Ashton: Lord of Truth (Lonely Lords Book 13) (12 page)

The threat was meaningless. Matilda could no more turn away a cat seeking shelter than she could have locked her windows against Helen’s visits.

 By the standards with which Matilda had been raised, she was on the poor end of respectable, but the freedom she enjoyed was an unexpected delight.
If she wanted a cup of tea, she went to the kitchen and got it. If she wanted to braid her hair rather than arrange it in a bun, she braided it. She had
only six dresses, one for heavy cleaning, one for Sunday services, and four that offered shapeless, drab ease of movement.

On her feet she wore house slippers, half boots, or nothing at all.

Life was simple and every choice her own, and today was a day to walk in the park. When Matilda joined Pippa in the kitchen and found a pot of hot tea
waiting for her, her satisfaction was complete.

“Did you make this for me?” she asked, pouring a cup.

“That tray was for Mr. Fenwick, ma’am, but he’s off to see his solicitors. Helen pinched an apple tart for her breakfast. Mr. Fenwick
said he’d fend for himself when his meeting was over.”

A fraction of the morning’s joy dimmed, because Mr. Fenwick had mentioned dining with
an earl
last night, at his club. Titled lords figured
in Matilda’s worst nightmares. She didn’t need them ruining her breakfast too.

“I believe I’ll have an apple tart for breakfast too,” she said. “You’re welcome to join me, Pippa.”

Pippa was the maid of all work, a refugee from a Magdalene house, where, according to Pippa, the women did laundry six and a half days a week for virtually
no pay. They were not permitted to leave the facility, and even conversation among the residents was frowned on.

This life was supposed to be an improvement over streetwalking, or the endless toil Pippa had known in Jamaica. Matilda suspected medieval convents had
been run with more genuine compassion than the Magdalene houses showed for the women they housed—and those convents had had a more positive impact on
the ladies’ eternal souls.

“I had my porridge,” Pippa said. “I do like that Mr. Fenwick. He’s tidy.” Her words, and her approach to life, bore a hint of
the island sunshine into which she’d been born. She’d been a slave amidst all that sunshine and tropical beauty, while on England’s
colder shores, she was free, albeit free to starve.

Also free to admire any man who caught her fancy.   

Matilda hadn’t been in Mr. Fenwick’s rooms since he’d moved in. “Tidiness is a virtue in a lodger. You’ll give his rooms a
cleaning today?”

“Aye, ma’am,” Pippa said, pouring water over a bowl of eggs Matilda had purchased the previous day. “Won’t take me but a
moment. He doesn’t track in the mud, hoard his dishes, or put his boots on the furniture. You’re off on your errands?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Third Tuesday of the month,” Pippa said, setting the pitcher on the counter. “If the weather’s fair, you put on that awful brown
walking dress and disappear for the morning. The only time you miss is when it’s pouring rain. Whoever he is, I hope he appreciates you.”

 Matilda left off fussing with the tea things. “Mind your tongue, Pippa. I don’t meet a man. I go to the park.”

Pippa set an apple tart before Matilda on a plate. “Oh, that’s lovely. I used to spend many an afternoon in the park. So many fine carriages
and handsome gents.”

What Pippa had likely done in those carriages with the handsome gents made Matilda’s cheeks warm.

“Do you miss your afternoons in the park, Pippa? If I’m to replace you, some warning would be appreciated.” Matilda couldn’t hire
just anybody. She needed competence, discretion, and common sense in a domestic who’d attract no notice.

Pippa took the place across from Matilda, something no servant would have done with the Earl of Kittridge’s daughter. But then, that daughter had
never ventured into a kitchen until the day she’d married and the housekeeper had given her a tour of Althorpe’s domicile.

