Jack of Hearts (9 page)

“Why, Sarah, I am disappointed in you to be so taken in. But then, you
are
a romantic and I suppose he is the sort of man who would make a perfect hero in one of your novels,” Anne teased back. “But he is too sure of his own charm to suit me.”

“What of Baron Leighton, then?”

“I enjoy his company very much and we have the same humorous outlook on the world. I think I would find him a good companion, but if I were to choose today, it might well be Lord Windham.”

“Yet he doesn’t make you laugh as much. On the other hand, he has more hair!” said Sarah with a wicked smile.

“That has nothing to do with it!”

“Nor does he have a daughter.”

“I do worry about that,” Anne confessed. “But I am going to keep an open mind about the two of them. Steven Leighton’s daughter will be in town for the Season, although she is too young to socialize. I will have a chance to meet her. And if I like her, perhaps an experienced husband is the better choice after all.”

* * * *

If Anne had had any doubts about the wisdom of hiring Patrick Gillen, he would have put them to rest by the way he organized their trip back to Yorkshire. Despite the help of her butler and housekeeper, she had taken on the major responsibility for their journey south. But when she summoned Patrick to give him instructions, she found he had anticipated most of what she wanted and volunteered to handle many of the household tasks as well as organizing the horses.

“I can see the advantages of hiring a master sergeant, Patrick,” Anne told him after she heard his ideas. “You have it all in hand and leave me with very little to do.”

“And that’s as it should be, Miss Heriot.”

Anne smiled. “I suppose so, but I am very used to assuming responsibilities here and at home.”

“Ye’ll have to let go of some of them after ye’re married, miss, so this will be good practice!”

“Miss Heriot’s plans for marriage are none of your business, Sergeant Gillen,” said Sarah, who had just come into the room.

“Beggin’ yer pardon, Miss Heriot, Miss Wheeler is right.” Patrick bowed himself out with a patently false obsequiousness. Anne chuckled as the door closed behind her and then turned to her friend. “I am surprised to hear you being so stuffy, Sarah. Don’t you like Sergeant Gillen?”

“I am very grateful to him for saving you, Anne. And, to be fair, he is very competent,” Sarah admitted stiffly. “But there is something about him—perhaps it is his Irishness—that I find a bit irritating.”

“Why, Sarah, I would never have suspected you of such snobbery.”

Sarah blushed. “I do not believe I am a snob, Anne. I certainly do not mean to be. Perhaps I am being unfair.”

“Well, you don’t have to like him. But I confess that I do. Very much.”

* * * *

Although she hadn’t liked what Patrick had to say about sharing responsibilities, Anne had a lot of time to think about it as they traveled the long miles home to Yorkshire.

She had lived a very different life from that of most of the young women she had met in London. While they were perfecting their crewelwork, she had been exploring geometry. Her father may have been emotionally distant, but he had recognized her talents early on and had encouraged them. And when his bookkeeper had retired, he had approached his daughter to take over the work.

She had been happy to do it, for it gave her several hours a week with her father, involved with a common concern. It was probably the closest thing to intimacy she had with him, and she suspected that part of the reason he had asked for her help was to spend time with her in a way that was comfortable for him.

She had hated being sent away to school, but he had insisted. “Tha mun learn pianoforte as well as geometry, lass,” he’d told her. “Tha will be living the life of a lady someday, if I have anything to say about it.”

She knew he was right when she arrived at school and discovered how different she was from the other girls. Not just in rank, although that was the most obvious, but in experience and interests.

When she returned home, she’d had only a year with her father before he contracted pneumonia. She had continued to keep the accounts despite Joseph’s protests that it wasn’t proper. What would a husband think of a wife who was bored by the pianoforte and planning the menus? Would a viscountess or a baroness be allowed to take over the bookkeeping of the household? To become involved in the running of the estate? Probably not, but at least she would still have the mills, she reassured herself. Certainly Leighton or Windham would not object to her continued involvement, since it helped provide their source of income.

