Chapter Ten
Will had never been one to make scenes or engage in confrontations. If he were a woman, some might call him “mousy” or even, maybe, a wallflower. He detested melodrama and avoided fraught situations wherever possible. When his brothers would squabble, he was the natural mediator, the peacekeeper. It was not that he did not have strong emotions. He just preferred to intellectualize them instead of allowing them to explode.
Going to see Miss Copperweld’s father was the direct result of, for once, choosing not to intellectualize. He’d notified the requisite authorities and the magistrate, all of whom had to travel some distance to Brookfield. Since it was historically such a sedate place, there were no official constables. There were those who volunteered as night watchmen, and if they had need of locking someone up, they simply used the inn’s attic. It was easiest to secure and nobody could think of escaping without rousing notice, as the inn was so centrally located. As far as Will knew, he’d only heard of it being used for the purpose twice.
Will strode up to it, still marveling that the few villagers who were out in this early morning, glittering sunlight greeted him without fanfare or, conversely, reservations. Once inside the inn, he passed Quick Peter dozing in the taproom.
He must have been there to keep an eye to Benedict and Copperweld. There was probably no one better. Will was not afraid of the man, but had to admit that he looked like he had possibly served some kind of sentence in the past.
“Good morning, Your Grace,” he said, rising when the creaking main door woke him from his place on a bench. “Any word on the magistrate?”
“Good morning. We can expect him this afternoon. His bailiffs will come here, and I believe he himself will go to Blackbrook to have me sign some papers. Are they upstairs?”
Quick Peter nodded, a sharp smile on his wide face. “Mr. Benedict is so terrified, he won’t speak to anybody. Though I’m sure he would talk to you if you wanted, and Mr. Copperweld hasn’t had a drop to drink since the day we locked him in. He’s not faring well.”
It was easy for Will to imagine and even easier for him to relish. Good, he thought. He deserves every bit of discomfort he suffers. His internal pronouncement surprised him a little. He had never really thought anything of the kind.
“You don’t seem to mind.”
“I don’t, do I?”
Will chuckled at his airy tone. “To be clear, I don’t think you should.”
“If you go up, Your Grace, I find the best way to wake Copperweld is with a bit of cold water flung at his face. It rouses him.”
“Does it?” I was thinking of using my fist.
“It does, sir.” Quick Peter’s expression was positively wolfish.
“We mustn’t ruin any of the inn’s furnishings or fixtures with too much water,” said Will, arching an eyebrow. “I shall leave it to you to rouse him with more, if you wish to before the authorities arrive, but I’ll mange to wake him, myself.”
“Very good, Your Grace.” Quick Peter handed him a heavy set of keys that could have been cast a century ago.
Will went through the taproom, then up the stairs, wondering if the innkeeper might be in the kitchen. Surely, he was not still abed. As he drew closer to the attic, the stairs grew more and more narrow, and he found he had to move deliberately and hunch his shoulders. When he reached the heavy, locked door, he heard no sounds from behind it.
Taking a breath and summoning all of his self-restraint, he opened the door, taking care to block the entrance with his body. Then he shut it behind him.
It took his eyes several moments to adjust. The space was long, running the length of the building, and was used for storage. Right now, there was not as much occupying the space as there could be, and he noted that Benedict had taken the far corner behind some wooden crates, while Copperweld was a snoring huddle under the only tiny window.
Will didn’t care about Benedict. He only had a mind for the sorry mess of a man who was nearly just at his feet. He stepped forward and the floor squeaked under his tread.
Copperweld stirred at the noise, but did not wake.
Will took the opportunity to survey him. His face, though it still had its ruddy cast, was pale under the pink. Though he was ostensibly sleeping, his limbs shook minutely. Disgusted, Will nudged his shoulder with the tip of his boot. Copperweld did not react.
Deliberating over the action only briefly, Will aimed a kick where he had nudged.
Copperweld cursed himself awake, but it took him a few moments to register who had kicked him. He scowled up at Will, shivering on the floor. He was clearly incapable of standing upright. Will had seen enough patients who went through the withdrawals brought about by abstaining from drink. It did not matter to him if Copperweld stood or not.
“Your Grace,” he sneered.
“Good morning, Mr. Copperweld.”
“Why have you visited me?”
“Oh, mostly to gloat,” Will assured him. “You do not need to do much for me to accomplish what I want.”
“You won’t have long to feel smug,” said Copperweld. “You’ve no way of having me held and charged for disciplining my own kin. I don’t know why you have my daughter, though I can guess.” He tossed will a sly smile. “I will have her back soon enough.”
Though I can guess. The words were tinged with something unsavory, but he expected no less from the man laying at his toes on a dusty, wooden floor.
Will had anticipated this line of argument. It was, after all, how Copperweld had always thought of her. As his property. “I’m flattered that you think enough of my morals to assume I won’t stoop to lies or good, old-fashioned bribery.”
He’d thought it over on his way here and concluded that where Copperweld was concerned, he might have to help the truth along. Though his case against Benedict, who still had not acknowledged his presence in the attic, was all but assured, he admitted that abuse was not always something that was dealt with.
