Chapter 9 #2
“What? Me? No! No!” he said hastily. He downed the rest of his beer and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
“I was always pleasant enough with her in public. We all were. Had to be. Squire Inglewood could make life embarrassing and difficult for anyone he thought did not worship the ground his daughter walked on.”
James frowned. “What would he do?”
Haydon Veron threw up his hands. “Anything! Everything! –But I can only share my experience.” He scowled. “Our good magistrate made up a reason to throw me into his gaol overnight, told others I was a libertine. He even suggested during a visit to the town tavern that I had clap.”
“What!” James protested.
Mr. Vernon gave a tight laugh. “That one was a mistake on his part. Lord Mortlake and Dr. Patterson heard the story and went to see Inglewood. I don’t know what was said; however, I was released, and all the more vile of Inglewood’s accusations stopped.”
“I should hope so,” James declared.
Mr. Vernon nodded. “Lord Mortlake said that rumor would be death for the Mortlake Brewery if it got bandied about far and wide. He would not tolerate that.”
“I would imagine not! One would suppose a magistrate would be above lies.”
Mr. Vernon sighed. “One would, yes.”
The Sheep’s Head Tavern was not an old building in Mertonhaugh, as the original structure had burned down some twenty years past. The tavern stood out from the Kentish stone of most of the village with its clean, symmetrical Georgian design and white stucco exterior.
Inside, however, the new pub owner, Mr. Gilbert Hopkins, had disavowed the open Georgian style as too uninviting.
He’d paneled the walls with dark oak, expanded the fireplace, and placed settles around it to encourage customers to relax and stay awhile.
For this reason, James considered Mr. Hopkins an intelligent and shrewd man who saw more and said less. He had been summoned to the inquest jury and had sat to the side, his thick arms crossed, resting on his ample stomach.
After leaving the Mortlake Brewery, James walked to the Sheep’s Head for a chat with Mr. Hopkins. A few of the older residents were gathered at tables, eating their midday meal from wooden bowls. He nodded to them as he threaded his way through the empty tables to the bar.
Mr. Hopkins approached him. “Ken I git youse a beer, sar?” he asked, rubbing the already clean bar in front of where James stood with the cloth he carried.
“Just ale, Mr. Hopkins,” James said as he settled his foot on the iron boot rail near the floor. He leaned his right arm on the bar top. “What did you think of the inquest the other day?” he asked as Mr. Hopkins slid a mug of ale in front of him.
Mr. Hopkins frowned. He leaned his elbows on the bar. “Squire Inglewood ken be a bit officious, wantin’ everything to go his way.”
“Why do you suppose he wanted Mrs. Jones’ death ruled a suicide?”
“’Cause he were afraid that chit of his committed suicide,” said Mrs. Hopkins, interrupting as she entered the bar area from the kitchen.
A handsome woman, she was probably ten years younger than her husband, with gray only beginning to visit the dark-brown hair she wore in a tight bun.
“Shows he didn’t know his own daughter well.
I tell you, sar, if she couldn’t get rid of the babe, that tart woulda found a way to turn it to advantage.
That she would,” she said, her voice rife with disgust. “Now, can I bring you a hot, fresh pastie, Sir James?” the woman added.
James laughed. “You were not sympathetic to the young woman?”
She shook her head. “Not that one. A witch she were, and she had her parents, her brother, and others in the village feelin’ beholden to her, if you can imagine that.”
“Beholden?” James asked, his brows coming together in a questioning frown. “Why do you say beholden?”
She flung her hands up. “She had people fallin’ over each other to help her. They thought her clever—too clever to ever be wrong, and that’s a fact. Now, can I git you a pastie or not?” she demanded, her hands on her hips.
James laughed slightly and told her yes, she could. He pulled up a stool and sat down.
“Your wife is not behind in her opinions,” James observed to Mr. Hopkins when his wife went back into the kitchen.
