The Rake

by Mary Jo Putney

  When he nodded, she went on, “For example, the estate could never have managed without one of the new threshing machines. There simply weren’t enough laborers during the later war years. Now that the machinery has been purchased and is working well, it makes no sense to go back to slower, more cumbersome methods just to create a few ill-paid jobs. Other solutions needed to be found.” She gazed at him earnestly. “Besides the fact that idle men make trouble, it would be wrong to let the soldiers who defeated Napoleon starve. Wrong, and dangerous for Strickland as well.”

  He took a draft of ale and prompted, “So ... ?”

  “I’ve encouraged the creation of various businesses to provide work. There’s a wood shop in Strickland village that employs eight men, and a brick and tile yard with five workers. Because there are good deposits of clay nearby, it made sense to open a pottery as well. It makes moderately priced ware that the average person can afford. There’s quite a market for such things, and now twelve people are employed.”

  “Who manages the place?”

  She took a deep breath. “I do.”

  The dark brows shot up. “In addition to managing Strickland? Where the devil do you find the time?”

  “I make all the decisions and keep the accounts, but a foreman supervises the daily work,” she explained. “As you can see from the estate books, I haven’t neglected Strickland. I ...”

  He held up one hand to stop her words. “Before we go too far afield, who are the three minors who are the actual owners of the pottery? Are they local children?”

  Alys poured more ale for both of them before answering. “They are the niece and nephews of Mrs. Spenser, my former employer.”

  “More and more interesting. Where do they live now?”

  With an inward sigh, Alys recognized that it was time to confess what he would surely learn soon. “They live with me.”

  “You’re their guardian?” he asked with surprise.

  She took another swig from the tankard, her eyes cast down. “There were no close relatives whom Mrs. Spenser trusted. One reason she helped me get the Strickland position was so that I could keep the children with me.”

  “I see why they call you Lady Alys,” he said with a mocking humor. “Managing an estate, several businesses, and children as well. You are an extraordinary woman.”

  “Most women are extraordinary. It compensates for the fact that most men aren’t,” Alys snapped, then immediately bit her tongue. With his talent for getting under her skin, Davenport made her forget how dependent she was on his goodwill. She, who had always prided herself on her control, was continually skirting explosion with him.

  He laughed, his extraordinary charm visible again. “I suppose your next project is to advance beyond needing the male half of the species? As a stock breeder, you must know that will be difficult, at least if there is to be a next generation.”

  Alys had no doubt that his supply of suggestive remarks could easily outlast her belligerence. With as much dignity as she could muster, she reached for the ale pitcher. “I have never denied that men have their uses, Mr. Davenport.”

  “Oh? And what might they be?”

  His hand brushed hers casually when they both reached for the handle of the pitcher at the same time. Her nerves jumped, and she dropped her eyes to avoid his gaze. His hands were quite beautiful, long-fingered and elegant, the only refined thing about him. A seductive current flowed from him that made her want to yield, so melt and mold herself, to discover the other ways he could touch, to touch him back... .

  In a voice that seemed to come from someone else, she said, “We’re out of ale. Shall we order another pitcher, or are you ready to see more of the estate?”

  “More ale,” he said, apparently quite unaffected by the fleeting contact between them. “I still have a number of questions. For example, the sixty pounds a year for schoolmasters, books, and other teaching supplies.”

  He signaled for another pitcher, refilling his tankard when it arrived. Alys was four rounds behind him, and knew better than to try keeping up. She didn’t doubt that in a drinking contest he could put her under the table.

  And what would he do with you there? a mocking little voice asked. Nothing, of course. More’s the pity.

  Trying to ignore the lewd asides of her lower mind, Alys said, “The teachers are a married couple. He teaches the boys, she teaches the girls. I require all the children on the estate to go to school until at least the age of twelve.”

  “Don’t the parents resent that their children can’t start earning wages earlier?”

  “Yes, but I have insisted,” she replied. “In the short run, it’s better for the children. In the long run, the estate will have better workers.”

  “Miss Weston, did some Quaker or reforming Evangelical get hold of your tender mind when you were growing up?” Davenport asked, his dark brows arching ironically.

  She blinked. “As a matter of fact, yes.”

  “Wonderful,” he muttered into his ale. “A fanatic.” Grabbing hold of her frayed temper, Alys said with hard-won composure, “Not a fanatic, a practical reformer. You have seen the results at Strickland over the last four years. I would be hard-pressed to say precisely which reforms have produced what results, but the total effect has been more than satisfactory. The estate is prospering, and so are the people who work on it. The evidence speaks for itself.”

  “I keep reminding myself of that, Miss Weston,” he said dourly. “I trust you appreciate that you are being treated to a display of open-mindedness and tolerance that none of my friends would believe.” He shook his head. “A female steward, and a reformer to boot.”

  “It’s your income, Mr. Davenport,” Alys pointed out in an icy voice. “If you make sweeping changes, there might be a drop in the profits.”

  “I remind myself of that, too.” He poured the last of the ale in his tankard. He’d drunk most of two pitchers himself. “What about the money given to help emigration?”

