He’d spent too many years when a keen awareness of his surroundings meant the difference between success or capture not to have a sixth sense about such matters.
“Here we are,” Pen said.
He helped Harriet down from Ajax’s back as a tall, stout woman with a broad face and short, gray hair came out of the low stone building they’d stopped by.
“Ohh,” she said, a note of reverence in her voice as she caught sight of Ajax. “An Arabian.”
Harry felt a welcome sense of relief. This woman knew her horses. Ajax would be fine here.
“Lord Darrow, this is Miss Winifred Williams,” Pen said. “Winifred, the Earl of Darrow.”
“Mmm. What a handsome fellow you are, sir.”
Miss Williams was not addressing Harry. She’d dropped him a quick curtsy, but had hardly spared him a glance. Her attention was all for Ajax—and Ajax was eating it up, twitching his ears to listen more closely.
Pen gave Harry a rather helpless, amused look.
“I rode Ajax all the way from the front of the house, Miss Winifred,” Harriet said.
Miss Williams’s brows rose. “Did you now?”
“Well, I rode on his back while my papa led him. He’s going to stay with Bumblebee while Papa stays at the cottage.”
“If that won’t be too much trouble,” Harry said. “I could keep him at the Dancing Duck, if you’d rather.”
That earned him Miss Williams’s full attention. “There’s no need of that. Thomas is a good ostler, but I can do as well by this fine fellow as he can. Come along and see for yourself.” She turned back to Ajax. “You’ll like Bumblebee. She’s a very calm, quiet girl. She’ll be a restful stablemate for you.”
Once he saw that Ajax would be well cared for, Harry walked with Pen—and Harriet, who’d wrapped her fingers around his—across the yard to another building.
“Jo’s waiting for us in her office,” Pen said. “She wants to be the one to show you around and answer your questions, so you can give the duke a full report.” Pen’s brows knitted. “We do depend on his annual donation. We are trying to be self-supporting—and the success of the brewery has helped immensely—but as you must know, the last two growing seasons were dreadful.”
He didn’t know, but, fortunately, Pen didn’t require him to reply and reveal his ignorance. Not that there wasn’t a perfectly good, even obvious, reason for his lack of knowledge. He’d still been on the Continent two years ago, thinking he’d eventually have a career in the Home Office. Last year he’d been juggling so many new responsibilities, he’d trusted his estate manager to do whatever was needed with the fields.
This year would be different. Once he got his most pressing duty attended to—offering for and marrying Lady Susan—he could concentrate on learning more about running Darrow and his other properties.
Pen paused before opening the door and looked down at their daughter. “You don’t have to come with us, Harriet.”
Harriet’s grip on his fingers tightened. “I want to, Mama.”
Pen frowned. “You’ll be terribly bored.”
“No, I won’t.” Harriet edged closer to him. “And I won’t get in the way, either. I promise.”
Pen hesitated, but must have concluded, as he had, that Harriet wanted everyone to see them together, because she finally nodded and opened the door.
An older woman, dressed in a high-necked, gray gown and a lace cap that covered most of her dark blond hair, looked up from where she was working at a scarred, wooden desk. A brown and white spaniel, lying at her feet, lifted its head, too, took one look at Harry, and started growling.
“Freddie!” the woman said sharply. “That’s no way to greet our guest.” She looked at Harry a little nervously as she stood and came around to greet him. “Please accept my apologies for my dog’s bad behavior, my lord—” She looked at Pen. “At least I assume you are Lord Darrow.”
Pen laughed. “I’m not likely to be bringing some other strange man into your office, Jo.” Pen turned to Harry. “Lord Darrow, this is Lady Havenridge, Lord Havenridge’s widow and the woman behind the Benevolent Home for the Maintenance and Support of Spinsters, Widows, and Abandoned Women and their Unfortunate Children.”
The woman smiled—and Harry realized she was likely only a few years older than he. “I am so glad you are here, my lord. Pen tells me that you have come on the Duke of Grainger’s behalf.”
