“The earl is a neighbor at a distance up north, and a friend of sorts. He’s one of few people I know in London, and I didn’t want to offend him, though I’d rather not dine at his club again.”
Matilda’s mood had shifted in the last few moments, from drowsy and kissable, back to the landlady with much to do. When her workbasket was tidy, she closed and locked both windows.
“I’ll wish you good night, Mr. Fenwick.”
“I’ll wish you sweet dreams, Matilda.”
He was halfway out the door, the scent of overcooked steak perfuming the stairway, when he turned.
“I will go to my fate in less than two weeks, Matilda. You needn’t worry that I’ll tarry here and make a nuisance of myself. Any fool can see you treasure your independence and suffered greatly to arrive at it. I have no designs on your freedom. I well know how precious that freedom is.”
She blew out that last candle, plunging the parlor into darkness, save for what light leaked down from the sconce on the floor above.
“I will never surrender that freedom, Ashton. Not for all the kisses in the kingdom, not for gold sovereigns raining down from the sky, not for a palace or a crown. I’m glad you grasp that.”
Ashton bowed and made his way down the steps. In the dark, he delivered the ruined meat to the kitchen, then returned to his apartment, Matilda’s final words ringing in his head.
She’d told him much in those few sentences.
First, she wasn’t interested in marriage to anybody, which was a consolation. Her objection wasn’t to him, it was to an institution in which she was bitterly disappointed.
Second, she and Ashton had in common a taste for self-reliance and independence. He respected that about her, even as it made him wonder about her past.
Third, she had no family worth the name. Ashton wasn’t contemplating marriage for money, prestige, or power. He was marrying because his family needed him to, and for them, he’d do anything. Family had betrayed Matilda Bryce, and what a bleak, unfathomable loneliness she must carry as a result.
Finally, Matilda Bryce wasn’t interested in surrendering her freedom, but she’d not rejected the possibility of a brief, pleasurable indulgence with somebody who had no aspirations toward a greater commitment.
Ashton hadn’t rejected that possibility either.
* * *
Matilda woke early the next day, an odd lightness in her heart. Then she recalled that it was the third Tuesday of the month. The weather was fair, and thus she’d make the walk to Hyde Park.
And yet, she didn’t pop out of bed, head for the kitchen, and start the day’s first pot of tea.
She was also aware of a lightness in her body, an aliveness as foreign as it was pleasurable. Ashton Fenwick had kissed her. Not a chaste peck on the cheek or the forehead, not a presumption visited upon her hand, but a kiss.
Her first real kiss, truth be known, and it had been lovely. Mr. Fenwick was respectful. The more intimate his touch, the more it approached reverence. Matilda had never felt so cherished or so flustered, because she did not know how to cherish him in return.
Somebody should be cherishing Ashton Fenwick. Why hadn’t his bachelor status ended years ago?
Solomon hopped onto the bed, doubtless exhausted from a night of debauchery in the mews.
“Good morning.”
He sat and wrapped his tail about his front paws, looking sagacious and inscrutable.
“I am contemplating foolishness, my friend.”
The cat slitted his eyes.
“Mr. Fenwick is making a positive impression, and he has no designs on my future.” Matilda could not see past the seventh anniversary of Althorpe’s death, which would pass in less than a year. After that date, she could breathe, she could plan, she could think.
More than Mr. Fenwick’s kiss, his embrace had opened in Matilda a vast awareness she’d struggled to ignore. She wasn’t merely lonely, she was in the last, exhausted throes of self-reliance, without anyone to trust, without a source of affection, without anywhere safe to truly rest.
In Ashton Fenwick’s arms, she could rest. When he kissed her, the 347 days remaining to her sentence disappeared along with the constant fear of discovery and the anger.
Ashton Fenwick made the fear and anger subside, and the magic of that was beguiling.
“But I must away to the park today,” Matilda informed the cat, who’d begun circling at her hip. “I leave the warmth of the covers to you. Behave yourself, or you’ll be living in the mews.”
