Page 114 of The Ladies Least Likely
CHAPTER ONE
H arriette Smythe was the first girl Renwick met who could make a boy cry.
The new earl was accustomed to shedding tears, most of them resulting from the harsh discipline of his tutor or the thundering disapproval of his father, the late earl, when his tutor’s relentless corrections failed to remedy his heir’s many inadequacies.
Tears were familiar friends, brought on by humiliation, frustration, rage.
Ren dreamed of a time—perhaps one entire day, or long stretches of days—when he might be free of tears entirely.
Being a soft-hearted boy and not prone to violence, Renwick didn’t wish for the death of his tutor, just as he hadn’t wished for the death of his father.
Instead he dreamed of ways his faults could disappear, as happened so often in fairy tales.
Frogs kissed by a princess turned back into a handsome prince.
The werewolf who terrified everyone became a regular man when the enchantments upon him were removed.
The misshapen child of the unbelieving sultan turned into a beautiful prince when baptized in the water of faith.
His father would look upon his remade heir with admiration, approval, love.
Then the earl died, taking with him any chance Ren had of redemption. He cried then, too.
His mother, the countess, did not cry. She had endured many trials in her marriage and disappointment in both her children, and with no hope now of a new and better heir coming along, she might as well enjoy her life as a widow.
She sent her daughter to the family seat in the north, took up residence in the London townhouse, and sent her son to the small town where her grandfather had made the fortune that caught the eye of aristocrats and where the new Earl of Renwick could be out of her sight and no further cause for worry.
That is, until he reached his majority and took control of the estate, whereupon she would be obliged to remind him of his duty to support her in the style she preferred.
So it was that at an age when he ought to be training to take his high place in the world, the grieving and essentially orphaned Renwick was sent south to rusticate in Shepton Mallet and found he had merely exchanged one set of tormentors for another.
He also found Harriette Smythe.
It was a spring day, one of the first with real warmth in the sunshine, and Ren discharged his lessons as soon as he could so he might go to The Meadows, the grassy embankment in the north part of town.
Here the River Sheppey flowed restful and quiet, unlike the east end of town where the mills crowded the waterway, scooping its current to power their looms. In The Meadows, soft bowls carved the sides of the hills, offering spots to lie and daydream in the shade.
The mounds had been forts for Roman soldiers and the peoples they came to subdue, and Ren imagined he could hear the old Roman legions, marching the Fosse Way to their forts in Ilchester and Bath.
Straight and strong and determined those soldiers must have been, hardened by years of training and weathered by their posting in the north.
A weak, malformed boy like Ren would have been abandoned in Roman times, left by a market cross or on a hill to perish of exposure.
The late earl being cast in the same iron mold, Ren lay in the soft grass and wondered why his father had not done the same: set him outside to die like a runt lamb, or drowned him like a useless kitten.
The Shepton Mallet boys were all the things Renwick was not: large, well-formed, strong from lives of rigorous labor, and toughened by cruel treatment.
Their hands were rough from work while Renwick’s were pale and soft.
Their clothes were sturdy leather and woolens in browns and drabs that didn’t show dirt the way Renwick’s pale yellow breeches and silk waistcoat did.
Renwick had already torn his white stockings.
These boys wore no stockings at all, nor shoes, tramping barefoot like those old Romans down the Wells Road, calling insults to each other and laughing, bold and brash and unafraid.
Ren heard them coming long before they came into sight.
He shrank into the steep wooded slope, praying they would not see him.
They gathered with their fishing rods at a pool where the river surfaced from its underground run through town and occupied themselves with arguing over which of the shady spots was likely to hold the most fish.
Ren held still and quiet as a baby deer, fearing even to breathe.
Fishing. Now that was one normal boy’s occupation he could engage in.
He would ask his tutor where one was to find a fishing rod.
His tutor would be likely to use this desire as a cudgel with which to beat Renwick at every turn, or he might use the pole itself when he felt a caning was called for.
Mr. Mortmickle had been set by the countess to the task of making Renwick normal.
So far, his attempts to beat any faults or delicacy out of the young earl had been unsuccessful, which caused poor Mr. Mortmickle to exert himself in ever more varied and strenuous ways.
