Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Field days were always Ellie’s favorites, and there were no exceptions.
She could not get away with visiting the fields more often than once a fortnight if she wanted to keep her ruse of Williams a secret, so her foremen sent reports on the weeks she did not visit. To Williams, of course, not to her.
The farmers hadn’t appreciated her visits when she had first come, but she had worn them down with her friendliness, determination, and willingness to learn.
The more she showed respect and trust, the less they growled.
The more she asked meaningful questions, the more they indulged her.
Yes, she knew a great deal about farming and fields and crops, far more than she had ever let on with them, and half of her questions didn’t need to be asked, but what they gave her was far more than answers.
It was their expertise and wisdom borne from years of work and witness, of bounty and barren waste, of harvest and hard labor.
Those were things she could not offer, no matter how trained and educated she was.
The answers she could have gotten several places. The details and insight that came with those answers were irreplaceable.
And now she had a marvelous relationship with her tenants, and not just the women and children.
Not just for offering charity and a listening ear.
While no one would have believed her to be Williams, the strategic and visionary estate manager, they knew she was not just a lady in a far estate watching them work from a distant and high window.
She was a woman who wanted to understand their world and would wear trousers and boots to wade into the fields with them.
They didn’t need to know that it was her preferred manner of dress and discussion.
Today was set to be a fairly straightforward trip to the fields. She would look into the projects for the upcoming harvest, and then proceed into the field of the former dower house to gain her head farmer’s opinion on its readiness for sheep grazing.
And when he thought they would be ready for cattle.
She would have loved to bring on cattle and sheep in the same year, but she knew full well that she had to be patient in these matters. They had the land, but the funds for upkeep and sustaining needed to be present as well.
Under her own powers, those funds did not exist. West had not spoken as to his plans yet, so there was no knowing what he would want or how he would want to proceed, and she refused to include him in discussions if he was not actively showing an interest.
He had not spoken to her since that night he had arrived, and two sleeps since then had done nothing to improve him in her eyes.
He was no longer haunting rooms, but he was also not present, which made conversations difficult.
Perhaps his wounded pride and nostalgic feelings were all he was willing to sacrifice where Fenmore was concerned, and he would choose to spend his time away from the place as his brother had done.
It would be inconvenient to try and work an arrangement with him for her to remain while he was away, since she highly doubted he would be interested in her as a prospective wife, but perhaps he would thank her for taking the place off of his hands anyway.
It was a faint hope, but she had it all the same.
Ellie tucked her linen shirt into the back of her trousers as she moved down the stairs, her long coat hiding her hips and backside from view and from the ill fit of those trousers, despite her attempts at taking them in herself. It was good enough for her needs, which was all she required.
Shirt tucked, she buttoned her coat tightly, feeling secure and prepared in looks, her mind already cataloguing her expectations and questions as well as the best way to phrase them to disguise her knowledge.
That had become a game, and she rather enjoyed it.
Secrets that held weight but no harm, protected her but did not really impact anyone else, gave her a life of her own while everyone else thought they knew her limits.
It was the best part of chaotic perfection she had ever known or felt.
Perhaps she ought to proclaim chaotic perfection as the theme of her life. It was apt and ironic and amusing, and also filled her with pride.
“Where the bloody hell are you going dressed like that?”
The low, indignant, choking voice all but bellowed the question, and Ellie was delighted that she only slightly jerked to a stop at hearing it.
West stood in the foyer, glaring at her with wide eyes and a furrowed brow, which seemed to be an amazing effort of facial features, and his gaze raked her from top to bottom before skirting away and darting right back.
There were a few choices for responses in a situation like this: face the criticism directly, apologize immediately, or remain silent and ignore him.
Ellie, being chaotic perfection embodied, chose to face it directly. She looked herself up and down, just as he had done, and put her hands on her hips, cocking her head as she looked back at him. “To the fields.”
“You’re wearing trousers.”
“I am aware, having put them on myself.”
West blinked, the scruff on his jaw darker than she had anticipated, given the almost golden-brown sheen of his hair, though it was tinged with red. His scruff was dark, richly so, and gave him the sort of rough edge she expected from her farmers.
Not from the lord of the manor.
He was dressed no better than her, though his clothing certainly fit better, and his boots bore almost the same scuff marks and dirt as hers.
And he was judging her.
“You cannot wear that,” he grunted.
Ellie smiled a little. “I can, as I am.”
“You should not wear that.”
“Because . . .?”