The threat was meaningless. Matilda could no more turn away a cat seeking shelter than she could have locked her windows against Helen’s visits.
By the standards with which Matilda had been raised, she was on the poor end of respectable, but the freedom she enjoyed was an unexpected delight. If she wanted a cup of tea, she went to the kitchen and got it. If she wanted to braid her hair rather than arrange it in a bun, she braided it. She had only six dresses, one for heavy cleaning, one for Sunday services, and four that offered shapeless, drab ease of movement.
On her feet she wore house slippers, half boots, or nothing at all.
Life was simple and every choice her own, and today was a day to walk in the park. When Matilda joined Pippa in the kitchen and found a pot of hot tea waiting for her, her satisfaction was complete.
“Did you make this for me?” she asked, pouring a cup.
“That tray was for Mr. Fenwick, ma’am, but he’s off to see his solicitors. Helen pinched an apple tart for her breakfast. Mr. Fenwick said he’d fend for himself when his meeting was over.”
A fraction of the morning’s joy dimmed, because Mr. Fenwick had mentioned dining with an earl last night, at his club. Titled lords figured in Matilda’s worst nightmares. She didn’t need them ruining her breakfast too.
“I believe I’ll have an apple tart for breakfast too,” she said. “You’re welcome to join me, Pippa.”
Pippa was the maid of all work, a refugee from a Magdalene house, where, according to Pippa, the women did laundry six and a half days a week for virtually no pay. They were not permitted to leave the facility, and even conversation among the residents was frowned on.
This life was supposed to be an improvement over streetwalking, or the endless toil Pippa had known in Jamaica. Matilda suspected medieval convents had been run with more genuine compassion than the Magdalene houses showed for the women they housed—and those convents had had a more positive impact on the ladies’ eternal souls.
“I had my porridge,” Pippa said. “I do like that Mr. Fenwick. He’s tidy.” Her words, and her approach to life, bore a hint of the island sunshine into which she’d been born. She’d been a slave amidst all that sunshine and tropical beauty, while on England’s colder shores, she was free, albeit free to starve.
Also free to admire any man who caught her fancy.
Matilda hadn’t been in Mr. Fenwick’s rooms since he’d moved in. “Tidiness is a virtue in a lodger. You’ll give his rooms a cleaning today?”
“Aye, ma’am,” Pippa said, pouring water over a bowl of eggs Matilda had purchased the previous day. “Won’t take me but a moment. He doesn’t track in the mud, hoard his dishes, or put his boots on the furniture. You’re off on your errands?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Third Tuesday of the month,” Pippa said, setting the pitcher on the counter. “If the weather’s fair, you put on that awful brown walking dress and disappear for the morning. The only time you miss is when it’s pouring rain. Whoever he is, I hope he appreciates you.”
Matilda left off fussing with the tea things. “Mind your tongue, Pippa. I don’t meet a man. I go to the park.”
Pippa set an apple tart before Matilda on a plate. “Oh, that’s lovely. I used to spend many an afternoon in the park. So many fine carriages and handsome gents.”
What Pippa had likely done in those carriages with the handsome gents made Matilda’s cheeks warm.
“Do you miss your afternoons
in the park, Pippa? If I’m to replace you, some warning would be appreciated.” Matilda couldn’t hire just anybody. She needed competence, discretion, and common sense in a domestic who’d attract no notice.
Pippa took the place across from Matilda, something no servant would have done with the Earl of Kittridge’s daughter. But then, that daughter had never ventured into a kitchen until the day she’d married and the housekeeper had given her a tour of Althorpe’s domicile.
“I don’t miss the flats,” Pippa said. “I miss the other girls. You never met a better lot, Mrs. Bryce. We looked out for each other, but then, we had to. I was lucky—I didn’t start too young, and I kept my health—but sooner or later, you get into the wrong coach, or into the wrong alley. There’s some as like to beat women, some like worse than that. You can never tell the devils from the charmers, because they all have coin, and they think that means they own you. From tailors and boot-makers, the gents buy a service and a skill. When it comes to women, that coin is supposed to be worth everything she is.”