“No, not that one. I hope she didn’t give you a distaste for her, bein’ too forward like that, Sir James.”
“Not at all!” James assured him. “Reminds me of my wife, Lady Branstoke. The two of them would get along.”
Hopkins’ eyes widened. “Kind of youse, Sir James—”
James laughed at his expression. He’d nearly forgotten that in this village there was decided class bias, engendered, he suspected, more by Squire Inglewood than anyone else in the village—including the Earl of Mortlake! “My wife was a widow when I met her. Her first husband was a merchant trader.”
“But I heard she is the granddaughter of a duke!” Mrs. Hopkins said, sliding a pewter plate with a pastie in front of him.
“She is,” James said, eyeing the aromatic pastie. “This smells delicious, Mrs. Hopkins.”
Mrs. Hopkins frowned. “Excuse me for asking, Sir James, but how’d she come to marry a merchant?”
“That is a complicated story,” James said, thinking of how the arranged marriage had actually saved her from the sex trade. But that was not a story he could tell these good folk. “Suffice it to say, her father had debts.”
Mrs. Hopkins folded her hands against her apron. “Ah,” she said sagely. “That is not an uncommon fate for girls. Most have no say to their lives.”
“And perhaps what happened to Miss Inglewood happened because she tried to have control of her life,” James said calmly as he cut open the pastie.
She looked at him, an arrested expression in her eyes. “Yes…perhaps I misspoke to call her a witch.”
James shrugged. “She sounds to me like an intelligent, willful, and spoiled young woman who lacked proper guidance.”
Mrs. Hopkins sighed. “True.” She shook her head, then went around the side of the bar to pick up the empty bowls and plates of others in the pub.
“I’ve heard you set a man to making repairs at the church,” Mr. Hopkins said, leaning on the bar.
Sir James swallowed and took a sip of ale before answering. “Yes.”
The innkeeper shook his head. “I would have thought Mortlake would see to repairs.”
“If he knew of the need, I’m sure he would,” Sir James said, taking another bite of the pastie and washing it down with more ale.
They were veering away from the subjects that interested James the most. He tried another tack.
“Is young Mr. Inglewood like his sister, Georgia?” James asked, curious to know more about the Inglewood family. He and Cecilia had exchanged greetings with the Squire and his family after Sunday church services; however, they did not know the family beyond that time.
Mr. Hopkins shook his head. “Like night and day—in looks and temperament,” he said. “A steady young man, for the most part, though his sister rattled him. He stays away from home as much as he can.”
Sir James nodded his understanding, but privately wondered if he stayed away because of his sister or his father. Or both. “I was wondering why he wasn’t at the inquest. He must be away now.”
“Aye, that he be. In Folkestone, or wherever Captain Horsley be.”
“Mortlake’s yacht captain?”
Mr. Hopkins nodded. “The same. Young Inglewood is sailing mad, and the captain has been teaching him navigation—with the earl’s permission.”
James nodded thoughtfully. “Ah, then he is likely on his way back. Mortlake sent the captain to fetch Miss Faith Jones back to Mertonhaugh.” Sir James finished the last of his pastie and pushed his platter forward.
“Where might that be from?”
Sir James merely smiled and shook his head.
Mr. Hopkins chuffed good-naturedly. “Another ale?”
James started to say no until a dark shadow blocked the light streaming in the open front door. Every head in the bar turned to see the newcomer. The dark shadow resolved into the figure of Viscount Kendell.
“Lord Kendell!” the innkeeper said heartily.
Kendell crossed the room to the bar to slouch on a stool next to James with all the insouciance common among young men. Mr. Hopkins placed a mug of beer in front of him without the viscount asking. “What has you looking so down, my lord?” he asked.
The viscount huffed, then straightened to pick up his beer, then slouched. “My oh so lovely half-sister arrived yesterday,” he said morosely. He wrapped his hand around the beer mug and raised it to his lips, downing half the contents. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand.
