5. Shaun Steps In
CHAPTER 5
Shaun Steps In
S eeing the pretty young lady from the bookshop at the front of the church, standing with a very well-dressed older couple in a private pew, had immediately made Shaun feel as though the sun had broken through the heavy grey clouds hanging over Hatfield. She had even smiled at him before the service started, when he caught her eye! Shaun had to school his expression to a properly sober and serious one, lest he be caught grinning like a fool in church.
He wasn’t even quite sure why he was still in Hatfield. He could have caught another stage coach on to London on Saturday, but the bed at the Red Lion had been warm and comfortable enough he’d lingered late in it, and then an excellent breakfast had him feeling frankly lazy. Another night or two in a most comfortable spot would be a decadent pleasure, he decided, and the inn had the room available when he inquired.
And now here he was, loitering around outside the church while Miss Louise Baxter spoke with the older couple and another younger woman, who Shaun decided after a moment must be either a sister or a cousin. A good deal shorter than the statuesque Miss Louise, and Shaun thought a year or two younger, the other girl had a similar shape of face and the same hazel eyes.
Shaun was just trying to pluck up the courage to go over and speak to Miss Louise - he had charged French lines without fear, but going over to talk to a pretty lady struck terror in his heart and made his knees shake - when the vicar went striding past, cassock flapping, and stopped in front of her.
Shaun frowned. It looked very much like the vicar was berating the two young women. Snippets of his raised voice drifted to Shaun on the gusty wind, and then two more people joined the vicar, a middle-aged man and woman in clothes that spoke more to consciousness of fashion than practicality for the wintry weather.
When the man began to shout at Miss Louise and shake his finger under her nose, Shaun decided he’d seen quite enough. While Miss Louise didn’t look intimidated - more annoyed - the other young woman with her was beginning to look quite miserable, and Shaun didn’t like seeing young ladies berated anyway, certainly not in public. Striding forward, he deftly inserted himself between the shouting man and Miss Louise, offering his hand to the vicar to shake.
“Reverend Millings, is it? Thank you for your kind welcome to your church, sir. A stirring sermon.”
“Ah, well… thank you, Mister…?” The vicar actually stuttered slightly, taking a step back, obviously thrown off guard by Shaun’s sheer size.
“Jackson. Shaun Jackson.” Shaun grabbed the vicar’s hand and shook it vigorously, making sure to squeeze just a touch harder than really necessary. “And a pleasure to see you here too, Miss Baxter.” He smiled broadly at Louise.
“You’ve met?” The middle-aged woman’s voice was shrill.
“The gentleman made a purchase in the bookshop on Friday,” Miss Baxter said, offering a polite little curtsey in response to Shaun’s bow.
“Nothing illustrated I do hope!” the woman said, with a censorious frown.
“A thoroughly excellent fictional adventure it was,” Shaun said. “Do you have more by that author? But where are my manners? I shall not ask you to discuss business on a Sunday.”
“Allow me to introduce my sister, Mr Jackson.” Louise indicated the pretty girl standing slightly in her shadow. “Bernadette. And our cousins, Mr Joshua Baxter and Mrs Phoebe Baxter.”
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Shaun said generally, but in truth he only meant it to Bernadette. Joshua was still red-faced and scowling, as though he would like to shout at Louise some more, and Phoebe looked rather as though she was sucking on a lemon.
Over Joshua’s shoulder, Shaun spotted the boy he’d spied in the bookshop on Friday, being pushed around by a rather larger boy, and wondered if he’d need to step in there, too. A grin came to his face as the boy looked after himself quite adequately, though, stamping hard on the bigger boy’s foot before dancing back and running nimbly off, leaving the bigger boy to limp off with a face like thunder.
“Oh, well done, Brutus,” Louise murmured under her breath beside him, and he realised she’d been watching the little fracas too.
“Father!” the bigger boy snapped, limping up to Joshua Baxter. “Can we go home now? It’s raining!”
Mild drizzle, not exactly the same as the rain that was falling before the church service began.
“What happened to your foot?” Phoebe immediately fussed.
“I stubbed my toe,” the boy lied, and Shaun had to swallow a laugh. Louise didn’t even bother, laughing aloud, which made the boy - who must also be a cousin, he supposed - shoot her a nasty look.
“Let’s get you home, come along then.” Joshua nodded rather curtly before turning away with his wife and son. The vicar had already beaten a retreat to speak with other parishioners, and Miss Bernadette slipped away with a quiet murmur in her sister’s ear, leaving Shaun and Louise alone.
Or as alone as one could be in a churchyard with about forty other people exchanging pleasantries, anyway.
“I thought you were leaving again,” Louise said after a brief moment of excruciatingly awkward silence.
Shaun stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Well, that was the plan.” He glanced about, suddenly quite unable to meet her eyes. “Except, I had a really good night’s sleep at the Red Lion and woke up with the realisation that I’m not in a great hurry to be anywhere. I was going to London because it’s where I left from, but there’s nothing in particular for me to do there.”
“I see.” She tilted her head slightly, examining him thoughtfully, and he felt rather like a bug trapped by an entomologist’s pins, being inspected from every angle. “You don’t have any family? Or a…” she paused delicately.
“Job?” He smiled to show he took no offence. “Neither. Not since the Army released me. With Napoleon safely imprisoned on Elba, they’ve no need for such a large force of fighting men. I sold out and honestly, I’m looking for what to do with the rest of my life. I have a legacy from my father, as well as the money from the sale of my commission, so I expect I shall buy a house and settle down somewhere. Try my hand at a little farming, perhaps.”
“Do you think you should like to be a farmer?”
“I don’t know. I’d probably be a bad one,” he admitted. “I don’t know much about sheep, or cows. A little about horses.”
