The Arrangement

by Joan Wolf

  I dropped a kiss on the top of his silky, light brown hair.

  “Time to get into bed,” I said.

  He turned to give me a hug. “Good night, Mama. See you with the sunshine!”

  It was our nightly ritual. “See you with the sunshine, sweetheart,” I returned.

  I waited until Nicky was in bed before I went down the passage to check that Mrs. Macintosh had made up a fire in the earl’s room.

  She had, and the bed was made up as well. The same was true for Grove’s room next door.

  Nothing would ever make those bedrooms attractive, but at least they were no longer frigid, and the chimneys were not smoking too badly.

  I did not climb right into my bed but sat for a long time in front of my bedroom fire, wrapped in a blanket and trying to decide what would be the best thing for me to do about this will.

  Nicky must not know anything about George.

  That was my chief consideration. My mind scurried first this way and then that, trying to fathom what course of action would best achieve that end. It was almost ten-thirty when I finally made up my mind.

  I would go to Savile Castle with the earl, but I would leave Nicky here at Deepcote with the Macintoshes.

  My reasoning went something like this: If I refused to accompany the earl, and Nicky was named as George’s son in his will, then the lawyers would be required to see that George’s wishes were carried out. They would seek us out and Nicky would learn what George had claimed.

  On the other hand, if I was present at the reading of the will, I could deny George’s claims and refuse the inheritance.

  Really, I thought, if I refuse to acknowledge George as the father of my child, who will be in a position to gainsay me?

  I had no choice, really. I had to go.

  I blew out my candle and got into the bed that I had once shared with Tommy.

  It was not my husband’s face that floated before my closed eyes, however, as I snuggled my head into my pillow and prepared to go to sleep.

  My last conscious thought was, How did he come to be given a French name like Raoul?

  Chapter Three

  It was still snowing steadily when I awoke the following morning. I lit my fire and dressed quickly in front of its welcome heat. Mr. Macintosh had the stove going in the kitchen, and I ate a big bowl of oatmeal at the old oak table before I went down to the stable to feed the horses.

  The sky was just beginning to turn from black to leaden gray as I stepped out my front door. The snow was falling almost as heavily as it had the day before. Some of the drifts in the stable yard looked to be as high as my waist.

  Damn, I thought as I fought my way through the high-piled snow down to the stable. What was I going to do to entertain Savile if I was saddled with him for the entire day?

  I had to dig out around the stable door before I could open it, and when I finally entered, all the horses nickered eagerly. I set down the lantern I had been carrying and went to light the charcoal brazier, which would give off enough heat for me to do my chores with a fair degree of comfort.

  Then I climbed the ladder to the hayloft and began to drop hay down into the stalls.

  The nickering got louder as I went up the line of five stalls on the right side of the aisle, the horses on the left side growing impatient as they heard their comrades beginning to munch.

  By the time I had finished the last of the horses, the two ponies in the temporary pen at the end of the aisle were whinnying fretfully.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming.” I threw more hay down the ladder, climbed down, and took it into their makeshift stall.

  Quiet miraculously descended on the stable. The only noises were the crunching sounds the horses made as they ate and, from outside, the faint howling of the wind.

  I smiled. I loved morning in the stable. It was so peaceful.

  The stable door banged as someone opened it, and I turned to see Grove coming in the door. He closed it quickly against the blowing snow.

  “Lord, Mrs. Saunders,” he said. “I would have seen to the horses for you! There wasn’t no call for you to be out here before the sun is even up!”

  “I feed my horses every morning at this hour, Grove,” I said calmly. “It was no trouble to drop some hay to your animals as well as mine.”

  “Well, I thank ye, Mrs. Saunders.” He gave me a smile. Grove’s hair was grizzled but the slight space between his two front teeth made him look oddly boyish. “Dare I hope ye might have some extra grain for my boys, too?”

  “Of course I do,” I replied. “First, however, I was going to see to the water buckets.”

  “Have they iced over?”

  “Probably,” I said with resignation.