Of course, neither man had seen that side of her yet. They only knew her as a young woman who danced well, conversed easily with all, and preferred a mezzo-soprano to a coloratura! It would have been considered terribly vulgar to speak of her father’s business. To speak of her reason for coming to London. To speak of their reasons for courting her.

Of course, Lord Aldborough had had no fear of being vulgar! He had come right out and said it: “You need a husband. I need a wife.” But he didn’t know who she really was either.

She didn’t think she could become someone else. She was used to assuming responsibility for things, and she couldn’t imagine letting someone take over her life. If she had to, she would make sure that her marriage settlement had a provision that assured her of some involvement in the mills, if nothing else!

Anne had been home for less than a week when Joseph Trantor was announced just as she and Sarah had come down for their daily ride.

“I am sorry to disturb you, Anne. I can come back later.”

“No, no, Joseph,” Anne replied, successfully keeping the trace of annoyance from her voice. “Patrick has the horses ready, Sarah. Would you tell him that I won’t be riding this morning. But you go ahead, if you wish.”

“I will, if you don’t mind, Anne, for if we are going into town later, I won’t have time to get a ride in.”

“Come into the library, Joseph. There’s a good fire there.”

Anne wanted to sit behind her desk to give herself some distance from her cousin, but knew it would be rude to emphasize his employee status, so she sat down in one of the armchairs and motioned him to the sofa.

“I hope you enjoyed tha trip to London, Anne?”

Her cousin’s question was innocent enough, but Anne knew that what he really wanted to know was whether she had succeeded in her husband-hunting.

“It was delightful, Joseph,” she answered as blandly as he had queried her. It was really none of his business whether she had found any suitable candidates for her hand. Of course, he was probably hoping she hadn’t, for that would have put a damper on his own hopes, which she suspected would not be dashed completely until she walked down the aisle with someone else. “I didn’t expect to see you until Tuesday. Is there something wrong at the mill?”

She was a little surprised when he gave her a worried look, and a nod, for she had supposed he rushed over from personal concern rather than on mill business.

“Have any machines broken down? Are we behind in production?”

“Nowt like that, cousin. No, it is just a problem, a slight problem with one of the workers.”

“You are usually very good at resolving such things, Joseph.” Indeed, for the most part, her cousin rarely spoke much about that part of his job. Their meetings tended to be about production and profits, not men and women.

“It is one young firebrand, a Ned Gibson.”

“Whatever does he have to be fiery about? My father’s workers have always received some of the highest wages in Yorkshire.”

“Much of it is merely personal. I let young Gibson’s fiancée go just after you left for London.”

Anne gave him an inquiring look.

“Her behavior was not what your father would have approved, Anne,” he explained, sounding a little embarrassed.

Anne assumed young Ned and his fiancée had been caught in immoral behavior. Perhaps the young woman was even increasing. But Joseph would be far too prudish to tell her that, of course.

“It sounds as though you may have been justified in your decision, Joseph, but I suppose the young man finds it hard to accept.”

“Yes, and unfortunately, a week later, we had an accident in the carding shed. A child got her hand caught in the rollers. She had ignored the safety regulations your father had set up, of course, but that was all young Gibson needed.”

“He hasn’t been meeting with other workers, has he?”

“I am sure he has, but I haven’t been able to catch him at it. If I could, he’d be up before t’magistrate in a second and spend three months in jail like his brother did before him.”

“His brother?”

“Tom Gibson. He was one of the most active of General Ludd’s troops three years ago, but his second jail term finally broke his resistance. That and his drinking!”

“Does his brother drink too?”

“I want to say they all do,” Joseph replied, disgust in his voice. “Always out at t’local pub after work… But to be fair,” he added reluctantly, “Ned doesn’t seem to be a drunkard.”

“Can we just ignore him?”

“That is one possibility. T’other is to let him go too. But I have no real grounds, and he does now have responsibility for his fiancée’s family as well as his own.”

“Perhaps I should visit Shipton,” Anne said thoughtfully.

“No, no, there is no reason for that,” Joseph insisted.