 “I don’t miss the flats,” Pippa said. “I miss the other girls. You never met a better lot, Mrs. Bryce. We looked out for each
other, but then, we had to. I was lucky—I didn’t start too young, and I kept my health—but sooner or later, you get into the wrong coach,
or into the wrong alley. There’s some as like to beat women, some like worse than that. You can never tell the devils from the charmers, because they
all have coin, and they think that means they own you. From tailors and boot-makers, the gents buy a service and a skill. When it comes to women, that coin
is supposed to be worth everything she is.”

Matilda’s heart broke for Pippa, who spoke with a chilling detachment, and she saw in Pippa’s circumstance an echo of her own situation.

“If you ever think that life is preferable to what you have here, I want to know, Pippa. Don’t leave me wondering what’s become of
you.”

Pippa rose. “I have to set an example for Helen now, don’t I? She’s earning a proper wage, sleeping safe at night. If I do a bunk,
Helen’s bound to follow me, and she’s going to be a stunner with her golden hair and blue eyes. That Sissy knows it too.”

The apple tart wasn’t as good cold, but it was still an improvement over plain porridge. “You don’t care for Sissy?”

“She puts on airs,” Pippa said, gently washing a dirty egg to smooth, white perfection. “Can’t abide a game girl puttin’ on
airs. Sooner or later, we’re all put to bed with a shovel, no matter how grand we think we are.”

As theologies went, Pippa’s had the advantage of simplicity, but Matilda couldn’t match the girl’s pragmatism.

Ashton Fenwick was different. He didn’t seek a woman who’d increase his fortune or his consequence. He wanted a companion, a lover, a heart
mate. Or so he’d implied. Pippa’s point was worth noting too, though. The charmers and the devils could look vexingly alike. Althorpe had been
a plain man, though his manners had been punctiliously correct before Matilda had married him.

“I won’t be back before noon,” Matilda said, “so please tell Helen that one apple tart a day is her limit. She can have porridge
for lunch, or whatever you fix for yourself, but she’s not to subsist on purloined sweets.”

“Aye, ma’am,” Pippa said, washing a second egg, “but my guess is Mr. Fenwick will fetch something from a chophouse and see to
Helen’s meal. Looks like a man fond of his victuals.”

And of his horse, and of Helen, and of luscious, late-night kisses.

“Lock the front door if you go out, Pippa, and I should be back this afternoon.” Matilda ate the last few bites of tart in solitude, while
Pippa finished washing the eggs, then went up to clean Mr. Fenwick’s rooms.

Matilda put on her awful blue dress, for a change, and arrived to the park by way of detours through Knightsbridge. The precaution was likely pointless,
but it gave her time to fortify herself against the morning’s challenges. She’d brought a book too, though that was a prop.

She needn’t have bothered with the book. Before she reached the bench where she typically lurked, she spotted a small child playing catch with her
governess. The governess was youngish and had first appeared in the park the previous month. The young ones—the ones who laughed, played catch, and
flew kites—never lasted.

Matilda adjusted her straw hat lower across her brow, got out her sketchbook, and prepared to have her heart broken all over again.

“Your finances prosper, my lord,” Rupert Harpster said, positioning a silver standish precisely above the center of a tooled leather blotter.
“Your brother was a good manager, but I must say, the earldom has seen some handsome returns in the past few years.”

Harpster was a spare, natty, older fellow whose blue eyes held shrewdness even when he smiled. Ashton was not for one moment fooled by the
solicitor’s flattery, nor was he willing to sit before his lawyer’s handsome desk like a supplicant importuning a bishop.

“If the earldom prospers,” Ashton said, on his hundredth circuit of the office, “then projects Ewan and his predecessors put in train
long before the title befell me are the cause. Is it possible to sell off the English portion of the land?”

The previous hour had been spent reviewing yet more grievances from the English tenants. Ashton went out of his way to accommodate them. Their cottages
were not merely snug, they were handsomely commodious. Any tenant could have free use of the earldom’s draft teams if new sod had to be broken in
spring. The home farm kept them supplied with out-crosses for their sheep and goats, and if rents were late, Ashton seldom took action.

The more he gave, the more they took advantage.