  He went into the stall that contained the earl’s good-looking right leader. “How are you this morning, Rusty my boy?” he asked in the soft voice of a true horse lover. He patted the chestnut’s arched neck, then bent to check the water bucket.

  “He’s drunk two-thirds of it,” he reported with satisfaction. “The rest is frozen, though.”

  He came out of the stall. “If you’ll show me where the pump is, Mrs. Saunders, I’ll refill all of the buckets.”

  I accepted his offer with gratitude. The one thing above all else I hated about the winter was having to cope with frozen water buckets. Once you got your gloves wet, your hands froze unmercifully.

  While Grove took care of the water, I measured out appropriate amounts of grain into each horse’s manger. There was a bit of a ruckus as Polly tried to eat Fancy’s grain as well as her own, but I soon got the ponies sorted out.

  By now the brazier had warmed the barn to a more pleasant temperature.

  I sat down on the bench next to the brazier and undid the buttons on Tommy’s old coat.

  The door opened and Grove came in with the last bucket of water.

  “Aren’t your hands freezing, Grove?” I asked sympathetically. “Come and hold them in front of the brazier.”

  “Thank ye, Mrs. Saunders,” he replied. “They are a mite chilled at that.”

  I leaned my shoulders against the wall and watched as Savile’s coachman stripped off his gloves and held his bare, reddened fingers out to the glowing charcoal.

  I said, “Was that the earl’s coach you arrived in yesterday. Grove?”

  “It was not,” he replied emphatically. “You don’t think his lordship would own such an old-fashioned rig as that?”

  I shrugged and said noncommittally, “One never knows.”

  It had been quite a few years since the old-time coach had been replaced by the lower-slung, more comfortable chaise. Chaises were not driven by coachmen, either, but by postillions, who directed the horses by riding them.

  Grove obviously felt it was incumbent upon him to explain to me how the fashionable Earl of Savile had come to be riding in so dated a carriage. “We started out in his lordship’s chaise, but we had not gone above two miles from Devane Hall when a linchpin broke,” he said. “We knew the snow was coming, ye see, and his lordship decided to take Lord Devane’s old coach rather than wait to have his own vehicle repaired.”

  I took off my wool hat and ran my fingers through my short hair, fluffing it up. “I take it, then, that you are not employed as his lordship’s coachman?”

  Grove lifted his chin with pride. “I’m his groom, my lady, as I was his father’s groom before him. Taught his lordship to ride his first pony, I did.”

  I could find nothing satisfactory to reply to this momentous information, and silence fell.

  I broke it at last by saying gloomily, “The snow doesn’t show any signs of letting up, does it?”

  “Afraid not, Mrs. Saunders. From the looks of it, we’re going to be laid up here for another day at least.”

  With difficulty I refrained from groaning. I sighed instead and stood up. “Ordinarily I have a lad come from the village to muck out the stalls in the morning, but I strongly doubt we will see him today. That leaves us to do the job, Grove. If y
ou will take care of your horses, I will take care of mine.”

  “Not a bit of it!” he said emphatically. “I will see to all the horses, Mrs. Saunders. You get yourself back into the house and have your breakfast.”

  “I’ve already had my breakfast,” I said.

  Once more the stable door opened, and this time it was my son who came in. “Good morning, Mama,” he said. “Good morning, Mr. Grove.”

  “Good morning, sweetheart,” I replied cheerfully. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Yes.”

  Nicky always slept well, and once more I swore to myself that I was going to make very certain that nothing would happen to change that.

  “I don’t think Tim is going to get to Deepcote this morning,” Nicky continued. “You and I had better do the stalls ourselves, Mama.”

  “I was just saying the same thing to Grove,” I said. “There is only room to put two horses in the aisle at once, so why don’t you and I work on our horses, and Grove can do his lordship’s.”

  “All right,” Nicky said cheerfully. “I’ll get the pitchforks and the wheelbarrows, Mama.”

  Grove protested once more that he would do all the stalls, but again I refused.

