“I’m that baron fellow,” Thomas admitted, just as Timmie began to cough and sputter. “Thomas, Baron Sutcliffe, gentlemen. Our friend is back among us.”
The largest boy tousled Timmie’s wet, wheat-blond hair. “You all right then, our Timmie?”
“What happened?” Timmie asked, expression dazed.
“You got your lights put out, my lad,” Thomas said. “Let’s get you into your shirt, lest these ruffians toss you back in the water to assist in your recovery.”
“He talks funny,” Timmie observed as Thomas pulled a shirt over the boy’s head.
“He’s the baron from up the manor,” the biggest boy explained. “He saved your life, Tims, when I jumped atop you and thumped you so hard.”
Timmie regarded Thomas owlishly. “May I please sit, Mr. Baron?”
“You may sit,” Thomas said, easing back to leave the child sitting unsupported on the dock, “but you must answer some questions.”
Tim fumbled with the sole button on his shirt, his manner befuddled. “Questions?”
Thomas went through a litany learned in many a lowly tavern. “What day is this?”
“Tuesday.”
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Three. Is that ring gold?”
“Yes, with a sapphire inset. Who is your king?”
“Good King George, though he’s mad as a March hare, and me da says the fat Regent is spending us into the poor house.”
“Whose land are you on?”
“Linden’s.”
“Where does your mama think you are?”
Timmie eyed another boy who resembled him in every particular.
“We took our da his lunch at the mill,” the boy said. “He forgot it when he left this morning.”
“And the rest of you gentlemen?”
Two should have been bringing a plow horse back from the farriers’, the other two were at loose ends, their mother being confined in anticipation of the arrival of their eighth sibling.
Thomas sat crossed-legged on the dock, wondering how long his steward would remain concealed in the trees. Six little boys imitated his posture.
“Now look, you lot. You could have had a tragedy here this morning, if Tim had remained in the water and unconscious. You need to bring an older boy along, a strong swimmer, and you need to let your parents know what you’re about.”
“My ma won’t never let me swim,” one of the smaller boys groused. “My brothers wouldn’t come ’cause they say I’m too little to play with.”
“Tell your father, then,” Thomas suggested, “who I am sure swam in this very pond when he was a lad. Your brothers are missing out on the pleasure of a fine, cool swim, and the pleasure of spending time the other older boys.”
The largest lad shook his head. “They can’t give us permission, our papas,” he said, “because they don’t have permission from you. The earl, that Greybeard fellow, he was never here, so nobody cared. But you’re here.”
The situation in a nutshell. “I am here. I intend to live here for the foreseeable future.”
Glances were exchanged all around, assuring Thomas a place on the evening’s gossip agenda in every home in the village.
“That other fellow,” Timmie said, plucking at his damp shirt front. “Greybottom, he wasn’t hardly ever to home.”
“That’s why the earl sold the land to me.” What were these children trying to say?
“Me da,” Timmie replied, scowling at his wrinkled fingers, “he said we’d have to go to Manchester for work if the new owner of Linden weren’t to home any more often than the old. He said the earl ran a bunch of bloody, bleatin’ sheep for quick money to spend up to Londontown.”
Thomas sat among the boys on the dock and recalled Loris Tanner’s judgment of Lord Greymoor: The earl had been an absentee owner who either hadn’t taken the land seriously, or simply hadn’t known how to take the land seriously.
Thomas was similarly ignorant, but he was willing to learn, if Miss Tanner were willing to instruct him.
“We’ve sold a good many of the sheep. They were hard on the land.” We being Thomas and his steward, apparently.
Timmie nodded, not looking half so confused. “That’s good. I’ll tell me da.”
Thomas rose, bringing the boys to their feet as well. “Tell him where you went swimming, but try to have a word with him when your mother won’t overhear. You don’t want to worry her.”
“She’ll worry me with a birching,” Timmie muttered, to the hearty agreement of his confreres. “Has a fearsome arm, does Ma.”