  She sighed and traced circles on the table in a few drops of spilled ale. It had been a vain hope that he would overlook her cryptic notes in the account books. The blasted man missed nothing. “Three of the veterans who returned from Wellington’s army wanted to take their families to America, but didn’t have adequate savings to pay their passages and start over.”

  “So you gave them the money?” He slouched casually against the back of the oak settle, relaxed but watchful.

  “Theoretically the money was loaned, but it was understood that they might never be able to repay,” Alys admitted.

  “And the chances of collecting from another country are nil. So you just gave it away,” he mused. “Are you running a business or a charity here?”

  “If you saw the books, you know that less than two hundred pounds were lent,” she said, defensive again. “All of the families had served Strickland with great loyalty. One man’s wife worked on the harvest crew until an hour before her first baby was born.”

  Under his sardonic eye she realized how foolish that must sound to a man of the world. She added more practically, “Helping them leave also reduced the strain on Strickland’s resources—fewer jobs to find and mouths to feed.”

  “If every worker on the estate wanted to emigrate, would you have given money to them all?” he inquired with interest.

  She turned one palm up dismissively. “Few people want to leave their homes for a strange country. Most of the Strickland tenants were born here, and they can imagine no other end than to die here.”

  She thought, with sudden piercing sorrow, of where she herself had been born, the home to which she could never return. Alys had exiled herself as surely as the three families who had gone to America. Then she wondered how much her expression had revealed, for Davenport was watching her keenly.

  “Somehow, I doubt that the old earl knew about your odd little charities,” he said, a flicker of amusement in his light eyes.

  Relieved that Davenport was enjoying the thought of his un
cle’s ignorance, she assured him, “The old earl never had any idea. His man of business must have known at least some of what I was doing, but he didn’t interfere since the overall profits were up.”

  “In other words, you gave away less than your predecessor stole.”

  She gave a lopsided smile. “I never thought of it that way, but I suppose you’re right.” After hesitating for a moment, curiosity drove her to ask, “Now that you know how Strickland has been run, do you have any comments?”

  Davenport thought for a moment, his hands loosely laced around his tankard. “As you have pointed out, your results are a justification for your methods. Also, everything you described belongs to the past, when I had no say in what went on, so I have no right to criticize your decisions.

  “The future, now ...” He swallowed his remaining ale in one gulp, then clinked the tankard onto the table as he watched her expression narrowly. “That will be a different story. I expect I’ll want to make some changes, but I shan’t rush into them.”

  As an endorsement, it didn’t go as far as Alys would have liked, but it was the best she was likely to get. At least he intended to move slowly.

  She started to rise, but her employer wasn’t finished yet. He lifted his hand to halt her. “I have only one more question at the moment. As an eager reformer, have you had everyone on the estate vaccinated against smallpox?”

  Alys was startled. “No, I’ve encouraged vaccination, but some of the workers are very suspicious about ‘newfangled ideas.’ Only about half the people would agree to it, and I don’t really have the authority to insist on something like that.” In fact, she had railed, begged, and pleaded with the tenants, enraged by their pigheaded stubbornness.

  “In that case, I will issue my first order.” His gaze met hers, cold determination in the depths of his eyes. “Everyone who is not vaccinated within the next month will be dismissed and evicted. There will be no exceptions.”

  “But ...” Alys gasped, torn between approval of the result and shock at his high-handedness, “you can’t ...”

  “No buts, Miss Weston, or arguments about whether I have the authority.” He stood and looked down at her, dark and implacable. “The cost will be carried by the estate, and there will be no exceptions.”

  Alys saw very clearly how he had earned the reputation for being dangerous. If she were younger or more timid, she would be diving under the table to avoid that stare.

  He added with a hint of scorn, “If you’re afraid to tell them, I’ll do it myself.”

  Those were fighting words. She stood also, since glaring from a sitting position lacked impact. “I am not afraid to tell them, Mr. Davenport. It will be done.” Meeting his gaze with her own, she said, “Are you ready to continue your inspection?”

  “Quite ready.” He dropped a handful of coins on the table, then crossed the taproom with long, lazy strides. As she followed, Alys remembered that tonight she would face a barrage of questions about what kind of man the new master was.

  She realized that she had no idea what the answer should be.

  Chapter 6

  Alys spent the afternoon showing her new employer the barns, granaries, and other farm buildings. Then they started on the village workshops and small businesses. Davenport asked endless questions, keeping his own counsel about what he thought of the answers.

  Now that Alys knew he was a native of the area, she could see the quiet signs of recognition from the locals. Though watchful, they appeared ready to give him a kind of acceptance that Alys had not received in all her years in Dorset.

  Of course, it helped that he was male, she commented to herself acidly. No amount of time in Dorset would change the fact that she was the wrong sex to be a steward. Even many of the people who had benefited from her management could not quite approve of the fact that she was a woman.

  Just beyond the half dozen acres of orchard that produced apples and cider for estate use, they came on a large patchwork area of vegetable gardens. Davenport reined in his horse. “What are these?”