  There was no way on this earth that I was going to be beholden to the Earl of Savile.

  * * * *

  By the time the horses had been fed and watered and the stalls had been cleaned and bedded with fresh straw, it was almost nine o’clock. We returned to the house and were removing our outerwear in the front hall when his lordship came down the stairs. He was impeccably dressed in a morning coat and pantaloons, with a fresh shirt and a new snowy-white neckcloth tied around his throat. His dark gold hair was brushed and tidy. His Hessian boots gleamed. He looked at us in surprise.

  “The horses have been seen to, my lord,” Grove said cheerfully. “Mrs. Saunders feeds almost the same grain we do at home, I’m glad to say, so we shouldna have problems with their digestions.”

  I picked a piece of straw off my coat and said woodenly, “If you will go into the dining room, my lord, I will ask Mr. Macintosh to cook you some breakfast.”

  “Have you been down to the stable already, Mrs. Saunders?” Savile asked in amazement.

  “Yes,” I said.

  Nicky elaborated on my reply. “We got all the horses mucked out, sir. Mama says that if the wind lets up later we can put them out in the paddock for a half an hour or so, just so they don’t go mad from confinement.”

  The earl’s golden eyes were on me. “Don’t you have a man to see to your horses, Mrs. Saunders?”

  “Someone usually comes from the village to help, but he couldn’t make it in this snow,” I said shortly. “It’s nothing new for Nicky and me to do stalls, my lord, I assure you of that. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must go and change my shoes.”

  Mrs. Macintosh came into the hall. “I have a fire going in the dining room, lassie,” she said to me. “Macintosh will have breakfast for you and his lordship in a trice.”

  “I have already had breakfast, Mrs. Macintosh,” I said.

  “A bowl of oatmeal three hours ago is not a full breakfast, lassie,” Mrs. Macintosh said firmly. “Now go wash your hands and come and eat a proper meal as you always do.”

  “What about me, Mrs. Macintosh?” Nicky asked. “I only had a bowl of oatmeal too.”

  “The three of us will eat in the dining room,” I said quickly.

  Mrs. Macintosh beamed at Nicky. “Would ye no rather eat in the nice warm kitchen, Master Nicky? Ebony has been missing you.”

  Ebony was our cat. She hated the cold and usually spent the entire winter in the kitchen, where she was warm but bored.

  “Poor Eb,” said Nicky. “Of course I’ll come and pet her, Mrs. Macintosh.”

  As I could hardly order Nicky to eat in the dining room, that left me with the earl.

  I gave Mrs. Macintosh a sour look and trudged upstairs to wash my hands and brush my dress.

  * * * *

  The earl was enjoying a plate of cooked eggs and bannock bread when I came into the dining room and took my place opposite him at the table. I was wearing an old blue kerseymere dress for warmth, not for style, and once more I was uncomfortably conscious of how shabby I must appear beside my elegant guest.

  The eggs that Savile was eating were from the chickens in Mrs. Macintosh’s henhouse, and they were unaccompanied by bacon or grilled kidneys. I was quite certain that the earl was accustomed to eating meat for breakfast, but meat was not served very often in the Saunders household. I couldn’t afford it.

  I poured myself some coffee and offered a fresh cup to Savile. Then I said, “I have decided that I will accompany you to Savile Castle after all, my lord.”

  He put down his coffee cup. “A wise decision, Mrs. Saunders. You owe it to Nicholas to take advantage of any bequest George may have made to him.”

  I didn’t reply. It occurred to me suddenly that the prudent course right now was to keep my mouth closed about my intention to refuse any money from George. If Savile knew my intention, he would doubtless spend the entire journey to Kent trying to get me to change my mind.

  At that moment, Mrs. Macintosh came through the door bearing more eggs, bread, and fresh coffee. I filled my plate, refilled my cup, and tucked in to my food.

  Silence reigned as I ate my second breakfast. When finally I was finished, I looked up and found Savile regarding me with that infuriating amusement in his eyes.

