Teaching the Earl (9 page)

It had been so delightf
ul to have cheerful company, Elizabeth did not want it to end. "I do. Yes, I'll come. Only give me a moment to fetch a pelisse." She should really change her dress to something more sturdy, but this one was dirty already and a little more mud around the hem would not make things much worse. She had plenty more gowns. She ran upstairs for a pelisse, half boots and bonnet, fastened the latter carefully over her hair and pulled curls free to frame her face. If Mrs Swinton was right, Lord Carhampton would be there. Even the thought brought pink into her cheeks, a mingling of embarrassment and excitement. She stared at her own bright eyes in the mirror, then turned away, rubbing the back of her neck with an agitated hand.

Mrs Swinton waited for her in the entry hall, and the two of them walked out into the cool spring air. The sky was a pale overcast and there was a stiff breeze, yet Mrs Swinton set such a firm pace Elizabeth was quickly warm. She chose a path straight through the squelchy, overgrown park.

"Good heavens," said Elizabeth, a little out of breath. "It goes on forever. I'd no idea the place was so big."

"It is a grand estate. I'm told it was magnificent once. So my grandfather has said."

"It's a pity to see it like this." There were sheep scattered about, and Elizabeth imagined otherwise the grass would have been as shaggy as the distorted trees. No one had pruned any for a long time. She kept her eyes on the ground to be sure she did not tread in manure. "It will need so much work to see it restored."

"An army of
groundsmen, no doubt. But it could be done. I doubt the maze can be reclaimed, but the lake could be dredged and cleared of weed, and restocked with fish-"

"I wonder if Lord
Carhampton likes to fish."

"Don't you know?"

"I'm afraid I don't-Well, we never spoke of it. We became engaged so quickly after we first met, and it was not a very long engagement. There are so many things still to learn about each other."

"Well." Mrs Swinton slanted a curious glance at Elizabeth, who immediately wondered if she had been lax not to find out more about Chris. "I suppose a gentleman probably doesn't talk about fishing to a lady in the ordinary course of things. But Reverend Swinton is a keen angler so I hear far more about it than I care to. I know he'll be very pleased to have a
neighbor with a lake full of fish. That is if his lordship cares to entertain other fishermen," she added self-consciously.

"He'd be delighted to," said Elizabeth, and hoped it was not a lie.

Mrs Swinton pointed out several places where simple improvements could be made to the aspect, with additional plantings or trees trimmed or removed completely, and Elizabeth realized she must be something of an expert. Such a list of things to think of, and all of them a mystery to her, so she very quickly felt ignorant and young once more, nodding her head and agreeing and trying to remember everything.

"I'll have to talk to you about all t
his again,” she said. “You obviously know so much about it. I'd love to see your own garden. I'm sure it's very beautiful."

"I think I've managed to improve it a little, though I inherited it with all the major work done. The man who held the living before Reverend Swinton was extremely diligent about the grounds of the vicarage and the orchard. They really are magnificent. Come and see it when the fruit trees are in bloom, and you'll think you're in heaven."

"That would be wonderful."

They crested a hill and abruptly she could see the fields of the great farm, stretching out before her. She turned to look back over the park. The house was elegant and grand from here, where distance hid the tainted brickwork and the scale of the park diminished the size of it. When she squinted a little she could imagine it as beautiful.

Would restoring all this be part of the work of her life, then? The thought was oppressive, but that was no doubt because her ignorance was daunting. She could learn, and be a credit to her husband; though so far she had failed to impress him at all. She sighed, and turned away, her shoulders drooping.

"There are the cottages. You can see there's still a way to go, but it's all downhill from here."

And a long way back uphill as well on the return journey, Elizabeth thought but did not say. She did not want her new friend to think she was a complainer.

Mrs Swinton went down very swiftly, striding ahead at times before she realized she outstripped Elizabeth, then slowing and waiting so she could catch up. "You must walk a great deal," Elizabeth said, gasping.

"I am a dedicated walker. We only keep a single horse, to pull the dogcart, so when the reverend takes it out to visit his parishioners I walk everywhere."

"I'll have to do better myself."

"No doubt you will be able to ride."

"Oh.
Perhaps. That is, not quite yet. I don't think Lord Carhampton plans to extend the stables yet."

"No?"

"He seems determined to focus on improving the land, first."

"Well that is an excellent attitude," Mrs Swinton exclaimed in warm admiration.
"Too rare, these days. I'm very pleased to hear it. All his people will benefit, and the land will repay him manifold. What a good man."

Elizabeth smiled with pride. "I think so, yes."