  “Most of the laborers’ cottages have only small gardens, so I’ve provided extra land for those who want it,” Alys replied. “A few of the more ambitious tenants not only grow food for their families, but have enough left over to sell in the Shaftesbury market.”

  A young woman working in her allotment looked up and saw the visitors. After a doubtful pause, she bobbed a nervous curtsy to Davenport, then scooped up the baby dozing on a blanket by the turnips and came to show him to Alys. Under her employer’s sardonic eye, Alys chucked the baby’s chin and admired his first tooth before returning him to his mother. As they continued on their way, Davenport remarked, “It looks like everyone at Strickland eats well.”

  “They do indeed,” Alys agreed. “Eating well is probably the first prerequisite for contentment. In addition to the allotments, I added a second dovecote and started raising rabbits on a large scale. Most are sold to people on the estate at a price low enough that everyone can afford fresh meat several times a week. Not only has that virtually eliminated poaching, but we have enough squabs and rabbits left over to sell in the market, which covers the costs of both operations.”

  Davenport didn’t reply, but Alys thought his nod seemed approving.

  They arrived at the potbank, last stop on the tour. As they dismounted, the foreman came out to greet them. Jamie Palmer was a gentle giant of a man, Alys’s oldest friend and ally, and he took his time surveying the visitor.

  Davenport was aware that he was being judged, and Alys could see his hackles rising. Wanting to defuse the tension, she swiftly performed the introductions, then asked, “Would you give us a tour, Jamie? Mr. Davenport is interested in how pottery is made.”

  “Of course, Lady Alys.”

  As Jamie led them inside, Davenport gave her a slightly pained look, but followed obediently through the works as the foreman explained clay preparation, throwing wheels, and slip-casting. Alys trailed behind. Meredith worked at the pottery several mornings a week, using her considerable artistic talent to develop new china designs. This was not one of her days to work, or Alys would not have suggested the tour. The more time that passed until Davenport met the girl, the better.

  Despite Davenport’s doubts about having a potbank on his property, he asked interested questions about the bottle kiln, which was being carefully packed with green ware, and the willow crates for shipping the fragile pottery to market. Alys hoped that his interest would make him tolerant of the enterprise.

  The tour ended in the office, where there was a display of finished products. Alys handed her employer a richly glazed round brown teapot. “This is our most popular item. We can’t compete with the large manufacturers, so I decided to make things for people of moderate income—those who like having something nice, but who can’t afford the fine china from places like Wedgwood and Spode.”

  As with everything else, Davenport drank it in, but he didn’t comment until they left to ride back to the estate office. “You continue to impress me, Lady Alys. If you hadn’t been born a female, you could have succeeded at anything you chose. Strickland is very lucky to have you.”

  Alys glowed at the compliment. It was good to be considered talented rather than merely eccentric.

  Back at the estate office, she settled wearily behind the desk and waited for the next round of questions. To her surprise, her employer asked, “Has the sheep washing been done yet this year?”

  She shook her head. “The spring washing is scheduled for day after tomorrow.”

  An amused gleam came into Davenport’s eyes. “Splendid. As a boy, I always wanted to participate in a sheep washing, but I was too small. Time has cured that.”

  “You really want to wash sheep?” Alys said, startled. It was a messy, time-consuming chore, not the sort of thing anyone did voluntarily.

  The gleam deepened. “Would you deny me one of my boyhood ambitions?”

  “It’s your choice, of course, but an amateur could slow t
he process down,” she said doubtfully. “Besides ...”

  “Yes?” he prompted as her voice trailed off.

  “Wrestling sheep in a river is not exactly conducive to dignity.”

  He gave her a sardonic look. “While I will listen to you on matters agricultural, I’m not interested in your opinions about my dignity or lack thereof.”

  She flushed, knowing she had stepped over the line permitted for an employee.

  The awkward silence was broken by the arrival of Meredith, golden hair gleaming in the late afternoon sun and a look of misleading innocence on her angelic face. “Lady Alys, I wanted to ask you ...” She stopped, looking at Davenport with a pretty expression of hesitation. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize you had company.”

  Alys rolled her eyes, knowing where Merry’s playacting was aimed. The girl had probably been watching the estate office all afternoon, waiting for an opportune moment to trip in and meet the new master of Strickland.

  Davenport reacted as any normal male would, rising with warm admiration on his long face and a twinkle in his eye. Clearly he realized that Meredith’s entrance was no accident, but that didn’t prevent him from enjoying the sight of the visitor. Merry was delightful in blue-sprigged white muslin, her golden curls tumbling around her shoulders with just the right touch of modest abandon.

  Alys made the introductions. “Mr. Davenport, this is my ward, Miss Meredith Spenser. Merry, I’m sure that you know who this is.”

  Her acid tone was not lost on Merry, who tossed her guardian a roguish glance before turning to Davenport. “What a pleasant surprise!” she said with a flutter of lashes.

  Eyelashes that had been carefully darkened, Alys noted. Blast Meredith for flitting in like a houri! Though most gentlemen could be counted on to see the girl for the innocent she really was, Davenport’s reputation was enough to put fear in the heart of any guardian. At times like this Alys regretted taking on the responsibilities of a parent.