In anticipation of that, he decided that he would not mind resorting to less upstanding tactics to ensure Copperweld never cast a shadow in his daughter’s life again.
Then again, he might not have to. He hoped not.
Copperweld didn’t quite understand, but he covered his lack of comprehension with an impudent glare.
“I will say this plainly. I love her, and I won’t have her come to harm.”
“How noble,” said Copperweld with a chortle. “But your love will come to nothing. No one will care what she says. No bailiff, no magistrate.”
Bile actually rose in Will’s throat as he recognized that Copperweld was not at all bothering to deny his culpability. He simply thought that he would be able to continue his woeful actions without any interference, convinced that he was protected by society’s indifference.
“Perhaps they won’t,” said Will agreeably, hiding how disturbed he really was, “but money and standing are quite eloquent. It is regrettable that all of us are not treated with equal dignity. Yet in this instance, I am pleased to say I have the ability to keep you out of Augusta’s affairs forever.”
“All that trouble over an ungrateful slip of a girl? You must be mad, Your Grace.”
Taking a knee so that he could look Copperweld in the eye, but keeping vigilant as he did so, Will said in a low, steady voice, “My madness will lead directly to you being locked away for the rest of your natural life. Be careful what you say next, or I shall ensure it is somewhere truly horrendous. Then you’d better pray that you’ve poisoned yourself enough not to live for much longer.”
*
One morning about a fortnight later, Will had a long talk with his aunt, the subject of which was none other than Miss Copperweld.
In contrast to what had kept Brookfield abuzz with gossip—Eggy Cooper and his rescue—Will found himself unable to sleep for an entirely different matter. After he had daringly placed a kiss upon Miss Copperweld’s lips, he could neither comprehend a future without her, nor move forward in the directio
n of winning her as his wife.
When he knew his aunt would be awake, he knocked on her sitting room door. She admitted him readily and without surprise. “William,” she said, dressed simply in a becoming but unassuming day dress embroidered with light floral accents. “What brings you to me before you have even had your coffee?” Amusedly, she added, “Should I have some brought to us? I’ll admit that I may be of very little use to you without it.”
“If you wish, Aunt.” Truth be told, Will did not care either way, for he was sure his thoughts would be equally unintelligible with or without the stimulant.
She spoke quietly with Lucy, and the maid quit the room, presumably to venture down into the kitchens. “Shall we speak freely, then?”
“I wish to speak about Miss Copperweld.”
“I thought as much.”
“It seems you understood before I did that I was… attracted to her.”
“What an inadequate way to explain how you look at that young woman,” said Jane, settling back in a wicker chair that had belonged to his mother. She surveyed him knowingly.
“Did you hope that I would come to have feelings for her when you advocated so soundly for her presence in the manor?”
It was not an accusation because Will was not angry. He just wanted to know.
“At first, I saw only a woman in need of help. Later, I did wonder if, perhaps, you might have started to harbor deeper affections for her.” Jane yawned from behind her long-fingered hand. “I did not presume to plan anything, specifically.”
“And it does not matter to you that she is of humble birth?”
Possibly even illegitimate birth, if her father is to be believed. He didn’t know if he should believe the man, or not. He didn’t dwell on it, as he knew he would probably never know if the assertion was baseless.
“No. And I don’t think it should, either. Does it matter to you, a man who has seen so much of the world?”
Thinking, Will paced across the plush, intricately patterned rug, another heirloom of his mother’s. She had been fond of carpets from the Far East. “No, it does not. I know that people will talk, but they do little else.”
“You are thinking ahead to…” Jane let the question hang in the air. She knew quite well what he was insinuating.
“If we marry, the fact is that the ton will be mercilessly curious.”
“I fail to see how it is any different from the situation you find yourself in, now.” Jane snorted. “If anything, it would give things quite a storybook ending, wouldn’t it? And if you are worried about how she will behave, well, I don’t believe she will bring you or me any shame at all.”
Picking up a tiny porcelain cat and studying it, Will kept silent for a few moments. The villagers commented far less on my face than I ever expected. Perhaps Jane has been right all along, and my friends will not allow any maliciousness to touch me.
It was odd how “normal” he felt, even under the eyes of so many.
“That is true. The public is already curious. And the villagers’ reactions to me were not as horrible as I imagined they would be.”
“They were not horrible, at all.”
“Do you think those of our station will be less forgiving?” He was not talking about his looks.
Jane watched his fingers toy with the porcelain figurine. “The ones who matter will at least be open to the idea. All of it. Your face, your choice to hide, your wife. People can surprise you, William. And as for anyone else, well… the Ainsworth name still means something. I believe anyone who has something bad to say about Miss Copperweld shall stay well out of your way. Don’t forget that you hold a sizable fortune, and what good is it if it won’t grant you some distance from overt censure?”
Will considered this. “I hope you have an accurate read on the ton.”
“I very often do.”