  “I was hungry,” I said defensively.

  “You have every reason to be hungry if you have been out at that stable since six-thirty in the morning,” he returned. “There was no need for you to do that, you know. Grove would have seen to the horses.”

  “I have no intention of asking your groom to see to my horses,” I said evenly. “I will see to them myself, as I always do.”

  His brows drew together, but he did not reply.

  I took a deep breath, then trotted out the little speech I had prepared on my way down to the dining room. “I fear I have little to offer you in the way of entertainment, my lord. Perhaps you were able to find a book that interested you?”

  As I finished speaking, his face underwent a remarkable change, the golden eyes narrowing, the well-cut mouth setting into a hard, straight line. To my astonishment, I realized that he was angry.

  “What kind of a cursed dandy do you think me?” he said in a clipped, hard-edged voice. “If there is work to be done, I am perfectly capable of doing my share. I certainly have no intention of sitting around reading a book while you break your back mucking out horses!”

  Well, well, well. He was insulted. Suddenly I felt much better.

  “The horses are finished until lunchtime, my lord,” I said sweetly, “and that is three hours away.”

  “What do you plan to do this morning, Mrs. Saunders?” he countered.

  I gave him my most angelic smile. “I am painting one of the bedrooms that I use for my clients.”

  He actually looked shocked.

  “Painting?” he said. “Surely you don’t mean you are painting the walls?”

  “I assure you, I am not painting murals, my lord,” I replied even more sweetly. “I finished the molding and the window trim yesterday and am all ready to begin the walls this morning.”

  “Good God,” he said.

  “Just so,” I returned.

  He looked slowly around the dining room. As in the rest of the house, the old walnut furniture was scarred and shabby. The walls, however, were painted the same pale gold that I had used in the drawing room.

  “Did you paint this room as well?” he asked.

  “This room was last winter’s project,” I replied.

  He leaned back in his chair and regarded me across the table. “You haven’t yet got around to the two bedrooms at the end of the passage, I notice,” he said dryly.

  “No one ever uses them,” I replied. “My time is precious, my lord. Once my clients start to arrive in the spring, I can hardly
turn the house upside down with painting. I have to get my work done during the winter, when no one is here.”

  He nodded. Then he said in a perfectly amiable voice, “Well, if you can spare me a paintbrush, I will be happy to assist you, ma’am.”

  I stared at him across the table, not quite sure I had heard him correctly.

  “I am perfectly able to wield a paintbrush, Mrs. Saunders.” His voice had taken on that clipped tone once more. He obviously felt it was an insult to his manhood that I didn’t think him capable of painting a wall.

  I felt a shiver of unholy glee at the thought of the Earl of Savile painting my house. I raised my brows and gave him a look that was deliberately provoking. “Really, your lordship, I don’t think it would be at all commensurate with your rank for you to be undertaking such common labor.”

  I had intended him to be annoyed by my remark, but he surprised me with a smile. “No, they would certainly drum me out of the House of Lords should anyone hear about it,” he said. “I must rely on your discretion, ma’am.”

  He probably was accustomed to moving mountains with that smile, I thought crossly. Well, it was not going to move me.

  I rose from my chair. “If you are serious about this, my lord, then I suggest you change out of those elegant garments. I will also try to find you a smock.”

  “A smock,” he repeated in deepening amusement as he stood up. He shook his head. “My reputation is in your hands, Mrs. Saunders. If it should ever become known in the London clubs that I actually wore a smock…!”

  I was standing behind my chair and now I lifted my hands and rested them upon its laddered back. “Would you be drummed out of White’s as well, my lord?” I asked lightly.

  He gave me a pained look. “I must inform you, ma’am, that I am not a member of White’s. White’s is a Tory club. All the Melvilles are Whigs. I belong to Brooks’s.”

  I said gravely, “I beg your pardon for even suggesting that your lordship might be a Tory.”

  At this moment the door from the kitchen opened and Nicky came into the dining room. “I’ve finished my breakfast,” he announced. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Mama?”