“I haven’t been to any of the mills since I was fifteen,” continued Anne, “and that was only a short tour. I know so much about them on paper. I think it would be good for me to show my concern. In fact, I am sure my presence could diffuse any dissatisfaction Ned Gibson has generated. Perhaps I could even announce a small holiday bonus!” Anne’s face lit up at that inspiration. “Then Ned Gibson will only look like a malcontent.”

“I still think it wouldn’t be proper, and perhaps not safe…”

“Not safe? Do you think him violent, then?”

“I have no real reason to believe so, but one never knows.”

“Then I will bring Sergeant Gillen with me. I am sure he can handle one young malcontent.”

* * * *

“You can send the mare back to the stable, Sergeant. Miss Heriot will not be riding today,” Sarah told Patrick.

“And what about you, Miss Wheeler?”

“I won’t have the opportunity unless I ride this morning. You are to accompany me,” Sarah added.

Christ, she sounds like a duchess, thought Patrick, as he summoned a stable lad to unsaddle Anne’s mare. As though he would have allowed her to ride alone. But he wasn’t looking forward to it, for it was one thing to ride behind Miss Heriot and Miss Wheeler when they were chattin’ away, and quite another to follow a woman who for some reason that he couldn’t fathom didn’t seem to like him. For all that she worked for Miss Heriot also, Sarah Wheeler acted like he belonged to another class entirely—a subhuman one. Of course, most of the English looked on the Irish like that, so it shouldn’t surprise him.

“Up ye go, Miss Wheeler,” he said as he gave her a leg up.

“Thank you, Sergeant Gillen,” Sarah replied stiffly, settling herself into the saddle.

It had been very cold for the last week, but the temperature had risen overnight and now there was a mist rising from the earth that gave the silence in which they rode an unearthly quality. It was only as they began to climb the dale that Sarah could see more than a few feet in front of her. Sergeant Gillen was riding in front, and because Sarah was so intent on what was before her, she really looked at him for the first time.

He was a stocky man, but his seat was relaxed and easy. He was wearing what was obviously an old uniform cloak, and the contrast with his new livery made him look a bit raffish. As they reached the top of the scar, the mist lay below them, and Sarah spoke before he even realized she was going to: “It is so beautiful and so mysterious, isn’t it?”

Patrick almost laughed out loud in his surprise. The high-and-mighty Miss Wheeler asking for his opinion? But she was right. It looked as if they had emerged from another world, one suspended in time and space.

“ ‘Tis indeed, Miss Wheeler. But it is no mystery, only the change in temperature.”

Sarah felt irrationally hurt. She had been spontaneous and open, and it did look mysterious, whatever the mundane explanation.

“Of course, Sergeant,” she replied stiffly.

Dia, the woman hadn’t been friendly since he’d been hired and the first time she was, he went and offended her. “Ye were right, though, Miss Wheeler. Ye’d almost expect to see one of the
sidhe
walking out of that mist.”

“The sidhe?”

“The shining ones, we call them in Ireland.”

“Oh, faerie folk. In Northumberland, where I come from, we have a story of a man who spent seven years with the queen of Elfland or Faerie. In thrall to her. I have always loved that phrase.”

“It means to be in bondage. So that man was really her slave, wasn’t he?” Patrick remarked.

“I suppose you are right,” said Sarah thoughtfully. “I never thought of it like that. I always thought of him as caught by her charm, in thrall to
love
.”

“Now what kind of eejit would want to make himself a slave for love? Sure, and that’s the last thing love is about.”

Sarah felt like she had been slapped in the face. Here she was, discussing her feelings with a mere groom and a crude Irishman at that, and he threw them in her face!

“I wonder that you would know anything of love, Sergeant Gillen, having spent so many years at war.”

Jasus, the woman was as prickly as a hedgehog. He could easily have countered with something like, “And ye’ve spent as many years as a spinster, Miss Wheeler, so neither of us is much of an expert!” But he didn’t have the heart to insult her like that, so he took a deep breath before he spoke again. “Now, Miss Wheeler, I wasn’t criticizing you, but those songs and stories. It’s silly to be quarreling about a thing like that.”

“I am not quarreling, Sergeant,” Sarah replied frostily and, turning her gelding, she rode on ahead, leaving Patrick to trail behind.