Matilda’s heart broke for Pippa, who spoke with a chilling detachment, and she saw in Pippa’s circumstance an echo of her own situation.
“If you ever think that life is preferable to what you have here, I want to know, Pippa. Don’t leave me wondering what’s become of you.”
Pippa rose. “I have to set an example for Helen now, don’t I? She’s earning a proper wage, sleeping safe at night. If I do a bunk, Helen’s bound to follow me, and she’s going to be a stunner with her golden hair and blue eyes. That Sissy knows it too.”
The apple tart wasn’t as good cold, but it was still an improvement over plain porridge. “You don’t care for Sissy?”
“She puts on airs,” Pippa said, gently washing a dirty egg to smooth, white perfection. “Can’t abide a game girl puttin’ on airs. Sooner or later, we’re all put to bed with a shovel, no matter how grand we think we are.”
As theologies went, Pippa’s had the advantage of simplicity, but Matilda couldn’t match the girl’s pragmatism.
Ashton Fenwick was different. He didn’t seek a woman who’d increase his fortune or his consequence. He wanted a companion, a lover, a heart mate. Or so he’d implied. Pippa’s point was worth noting too, though. The charmers and the devils could look vexingly alike. Althorpe had been a plain man, though his manners had been punctiliously correct before Matilda had married him.
“I won’t be back before noon,” Matilda said, “so please tell Helen that one apple tart a day is her limit. She can have porridge for lunch, or whatever you fix for yourself, but she’s not to subsist on purloined sweets.”
“Aye, ma’am,” Pippa said, washing a second egg, “but my guess is Mr. Fenwick will fetch something from a chophouse and see to Helen’s meal. Looks like a man fond of his victuals.”
And of his horse, and of Helen, and of luscious, late-night kisses.
“Lock the front door if you go out, Pippa, and I should be back this afternoon.” Matilda ate the last few bites of tart in solitude, while Pippa finished washing the eggs, then went up to clean Mr. Fenwick’s rooms.
Matilda put on her awful blue dress, for a change, and arrived to the park by way of detours through Knightsbridge. The precaution was likely pointless, but it gave her time to fortify herself against the morning’s challenges. She’d brought a book too, though that was a prop.
She needn’t have bothered with the book. Before she reached the bench where she typically lurked, she spotted a small child playing catch with her governess. The governess was youngish and had first appeared in the park the previous month. The young ones—the ones who laughed, played catch, and flew kites—never lasted.
Matilda adjusted her straw hat lower across her brow, got out her sketchbook, and prepared to have her heart broken all over again.
Chapter Six
“Your finances prosper, my lord,” Rupert Harpster said, positioning a silver standish precisely above the center of a tooled leather blotter. “Your brother was a good manager, but I must say, the earldom has seen some handsome returns in the past few years.”
Harpster was a spare, natty, older fellow whose blue eyes held shrewdness even when he smiled. Ashton was not for one moment fooled by the solicitor’s flattery, nor was he willing to sit before his lawyer’s handsome desk like a supplicant importuning a bishop.
“If the earldom prospers,” Ashton said, on his hundredth circuit of the office, “then projects Ewan and his predecessors put in train long before the title befell me are the cause. Is it possible to sell off the English portion of the land?”
The previous hour had been spent reviewing yet more grievances from the English tenants. Ashton went out of his way to accommodate them. Their cottages were not merely snug, they were handsomely commodious. Any tenant could have free use of the earldom’s draft teams if new sod had to be broken in spring. The home farm kept them supplied with out-crosses for their sheep and goats, and if rents were late, Ashton seldom took action.
The more he gave, the more they took advantage.
“Sell the tenancies in England?” Harpster murmured. “I cannot recommend such a course, my lord, even if it could be construed as permissible.”
“So you don’t know if I could sell that land. It’s one-eighth of my property and eight-tenths of my headaches. The tenants have grown lax, expecting special consideration and forgiveness when their incompetence results in a bad harvest. Look at their yields, Harpster. Everything from wool to hay to barley falls below what the Scottish tenants can produce on smaller acreages.”