"He has no plans for enclosure, then?"

"Enclosure?"

"To take the common land and divide it into separate fields with fences, so that individuals own it rather than the whole village. This makes the land more valuable and easier to sell. Then the wealthy landowners buy up more, and put the people off the land to make it more profitable. To run sheep or manage the crops better. Many of the wealthy families are doing that nowadays. It is destroying communities. I wonder that you have not heard of it, even in the city."

"Oh. Well I have never heard it spoken of, and Lord
Carhampton has said nothing to me of it." Mrs Swinton's frown made it clear how she felt on the subject, and Elizabeth added, "I think it unlikely, since he is improving the cottages. He must intend to leave the crofters in place, don't you think?"

"I hope so. I hope so indeed. There is a great nervousness hereabouts, as people wait to see what he will do. No doubt you could influence him one way or another, if you wished."

"I-Oh. I don't know. Perhaps. I fear he does not think much of my knowledge."

"Even so, a man will do a great deal for a new wife he loves well."

"Fortunate is such a woman," said Elizabeth, and hoped she did not sound too wistful. From the corner of her eyes she saw Mrs Swinton turn to inspect her face, but she pretended to be oblivious, her own gaze fixed on the horizon.

When they finally came into sight of the men, Elizabeth stopped and stood still for a moment, jaw dropping open. Surely this could not be her dignified, aloof earl? Yet it was certainly his tall, leanly muscled figure bent over as he heaved a stone out of a wall and to the ground, so she gasped, ready to screech out to be careful of his feet. He moved easily out of the way before she found words, straightened for a moment, then stepped forward and half-lifted, half shoved the jagged stone to a pile where more were laid. The men were knocking down a crumbled cottage but peculiarly Lord Carhampton was in there at the task too. It was not right for an earl to muck in beside his men, surely?

It was inexplicable
behavior. He was the Earl. There was no need for him to grub in the dirt. He made himself only one of seven workers, when he could have stayed up on his bad-tempered horse, directed them all and remained perfectly clean. That was what noblemen did. They were above all this.

She did not know if she should be horrified, should maybe ask him to have a care for his dignity. After all, if he was no more than a farm
laborer, what was she? The wife of a farm laborer. Papa had not paid one hundred and twenty-thousand pounds to buy her that position.

One of the men caught sight of them, and leaned back with one hand shading his eyes as he squinted to see them against the sky. After a moment he turned back to the work as if realizing how rude he was to stare. Lord
Carhampton saw the movement and followed the man's gaze, and he examined them both, then said something to the men around him and stepped away. He walked up the hill towards them with a great, loping stride unfamiliar to Elizabeth. It swallowed the ground between them, vigorous and purposeful. Who was this man, nothing like the careful gentleman she knew?

His clothes were untidy too, and there was a swipe of dirt across his chin. As he stopped beside them she longed to reach up and wipe it off yet was too shy to actually touch him. He frowned a little, contradicting the fixed, polite smile he wore.

"Lady Carhampton. Enjoying a walk, I see."

"You did recommend it."

"So I did." He turned from her, and the loss of his steady gaze was almost a physical sensation. "Won't you introduce me to your companion?"

"I beg your pardon. Lord
Carhampton, this is Mrs Swinton, wife to the vicar at Saint Pauls. Mrs Swinton, Lord Carhampton."

He bowed and she curtsied.
"Delighted to meet you, Mrs Swinton. Your husband came by several hours ago to inspect the works."

"I know he is pleased to see improvements made to conditions here."

"I'm not surprised. Everything is in appalling disarray. It's very lowering to think a relative of mine let the place become such a shambles."

"What matters is that you are fixing it now," said Mrs Swinton, magnanimous in the face of this handsome admission.

"It will be some months before it's all done, since the fields must also be planted. But we'll do what we may. I invited the Reverend to come to dinner with us this week."

"Oh, you're too kind. We should be delighted."

"Excellent. If you'll excuse me I'll continue before the rain returns."

"Of course."

As he loped down the hill, Mrs Swinton leaned in close to Elizabeth. "So unusual for a nobleman to involve himself in the concerns of his tenants in such a way. I've never seen the like."

Elizabeth heard this as a mild rebuke against her husband for the menial
labor. "He does seem to have very progressive ideas," she said stiffly.

"Obviously.
Which are all very well in their place, of course."

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes, and her voice was very quiet. "The choices of an earl must always be correct."

Mrs Swinton caught the subtle inference in her tone, and eyed her dubiously. "Why yes. Of course." She hesitated. "Perhaps I should go. The vicarage is only a short distance over that hill. Do please come to call whenever you like."