He closed his eyes for a long moment, and it took everything within her not to grin. “Because,” he managed, sounding like his teeth were grinding together as his eyes opened once more, “it is not appropriate.”
“Walking around the unharvested fields with farmers in a dress is not appropriate,” Ellie told him with all the patience she imagined a woman to have.
“It does more damage to the skirts than I can repair, and then I must pay for a new dress with funds I can barely spare. I don’t know if you are aware, sir, but the fabric for women’s clothing does not match the hardiness of men’s clothing often.
And skirts are so very cumbersome when one needs to be active.
I think my choice of attire is very appropriate and shows industriousness. ”
She could see his jaw twitching, the muscles there as furious and strained as his entire body.
It was delightful.
“The men will not like it,” he hissed.
She shrugged at that claim. “They have not complained yet, and I have been doing this just as I am for years now.”
West exhaled through his nose, short and furious. “No, Elena.”
“I was not asking, my lord,” she replied in a calm, cold voice. Then she smiled fully and moved for the door. “You may come along, if you like, to meet the farmers and hear their reports. But only if you stop complaining about my attire.”
“Who are you to give me permission to do anything?” he all but roared at her back.
His ire was perfection, and Ellie glanced over her shoulder, her unpinned plait whipping about her neck. “I am the woman who saved your family estate from your brother’s abject neglect, my lord. Who, exactly, are you?”
With that, she went to the door and opened it with a grand flourish, striding out towards the fields and not bothering to wait for anyone, let alone the man who thought he could control everything around him.
Yes, he might hold her fate in his hands, technically, but he did not have the responsibility for her day-to-day activities. Until he decided something, until he committed to a course, until he truly became Lord Bickham and master of Fenmore, he was still only living here.
Just as she was.
And if they were equals, she could still act as she saw fit. Which was what she was doing now.
She walked in the direction of the fields, inhaling deeply as the scent of grass and straw and fresh water filled the air.
It was a delicious fragrance, this combination, and it was now the very smell of home.
And the closer she got to the fields, the more a dirt and mud effect took to the air as well, and a tinge of sweat.
It was an earthy perfume of her surroundings, all melding into a sense of honest work and natural goodness.
She could very well be home in a place like this; not in the great house as mistress, but the simple cottages near the village. The farms themselves. The simple, industrious lives so ignored by those great and wealthy.
It was a silly dream, of course. A woman farmer was not a possibility unless she was a widow with strapping sons. But she would be content with that.
And if she could not get some sort of dowry back from what she had invested in the estate, she would have no money to speak of to allow her to live within the station she was born to.
She would have to find something else to do, somewhere else to go, and if she wanted a life, a future, that she could bear living, she’d sacrifice comfort for it.
Perhaps she ought to start looking into a place where someone might be willing to risk having a single woman farmer as a tenant, even if she would need help from others to manage the deeds requiring more strength. But that was what neighbors were for, and the elderly managed it well enough.
She could live this life. But convincing others to allow it was the issue.
Therein was all of the trouble with her life: Nothing was hers to decide completely. Her fate lay in the hands of others, money or no money. Status or no status. Influence or no influence.
“Why the hell aren’t you riding out to the fields?” a voice bellowed from behind her, the sound of hooves joining the melee.
Ellie rolled her eyes heavenward, examining the clouds while she debated the worth of the virtue of patience and the benefits of the sin of wrath.
Surely one must succumb to more than one of the deadly sins to truly require punishment from above. One was probably only worth a harsh warning.
And as for patience . . . surely that was highly overrated.
“Did you see another horse in the stables, oh great baron?” she shouted without turning back. “One that didn’t accompany you and your inane cousin here?”
The sound of hooves grew louder and slowed as they approached, the gorgeous copper creature appearing beside her with his rider mounted jauntily.
She spared him a brief glance, but nothing more.
“There is space cleared for another horse,” West told her in a conversational tone. “I thought you had taken one.”
She scoffed. “We have an elderly horse that can get any of us where we need to go if we are incapable of walking there, and Mrs. Havens went into the village this morning to see the grocer, the butcher, and the baker, so our small wagon was required. Why would I waste the energy of our one household horse to get to fields I am perfectly capable of walking to?”
A sort of choking sound came from beside her, but no words.
“Why do you all live like this?” he asked, seeming actually curious. “All of you could leave.”
Ellie stopped and faced him, her hands becoming fists at her sides. “And go where, Lord Bickham? And go where?”
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
She smirked at that. “Ask yourself why we would stay if we had any reasonable alternative before you start judging us.”
Then she turned and continued on towards the fields, not caring at all if he followed.