Chapter 19
When Mrs. Redshaw’s voice floated beyond the study door around noon, the rain had settled into a fine, drifting mist.
“Mr. Ellison? There’s a young woman here requesting an audience.”
Graeme lifted his head from the half-written letter to his mother. The housekeeper’s tone carried a tightness, what he interpreted as a combination of disapproval and embarrassment.
Tucking the quill into its stand, he pushed away from the desk and swallowed his wishful thinking that it was Phoebe wishing to see him. “Show her in.”
Mrs. Redshaw opened the door but hesitated over the threshold before stepping aside to reveal a slight woman in a patched pelisse, a child perched on her hip.
The boy clung to her like a barnacle, face buried in her shawl, though a mop of pale curls peeked out.
If Graeme hazarded a guess, he would say the boy was around two years of age, but possibly older.
The woman dipped a curtsy, eyes lowered. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir. Penelope Woodridge.” Her voice was slightly worn at the edges, vowels pressed close but not rough, almost melodic, in a way.
“Please, come in.”
Woodridge. The name was unfamiliar.
She crossed into the room with timid steps, sparing only a glance at Mrs. Redshaw’s departure. The boy hid his face when Graeme tried to get a better look at him.
“No need to fear, lad,” Graeme offered.
Mrs. Woodridge shifted her weight, patting the child’s back. “He’s a shy one, sir. Don’t speak much to strangers.”
Graeme motioned for her to sit.
She did not.
“Please, sit, Mrs. Woodridge.”
“Miss. But beggin’ your pardon, I prefer Penny.” Another tiny curtsy, then she approached the chair as though it might bite.
She took so long to study the chair, her gaze sweeping anxiously around the room before returning with slight trepidation to the chair, that Graeme almost extended the invitation again.
But at length, she perched on the edge, so far on the edge she might take flight at the slightest invitation, one hand smoothing the boy’s hair either to quiet him or her own nerves.
“I understand you requested an audience.”
“I’m hopin’ to petition the new earl.” She narrowed her gaze. “You him?”
Graeme cleared his throat. “I serve as his solicitor in his absence. You may speak freely.”
Miss Woodridge swallowed, fingers twining in her son’s hair.
“Aye, sir, thank you. I… I’m hopin’ for a character.
A letter, like. Somethin’ to say I weren’t dismissed for bein’…
wicked.” Her gaze lowered. “There’s places will still hire on a girl if she’s steady enough.
But none’ll take on a gel that’s…” Her voice trailed off.
The boy curled closer.
“I understand.” He nodded to the child. “You have a son.”
Looking up at him, her eyes burned with mortification, but her chin held a tiny thread of pride. “Aye, sir. Nearly three, he is. Good boy. Quiet. Don’t make trouble.”
The boy peeked at Graeme with solemn blue eyes before hiding again.
Graeme wished Mrs. Redshaw had spoken with him privately before seeing Miss Woodridge to the study. He could not fathom what this was all about. “Tell me why you believe the earl might vouch for you.”
She hesitated, then slowly drew a small cloth bundle from her pocket, a few papers wrapped in faded muslin.
“He… he used to write me, sir. Said he didn’t like to trouble the steward with nonsense, so he’d write me little notes, sayin’ I’d done good work, or bringin’ a bit o’ advice.
” Her cheeks flushed. “Only… only I can’t read, sir.
Never learned. He’d read ‘em aloud when I were in the room. Never let me keep ‘em, but… I kept some. Thought maybe…” She bit her lip, pushing the letters towards Graeme with trembling hands. “That it might help show I weren’t tossed out for bein’ idle or impertinent. ”
Graeme unwrapped the cloth and sifted through the papers.
His pulse thudded. The handwriting was unmistakably the late earl’s slanted, sprawling script.
For a moment, he had thought she was to claim the new earl had written to her, which would be quite impossible, but now he saw that was not the case after all.
He unfolded the first page and read it. Not a letter. Notes about grouse baiting. He flicked his gaze to her hopeful expression. Second paper… not a letter either, a list of port bottles suitable for the cellar. Third paper…
Graeme blinked.
A limerick. And a thoroughly indecent one at that. Heat crept up his neck. He folded it with decisive speed. Then his hands stilled.
For My Little P.W.
Graeme stared at the notation, eyes focusing and unfocusing.
Penelope Woodridge.
P.W.
When he looked up, he saw her watching him, a nervous tick to her brow.
“They’re the only ones I could hide away, sir.
I was sent off quick after… after he died.
Mrs. Redshaw said it weren’t fitting for me to stay.
