The Old Maids' Club 02 - Pariah (8 page)

He lifted his arm for another blow, not deigning to comment on her disrespect.

Another powerful gust of wind blew over her, leaving her trembling in its aftermath. A single, fat snowflake landed on her nose, followed soon after by a series of them. “I suppose the better question is
why
are you fixing the fence?”

“I would think,” he said slowly, as though he measured each word before he uttered it, “that, too, would be rather obvious, Miss Shelton. The fence needs fixing.”

Mrs. Temple rushed out with Bethanne’s redingote, wrapping it around her shoulders. “It is very kind of you to do so, my lord,” she said, practically falling at his feet in worship, blast the woman. “Won’t you come in to warm up in a bit? Joyce has a soup on for luncheon that will warm you straight through to your toes.”

Luncheon? Wasn’t it enough that the man would be joining them for tea every day for the next eternity? Bethanne gaped at her housekeeper. Never in her life would she have thought the woman so audacious as to overstep her position in such a way.

“Thank you,” Lord Roman said, smiling an overly charming smile at Mrs. Temple. “I would appreciate that.”

“It’s the least we can do, you know.” Mrs. Temple dipped a curtsey and scurried back to the house. Joyce and Mrs. Wyatt smiled and waved at Bethanne from the doorway when she gawked at Mrs. Temple’s retreating form, shooing her forward with their hands, as though she ought to be encouraging the man.

Saints above, she could scream.

“You ought to go inside, Miss Shelton.” Lord Roman took another swing with his mallet, then stepped back, checking the height of the new post against the part of the fence still standing. The snow coming down had reached a steady trickle, leaving a dusting in his dark hair that made it appear more silvery than normal. “You’ll catch your death out here, otherwise.”

“You ought to go home, Lord Roman,” she countered. “We do not need your help.”

He put the mallet back into his cart, pulling out a shovel in its stead. “You’re as headstrong as they come, aren’t you?” Then he moved to where another post had fallen and dug a hole to prepare for its replacement.

“This isn’t about being willful, my lord.”

The muscles beneath his trousers strained with each dig into the earth. “Is that so? Then what is it about?”

Bethanne crossed her arms over her chest and rolled her eyes to the gray pillows of clouds overhead. “You’ve seen how the townsfolk treat me. You’ve seen—” Her breath caught, and she stopped herself. “You know what I am.”

“And what is that?” He tossed a mound of dirt to the side and dug in again, knitting his brows together.

“A pariah. Or perhaps you’d lean more toward those who would call me a lady bird. In either scenario, I’m not the sort of woman with whom a gentleman such as you should be associated.”

Lord Roman stopped his digging and leaned on the handle of the shovel. He stared her straight in the eye. “Am I to understand you’re trying to protect my reputation?”

Put in those terms, it did sound a bit absurd. Bethanne nodded anyway. “Yes. That’s precisely my concern.” Easier to let him believe that than the alternative. She couldn’t even give him a hint that she was trying to hide something. She had a niggling suspicion that if he thought something was amiss, he’d stop at nothing to discover the truth. That couldn’t happen.

“Find a more appropriate reason to refuse my assistance.” He placed the shovel back in the cart and pulled out another post. “You’re a lady, living with only female servants, a senile old woman, and a little boy. You have no one here to protect you. No one to fix your fence or carry your provisions. Someone has to take care of you.”

“My uncle has provided for our care quite well.”

“Quite well?” he scoffed. “Why has he not provided you with a manservant? Why has he allowed your fence to fall into such a state of disrepair, when you have a precocious child and a wayward aunt who need to be kept safe?” Lord Roman positioned the post just so, then took up his shovel again to refill the hole.

The man was determined to find fault with everything around him, whether fault was to be found or not. Bethanne tossed her hands up in the air. “We
had
a manservant until two weeks ago.”

“Why did he leave you?”

“Inwood’s mother fell ill,” she said on a sigh. “He took a position closer to her so he could care for her. He worked for my aunt for more than twenty years before that happened.”