"Certainly."

"It is such a pleasure to meet you."

"The pleasure is all
mine."

Mrs Swinton curtsied and walked on to where a long stone wall divided fields. She opened a gate and passed through, then carried on, and Elizabeth turned back towards the manor house. If only she had not been so curt. Yet she would not hear Lord
Carhampton questioned. If he wanted to dig in beside his tenants to get a job done, then no one should imply he was wrong. Not even the friendly Mrs Swinton.

She put her head around his study door. Chris was frowning ferociously at the paper on the desk before him, and muttered something vicious. She clung to the shadows. She had chosen a bad time. Should she go back upstairs? Back to her chill, dim bedroom with its ill-fitting drapes, its drafts and the smell of damp and of the lavender sachets Mary used to try to mask the odor. Back to silence and solitude.

She swallowed cowardice and edged inside the room, closed the door with care so it did not make a sound, then crept over the carpet to the tapestried seat closest to the fire. It was like stepping into a bubble of warm air, silky and welcoming. Her skirts rustled as she sat, and at that he looked up, still wearing the frown.

"What . . .? Oh, it's you."

"It is," she said, pretending to be calm, and began to unpack her sewing basket. Her fingers wanted to shake, so she clutched them tightly around her little embroidery hoop. When she heard scratching she stole a glance at him and saw he was writing, the quill pen traveling over the page in impatient slashes. Taking a long time over the task she selected an embroidery silk, cut it, threaded her needle and began.

For long minutes they sat and worked, and gradually her tension eased. She settled in her chair, and sighed with what was almost contentment.

The scratch of his pen stopped. Instantly her neck ached as all the muscles there tightened in self-consciousness.

"You have not decorated your room," he said.

"No."

"Why not?"

"I don't have enough money."

"What did you do with the money I gave you? Did you waste it?"

"No! I have it still. Except for a little I gave away."

"Gave away?"

"To the church collection.
Also to one of your tenants, Mrs Dowtry, who has just had her seventh child. I wanted to give her some assistance, so I told her it was to celebrate the birth."

His frown deepened. "Now you'll be expected to give money to each of them for every birth."

She hesitated, then raised her chin. "Is that so terrible?"

"Not terrible,
no. It is only we have little to spare, and most of it is already dedicated to improving the land and the farm, thus the lot of the tenants. There was no need for you to spend your money on them."

"You said I might spend it how I wanted. That is how I wanted to spend it."

"You must practice some economy. Don't imagine I will give you more for furnishings."

"I didn't imagine that," she said with quiet dignity.

"What then?"

"I thought until the spring crops come in, Mrs
Dowtry needed food more than I need new drapes and a bedspread.

"Very praiseworthy," he said, and the sardonic note in his voice made her want to growl and snap at him.

"I did not do it to earn praise. I did it because it seemed right to me.

"You may trust me to see to the needs of these people. Your task-"

"Is what? To be idle? You may work side by side with them, share their labor, plot and plan and spend nearly every resource on improving their lives, yet I may not? I don't understand you."

"It is only-"

"I may not be the most knowledgeable woman, but I am quite aware how little I can do with such money as you allowed me. So I shall spend it to bring me most pleasure."

"There are good reasons why I cannot give you more-"

"I know that. I do not say you are wrong to set it all aside to improve the estate so it may support itself. I understand you do this for our future. I told you I wish to have a part in it but you only push me aside. Perhaps I was not raised to be truly useful but I am not an idiot either. I wish you would see that."

"I do see it-"

"Then why will you keep me as nothing but an ornament? I am so useless here."

"A woman is not made to be useful."

She glared at him. "What is it I am made for, exactly?"

He gave her a grim look from under his brows.
"To enjoy yourself. To be quiet, and peacefully productive in whatever way pleases you."

She set aside her embroidery with a sharp gesture. "Wonderful.
So I am brought away from my family, from all the pleasures of town, so that you may ignore me here while I'm suitably quiet? I shall hide myself away and not bother you nor anyone else, while you work and work and work and keep your-"

She had meant to say 'bedroom door closed to me' but she found she could not state it so boldly as that. Could not tell him how jarring the wrongness of it was to her, that he had not sought her out as he was supposed to, had rejected her. She who was used to life in the midst of a boisterous and affectionate family was so bereft here, and lonely. If he would only sit next to her, hold her hand, even kiss her-Tears prickled the back of her eyes and she stood abruptly, letting scissors and floss tumble to the floor. If she spoke again her voice would break and he would know how much he hurt her. She clenched her fists and swept out through the door with her head held stiffly high, and once out of his sight she picked up her skirts and ran to the refuge of her chamber, the constriction in her throat almost enough to choke her.