“We sell books on animal husbandry.” She smiled, as though at a secret joke.
“Perhaps I might buy a house in Hatfield.” He tasted the idea, found it didn’t displease him. Quite the contrary, with Miss Louise Baxter standing in front of him. “Would you… would you care to take a walk with me? Show me around the town a little?” It was only after the question had slipped out that he felt silly asking. “Although, it’s still raining a little, maybe another day…”
“I think it’s stopped, actually.” Her smile had widened, and now seemed directed at him. He couldn’t look away. “I should love to take a Sunday stroll with you, Mr Jackson.”
Somehow, she had tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and they were walking out under the lych gate, Shaun having to duck his head just slightly to avoid knocking it on the supporting beam.
“This way.” Louise pulled on his arm a little, and he turned obediently in response to her direction.
Misty drizzle dressed everything in sparkles, especially Miss Louise’s enchanting eyelashes. Each person they passed wished Miss Louise a good morning, and she introduced them to “Mr Jackson, returned from the army and keen to explore Hatfield,” or variations thereof.
Despite the chill, Hatfield readily warmed itself to him. It was cleaner and quieter than London, but not so small he’d be isolated from the world. There was a steady, even pulse to the place, with carriages regularly coming up the High Street, even on a Sunday.
“I take it your family has been in town for many generations?” he asked after another polite and welcoming introduction.
“What gave it away?” Louise delivered him the most glorious smile, and his heart staggered.
“Everyone knows you and is most convivial. Which is in stark contrast to the way your cousins were behaving after church.”
“Well yes,” she acknowledged, as they made their way along a pretty street lined with pine trees, whose green boughs provided a spot of colour all year round. “The bookshop, which you know…”
“Baxter’s Fine Books, if I recall correctly,” he said with a grin.
“The very same. The building is included in the entail of my great-grandfather’s estate, to his youngest son, and heirs male of said son. My father, unfortunately, was blessed only with daughters, those dratted things,” she said, looking up at him with what sounded very much like sarcasm colouring her tone. “Without a male heir, it goes back to the male descendants of the eldest male son, along with the rest of the estate’s properties.”
“I see.”
“Whom you’ve met, just this morning.”
The penny dropped. “That would be Joshua Baxter and his … charming brood,” he said, with a chuckle on the word charming.
“Terribly observant of you,” she said.
“Your father is still alive, is he not?” he asked.
“We very much hope so,” she said. “He’s in France at the moment. The same reason you sold your commission is why he is on the continent right now.”
“Napoleon,” Shaun muttered under his breath. “At least he’ll cause no more trouble now.”
“Exactly,” Louise agreed. “But Joshua has been getting, shall we say, pushy. He wants the property for himself. A few months ago, he had the temerity to begin measuring the windows for drapes!”
“How very presumptuous!” Shaun said, warming to the story. That old sense of protectiveness came over him, and he couldn’t help wanting to protect the Baxter sisters. Miss Louise especially. Even though he was sure she was more than a match for her annoying cousins.
“As long as the crates of books keep arriving, we know our father is alive. That’s enough to keep Joshua at arm’s length for the time being. There is also some detail in the entail about the building needing to have a viable business operating, and it is at that.”
“And there’s unlikely to be a male heir any time in the future?”
She ruminated for a moment and he wondered if he’d overstepped the mark.
“Our mother died several years ago, and our father gave no indication he was interested in remarrying. The entail includes only direct male heirs, so unfortunately even if I or one of my sisters had a son, they could not inherit. But in any case, we are in a much better position than we were when Papa left England. Lord Ferndale is our dear friend and benefactor. Our eldest sister, Estelle, recently married his grandson Felix Yates, who is heir to the Barony. Lord Ferndale now insists we sit with him and his sister, Miss Yates, in the Ferndale pew in church.”
It was all making so much more sense. The cousins felt they were being slighted, it was entirely predictable they would want to retaliate in some way.
Battlefields took many different forms.
They turned into another street and saw the bright blue and white shingle for The Swan. The place Louise had not recommended.
“I thank you for warning me away from that establishment,” he said. “The Red Lion is warm and comfortable, and no sign at all of bed bugs, thank goodness. I suffered enough fleas and other biting creatures in the army. If I wanted to keep sleeping with them, I wouldn’t have sold my commission.”
Leaving The Swan behind, they continued to chat and walk, and greet people, as they made their way to the High Street.
“I’m sure you know the way from here,” she said as they reached Baxter’s Fine Books.
Did she shiver? He looked at her clothes and realised they may have been warm enough for a crowded church, but they’d been in the elements all this time and he hadn’t offered his coat!
“You must be chilled to the bone! Would you allow me to buy you luncheon at the Red Lion, as thanks for the personal tour of the town?”
He expected her to demur or shy away.
“That would be delightful,” she replied in ready agreement.
He held his arm out and she put her hand on his elbow again. Right where it belonged.
“These are the livery yards,” she pointed out as they walked past the archway to the back of the inn. “They hire horses here, if you need one.”
“I’ll take a closer look when it’s a little warmer,” he said, noting how pink her cheeks were from the cold.
Opening the door to the Red Lion, they were assailed with delightful cooking aromas, slightly less delightful warm bodies and a welcome warm fire in the hearth. “Two for lunch, landlord,” he said.
The landlord nodded and wished Miss Baxter a good afternoon.
“I hope I haven’t put you in an awkward position,” he said to Louise.
“Not at all, we are on very good terms with Mr and Mrs Haye. They send a lot of travellers our way so people have something to read on their journeys. You have already met Mr Thomas, he’s the muscle who gets the crates of books off the carriages.”
Understanding dawned. Everybody knew Louise, and Louise knew everybody.
Who needed a chaperone when you had the whole town looking out for you?