dropping his hands from her shoulders.
She shivered, feeling bereft without his touch. ‘Can you recommend a suitable man to act as keeper for me? And is there any other foolishness of mine which you should draw to my attention before I do any further damage?’ she added, trying to keep the bitterness from her voice.
‘l will find someone for you, if that is what you wish. As to your… misjudgements, perhaps you will remember that I recommended you to return to London. It would have been as well for all of us if you had taken that advice.’
Antonia turned her head away so he could not see the tears starting in her eyes. He could not have put it more plainly: he wished rid of her, and her instincts from the beginning had been correct. Marcus, having failed to secure her lands, now wanted her out of his sight.
‘I must thank you for an instructive afternoon, Your Grace,’ she said, her head still averted. ‘l trust you will let me know if there is anything I can do to assist Mrs Carling and her family. Good day.’
‘Let me drive you home, Antonia.’ Marcus put a hand on her arm, but she shook it off angrily. ‘We should not part this way. I spoke harshly in my anger, but we can deal better together than this.’
‘I am grateful for your concern, but we are neighbours, nothing more.’
‘We have been more than that, and could be again.’ He put his fingers under her chin, turning her face to his. Before she could protest he bent. his head and kissed her lightly on the lips, then turned and walked away.