Miss Milton Speaks Her Mind (10 page)

This is odd, she thought in confusion as she watched the two of them, their heads together, discussing Andrew's page of the Gallic
Commentaries
. She retreated to the window seat and perched herself there, letters in her lap, as she watched the last of the leaves drift in spirals from the elm outside the window. As she watched, the rain began, and then slanted sideways as the wind roared down from the Pennines. It will be so long until spring, she thought, and felt a familiar prickling behind her eyelids. Why did Blair have to wait until the last day of his life to tell me he loved me? How could he have been so stupid?

She leaned her forehead against the windowpane, grateful for the cold glass. The rain beat against it, and the drops pulsed against her face through the glass. How good this feels, she thought.

She sat up and looked around, hoping that Mr. Butterworth and Andrew were still occupied with the translation. But no, Andrew was pulling on his coat and chattering in that animated fashion he never used at Denby, and the mill owner was watching her. Don't ask me anything, she thought.

He saw them to the front door, speaking of inconsequentials, and informed her that Marsh had already called for the carriage, when she pulled up the hood of her cloak.

“
Sir, it is only a brief walk past the lake,” she protested. “You know how brief. Lord Denby claims it is his!”

Mr. Butterworth smiled. “I won't have you catching the cold, or getting those invitations wet and start the ink running, my dear Miss Mitten.”

When the carriage arrived, Andrew darted out and leaped inside. The mill owner took the umbrella from his butler and held it over her as she moved at a more sedate pace. “Seriously, Miss Milton, I have wondered these ten years why you are still a single lady,” he said after he helped her inside.

She seated herself and leaned forward. “Mr. Butterworth, no one has ever asked me to be otherwise.” She sat back. “You have no such excuse, sir.”

“
No, I have not,” he agreed. “You would call me an idiot if I presented the lame excuse that I am too involved in cotton mills. ‘No one is that busy,' you would tell me, wouldn't you, now that we have decided to be truth tellers, eh. Miss Milton?”

She shook her head, wishing that he would hurry inside before he took a chill. Now is the time to return a quizzing answer, she thought, except that I am never clever enough to think of one. “I know how time gets away from us, Mr. Butterworth,” she said quietly. “Twelve years ago, Andrew was a baby in my arms, and now he is preparing for school away from me. I don't know when it all happened. Lord Denby is contemplating a reunion of old men who were sprigs in the American Revolution. And Blair is dead ….” She turned away to search her reticule for a handkerchief.

The carriage jostled, and the door closed, and Mr. Butterworth surprised her by seating himself next to her. “It's getting dark, Andrew, and one must beware of road agents between my house and Stover,” he explained. “You need me.”

Andrew only laughed and stared out the window again at the rain. “If an agent tells us to stand and deliver, sir, I can surrender Caesar's
Commentaries
.”

Mr. Butterworth laughed. He put his arm around Jane and held her close to him. “Have a good cry tonight, Miss Milton,” he whispered in her ear, “then dry your eyes and plan this reunion.”

She nodded, and blew her nose, grateful to lean against his comforting bulk. “I am being missish,” she said in apology.

“
I don't care,” Mr. Butterworth replied serenely. “If you think Lord Denby could stand the strain, invite me over some afternoon to drink tea and play cribbage with him.” He turned to look at her. “Just tell him that I have missed his visits of complaint about the lake and will bring the quarrel to him, for a change.”

“
I'll do it,” she said, drying her eyes, “on one condition.”

“
Which is ….”

“
That you make some push to meet an agreeable lady of sense—I do not care if it is here or in Huddersfield—and waste no more of your own time.”

“
That's a straightforward request,” he said. “I shall think about it, Miss Milton.”

She sighed, and made no objection as his arm continued firm about her shoulders. “I do not know that I have ever leaned on anyone before, sir,” she whispered. “You are not uncomfortable?”

He shook his head. “Miss Milton, you are totty-headed if you think that I am uncomfortable.”

That is honest enough, she thought with amusement as the carriage passed down the grander lane of Stover. To her way of thinking, the trees were not so finely shaped as Mr. Butterworth's. How that must chafe Lord Denby, she told herself. And how much prettier this park would look with Mr. Butterworth's lake attached. She began to laugh softly, so Andrew could not hear.

The mill owner looked at her. “Now what is so amusing?”

“
I was thinking of your lake, sir, which Lord Denby covets. None of us seem to get what we want, do we?” She leaned closer. “I want Andrew to be happy, and Lord Denby to go about living again. Lord Denby—when he isn't wanting to die—wants your lake. Stanton and I are foisting a reunion on him.” She looked at him, then followed his gaze to the front door as they pulled up before it, and the mourning wreath, which even now dripped black dye onto the stoop. “Do you want me to remove that, Mr. Butterworth?” she asked.

“
It would be a good start,” he answered as the carriage stopped. “Shall I do it now?”

He opened the door and Andrew hurried out, after promising to be on time Monday morning to meet Mr. Singletary. Jane sat where she was, contemplating the wreath, then looked at the mill owner. “Not yet, please,” she said. “Let me think about it some more. I mean, I should consult Lord Denby.”

Mr. Butterworth nodded and left the carriage first, so he could help her down. “The rain has stopped,” he said as she took his hand to steady herself.

“
See there, sir,” she told him. “You could have saved yourself the exertion of a carriage ride. We could have walked. After all, who puts you out more than Andrew and I? I am almost embarrassed.”

He bowed over her hand and kissed her fingers. “My dear Miss Milton, just invite me to tea now and then. If my presence doesn't send Lord Denby into the boughs every so often, then I am scarcely worth my salt as a neighbor, and he is too far gone to be resuscitated! Good day, my dear. Have a thought about yourself once in a while.”

