‘I can do that downstairs. Please, Miss Hester, I’m going out of my mind, stuck up here. I can sit in the kitchen, quiet-like, and read my book.’
‘Very well, but only if you promise that if Miss Prudhome thinks you look tired or unwell and orders you back to bed, you go with no argument. Now, is that a promise?’
‘Yes, Miss Hester.’
‘Then finish getting dressed.’
‘Only if you ladies go out. I’m not seven, Miss Hester!’
‘Er, no. Of course not. Come along, Maria, and leave Jethro to finish dressing.’ Hester managed to keep a straight face until they were out of the door. ‘Poor Jethro, I do feel he has a hard life sometimes in a household of women. Perhaps Parrott will not mind if he walks over to the Old Manor one day soon for another talk.’
They reached the kitchen to find Ben Aston the handyman propping up the door into the yard and chatting to Susan. He straightened up as Hester entered and knuckled his forehead. ‘I came round in case there was anything you needed doing, Miss Lattimer, what with last night an’ all.’
‘What about last night?’ Hester kept her voice calm with an effort.
‘All the lights on back here, thought perhaps you’d had the burglars or som’at.’
‘Burglars? Goodness, no. Young Ackland was very unwell in the night and we were up for most of it brewing hot possets and warming bricks and I don’t know what else. But it is good of you to be concerned, Aston. How come you were around at such an hour?’
‘Up early to a sick cow, Miss Lattimer,’ he answered glibly.
‘Now you are here, you can finish turning out the sheds in the yard. Let me have a look at everything you find, but I expect most of it will have to be burned. Then sweep them out and check the roofs for leaks, if you will please.’
They were finishing their belated breakfast to the sound of thumps as Aston tossed a seemingly endless mountain of junk out into the yard when Mrs Dalling arrived for her day’s work at the Moon House. Hester had come to an arrangement with the two village women recommended by Mrs Bunting that they would take it in turns to come in daily on five days of the week for the rough cleaning, the washing, to prepare vegetables for meals and to make bread. In this way, most of the heavy work was taken care of and the household had their privacy by the evening.
Hester and Maria took themselves off to the drawing room, leaving Susan organising Mrs Dalling and Jethro seated in the big Windsor chair by the range with a cushion behind his back and Mr Parrott’s book on his knee.
Hester picked up a pile of bills and her accounts book and Maria started to rearrange a winter bouquet of evergreens on the mantel. But she seemed disinclined to concentrate on the task.
‘What do you think Lord Buckland will do if he finds Sir Lewis with a black eye?’
Hester frowned at the butcher’s account. ‘Is it possible we consume so much stewing steak? Sir Lewis? I have no idea; presumably his lordship has arrived at some plan.’
‘Will he call him out, do you think?’ Miss Prudhome stood, one limp ivy frond in her hand, an excited glint in her eye.
‘I have no idea, Maria. Probably he will do nothing to disclose our suspicions. Now, please, do let me concentrate on these accounts.’
‘Perhaps he will hit him again.’ This seemed to gratify the genteel companion to a surprising degree. ‘He most certainly deserves it.’
‘Yes.’ Hester nibbled the end of her quill abstractedly. The image of Guy, standing over a cowed and beaten foe who had been felled to the ground after a spirited flurry of blows, was a stimulating one. The fantasy developed rapidly to the point where the earl strode over and took Miss Lattimer in his arms, passionately embracing her and raining kisses upon her upturned face.
Hester pulled herself together to find a large blot on her account book. This must stop. It was dangerous folly she was deluding herself with-the one thing that was certain in the life of Miss Hester Lattimer was that no respectable alliance with any gentleman was possible. To fall in love with an earl could have only two endings: heartbreak or the acceptance of a
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Hester was still feeling somewhat subdued when luncheon was finished. Although she would have been quite happy to take bread, cheese and ale at the kitchen table, Susan and Maria were both shocked at the thought.
‘Not with outside staff present,’ Miss Prudhome pronounced and Susan sniffed and nodded her agreement.
Hester supposed they were right; it was all part of appearing to be the upright, conventional spinster that she must now portray herself as being. Doubtless news of any unconventional behaviour would be all around the village in no time and would soon reach the ears of Mrs Redland and Mrs Bunting.
So she and Maria sat down in the dining room and partook of exactly the same meal, only off china and glass instead of earthenware and pewter, served by Susan wearing a crisp white apron.
‘That Ben Aston’s fishing to know if anything odd’s been happening,’ she reported as she cleared the plates and brought in a bowl of fruit. ‘I told him that Jethro near breaking his neck was more than enough oddity for us and none of us held with nonsense about ghosts and he didn’t ask any more.’ She glanced towards the door. ‘I reckon the whole village is waiting to find out if the stories about the strange goings-on are true.’
This aspect of village curiosity had not occurred to Hester and she tapped her fruit knife thoughtfully against her plate as she considered it. ‘I don’t think having Aston and the women here will do any harm, providing we are all discreet. Everyone will soon get bored if they don’t hear of any strange happenings, and beside anything else, they will be able to observe that there is no truth in all that nonsense you heard at the Bird in Hand about his lordship.’
‘Not if they know he was here at three in the morning,’ Susan observed pertly, whisking out of the door before Hester could retort.
She finished her apple and got to her feet. ‘Would you care to come into Tring with me, Maria’?’
‘Thank you, but I promised Mrs Bunting I would help her with the church flowers this afternoon.’ She broke off with one of her anxious twittering noises. ‘Oh, but Jethro cannot accompany you-should I send to let Mrs Bunting know I cannot join her after all?’
‘No, there is no need for that. I am sure; this is hardly London, Maria. I am sure a lady can shop in a small market town without any fear of causing comment.’ And it would be pleasant to be alone for a few hours, she mused as she collected the list of things Susan had thought of that could not be purchased at the village shop.
Ben Aston harnessed Hector and she set off in the gig, feeling quite adventurous. She had often driven alone when in Portugal, but never in England, and, although the roads were far superior, the traffic was heavier. For the first time she could not rely on having Jethro to jump down and take Hector’s head, or check for her that she was not too close to the kerb on narrow streets.
Halfway down the length of the Green she came upon Annabelle Redland, strolling along, her bonnet dangling by its strings from one negligent hand, an expression of dissatisfaction on her face.
‘Good afternoon.’ Hester reined in. ‘A pleasant day for a walk, is it not?’
‘I suppose so,’ Annabelle agreed, ‘providing that is what one
‘And you do not?’
‘No. Mama said we could go for a drive, but now there is the most dreadful row over the downstairs maid who is…’ she lowered her voice, although there was not another person within fifty yards ‘…in an unfortunate condition.’
‘Oh dear,’ Hester said sympathetically. ‘Is the father willing to marry her?’
‘She will not say who it is, that is why there is such a dreadful row,’ confided Miss Redland. ‘Mama is threatening to call in the vicar and I am not supposed to know anything about it so I have to go out for a walk.’