“I’ll be off then, lads, but don’t come here again without one of the older boys, if you please.”
Thomas left amid choruses of “no, guv,” and “never, yer worship.”
Evan had been tied to a bush, which the horse was ingesting with remarkable dispatch for one so lazy. Not until Thomas had gathered up his boots and led the horse back through the trees did he consider the difficulty—the impossibility, rather—of riding home barefoot and sopping wet.
Chapter Three
Even sopping wet, with his boots in hand, his lordship looked perfectly at his ease.
“I’ve allowed the drama of the moment to leave me with a problem, Miss Tanner.”
“Sir?” Loris knew good and well what his problem was: Soaked to the skin, he’d ruin a perfectly good saddle if he rode all the way home, and because he couldn’t put boots on over wet breeches, his other option was to walk the distance barefoot.
Her problem was that, attired in his London finery when dry, Thomas Jennings, Baron Sutcliffe, was an imposing figure. After a thorough dunking, his fine linen shirt clung to his muscled chest, his summer-weight breeches hugged his lower half, and—oh, drat him to Hades—his naughty smile said he knew his attributes were disconcertingly obvious.
Loris was blushing. She knew it, he knew it, and he was enjoying her distress—she knew that most of all.
“What shall I do with my wet self, Miss Tanner? I value good equipment as much as the next man, and somebody paid considerable coin for that saddle.”
“I can carry your saddle if you ride bareback, or we can leave the saddle here under a convenient bush.”
Sutcliffe’s nonplussed expression gratified Loris inordinately—though fleetingly.
“Bareback is not particularly comfortable, Miss Tanner, less so when one’s clothing is damp. I’m not about to leave a valuable saddle behind to tempt the youth of Sussex.”
His lordship expected her to solve his problem—doubtless a test of some sort.
“I can ride back to the manor and retrieve dry clothes for you, sir.”
He ran a hand down Rupert’s glossy neck. “Rather a long way, and a long time to leave me here with nobody but Evan to entertain me.”
The baron casually undid his neck cloth and waistcoat, then drew his wet shirt over his head and wrung it out. Loris turned Rupert so the baron’s nudity wasn’t in her direct line of sight.
Though she had peeked, and she did not care if he knew that.
Gracious days, Sutcliffe was breathtaking. Town life apparently left a fellow with sculpted muscles rippling around his frame in the most peculiar fashion. His chest, his arms, his abdomen… ye gods. As the baron squeezed sections of wet linen, his biceps had bunched and his stomach muscles…
“Miss Tanner?” From the corner of her eye, she watched as the baron went on wringing out his shirt. “I haven’t all day to discuss hypotheticals while I broil in the sun. How do you propose to get me home?”
“You could stay here all day, and eventually, as hot as it is, you will dry off.” While Loris would soon expire of mortification.
And curiosity.
“That course will not do,” he said, giving his shirt a final, muscular twist. “I have matters to attend to, and idleness is not in my nature.” He stalked around into her line of sight, his boots and waistcoat in one hand, his shirt and cravat slung over one shoulder, Evan’s reins in the other han
d.
Loris closed her eyes and bowed to a fate she had probably earned with all those prayers for an estate owner who’d take a personal interest in the property.
“You can ride up behind me.”
“Brilliant idea,” the baron replied, sauntering over to Rupert with a smile that boded ill for somebody. “Fold up the saddle pad to protect the cantle, and I’ll lash my boots and clothing behind Evan’s saddle.”
While he used his cravat for that purpose, Loris did as he instructed and took Evan’s reins so the baron could ride behind her. Even with her leaning forward over Rupert’s neck, getting the baron mounted was an awkward business. The worst moment was when he swung up, and his chest fairly pushed Loris down along the horse’s crest, so she was covered by him, the way a stallion—
God’s riding boots, indeed.
Then his lordship was mounted behind her.
