Page 154 of The Ladies Least Likely

“In my official capacity, I cannot say, your lordship. But as—ahem—a matter of hearsay, I understand she has sought new employment at the Swan, just up the street.”

“And the man-manager of my factory—where can I find him? I should like to hear his—er, perspective on the discussions that seem to be currently occupying everyone in t-town.”

Mssr. Golledge blinked rapidly and regarded Renwick as if he had just turned a somersault in the rather cramped and very shabby environs of his office.

“Er.” He appeared at a complete loss, faced with the notion of a lord and factory owner condescending to learn what his manager thought on any aspect of his business.

“I may be mistaken, but I believe that Mr. Fripp is, er, often seen in the environs of the Swan as well.”

“How convenient.” Ren levered himself to his feet, masking a grimace as his bum foot collided with the leg of a table crowding the narrow space. “I may w-return for his direction if I am unable to locate him otherwise. Would you care to accompany me to the Swan for a drink, Golledge?”

“A-a-a drink, your lord-lordship?”

Ren held back a smile and the comment that Golledge stuttered worse than he did.

He had been away from London for all of three days and was already weary of the notion that earls swam in rarefied air, slightly above and unattached to the realm of lesser mortals.

He had not seen that nobility was treated with reverence anywhere else on the Continent.

Certainly English nobility, being as common as dirt along the routes of the Grand Tour, was nothing out of the way.

The populace of other countries seemed to regard their very wealthy as spectacles put on earth to entertain them; only the English seemed to attach some special favor to noble birth.

He wondered fleetingly how the Prussians felt about such things. Would Harriette be treated as special because she was a duchess? Or did Frederick the Great, like other rulers of the Enlightenment, believe that integrity of character could be separate from privileged birth?

His Harriette ought to be revered by all as the goddess she was. Though he, of course, was biased, Ren reflected as he made his way to the Swan.

The public room of the inn was thronged with working men, and none of them appeared to be taking their leisure.

The loud buzz of conversation was punctuated here and there with an outburst of rage.

A pair of well-dressed men passed him on the street, their white stockings, buckled shoes, powdered wigs, and fine coats proclaiming them men of some station.

Coins clanked as one man clasped a hand over the leather pouch he carried.

Both men hurried into a small office with a sign proclaiming it a bank.

The rich men were hustling their savings to safety. Something was afoot, indeed.

Ren stepped carefully over the uneven wooden threshold into a room that had to be at least two hundred years old, with a low timbered ceiling, smoke-stained plaster on the walls, and oiled paper rather than glass in the windows.

As he straightened, sweeping off his tricorne hat, every eye in the room turned in his direction, and every conversation stopped.

“R-Renwick, at your service.” He swept a shallow, cordial bow, proud that his stutter was not obvious, that his cane held him steady.

A gentleman only put himself at the service of other gentlemen, an earl to none but his colleagues or those above him in rank.

That he made this courtesy to a room full of workingmen meant he was greeted with a lift of several glasses, a chorus of “Well come, yer lordship!” and a crowd of pointed fingers when he asked where he could find Mrs. Oram.

He navigated a narrow passage and another dangerously uneven set of steps to a courtyard behind the inn, where several flat tables were set up on crossed logs, an enormous chunk of meat roasted over an open fire, and a flock of hens clucked and scraped in the dirt against a far wall.

A woman in a calico dress and cap stood at the spit, using her apron to protect her hands as she gave the meat a turn.

A boy stood beside a smaller table set well away from the fire, taking chanterelles out of a woven basket and laying them out in neat rows.

“Mrs. O-Owam?” Ren practiced his shallow bow once more, hoping she didn’t notice he’d mangled her name. “I am R-Renwick. I see that you are oth-otherwise occupied, but I hoped to have a w-w—a word with you. About the Manor House.”

“Oh, gor. Yer lordship.” She dropped a curtsey, wiping her hands in her apron.

Her eyes ran down his frame, noting the cane, and he supposed she had been told about him, though she’d never before had occasion to see him.

“If there’s owt missin’ from the ‘ouse, milord, it’s that rotter Mr. Erle, and that’s the way of it. ”

“I have reason to believe Mr.—” He paused. There was no way he was going to manage the word ‘Erle.’ He ought to have objected to hiring the man from the very beginning based on that alone. “My steward has, sh-shall we say, neglected his post. I ca-came for other reasons, Missus.”

He wasn’t going to be able to manage her name, either. Her curious, wary look, and the frank stare of the boy with the mushrooms, were as much as his nerves could handle.

“I was ho-hoping you might return to the house, with the right incentive,” he blurted. “And possibly have p-p-possession of a key.”

“I’ve nowt fer a key,” she answered, glancing at the boy. “But Jags and I might be persuaded, if ye offer the right terms, sir.”

“Terms?” Ren hadn’t the faintest notion what a housekeeper in a small market town could command for her services. He was more interested in the way the boy was now rearranging the chanterelles on the table, moving the golden funnel-shaped items into rows of the similar size.

“Half again my salary,” Mrs. Oram said promptly, “and I might have Jags with me.”

The boy hummed slightly as he worked, but emitted a sound of distress as he found his columns uneven in length. He counted the last column again and began to rock side to side on his feet, the hum growing in volume.

“’Ere, luv.” His mother strolled over and laid a hand on his arm. As the boy calmed, she reached for the mushrooms in the uneven row. “Shall we give ‘is lordship a taste?”

The boy subsided to a happy hum as his mother scooped the extras into her apron and left him with a complete, neat square. Softly he touched each one, counting to himself.