_____

Feminine laughter rang down the hallway. Christopher
paused mid stride and cocked his head to one side. It sounded again, a light and joyous sound, infinitely alluring. Without making a conscious decision, he turned towards it and followed it down a dark corridor to its source. He stood hidden in the darkness beyond the half-closed door of a kitchen workroom. The light streamed through deep-set stone-silled windows into the room beyond.

Elizabeth spoke to another woman who was out of sight, telling her a story of some sort. The other woman made a low comment and they both laughed again. The other was probably Mrs Swinton, with an accent too pure to be the housekeeper or that maid Elizabeth had brought with her.

Elizabeth perched on a stool with an apron tied over her dress and her hair bound up under a scarf. The sunshine struck her head and turned the honey-brown escaping ringlets around her face into spun gold. The deep pink bow of her lips was curved by a lingering smile as she bent over the knife she clumsily wielded. She was chopping some sort of plant, and a sharp, herbal scent drifted to him.

Mrs Swinton had much larger piles of macerated leaves around her chopping board, and was transferring some into a narrow-necked bottle. "That's what I said to Archie when he did the same, and he looked very Friday-faced over it."

"I can imagine. I don't understand why they do such things."

"Now see, it is a good four tablespoons of the hyssop, and the same again of the horehound, and I always add honey once it has finished infusing. When there is a cough in the village, or the children are whooping, I take this and pass it out on all sides and I'm certain it does
good. You can also use hyssop if you are bruised. Simply rub the leaves on the area to assist healing."

"I love the smell."

"It is very fresh, isn't it? An enlivening odor."

Elizabeth lifted her hands to her face, and as she drew in a deep breath he watched the tender curve of her breasts rise within her gown. Too well he remembered the shape of them unbound through the fine cambric of a white nightgown. Shameful lust stirred in him.

He had not expected to feel this way about her. Marriage to her was a necessary means to an end. She was the token he had needed to acquire to ensure the survival of his family fortunes. Yet every time he looked at her he saw sweet young womanhood, pulsing with life, and it drew him irresistibly.

He was unfaithful to Sophia's memory each time he gazed at his wife, yet he could not stop watching her. How did she do it? How did she stir him like this?

His heart had been dead within him, his life become a clouded and dull thing, murky with guilt. The guilt had not gone, but sometimes for minutes on end he could forget it, distracted by her; by her voice directing her meager staff; her polite conversation at the dinner table - he tried to bury himself in his ledgers but his attention always wandered; her figure on the hillside as she watched him work as hard as a yokel at the side of his tenants. If his mother could see him she would have exclaimed with horror at his inappropriate labor, but Elizabeth only came, watched silently, then slipped away again, until he found he was always scanning around him for her tall, lithe figure.

How could another woman raise his interest, so soon after Sophia's death? It was so wrong of him. He was not the man he had once imagined himself. Every night he fought a powerful urge to go to her, to lose his anguished despair in the oblivion of her soft, white arms. Who had he become?

Keeping faith with Sophia had seemed such an easy thing in his mind. But the living, breathing reality of Elizabeth skewed his vision until it seemed the most natural thing to turn to her, learn her and forget the vows he had made as he stood over Sophia's grave. He wanted to. Ah, how he yearned to sink into her; not only into her body but into that cheerful, happy nature that looked on the whole world with trust and delight.

His wife.
Elizabeth. Gentle, merry Elizabeth, whose smile had faded and almost disappeared since she arrived at Hensleigh Park.

He should not feel jealous of Mrs Swinton that the woman could resurrect it. That should please him. He did not want Elizabeth to be miserable. There was no need for them both to suffer for his sins.

If she would only keep out of his way in this huge, echoing pile of a house; if she would roam in the opposite direction when she took her walks in the park; if she would sit at the far end of the dining table and not relocate her cutlery until Mrs Harrow resigned herself and set places for the two of them together; if she would only keep to herself, he could keep his word to Sophia and not watch his wife like a hungry wolf when she was not looking.

As for him, this loneliness was his punishment for all the ways he had failed Sophia. He had his
honor, he had his vow, and no one had promised this path would be easy.

Elizabeth. If only he could be the one to stand next to her and make her laugh like that.

His hands were clenched so tight they ached. He turned away from the bright workroom, from its contented domestic scene, and went alone into the darkness of the silent hall.