“I’ll steer,” the baron said, settling his bare hands over her gloved ones. “If you’ll pony Evan behind us.”
Loris nodded, carefully, because his lordship’s bare chest was snug against her back, and she didn’t want to hit his nose with her head. She relinquished Rupert’s reins in exchange for Evan’s, and became so much cargo, the baron in control of their mount.
“Rupert can’t be very comfortable,” the baron remarked as the horse ambled off, “having you crouched over his neck like that.”
Loris eased more upright. “You are wet, and I prefer to remain dry. If you’re willing, we can stop at my cottage, which is closer than the manor. My father’s clothing should fit you.”
“That will serve.”
“Must you speak in my ear?”
“Must your ear be so handily located near my lips?”
Loris retreated into silence, a long silence, because the horse, though easily seventeen hands, was carrying double and thus kept to the walk by his master.
“So tell me about my employees in the stable,” the baron said after they’d bumped along dusty lanes and past fields badly in need of rain. “I assume the blond giant is your Wee Nick?”
“Not my Wee Nick. Nicholas is very much his own man. I suspect he’s had to be, with how Chesterton and the others treat him.”
“Wee Nick is treated differently? How?”
This interrogation was another blessing resulting from Loris’s wish for Linden to have an involved owner, and yet, the question was reasonable.
“For one thing, Nick is treated as if strength is his only attribute. He makes lovely birdhouses, beautiful, whimsical creations I’d adore were I a bird. Around the barn, he’s expected to handle the heaviest jobs, and to do so uncomplainingly. He’s expected to be good-natured about constant teasing; he’s generally regarded as not too bright when in fact, he’s simply quiet.”
“How long has he worked here?” the baron asked, turning Rupert along a field lush with clover despite the ongoing lack of rain.
“Nick and Beckman showed up shortly after my father left and have been here since. Few remain who’ve worked at Linden for most of their lives.”
“The boys at the pond conveyed the sense I’m on probation with the locals. They weren’t impressed with Greymoor’s absentee style, and I’m expected to be a similar disappointment.”
Ever so gradually, while they talked, Loris relaxed. Rupert had a steady, smooth walk, even carrying double, and the morning sun dried his lordship off at least above the waist.
“Greymoor was at heart a good man,” Loris said. “He didn’t put on airs, and he was scrupulous about paying the trades, but he relied entirely on Papa’s guidance when it came to managing Linden. His lordship’s brother was here more than Lord Greymoor was the last few years.”
“I believe the earl was traveling on the Continent prior to coming into his title.”
“I didn’t mind his lordship traveling one bit.”
“Because then your papa was more able to indulge his vices?” Sutcliffe suggested.
This again. Always this. “No, Baron.” Loris did not clench her teeth, and she did not drive her elbow back into her employer’s ribs. “Not because my father was less accountable in the earl’s absence, but rather, because when Greymoor was gone, the earl’s titled friends did not impose on his hospitality down here, and make mischief to their wealthy, irresponsible hearts’ content.”
Behind her, the baron came subtly to attention. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and very close to her ear.
“Miss Tanner, did the earl’s friends bother you?”
The man hadn’t been born who wasn’t at least occasionally a bother. “I learned to avoid them, and I suspect his lordship instructed them to leave me in peace. Then the earl went abroad, and his friends were no longer a problem.”
The baron guided Rupert into the orchard that ran behind the home wood. “Miss Tanner, do you know how to disarm a man who seeks to do you mischief?”
“I know to use my knee,” Loris said, coloring at the topic.
“If a man places his hands around your throat, thus,”—Sutcliffe dropped the reins on Rupert’s mane and circled her neck with his hands—“what defense have you?”
“Is there one?” The baron’s hands were dry and warm. The sensation of his touch on Loris’s neck was both foreign and fascinating.
“You take my smallest finger on each hand,” he instructed, “like that, and you yank it back and away from my own hand. I will be forced to ease my grip.”
Loris peeled his hands away from her neck.