“Sell the tenancies in England?” Harpster murmured. “I cannot recommend such a course, my lord, even if it could be construed as
permissible.”

“So you don’t know if I could sell that land. It’s one-eighth of my property and eight-tenths of my headaches. The tenants have grown
lax, expecting special consideration and forgiveness when their incompetence results in a bad harvest. Look at their yields, Harpster. Everything from wool
to hay to barley falls below what the Scottish tenants can produce on smaller acreages.”

This problem could be laid at Ewan’s feet, to some extent. Unwilling to provoke a vocal minority, he’d yielded to the advice of his fellow
landlords on the English side of the river, and Ashton had inherited the resulting mess.

“The initial grant of land that went with the Mulder barony was quite small, my lord,” Harpster said, gaze fixed above the sideboard, where a
full-length portrait of King John signing the Magna Carta hung. “The earls of Kilkenney added to it mostly by purchase and marriage. Where the
English tenancies fall, I could not precisely say. Some might be saleable, some might be entailed.”

“I want a map,” Ashton said, “and I want it soon. Show me which farms I can sell, which I’m stuck with, and any that fall somewhere
in between. Once the harvest is in and the rents paid, I’ll be making some changes.” A lot of changes, actually.

Ashton would never do as some landlords had done and burn out tenants on Christmas Day for his convenience, but neither would he tolerate more years of
idleness while good land went to waste.

Harpster folded his hands on his blotter and bowed his head as if an unjust sentence had been pronounced. “Very well, my lord. Would a month from now
suit?” 

 “One week. You have copies of the letters patent, and all the land not described therein should be saleable unless an entail was subsequently
added. I’ll see you next week.”

Ashton headed for the door, ready to leave behind the silk-covered walls, thick carpets, and idealized landscapes in their gilt frames. The pen tray on
Harpster’s desk was chased silver, as were the ink bottles sitting on the standish. This wasn’t workmanship displayed for the sake of beauty,
this was a subtle means of impressing clients, or perhaps intimidating them.

Helen would have nicked the lot of it, and Harpster would have had no clue where his vanities had gone.

“There was one other topic I thought we should discuss, my lord,” Harpster said, remaining at his desk. “I’m told you’re in
London with matrimony in mind, and that can be a complicated legal undertaking.”

“Who told you that?”

Harpster’s smile was smug. “I have my sources, the better to serve the clients whose trust reposes in my office.”

Harpster had Ashton’s coin. He did not have Ashton’s trust. “That’s something I’ve never understood.”

“My lord?”

“If my earldom is Scottish and my lands are mostly Scottish, why is my solicitor English? It’s not as if the legal profession has no Scottish
exponents and not as if English law is controlling in Scotland.”

Now
Harpster got to his feet. “Your much-respected forbearers saw fit to give this office their custom, my lord. We have served your family for
generations, without apparent complaint. As it happens, you do own land in England, and London is the cultural and political capital of the empire if not
the world. Surely you would not rely on lesser resources when you already have the best at hand?”

Oh, that was as subtle as a peacock’s mating call.

“I’ll see you next week,” Ashton said, one hand on the door latch, “and you’ll have a map for me.”

Harpster came around his desk. “About your matrimonial aspirations, my lord. I’ve taken it upon myself to prepare a list, based on information
gathered over the years regarding various families whose good fortune includes a marriageable daughter making her curtsey this year. In a few cases,
I’ve included ladies who made their come out last year, in the interests of giving you the widest possible—”

“Next week,” Ashton said, swinging the door open. “And I’ll take a copy of the map with me.” 

He shut the door in Harpster’s face and gestured to Helen, who was waiting in a chair by the door of the clerk’s room.

“Let’s be off,” he said, not stopping. “I’m in the mood for a gallop.”

Clear back to Scotland.

Helen fell in step without asking questions, suggesting Ashton’s foul mood was apparent at ten paces. Another list, for God’s sake. As if young
women were so many vegetables at market. No wonder Matilda Bryce had no use for marriage, if this was how her family had approached it.