Lord Roman let out a harrumphing sort of sound and took two more swings at the fence post. “And why has your uncle not found a replacement for your manservant yet?”

Of all the impertinent, irrelevant questions. “It is
my
responsibility to find someone to fill the post, not my uncle’s. I have taken over the care of my aunt and her household.”

“And yet you find yourself in a position in which the men in town—those who might, perchance, be able to fill the position—treat you as either a strumpet or a leper. I wonder how you intend to find someone who can assume the responsibility.”

A racket sounded from the house. Bethanne looked over her shoulder. Aunt Rosaline was trying to get past Joyce and Mrs. Temple and outside, dressed in nothing but her gown.

She sighed and then leveled Lord Roman with a stare—no small feat, considering he stood more than a head taller than her. “I must apologize, my lord. I must take my leave of you.”

Lord Roman’s gaze followed hers, stalwart and expressionless. “Perhaps you should see to your aunt, ma’am.” Without another glance in her direction, he checked the stability of the newest fence post before returning to the cart to retrieve new supplies.

“Indeed,” she replied. “And a good day to you.” Bethanne smoothed her skirts and dipped her head briefly in his direction, then turned and hurried down the walkway help the servants with her aunt. Only when she was halfway to the cottage did she realize Lord Roman had essentially dismissed her—on her property, at her home—and not the other way around.

By mid-afternoon, Roman had finished with his fence mending for the day. He’d done more than half of the repairs and would take care of the rest tomorrow. He could have finished with it today…but he’d promised Lady Rosaline he’d join her for tea, and he’d be damned if he wouldn’t follow through with his promise.

The lady had clearly been disappointed greatly once before. Roman wouldn’t disappoint her now.

But he was not so base as to join the ladies for tea smelling like he’d been in battle for weeks without a bath. So after he’d cleaned and organized his remaining supplies, stacking the posts and pickets neatly out of the way near the mews, he knocked at the servants’ door to the kitchens with the intention of informing them he’d return in time for tea.

The pert cook opened the door for him with a wide smile, wiping her hands on a well-used apron. Before he could say anything, she was taking his coat and hat from him whilst thrusting a teacup into one hand and a scone into the other. “You’ve been working so hard, and without a break at all in that snow. Eat that so I won’t worry about you any more than I already am.” Then she turned to the stove and ladled a bowl of steaming lentil soup. After setting it on the table, she lifted a brow, gesturing for him to sit. “Well? I’ll not let you go hungry while you’re out fixing our fence.”

He sat. And he ate. Within minutes, he realized how cold he must have become, because of the tingles shooting through his limbs from the warmth of the soup. The cook kept fussing about the kitchen, kneading dough for bread and occasionally refilling his teacup or adding another ladle of soup to his bowl.

A door flew open, and the boy pranced inside with his nurse trailing behind him somewhere in the distance. “Master Finn!” she called out. “I said you should wait for me, and we’d ask Joyce together.”

Finn ignored his nurse, though. “Biscuit?” he said, holding up a grubby hand to the cook. He wore a sheepish grin with a sly look in his little eyes. This child was obviously a master at getting what he wanted, when he wanted it.

“Biscuit?” Joyce repeated with mock indignation. After cleaning her hands on her apron, she moved to another counter and uncovered a plate filled with biscuits. “So am I to understand that you think you can come into my kitchens and demand what you want at any time?”

The boy just giggled, still holding out his hand.

His nurse came in behind him, finally, closing the door. When she turned around, her eyes landed on Roman at the table. “Oh, gracious heavens! Master Finn, we shouldn’t have come now. I apologize, Lord Roman. If we’d known you were here…”

Roman wanted to respond, but he hadn’t stopped spooning soup into his mouth. Indeed, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten with such poor manners.