Ren was safe, though, as long as the boys didn’t see him. And they didn’t until a tiny patter of falling rock rolled past him down the slope and plopped, with slow and deliberate tiny crashes, into the water.
All three boys looked directly at him, and Renwick froze. He had not moved or caused that rockfall. What cursed luck had made him known to them?
The ironmonger’s son’s face split in a wide, evil grin. “Oy, boys,” he said loudly. “Lookoo it is. The Duke o’ Limbs. What’s ‘ee doing lurking about?”
“The footy fellow’s spyin’ on us. Out to steal our fish,” said the wainwright’s son.
“Nay, ’ee’s a molly, this’un,” said the ropemaker’s son. “’Ee’s watching and dreaming of buggering us all.”
Ren flushed in an agony of humiliation. He didn’t know what buggering was.
He knew he was sheltered, with a tutor instructed to rarely let him out of the house, his guests and his books restricted to those of which his mother approved.
He would know what it meant if he were allowed to run about like these boys, but the free way they used the word marked the difference between them as clearly as their tanned skin against his paleness.
The ironmonger’s boy grinned and put down his pole, a flash of wickedness in his eyes. “A backgammon player, is ‘ee? Maybe we ought to show Lord Queer Pins that fine waggish lads like us don’t care for his peeping and prying.”
“Aye.” The wainwright’s son rolled the loose sleeves of his stained shirt. “Old Hopping Giles. We’ll teach you to tag after us.”
“We’ll hoop your barrel good and sound this time.” The ropemaker’s son started climbing the hill toward Ren’s perch. “Give ya a right basting, we will.”
Ren looked about for escape. Thus far his tormentors had satisfied themselves with insults and hectoring, shoves and cruel laughter, but he couldn’t guess how long his name would protect him.
There was a thicket to his left and what looked like a cave opening on his right, a notch in the limestone bluff.
He’d let them thrash him senseless before he’d climb in a wet, dark cave.
He turned to scramble up the slope as best he could, knowing with his foot he wouldn’t be able to escape them.
He wondered how far he’d get before they reached him, and how badly they’d hurt him before they were done.
Break his bones and throw his body in the river?
Or leave him able to crawl home, quivering and bleeding?
He knew well the cruelty of men to those deemed weak and inferior.
The lesson had been left on his body early in life, and he had the scars to remind him in case he ever grew careless and thought he might go about like sure-footed folk.
That had been his error today, and he might very well pay for it with his life.
His hands scrabbled against a rockfall. He braced his bum foot in a small depression and tried to lever himself up, but his leg, the curse of his life, betrayed him. His knee buckled and he fell, scraping his arm against a bare outcropping of rock.
“We got ya now, ya puny pup,” one of them crowed, and Ren imagined the harsh hands upon him, the blows and taunts, and nothing nearby to protect him.
Then a shrub before him rustled and from it rose a small, avenging goddess with a halo of muddy red hair and a drawn slingshot, pointed at Ren.
“Stand down, ya bull calf, or I’ll draw your cork, I will.”
Ren froze, and a flash of rage joined the heat of humiliation coursing over him. That he would be beaten and turned over to his tormentors by a mere slip of a girl!
A shout of answering rage came from behind him. “Skip off, ya ragamuffin! Our rumpus is with the Earl of Runtwick ‘ere.”
“I know what you’re about, Abel Cain,” the girl shouted. “I heard your sparking blows. The whole of Shepton Mallet heard ‘em, great, braying donkey that ye are. Now leave his lordship alone, or I’ll flatten your nose.”
Ren grinned against his will. The imp with the wild hair and spatter of freckles across her nose was taking his side.
“Rantipole!” the wainwright’s son shouted. “Rag-tag tatterdemalion!”
The slingshot swerved to a point beyond Ren’s shoulder. “Want a blinker, Bram Wright? I’ll give ye two,” she threatened. “Love to hear you explain yer blackened peepers to your mum.”
“Spoilsport,” chimed the ropemaker’s boy. “Mar all. Addle plot. We’re just ‘avin a bit o’ fun.”
The rustle behind him told Ren that his attackers drew close. He didn’t dare turn for fear his foot would unbalance him and he’d go tumbling down the slope.
“You lay a hand on ‘im and I’ll squeak to the whole town that you thrashed ‘im, you three! That’ll addle your plot well and good,” the little fury shrieked.