And I didn’t argue none. I knew she were right.
Only…” Her voice cracked. “Only, I ain’t had steady work since.
Not for weeks now. Soon as they learned I had a babe, they said there weren’t a place for the likes of me.
I don’t need charity, sir, only a decent word put in. ”
A more na?ve man might have missed the desperation under her controlled humility. Graeme had seen it too many times in London.
He leaned back, studying her with new insight. “Miss Woodridge—”
“Penny, if you please.”
“…Penny… the late earl treated you kindly?”
She angled her head, her pinched brows showing puzzlement over the question.
“Aye. At first, I were frightened of ’im.
All them wigs and waistcoats, and his tempers, and the way he’d look at me sometimes…
” Another faint flush. “But he were generous. Gave me trinkets, ribbons for my hair. Always said I had a pretty smile.”
He knew where this was going before she continued.
He saw it all too clearly. What he was unsure of was her position with the estate, or former position, rather, although it was clear enough she had been an employed servant of some sort, a maid, but he could not guess beyond that, be she a former parlor maid, scullery maid, or otherwise. Not that it mattered.
“’Tweren’t love, sir. Don’t think that. Only… kindness I didn’t expect. And after the boy came, he kept me on. Didn’t turn me out. I was grateful for that.”
Graeme’s eyes landed on the boy, his heart hammering. Ah. Even as the truth sat before him, the entirety had not yet dawned. He leaned forward.
The truth lay plainly. Not a romance. Not seduction from her side. A frightened girl indulging the whims of a lonely old man. Graeme exhaled slowly, trying to take it all in. This boy was most likely the late earl’s illegitimate son.
Everything he had believed, everything he had feared, everything he had accused Phoebe of… all of it crumbled inside him.
“I will need to speak with Mrs. Redshaw,” he said. “And with the clergyman who witnessed the cod—” He stopped himself. Careful. “—who handled some of the late earl’s business,” he finished instead.
Miss Woodridge clutched her son closer. “I’ve not caused trouble, sir. I swear it. I only want work. I’ll scrub floors or wash linens or—”
“You will cause no trouble,” Graeme said firmly. “You have done nothing wrong. You have been sinned against, not sinning.”
She blinked a few times, either surprised by his words or combating emotions, he could not tell which.
“Return tomorrow afternoon,” he said. “I will have answers for you then.”
“Thank you, sir.”
As she left the study, the child raised his head, eyes wide, and spoke a single shy word: “Bye.” Then he hid again against his mother’s shoulder.
Graeme stood still as the door clicked shut.
P.W.
Penelope Woodridge.
Not Phoebe. Never Phoebe.
He pressed a shaking hand to the desk. This changed both everything and nothing. Because Phoebe still had not chosen him. And he had no earthly idea how to mend the mess.
Graeme found Mrs. Redshaw in the stillroom, sleeves rolled, supervising jars of dried herbs and peppermint. She stiffened the moment she saw him, a slight, instinctive tightening around the eyes that told him she already sensed why he had come.
“Mrs. Redshaw,” he said. “A word, if you please.”
She folded her hands, composed as ever. “Of course, Mr. Ellison.”
He gestured towards the nearby worktable. “Shall we?”
She perched on the bench with the dignity of a woman who had run households larger and more distinguished than Lobelia Hall. Graeme remained standing, not out of superiority, but because his thoughts would not allow him stillness.
“As you know, I spoke today with Penelope Woodridge.”
The housekeeper’s lips pursed, color rising in her cheeks. “A most improper young woman, sir. Her coming here, bold as you please, was almost more than I could credit.”
“Improper,” he echoed. “Because she has a child?”
Mrs. Redshaw straightened, bristling. “Because she was… involved with His Lordship.”
Graeme watched her carefully. “And yet you never came forward with that information when the… when certain documents came to light. Your signature bears witness.”
She stiffened. “I did not think it my place, sir. The chaplain was the other witness. I assumed he had spoken to the solicitor who attended His Lordship. It would have been most inappropriate for me to bring up such… sordid matters.” Her chin lifted defensively.
“A housekeeper does not discuss her master’s lapses with strangers. ”
“Even when a woman’s livelihood depended on it?”
Mrs. Redshaw faltered. “I dismissed her because it was needful. The household was in disarray after the master died. There was gossip among the maids, and I could not allow… impropriety to stain the new earl’s first days.
Better she start afresh elsewhere. I did advise her to seek a post outside Shropshire. ”
Inhaling deeply, Graeme said, “Which she attempted. And was dismissed repeatedly once her circumstances became known.”