“Jags is simple,” Mrs. Oram said, looking Ren squarely in the eye as she walked toward him. “’Ee can’t be left to shift for ‘imself. Mr. Erle and I didn’t see eye to eye on that, or on many things.”

“And, er, Mr. O—?” He left it at that.

She gulped. “’Ee won’t be callin’.” She gave him a challenging look.

Ren deliberated. He knew it was not the done thing for housekeepers to have families.

Callers were discouraged for unattached house servants, and housing children was unheard of.

They distracted from one’s work and were like to cause damage, get in the way, or at the very least provoke neighboring households to gossip.

If the Manor were not seen as being kept to the appropriate standards, how else might his home, and his business interests, suffer?

“Meh.” The boy ambled over to Ren, holding a golden cup in his hand. His eyes, set close together in his face, flickered with interest over Ren’s cane. Without fear he held up his palm. “Meh.”

Mrs. Oram sucked in her breath. “He wants you to smell,” she said. “He don’t usually take to strangers. Jags, ‘is lordship mightn’t?—”

Ren bent forward, bracing himself on his cane, and sniffed at the delicately flared hood of the mushroom.

“I say,” he answered, straightening. “Smells like apricots. I’d never noticed that. Thank you, Jags.”

The boy grunted and ferried his treasure back to his table, carefully replacing it and beaming at his neat array. Harriette would adore this boy. Ren met Mrs. Oram’s worried gaze.

“Jags has a place in my home for as long as you w-work there,” he said.

He felt a rush of protectiveness, mingled with sorrow.

Jags looked about the age Ren had been the summer he came to Shepton Mallet, and he guessed all too readily how other boys his age regarded Jags’ limitations.

“Mr. G-Golledge will see you receive your back pay. How soo-soon can you come?”

Mrs. Oram wiped a hand beneath the frilled lace of her cap, heaving a deep sigh of relief. “I mun finish ‘ere tonight or Stokes’ll put me in the soup. Tomorrah?” she asked. “Tendin’ one big ole empty house’s a sight easier than feedin’ this bleedin’ lot ‘o ruffians, and no mistake.”

“I shall l-look for you tomorrow then,” Ren said. “Thank you, Mrs. Ow-Oram. Good day, Jags.”

He retreated to the dark passage leading back to the public room, drawing a breath and trying to let his tongue untangle. Dealing with strangers always made his mouth feel too small, increasing his difficulties, and there was worse to come.

The public room fell silent again as Ren entered. He stood and let the crowd take him in, scanning their curious, wary, cautious, or scornful faces. “Any ch-chance one of you is a Mr. Fw-Fripp?” he pronounced carefully.

“Don’t ‘spect ‘im till later, yer lordship!” yelled a voice from the back. “After ‘ee’s made ‘is way through the Bell, then the King’s Bench, then the Tare ‘n ‘ounds—” Guffaws of laughter drowned out the last of his statement.

“I’ll wait,” Ren said. “And in the meantime, I should l-like someone to enlighten me about the disag-g-greements over the factories that is taking place here.”

Absolute and profound silence. A light snore drifted from a table in the furthest corner.

An enormous man stood, his tankard still clutched in his hand. “Ye want to ‘ear about our disag-g-greements .” He elaborated Ren’s stammer, making it sound worse. A few nervous titters from his companions emboldened him. “Going to fix it all, are ye? The great ‘n grand Duke o’ Limbs.”

Ren guessed the man had only barely kept from calling him Runtwick.

He regarded the barrel-sized chest, the thick shock of dirty brown hair, the stubble on the man’s face, and the dust and wear on his leather trousers.

An equally dirty leather jacket lay over the back of his chair.

Ren didn’t have to search hard for the name.

“I make no promises to you or anyone, Abel Cain,” he said, and the ice in his voice helped every word emerge with precision. “But I do agree to listen .”

The man blinked, clearly shocked at being recognized. While he stood, mouth open, a smaller man beside him surged to his feet.

“If ‘is lordship’ll listen, we’ll spill,” he shouted. “’At’s the first time any fancy ‘as said they’ll at least ‘ear us, and that’s that. Stokes!” he bellowed. “Fetch the earl ‘ere a—what’ll it be, then? Ale? Small beer? Whisky?”

Abel Cain sneered, not about to be bested. “Dandelion wine?”

“Ale,” Ren said evenly, and moved to a stool at the bar in a space that had suddenly cleared for him. “To begin with.”

It wasn’t his first choice to be here. He needed to find a key and open the Manor House. He needed to determine in what state his steward had left the house, as well as its finances. He needed to find Fripp and learn if the adoption of new equipment was causing problems in his factory as well.

More than that, he wanted to be with Harriette.

He wished to be there to hold her when she finally decided to let herself cry.

He wanted to help her with the small, drab, consuming details of death, of choosing hatbands and dying everything black.

He wanted to tell her that, at first, the loss of a parent felt like the world had sagged on its axis, that the North Star had shifted, that the whole world had gone arsey varsey, as she would say.

But in time one learned to accommodate, as one learned to walk with a limp or compensate for a missing limb. It felt hollow and endless and strange at first—even the loss of a parent one didn’t particularly like or feel close to was a blow to the very fabric of one’s being. But it would get better.

He wanted to make it better. He wanted to be there for her, but he sensed he would only be in the way.

So instead he sat in the Swan, accepted the bumper of ale set before him, and determined to listen to the complaints of these men as no one else had, and see if he could find a way to make peace around him.

Peace in his own heart, he knew, would be harder to find.