on his sofa?”
Allie looked puzzled. “You didn’t ask me to.”
Mrs. Hunt smiled at her daughter. “My apologies. I meant to, but then the scent of Polly’s flan tickled my nose, and I must have forgotten. Mr. Haddonfield, if you want to gather your laundry, I’ll light you up.”
“I’ll meet you in the laundry,” Beck said. “Miss Polly, my compliments on another splendid meal. If you’ll write the recipe down for that flan, I’ll send it along to my father’s cook. The orange zest is a magnificent touch.”
“Of course.” Polly looked pleased but wouldn’t meet his gaze—though North was looking a bit disconcerted— so Beck contented himself with tweaking Allie’s braid and bidding the child good night.
Beck cocked a finger-pistol at North. “Scrambled eggs at dawn, Mr. North. Last man out of bed has to clean up and take the scraps to the fair Hildy.”
“I’ll lie awake all night rather than suffer such a fate.” North bowed with disconcerting elegance and disappeared up the steps.
Beck fetched an impressive pile of laundry, more than he’d realized a week of living could create. He’d arranged the load in a wicker basket when Mrs. Hunt joined him, a single candle in her hand.
Beck picked up the basket, lest she attempt to carry both the laundry and her candle. While they were wending their way through the darkened corridors of the house, Beck felt the chill seeping into his bones.
“I cannot recall a time when I was so desperately looking forward to my bed,” he mused, mostly because his escort did not offer any conversation. “Whatever I expected of this place, it wasn’t immediate exhaustion.”
“You learn to pace yourself. It wasn’t what I expected here either.”
“How did you come to be here?” Beck asked, keeping his tone casual.
“My husband died while we were in Italy,” she said, slowing to navigate a set of stairs. “Lady Warne was touring and had called upon us socially. She heard of Reynard’s situation and offered us passage back here and employment for me. The packet landed in Brighton, and we’ve been here ever since.”
This recitation struck Beck as a radically abbreviated telling of a more complicated tale. “And that was when?”
“A few years ago. A month after we got here, the old cook quit without notice, so Polly took over.”
“She does very well with it,” Beck said as they approached his room. Since his hands were full, Mrs. Hunt opened the door and preceded him into his sitting room. Once again, somebody had lit his fire, set his wash water by the hearth, and refilled the pitcher of drinking water. The room smelled good too, as if someone had freshened the lavender sachets hanging from the curtain sashes.
The effect was pleasant and welcoming, and yet Beck wasn’t entirely comfortable with the notion that Mrs. Hunt herself had troubled over his comforts.
“I’ve added to your burden,” he said, glancing around the room. “Just by being here, I make more work.”
“But you lightened Gabriel’s load.” She lit the candles on his mantel and moved off to light some in his bedroom. “I’m surprised he allows it.”
“He’s an independent sort. I also think there’s a bit of putting me through my paces going on.”
“Maybe.” She stood in the door between the two rooms and offered him a half smile. “Do you blame him?”
“Of course not.” Beck put down his basket of laundry. “I meant what I said, Mrs. Hunt, about making a list.”
Her smile became a quarter smile, then an eighth. “Of course you did. The question is, when you’ve replaced the towels and rugs, as Gabriel terms them, then what?”
“Then you have a livable property worthy of the Marchioness of Warne.” Beck was tired and not up to deciphering females’ moods.
“Or you have a saleable property, don’t you?”
This again? “You think I’d turn out three females and a man who has worked himself to the bone simply to add to my grandmother’s coffers?”
Her chin came up in a very unservile manner. “We’re hired help, and you’re the son of an earl. We live in an age of clearances and enclosures, Mr. Haddonfield. The working man can riot all he wants over the price of bread, but the price of bread doesn’t change. You’re perfectly within your rights to work us nigh to death and then sell the place for a song.”
Beck advanced on her, fatigue letting his temper strain its leash. “Firstly, any decision to sell would be made by my grandmother, whose generosity of spirit has been proven by her dealings with you. Secondly, my task is to put the place to rights, not sell it. It’s no more for sale now than it was the day you got here, Mrs. Hunt. Thirdly, I am a gentleman and would not leave you and yours to starve when you’ve served the family loyally under trying circumstances.”
“I know better than to depend on any man’s word,” Mrs. Hunt said, her voice low and fierce as she glared up at him. “You mean what you say, now, Mr. Haddonfield, I’ll grant you that much. But if your grandmother should die or the earl redirect your task, you can’t stop the place from being sold.”
Beck’s brows came down in a frown, and he realized with a start he was not dealing with an arrogant exponent of the working class, but rather, a very tired, frightened mother and widow.
His second realization was that Mrs. Hunt employed a stage trick to make her presence more imposing: she remained always in motion. He’d observed her throughout the day, skirts always swishing madly. She dusted, she swept, she scrubbed; she beat carpets, boiled laundry, and bustled about, a rampage of cleaning on two feet. Standing this close to her, Beck saw she was in truth a slender woman of not much more than average height—and a tired slender woman at that.
“I cannot stop my relatives from dying or selling your home,” Beck said, his tone much less belligerent, “but I can assure you they are honorable people, and when I convey to them the conditions under which you’ve labored, they will understand their debt to you, and to Polly and North. Mrs. Hunt—Sara—are you all right?”
Mr. Haddonfield moved closer, close enough that Sara could catch a whiff of bergamot, an incongruous counterpoint to the roaring in her ears.
“I just need to sit,” she managed. She felt the candle being taken from her grasp and then, in the next instant, felt herself scooped up and deposited on the bed, the scent of lavender bed sachets filling her nose.
“Head down.” Mr. Haddonfield put a hand on her nape and gently forced her to curl her nose down to her knees. “You stay like that, and I’ll fetch you some water.”
She complied, not raising her head, the better to hide the ferocious blush suffusing her features. Her cap went tumbling to the floor, and she didn’t try to restore it.
Mr. Haddonfield lowered himself beside her and let her ease back to a sitting position. “Better?”
“Better,” Sara said. “I’m all right, really, but sometimes…”
“Drink.” He wrapped her hand around a cold glass of water, peering at her with concern. “Your color is off.”
“I’m pale by nature.” Sara sipped the water cautiously.
“You’re flushed now.” His regard turned to a frown. “Are you coming down with something?”
“No,” Sara said, handing him back the glass.
“I see.” And perhaps he did see—possessed as he was of four sisters who each no doubt came down with the selfsame malady Sara suffered every four weeks or so. “I’ve wondered how women cope. Have some more water.”
Sara stole a peek at him. He wasn’t blushing or studying his fingernails or the ceiling, which was oddly heartening. They must be formidable sisters. “There’s always a tot of the poppy when coping is truly a challenge,” she muttered.
“I’ve seen my sister Kirsten wrapped so tightly around her hot water bottle you’d think it was her firstborn child. Susannah copes by tippling, and Della rages and breaks things, then gets weepy and quiet.”
“I was like that,” Sara said, knowing she shouldn’t have this discussion with him. She’d certainly never had it with Reynard. “When I was younger, that is. I hope I don’t rage and break things now, but the water bottle and the tippling sound appealing.”
“Except you haven’t a water bottle,” he guessed. “And the only thing to tipple is the brandy I see in dusty decanters throughout the house, which might be a bit much.”