“Finn can come into my kitchens for a biscuit any time he wants,” Joyce said, saving him the trouble of reassuring the nurse. “I don’t care who’s eating in here, Mrs. Wyatt. And that boy knows it, too. I wouldn’t deny him even if the King of England was sitting there instead of Lord Roman.” She placed the two biscuits she’d selected on a saucer and placed them at the opposite end of the table from Roman. Then she poured a glass of milk for the boy and set it beside the saucer.

Finn didn’t sit where she wanted him to, though. He climbed up into the chair directly beside Roman, still giggling.

“Now, young master,” Mrs. Wyatt started in a warning tone.

“He’s fine,” Roman said. Over the years, he’d been seated next to a wide variety of people as he ate. Never a young boy, though. He lifted another spoonful of lentil soup to his mouth and continued eating.

The two servants nodded. Joyce moved Finn’s saucer and glass before him. The boy selected one of his biscuits and held it up for all to see. “Biscuit,” he said, with a tone as gleeful and innocent as Roman had ever heard. Then he took a bite, with crumbs spilling down over his dressing gown and the table.

It didn’t matter. A little mess never hurt anyone.

When his nurse looked ready to dart forward and clean it immediately, Roman gave her a slight shake of his head. Instead, she took a seat across from them.

“Would you like anything, Mrs. Wyatt?” Joyce asked as she went back to her dough kneading and batter mixing.

Roman stopped paying attention to the two women, though, as Finn grew infinitely more fascinating to him by the moment. The big eyes the boy looked up with matched those of Miss Shelton and Lady Rosaline, a vivid sea of green that carried waves of emotion with each crest. The likeness was so profound, if Finn somehow
wasn’t
Miss Shelton’s son, Roman would eat his own arm.

Roman watched the child as he ate, murmuring in response to the single word questions or comments the boy made. That was all the answer that seemed to be required. When Finn finished with his first biscuit, he held up the other to Roman, as though in offering. “Biscuit?”

He chuckled. “No, Finn. You can have your other biscuit. I’ll keep eating my soup.”

The boy nodded and took a big, grinning bite of the treat. When finally he was finished with his snack, Mrs. Wyatt bustled him away and Joyce hastily cleaned up the mess he’d created. “I hope you don’t mind his intrusion overmuch.”

“Not at all,” Roman reassured her. And he hadn’t. Quite the opposite, in fact. One of his many questions had been answered, merely by the boy’s presence. He kept eating, and she continued cleaning and baking, both in silence.

Finally, he came to a stop. “Thank you. I hardly recognized my own need. I was merely stopping in to inform you I’d be back in time for tea with Lady Rosaline after I’ve made myself more presentable.”

“Mm hmm,” she murmured. The cook looked up from a bowl where she was mixing a concoction that could be almost anything, winked at him, then added a few more ingredients. “Well, from my experience, you’ll still have plenty of appetite when you return. I don’t know where men put it all.”

He let out a bark of a laugh at that. “Quite right, ma’am—”

“Joyce,” she interrupted with a twinkling grin. “And I know I am.”

“Right?”

She nodded.

Roman chuckled.

“It would do you well to remember that I’m almost always right, my lord.”

“Duly noted.” Before he could make an embarrassment of himself by devouring another bowlful of her soup, Roman pushed away from the small table. “Thank you, Joyce, for the meal. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”

“About as much as we appreciate all you’ve done for us, I’m sure.”

All he’d done? “I’ve only begun to repair your fence,” he said, bewildered.

With that, Joyce set down her implements and looked him in the eye, with a deadpanned and utterly serious shake of her head. “No, Lord Roman. You’ve already done far more for us than that.”

Before he could take the time to sort out what she meant by that statement, she was brushing her hands over her apron and hurrying over to him.

“Off with you now, so you won’t keep Lady Rosaline waiting.” Joyce took his hat and coat from the rack by the door and pressed them into his hands. “We’ll be looking for you at tea time, my lord.”

And now, he wasn’t just being dismissed by the little slip of a woman, but also by her servants. What a muddle.