Lady Havenridge might be glad he was here, but her dog certainly wasn’t. It was still growling.
“Stop it, Freddie,” Harriet said, going over to sit down on the floor and pat the dog’s head. “Lord Darrow is my papa. He’s nice.”
Freddie did not agree. He was happy enough when Harriet stroked his ears, but the moment his gaze turned Harry’s way, the growling started again—this time complete with a show of teeth.
“Freddie!” Lady Havenridge smiled apologetically. “Please don’t take Freddie personally, my lord. He just doesn’t care for men.”
“He even growls at poor old Albert, don’t you, silly?” Harriet asked, getting rather too close to the beast’s face—and teeth—for Harry’s comfort.
Freddie licked Harriet’s face.
“Well, then,” Lady Havenridge said, “shall we get started? I don’t want to take more of your time than necessary, Lord Darrow.”
“I’m in no rush, Lady Havenridge.” Harry nodded at Harriet and didn’t even try to suppress his grin. “I’m sure you must know that I’ve just discovered I have a daughter.”
Lady Havenridge smiled back at him. “Oh, yes. Pen told us—and said you’d be staying at the cottage. I hope you find it comfortable.” She took a step toward the door. “Now, shall we get started?”
They made quite the parade as they walked back around to the front of the house. Lady Havenridge led the way, Harry at her side so he could hear her commentary. He’d much prefer to be walking with Pen and Harriet, who were a step or two behind, but Freddie was with them and he didn’t want to provoke the dog into taking a bite out of his breeches.
“I do have a preliminary question for you, Lady Havenridge,” Harry said. “The duke’s donation is entered in his books as going to a JSW. Do you know who or what that might be?”
Lady Havenridge’s brows rose. “JSW? Oh. How odd. I assume those must be my initials—my family name is Smythe-Waters. Josephine Smythe-Waters.”
“Ah. Yes. I suppose you must have the right of it.”
They climbed the steps to the front door, and Lady Havenridge launched into her tour.
“At the moment, we have fourteen women—including myself, Pen, and Caroline Anderson, our brewster—living here as well as ten girls and five infants.”
“No boys?” Harry asked. They had just stepped into the moderately sized entry. His boots clacked on the marble floor, but the sound was overwhelmed by a babel of female voices spilling out of the neighboring rooms.
“No one wants boys, Papa!” Harriet said, coming up next to him. He glanced around—Freddie was busy sniffing a potted tree. “They are loud and messy.”
“Your papa was a boy once, Harriet,” Pen said—and blushed.
Splendid. This was going to be very entertaining if Pen changed colors every time she said anything that recalled their youth.
I’d like to do something to recall our youth—
No. He must remember he was sent here by the duke. He needed to pay attention—and not to Pen.
“Two of the infants are boys,” Lady Havenridge said, “but we’ve found we can’t keep boys much past the age of five.” She smiled regretfully. “It really is too bad. We are squeezed in here cheek by jowl, as you will see. Boys tend to be especially, er, exuberant and so require more space.” She shook her head. “And we don’t have enough room to have a separate dormitory for them.”
“We also don’t tend to get that many mothers with boys,” Pen said.
“Right. I’m not certain why that is. And those we do get seem to find husbands quickly.” Lady
Havenridge shrugged. “Perhaps they think their sons need a father or perhaps men see them as ‘proven breeders’ since they’ve already produced a boy.”
Lady Havenridge said “proven breeders” with obvious distaste, but Harry had some sympathy for those anonymous men. Sons could work in the fields and manage the animals better then daughters. And in his case, only a son could succeed to the title.
Lady Havenridge led him around the main floor, pointing out the long gallery that had been turned into a dormitory—Harriet showed him which bed was hers—and the smaller chambers where the women shared two or three to a room. He saw the schoolroom while a reading lesson was in progress—an unsettling number of young female eyes turned to examine him until Lady Havenridge blessedly moved the tour along—and the dining room with two long wooden tables crammed into a space meant for one.
Sadly, he did not see Pen’s bedroom.