“Is there more I should know?” Because all too often, this kind of common-sense information would have been useful, and yet Loris’s own father hadn’t apprised her of it.
“Of course,” Sutcliffe replied, taking up the reins again. “The first thing you do when threatened by a man is scream bloody murder. Most men can’t perpetrate certain kinds of mischief if an audience is likely to come pounding around the corner. And use your legs—your legs are stronger than your arms. Kick, jab, flail, and aim for his most vulnerable parts when you do.”
“What else?”
“Use your sharp joints—the elbow in the ribs, the knuckle in the eye, your fingernails across his throat,” the baron went on. “Use your dead weight. If he’s got you about the waist, tromp on his foot hard, then sag your entire weight without warning, and throw him off balance.”
Sutcliffe’s voice held a banked force, as if the topic were more than theoretical to him, and yet he was a man—a large, magnificently fit man.
Loris twisted in the saddle to peer at him. “How is it you know of these maneuvers?”
“As Lord Fairly’s factor, I traveled extensively and ended up in interesting situations from time to time. I’ve also had responsibility for females who found themselves in difficult circumstances with unruly men. The ladies needed to be forearmed.”
“Did they carry weapons?” Loris asked as the orchard gave way to the wood itself. When would a lady find herself in difficult circumstances with unruly men—unless she was a makeshift land steward, and the absentee owner’s stable had fallen into the hands of ruffians?
“Some of the ladies carried weapons,” the baron said.
In the shade of the old woods, the temperature was cooler. Loris resisted the lure of his lordship’s heat—barely.
“The ladies preferred knives,” he went on, as if discussing the merits of embroidery over cut work. “From my perspective, most men can overpower a woman sufficiently to wrest a knife from her, and then she’s enraged her attacker and armed him as well.”
Sutcliffe had argued with somebody repeatedly over the wisdom of arming women with knives. Loris thought back to his punctilious escort of her that morning.
“What exactly did these women do that put them in such situations?”
Rupert walked along, twigs snapping beneath the weight of his iron shod hooves. A squirrel scolded from above, and a late blooming patch of wild lilies added a splash of orange to the greenery all around.
Did the baron see the beauty
he owned? Did he note that the lilies bloomed later here than in the sunnier locations?
“The women I knew were prostitutes, Miss Tanner. My employer owned a brothel, among many other enterprises. I occasionally managed that establishment for him.”
Gracious flowering gardens. What did one say? “I see.”
Loris remained silent for long moments, while the baron steered the horse along a wagon track that cut across the wood. Sunlight beamed onto the grassy lane through the dense canopy, creating a sense of time having slowed in the quiet of the summer morning.
“What do you see, Miss Tanner?”
The baron would have been fiercely protective of those women. Loris knew this now, but wasn’t sure how she felt about it.
“May we please change the subject?”
“This wood is lovely,” he said. “Such a shame to disturb it to harvest the deadfall.”
Sutcliffe was being considerate. Loris wished she might study his face and tell from his eyes whether he’d accommodated her for her sake or his own.
“Greymoor never even rode through here before approving my plan to sell firewood. I don’t think he could have borne to see this place disturbed if he had.”
“If you didn’t want to disturb the wood, then why did you make the proposal?”
The baron was astute. Loris respected this about him, though his intellect wasn’t always convenient.
“I liked Lord Amery,” she said, “the fellow who came to look at Linden last autumn, and his cousin. They would not have allowed a bunch of rackety fribbles from London onto the property for weeks of drinking and carousing.”
This time, Rupert cut a path right through a patch of lilies, several of the blooms coming to a swift end as a result.
“So you were trying to impress Lord Amery with the profit to be made?” Sutcliffe asked.
“I was. He was kind to me, and struck me as a man worthy of trust.”
“If Douglas Allen cannot be trusted,” Sutcliffe replied, “then Judgment Day has come. He’s about the most sober, responsible, boring fellow you will ever meet.”
Thomas Page 4