“I never thought far enough ahead to marriage,” murmured Will. “Not even with Diana. Then… after all of this… I just assumed it would never be for me. That I’d be the last Ainsworth.”
It was a sobering thought. The death of a family line. He did not know of it happening within his lifetime.
Will heard Lucy return with the coffee tray and set it on a table opposite Jane’s chair.
“Perhaps you won’t be, if you get what you want, which I believe you will.”
Vividly, he thought of raising a family, something that at first had never appealed and later became as fantastical to him as the concept of a unicorn.
Wordlessly, Lucy walked out to leave them to their discussion. Jane never minded pouring her own coffee, Will remembered. She was a fiend for the drink and no maid or servant could ever serve it fast enough for her.
In a very small voice, Will asked, “Do you think I will have disappointed Mother and Father?”
Jane stood and went to him, taking both of his hands in her own. She gently took the cat from his palm and put it back on the mantel. “They were married because they loved each other. I cannot say if they would be immediately amenable to the idea of you being with a common woman, but I can say that they would come around to it. Miss Copperweld is unique.”
“I fear she will not have me,” he confessed. “She is so… full of life. I have nothing to offer her but hideousness and my title. I do not think the latter outweighs the former enough.”
“If you think that she cares most of all for your title or looks, then you have judged her poorly,” said Jane, as though her words were the end of it.
“Wouldn’t it be natural for her to have done so?”
“I cannot offer you any help that would soothe your mind. You should go directly to Miss Copperweld and address her.” Jane stroked his palms with her thumbs. “You will be wrong in your estimation of her character, and find yourself pleasantly surprised.”
“I hope you are right,” he murmured.
Before he could lose his nerve, he sent word to Miss Copperweld that they should meet in the library. He waited near one of the open windows, thinking of what he might have missed if they’d never stumbled upon her next to the brook. It was impossible to say, that was true, but his soul shrunk at the thought.
She was the reason why he’d crept back out of the shadows. It was as simple as that.
Her footsteps sounded in the corridor and, upon hearing them, his confidence fled. When she entered with a pleasant smile on her oval face, striking brown eyes alight, all he could say was, “I trust that Eggy is getting on well?”
With her father’s removal from Brookfield, Miss Copperweld had been into the village several times on her own. Mostly, she checked on her father’s farm and made sure the men he had nominally hired were still attending their duties—which they were, Will had been glad to hear. Miss Copperweld had confided in him that the men were not necessarily any more trustworthy than her father. She said they were merely more sober than he.
But yesterday, she had also paid a visit to the Coopers.
“He’s still sore, but Mr. Croft tended his stitches and there are no signs of infection.” She grinned happily. “I’m so pleased.”
“No doubt, he’ll be running around and driving his parents mad soon enough.”
“Perhaps. But he is a remarkably well-behaved child,” she said. “He seems to prefer spending his time alone. Though I do believe he will think twice before climbing another tree to seek solitude.” After a long and slightly awkward moment, she asked, “You wished to see me, Lord Ainsworth?”
“I did.”
“Have you made a choice about whether or not I shall be employed on the estate?”
Neither of them mentioned the brief kiss they had shared. “In a manner of speaking.”
“In a manner of speaking?” she repeated, the grin dropping from her lips.
“Yes.”
“You know…” she turned from him and studied one of the tall bookshelves. “Now that Father is in custody… I thought perhaps I might make my way in the world as a farmer. His farm is still in working shape.�
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I don’t have that in mind for you, thought Will.
“I am glad that you feel you have options, now,” he said.
“Will you resume treating the villagers?”
“I expect I will do so more often, now. They will not let me keep to myself.”
“You should,” she said. “It suits you, like you were born to do it.” It was hard for Will to read her tone, so he placed his hands softly on her shoulders and turned her back toward him. She allowed it, and she met his eyes searchingly.
“I have not asked you here to discuss your employment, Miss Copperweld,” he said. He released his light grip on her. “Whether here or in the village.”
“Why have you asked me to come, then?” She idly traced her lips with her right pointer finger. Will knew she was probably thinking about their kiss.
In for a penny, in for a… Will took a breath.
“I wish to lay my heart at your feet to see what you will do with it.” She went so still that she resembled a fine marble statue. “I, more than anyone, feel that I don’t deserve your spirit or your beauty. I am, quite frankly, hideous. My air is often melancholic.” Will was not worried about her silence or her stillness. He just needed to speak and let the chips fall where they would. He started to walk along the perimeter of the vast, burgundy-colored rug under their feet, engaging in a kind of meditative trance. “But I must say something or I shall go mad. These last few weeks, in particular, have been torturous. I see what could be and hope I am not overstepping my bounds in broaching the subject.”
“You are not,” she said, in a voice barely above a whisper.
Encouraged, he continued on, looking at the vaulted ceiling rather than her face as his feet still carried him aimlessly. “I don’t know when it truly began.”
“Presumably sometime before you kissed me,” she said softly.
“Yes,” he said with a low chuckle. “Indeed, before then. That was rash and I should not have done it, with even that small of an audience.”
Regency Scandals and Scoundrels Collection Page 135