He did see the brewhouse, which was interesting, though Miss Caroline Anderson, the woman in charge, was a bit . . . intense. At one point, he’d thought she wasn’t going to let him leave unless he swore to personally carry bottles of Widow’s Brew to every tavern in London. Even Harriet deserted him then, going off with Freddie to visit Ajax.
He did hope Freddie didn’t have an aversion to male horses, because he suspected Ajax would not appreciate being growled at.
“How do you manage living among all these women?” he murmured to Albert, the only other male he’d met at the Home—besides Freddie—as they waited for Pen, Miss Anderson, and Lady Havenridge to finish discussing some brewing issue. Albert had to be seventy if he was a day, but he was clearly in excellent shape as, if Harry understood matters, he—along with two of the female residents, Bathsheba and Esther—did most of the manual labor involved in the brewing process.
Albert chuckled. “I have my own room in the brewhouse so I can get away by myself, and I go down to the inn when I need to be with my mates. I was there last night when ye laid into the vicar.” He grinned, showing off the gaps where two of his teeth were missing. “Well done!”
Albert leaned closer. “No one ever liked that jumped-up buffoon. We couldn’t understand why a smart woman like Mrs. Barnes tolerated him at all.”
“Has he been, er, annoying her for long, then?” Harry asked. Though he couldn’t very well seek the man out to beat him again. That wouldn’t be sporting.
Albert shook his head. “He’s only been here since just afore Easter. The old vicar was a far better man, but it turned out he was tupping the butcher’s wife. They ran off together—in Lent!—and so we needed a new man of the cloth at once.” He made a dismissive sound. “They were scraping the barrel when they found old Godfrey. We’ll all be right pleased if the duke does send him packing.”
“I have no doubt he will.”
The women’s discussion ended just in time for all three to hear those words.
“Continue his support?” Miss Anderson asked rather forcefully, though Harry thought he heard a thread of anxiety in her voice as well.
He smiled. Best not mention what he and Albert had actually been discussing. There was no need to drag the disreputable vicar into the conversation, though he assumed the women knew everything there was to know about the fellow. Gossip in a small village brewed faster and was ready for enthusiastic consumption far more quickly than ale.
And, in any event, it was easy to give the answer the women must be hoping for.
“I can’t speak for the duke obviously, but I promise to recommend he do so. You’ve a very impressive operation here.”
The women’s relief and pride were almost tangible—but it didn’t take the determined Miss Anderson long to recover. She was clearly the primary saleswoman of the trio.
“That’s excellent news.” She smiled in a persuasive, almost flirtatious, way. “You know, my lord, we can always use more benefactors. If you would like to—”
“Caro!” Pen said, sharply and in an appalled tone. “You can’t be meaning to pick the earl’s pocket!”
Miss Anderson frowned at Pen. “I’m only inviting him to add his support to the duke’s.” And then she turned the full force of her smile on Harry. “Surely, you would like to help needy women and children, my lord?”
I would like to help one needy woman and her child—Pen and Harriet.
And on the heels of that thought, another hit him: He was completely unmoved by Miss Anderson’s striking beauty. His cock didn’t twitch even slightly in appreciation. He might think that organ dead, except that it sprung—literally—to life whenever his eyes strayed to Pen.
“Pen is right,” Lady Havenridge said. “You are putting the earl in an uncomfortable position, Caro.”
Which brought Miss Anderson back to him. “Are you uncomfortable, my lord?”
He laughed. “No. But I also am not going to commit to anything before I know Grainger’s position on the matter.” And not before discussing it with Pen. “I believe he owns the estate, does he not?”
Lady Havenridge turned pale. “Surely, you don’t think he’ll evict us, do you?!” she said, horror and worry in her voice.
He hadn’t meant to set the cat among the pigeons and get them all in a fluster. “No, not at all.”
“He’d better not be thinking of evicting us,” Miss Anderson said darkly. “If he is considering such a move, I would like to speak to him first. Once I explain my—our—plans for the brewery, I’m sure he’ll be persuaded the Home is a good investment as well as a suitable recipient of his charity.”