This problem could be laid at Ewan’s feet, to some extent. Unwilling to provoke a vocal minority, he’d yielded to the advice of his fellow landlords on the English side of the river, and Ashton had inherited the resulting mess.
“The initial grant of land that went with the Mulder barony was quite small, my lord,” Harpster said, gaze fixed above the sideboard, where a full-length portrait of King John signing the Magna Carta hung. “The earls of Kilkenney added to it mostly by purchase and marriage. Where the English tenancies fall, I could not precisely say. Some might be saleable, some might be entailed.”
“I want a map,” Ashton said, “and I want it soon. Show me which farms I can sell, which I’m stuck with, and any that fall somewhere in between. Once the harvest is in and the rents paid, I’ll be making some changes.” A lot of changes, actually.
Ashton would never do as some landlords had done and burn out tenants on Christmas Day for his convenience, but neither would he tolerate more years of idleness while good land went to waste.
Harpster folded his hands on his blotter and bowed his head as if an unjust sentence had been pronounced. “Very well, my lord. Would a month from now suit?”
“One week. You have copies of the letters patent, and all the land not described therein should be saleable unless an entail was subsequently added. I’ll see you next week.”
Ashton headed for the door, ready to leave behind the silk-covered walls, thick carpets, and idealized landscapes in their gilt frames. The pen tray on Harpster’s desk was chased silver, as were the ink bottles sitting on the standish. This wasn’t workmanship displayed for the sake of beauty, this was a subtle means of impressing clients, or perhaps intimidating them.
Helen would have nicked the lot of it, and Harpster would have had no clue where his vanities had gone.
“There was one other topic I thought we should discuss, my lord,” Harpster said, remaining at his desk. “I’m told you’re in London with matrimony in mind, and that can be a complicated legal undertaking.”
“Who told you that?”
Harpster’s smile was smug. “I have my sources, the better to serve the clients whose trust reposes in my office.”
Harpster had Ashton’s coin. He did not have Ashton’s trust. “That’s something I’ve never understood.”
“My lord?”
“If my earldom is Scottish and my lands are mostly Scottish, why is my solicitor Englis
h? It’s not as if the legal profession has no Scottish exponents and not as if English law is controlling in Scotland.”
Now Harpster got to his feet. “Your much-respected forbearers saw fit to give this office their custom, my lord. We have served your family for generations, without apparent complaint. As it happens, you do own land in England, and London is the cultural and political capital of the empire if not the world. Surely you would not rely on lesser resources when you already have the best at hand?”
Oh, that was as subtle as a peacock’s mating call.
“I’ll see you next week,” Ashton said, one hand on the door latch, “and you’ll have a map for me.”
Harpster came around his desk. “About your matrimonial aspirations, my lord. I’ve taken it upon myself to prepare a list, based on information gathered over the years regarding various families whose good fortune includes a marriageable daughter making her curtsey this year. In a few cases, I’ve included ladies who made their come out last year, in the interests of giving you the widest possible—”
“Next week,” Ashton said, swinging the door open. “And I’ll take a copy of the map with me.”
He shut the door in Harpster’s face and gestured to Helen, who was waiting in a chair by the door of the clerk’s room.
“Let’s be off,” he said, not stopping. “I’m in the mood for a gallop.”
Clear back to Scotland.
Helen fell in step without asking questions, suggesting Ashton’s foul mood was apparent at ten paces. Another list, for God’s sake. As if young women were so many vegetables at market. No wonder Matilda Bryce had no use for marriage, if this was how her family had approached it.
“You’re for home,” Ashton said, flipping Helen a coin as a hostler led Dusty from the livery. “Get something to eat and stop by the Albany for my mail. I’m off to the park.”
“I could come with you.”
“I’m after a hard gallop, or the pale imitation available to me in this cesspit of greed. Tell me three words that begin with w.”
Ashton: Lord of Truth (Lonely Lords Book 13) Page 9