She nodded. “I suppose you will give me no peace until I do, sir.” She took his arm to detain him. “In all my quizzing, I have not been thoughtful enough to ask you what it is you want. You have been so kind to me, that I wish it were in my power to grant whatever it is.”

He shrugged and she released his arm. “Miss Milton, where is your imagination? Surely Lady Carruthers has gone on and on about how disgustingly, unwholesomely wealthy I am, and that I must lack for nothing! How could I need anything?”

“
That is no answer,” she said as he climbed into the carriage again, then lowered the glass.

“
My dear, I will tell you what
I
want when you decide what
you
want.”

She frowned at him, and stepped away from the carriage as the coachman mounted to the box again. “You know that I am most concerned about Andrew's welfare and Lord Denby's state of mind and health. I want them to be happy.”

“
Which tells me nothing about
you
, Miss Milton,” he replied. “Do think about yourself, when you can fit it into your schedule.”

W
hat do I want? It was food for thought, but surprisingly simple to push to the back of her mind as October turned to November and then December, and the postman brought replies to her invitations. Lord Denby surprised her one morning by pacing back and forth in his nightshirt and robe in the foyer, waiting for the postman. “I'm expecting some important papers from my solicitor in Leeds,” he said, before she had a chance to say anything. “I'll let you know if any letters come for someone else.” She had the good sense to withdraw from the foyer, on the excuse that she was just passing through on her way to go over the week's menus with Cook.

“
You wait now, Stanton. I will go upstairs with the latest post, and he will be quite casual, even though he is just almost jumping about, wanting to know whom I have heard from,” she told the butler belowstairs as she drank tea with him.

“
He's pleased then?”

“
Oh, yes,” she assured him. “He's even planning who will sleep in what room, and debating whether or not he should encourage them to bring along their old uniforms!”

Between morning walks to Mr. Butterworth's house to deposit Andrew into the tutelage of Mr. Singletary—an amiable young man of no particular background, but with vast supplies of both character and intelligence—she spent time belowstairs with Stanton, making plans for the reunion.

“
It is never too soon to plan menus,” she told Mr. Butterworth when he came over, as he often did now, for cribbage with Lord Denby. “Everyone who is able is making plans, sir, and I mean for this to be an event.” She made a face. “He even wondered if we could procure a rather disgusting creature called a 'possum, for the evening we have a Carolina menu.”

“
You don't want one,” Mr. Butterworth assured her. “I believe those bags of guts with snouts were only eaten to assuage the outer extremities of starvation.” He patted his waistcoat. “A good haunch of venison should serve rustic purposes, Miss Milton.”

She was content to agree with him. In fact, Jane, she reminded herself that evening as she was brushing her hair, you are becoming remarkably complacent, where Mr. Butterworth is concerned. She shrugged at her reflection. His ideas for the reunion are always so good that I feel no qualms in going along without a murmur, she explained to her image. I wonder if I am relishing the novelty of having someone else make decisions around here.

She couldn't deny that his frequent presence on the estate was having the desired effect on Lord Denby. She smiled, thinking of the cribbage games that were so often detouring into loud discussion on Lord Denby's part. She could not remember Mr. Butterworth raising his voice, but when he left in the afternoon, and she went to visit Lord Denby, he always seemed more alert.

Only today, Lord Denby had thrown off the blanket she liked to spread over his legs when he sat in his chair, and walked up and down in front of his window, exclaiming about Mr. Butterworth and his liberal tendencies. “It's downright dangerous, Jane, when a man thinks he can buy a cotton mill, educate some rabble to run it, pay them more than other mill owners, and expect to get any work out of them!”

“
So
that's
what he does,” she murmured, as she folded the unneeded blanket over the chair and then scooped the pegs back into their pouch. “Oh, dear, and he is losing money by being kind?”

She smiled at her mirror image, remembering how Lord Denby had stopped his marching about to stare at her. “No, no, Jane! That's the deuce of it!” he had exclaimed, with quite the power of his former arguments. “He
makes
money! I don't understand it, either,” he concluded, with a shake of his head. “Republican tendencies will ruin a nation faster than a good dose of plague.”

“
My lord, some would say that the United States is a case for disagreement,” she had ventured, but Lord Denby only shook his head again and continued his pacing, muttering under his breath about the “evils of democracy” and a “ramshackle experiment.”

“
He even went so far as to tell me that he hoped Edward Bingham would come from Connecticut for the reunion, so they could have a rousing debate,” she told Mr. Butterworth the next morning as he walked her to the door, after she had brought Andrew. “Mr. Butterworth, I believe he is having more fun with this than any puny wrangling over your lake.” She put her hand on his arm. “Do you really run your factories along republican lines?”

“
Guilty as charged,” he replied cheerfully, as he tucked her arm through his and left the house with her. “We prefer to call them utilitarian lines, however. I'll walk you to the edge of the lake, Miss Milton, provided Lord Denby has not mined it and posted a patrol to keep me off disputed boundaries.”

She laughed. “Only because it has not occurred to him yet, sir!” She stopped to look him full in the face. “Mr. Butterworth, thank you for replenishing his supply of umbrage.”

He inclined his head toward hers in a little bow. “What an odd compliment, Miss Milton. It will go right to my head.”

“
I doubt that, sir,” she teased. “You have far more on your brain than frivolities.”

“
Indeed I do, my dear,” he said, and started her in motion again. “I am only doing what others are attempting in Scotland and Birmingham. I do believe that kindness is a far more useful incentive than niggardly wages, overwork, and humiliation.” He looked at her. “Is this scary democracy? I prefer to think of such revolutionary ideas as Christian kindness.”

“
Mr. Butterworth, you are a rare man, indeed,” she said.

“
I know,” he replied, giving her a nudge when she laughed. “Miss Milton, your laughter is a tonic!”