“Of course,” Harry said in what he hoped was a reassuring tone. “I really don’t think you need to worry, though.”
Miss Anderson opened her mouth as if to argue further, but Pen spoke before she could.
“Would you like to see the hopyard, Lord Darrow? I need to check on the plants, and would be happy to show it to you.”
Miss Anderson’s mouth opened again, but this time Lady Havenridge swooped in. “A brilliant idea, Pen.” She started toward the door, thus bringing them along with her. “And the earl might wish to see our oast house as well, don’t you think?”
They stepped out into the late-morning sun as Pen laughed. “I suspect Lord Darrow has had his fill of tours, haven’t you, my lord?”
He had, but he didn’t want to seem ungrateful or disinterested. “May I reserve my decision on the oast house until after I’ve seen the hopyard?”
Lady Havenridge chuckled. “Spoken like a true diplomat.” She extended her hand. “If you have any further questions, Lord Darrow, please do not hesitate to ask one of us. Or if you need anything at the cottage.” She smiled. “You are more than welcome to take your meals at the Home, but I must warn you you will be the only male present. Albert usually does for himself or goes down to the Dancing Duck.”
His face must have shown his reaction—he really was losing his touch—because Miss Anderson laughed. “It might be a bit overwhelming at first.”
“Or we could pack you a basket, if you’d rather eat at the cottage,” Pen said.
He was not anxious to break bread with the females at the Home or the men at the inn. “Thank you. A basket sounds like just the thing, if it’s not too much trouble.”
“Of course it’s not. I’ll stop by the kitchen and tell Dorcas on my way back to my office.” Lady Havenridge smiled. “I suspect she’ll be delighted to make something up for you. She used to cook for a family with five sons and often seems disappointed our girls don’t eat more.”
“Thank you. I hope I won’t disappoint her.” He looked at Pen. “Shall we be off?”
Pen led the way past the other buildings and down a path through the fields. “I’m sorry about Caro asking you for money like that.”
“No need to apologize. She saw an opportunity and took it, as any good businesswoman would. And I am interested in helping the Home.” Even if you and Harriet aren’t living there any longer, he thought, but knew better than to say.
“However, I do need to discuss the situ
ation with Grainger before I commit to anything myself. Not that I think he will stop his support—I meant it when I said I’d encourage him to continue his donations—but I can’t presume to speak for him.”
She nodded. “I understand. And you’re right, Caro is the best businesswoman of the three of us. Jo says she was bumbling from one project to another, trying to find something that would put the Home on a better financial footing, until Caro arrived. Caro was the main force behind the idea to go into brewing.”
“An inspired decision.” He grinned. “Widow’s Brew is one of the best ales I’ve ever tasted.”
“Don’t let Caro hear you say that or she’ll have your name and that quote on a handbill all over London.” Pen sighed. “I often wish I was more like her. She doesn’t let anything stand in her way—and more often than not, she gets what she wants.” She shook her head, but he heard the admiration in her voice. “She’s bold and fearless.”
Surely, Pen knew herself better than this? “I would say the same about you, Pen.”
She looked up at him, her face blank with surprise—and then she laughed. “Oh, I was only ever bold and fearless where you were concerned. In everything else I was—and am—a mouse.”
He stopped her with a hand on her arm. “No, Pen. That’s not true. Look how you stood up to your father.”
She frowned. “I never stood up to him.” She looked away, her cheeks suddenly flushed. “Well, except when I wouldn’t tell him you were my baby’s father.”
He touched her cheek and she turned her face back to meet his gaze. “You stood up to him every day of your life, Pen, the only way you could. You didn’t let him break your spirit.”
She shook her head, but he could tell she was listening.
“A mouse wouldn’t have refused to marry Felix. A mouse wouldn’t have set off, alone and pregnant, to travel miles with only a hope—a prayer—that at the end of the journey she’d find safety. And then, when that safety fell apart, a mouse wouldn’t have taken her young daughter and found a new refuge among strangers.”
What Ales the Earl Page 12
