Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
“He isn’t going to accept your presence here, you know.”
Ellie looked up at Mrs. Havens with a smile as the two of them picked vegetables from the small garden plot behind the kitchen.
It was something they had put together her first year at the estate, and now it was one of their chief sources of food.
So many vegetables at meals, given the ease with which they could be got and the lack of fuss involved.
Their small store of wheat provided what they needed for baking, and they bartered some of their herbs and vegetables with the butcher in the village for cheap cuts of meat.
As they were never feeding a massive household, they did not require a great amount.
That might all change with Lord Bickham and his cousin in residence, but until someone made a decision, this was how they would continue.
“I am well aware,” Ellie assured the older woman, a laugh in her words. “An unmarried woman with no direct ties to the estate? What would he keep me around for?”
“But you aren’t unmarried,” Mrs. Havens reminded her, dropping her voice very low, each word dripping with concern. “He should be taking care of you.”
Ellie shook her head gently and placed a hand on the woman’s arm. “Hush, you know that was not the purpose of the thing. It was a purely legal arrangement so he would not have to be bothered with Fenmore. It was never designed to provide for me.”
Mrs. Havens returned the shake of her head, hers far more maternal and partially scolding. “But it does provide for you.”
“It was never consummated,” Ellie replied with a shrug.
“If push came to shove, it could very well be annulled, and if I attempt to press the issue on the new Lord Bickham, he might just do that. And while that might not do anything to the estate as a whole, it would harm my reputation right when I need it to be spotless.”
“So what do we do?” Mrs. Havens asked her. “Staying here with not one but two unmarried men when you are presumed to be unmarried is also going to harm your reputation.”
Ellie snorted and returned her attention to the carrots she was currently digging at.
“What reputation?” she asked darkly. “The orphan daughter of a scholar who has never been much, done much, or been worth very much? Respectable dowry, granted, but not enviable. Not enough for gold diggers, not enough for high society, not enough for anyone to care, but enough to avoid being poor. That is all I was, and all I will return to. Provided the legality does not come up.”
Mrs. Havens did not look remotely convinced by the argument.
Ellie could understand that, though. She and Mrs. Havens had worked side by side for three years now, not as mistress and housekeeper, but as friends, as allies, as companions, and everything would change soon.
They had worked together in the house to fix what had to be fixed, living in the servants’ quarters with Worsley and taking turns with preparing the meals.
Mrs. Havens knew her secrets, and Ellie knew that the housekeeper would have left years ago if she’d had anywhere to go.
The three years in the quiet, crumbling Fenmore had been a strange but pleasant reprieve from the actual hardship of life.
Living in a state far beneath her station hadn’t been difficult.
Being without actual socialization hadn’t upset her.
Staying out in the country constantly for three years had been no trouble.
Leaving all of that—becoming the young woman she’d been forced to portray in order to gain this arrangement in the first place—that was the hardship. That was the thing she dreaded most. That unnatural posturing just so she could have some semblance of a life she wished for.
But Ellie wasn’t going to tell Mrs. Havens about her fears and what she dreaded and how she was going to live after this. Least of all because she did not yet know, but she did not need to burden this good woman with something beyond both of their control.
So she smiled over at her and continued to dig at the carrots. “You will be fine, Mrs. Havens. Lord Bickham will not let you go, and you will probably be taken care of even better than you think. You already know he cares for Fenmore more than Leonard did.”
That made Mrs. Havens smirk, and the woman bent to continue working at the heads of cabbage she was cutting.
“Master Weston was always the sweeter boy, and the more active one. His late lordship—the father—was constantly having to take him around the estate with him, simply because Master Weston begged and pleaded so often and so dramatically. It was his favorite pastime. As he grew older, he wanted to know the local traditions, take in the local fare, ride a horse through the hills, and be exactly the sort of little boy who grew up on the estate without any of the pressure he would inherit.”
Ellie smiled at that, turning to place her small harvest into the basket nearby. “Boys wish to be boys. I think it is rare for the aristocracy to allow them to be so.”
“In that way, certainly,” Mrs. Havens agreed. “But he did teach Master Weston that no man is greater than another, despite what the station of each might indicate. A lesson, I fear, Master Leonard never learned.”
Tutting softly, Ellie brushed her hands together. “From what I understand, Leonard wanted nothing more than to be free of this place. He preferred the city and its pleasures to the country. So why did he not sell Fenmore?”
Mrs. Havens shrugged. “I doubt he could. Fenmore is the country seat of Lord Bickham and has been for generations. I cannot say for certain, but I presume it is tied up in legalities.”
“A millstone about his neck,” Ellie murmured softly. “And he wouldn’t give it up to his brother? Is that because it belongs to the barony?”
Now the housekeeper laughed, but it was a dark sound.
“That, I fear, was entirely due to the animosity between half brothers. Master Leonard was seven years senior, you know, but could see plainly that his father had cared for Master Weston’s mother more than he had the first Lady Bickham.
A love match rather than a convenient one, though there was affection and respect there.
And Master Leonard remembered just enough to resent that, and he took it out on everyone in the family.
The late Lady Bickham was at the dower house for years because he could not cast her out, but he never gave her anything beyond the bare minimum, and from the day Master Weston was able to set her up on his own, the dower house sat empty until . . .”
“Until we demolished it,” Ellie finished with a grave nod.
Mrs. Havens only smiled a sad, tight smile.
It had been one of the biggest sacrifices they’d made when it was clear that much work needed to be done to try and save Fenmore.
The dower house had been a delightful cottage, though it had been the size of a decent family home rather than an actual cottage, but the years of abandonment had been worse on its structure and state than to Fenmore’s main house.
When Elie had first decided to take Fenmore in hand and improve it, the dower house had been the first thing to go, and the land upon which it had sat turned to a new field for wheat farming.
Well, this year it was being used for clover and ryegrass, since she’d fully intended to have sheep brought in this autumn, and they would graze well there.
Plus, those crops tended to adjust the balance of the soil after too long with one crop, and though that particular land hadn’t been used for harvest for long, the rotation would only improve things.
It had proven to be their most profitable wheat field from the change, likely due to the newness of the soil for such a purpose.
Just part and parcel of the wisdom and education she had obtained through her father’s tutelage—as well as his own tenants’ and managers’—that made the personage of Mr. Williams such a genius to the unsuspecting others.
What she really needed was to stay here at Fenmore until the purchase and procurement of the sheep went through. That could truly elevate the prospects of the estate, and would mark the successful transition she had worked so hard for.
Even if she could not see how the future would play out for Fenmore.
She might never see the place when it was restored to the glory it had once known, but she could know that she had started the process.
She might never hear laughter and joy fill the halls of the house, but she would know that she had saved it from devastation.
She might never see the day when Fenmore was synonymous with flourishing and profit, but she would remember the abandoned, floundering place that she had thrown herself into.
But what would Lord Bickham do about Mr. Williams?
The man who took no meetings and never appeared in person.
The man who knew all without laying eyes on a single acre.
The man who had not taken up residence on the estate, near the estate, or in any area surrounding the estate. The man no one could identify.
Her secret could not remain secret for much longer unless she disappeared. And if she disappeared, so would Mr. Williams.
None of those concerns were today’s problem, however.
Today she simply needed to tolerate the new Lord Bickham’s rudeness and questions, should he have any, and prepare supper for those staying for that meal.
It would be nothing extravagant or well-seasoned, but she had learned a great deal in the last three years, so she’d do just fine.
If Lord Bickham and his cousin would stay for supper, they deserved a warning before they made their opinions known.
Not that their opinions would insult her.