“I assume this is the half-sister who’s been in London?” James said as he motioned to Mr. Hopkins to pour him another ale. He settled back on his stool.
Kendell nodded. “Hope. Father—and even Mother!—are fawning all over her.” He shook his head. “I had to get out of the house.”
He straightened slightly and burped. James didn’t imagine this was his first beer of the day.
“You said two nights ago you wanted to meet your half-sisters,” James reminded him.
He swigged his beer, his lips compressed in a flat line. “I did,” he admitted. “…Tell me, Sir James, you’re a gentleman of parts, are all females the same? Giggly and squealy,” he asked, imitating the sounds, “like Gussie and Marty and Georgia?”
Mr. Hopkins laughed, and the viscount glowered at him. Mr. Hopkins went to the other end of the bar to refill some drinks.
The viscount stared down into his mug. “I need to get out of this God-forsaken village. I wonder if father will finance a grand tour for me,” he groused to James.
James frowned. “You say Miss Jones was giggly? I’m surprised given the sad circumstances for her visit.”
“She was sad enough when she came, dressed all in black and all, then Father and Mother got to talking with her and discovered she’d recently got some hapless dolt to ask her to marry him.”
“And that was when the giggles and squeals began,” James concluded. “You don’t seem to be much in favor of the wedded state.”
“No, I’m not. At least not now; I ain’t ready.–And so I told Georgia at least half a dozen times.”
“Determined to sow some wild oats first?” James asked laconically.
“It’s a man’s rite of passage!”
James raised an eyebrow at the viscount, much like he would have done to a junior officer who spewed nonsense.
“Is that what you were doing with Miss Inglewood?”
“What? No—I knew better. Father made sure I knew! Oh, we flirted, yes. She was fun to be around, but no. Nothing else. Nothing. No matter what she said, or anyone else.”
“I hadn’t known she said elsewise. What did she say?”
“She had it in her beautiful little noggin that I would be an easy catch, and she could be a countess. Said it would be to my advantage to marry her. I never could figure out how she came up with that notion. Woolly-headed female.”
“From what I have heard of her, I would have thought she would hold out for a duchess, or at least a marchioness.”
“That’s what I thought, too, but she up and decided she’d have the baby she carried and tell everyone it was mine unless I got her some pennyroyal. Damned fool chit.”
“And did you?” James asked. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted Mr. Hopkins sliding more in their direction, listening.
“What?” Kendell asked, irritated.
“Get her pennyroyal.”
Kendell reared backward on his stool. “No! –Well, I couldn’t,” he admitted, leaning forward again.
“The apothecary in Maidstone was out of the herb. Had a run on it recently. Said it only grows in marshy areas, like Romney Marsh, and he likely wouldn’t get any more for another month or more.
” He waved his empty beer mug in the innkeeper’s direction.
Mr. Hopkins hurried forward to grab his mug and refill it.
“When did this happen? When did you go to Maidstone?”
The viscount’s face screwed up as he considered. He scratched the back of his head. “I think two days before she died… Yes. Two days, because that’s when I got three new decks of cards from the stationers for game night.”
“Game night?” James repeated.
“Once or twice a month at the brewery. Low stakes, as most around here don’t have the coin for more. Gives me practice for when I go to London. I intend to win big in London,” he said. He grabbed one hand with the other and cracked his knuckles, a schoolboy brag.
“I see,” James said slowly. “And when do you intend to take London by storm?”
“In the fall, during the little season. That’s when my mother wants to go. I’ll go with her and enjoy myself otherwise,” he said, wriggling his eyebrows. “When I’m not playing the dutiful son escorting her around.” He laughed. He slouched on the bar again.
“Lord Kendell, I’d venture you had nought to eat today,” said Mrs. Hopkins.
She set a bowl of stew before him along with a large chunk of bread.
“Eat. Ya need somethin’ in your gullet other than beer, though fine Mortlake beer it be.
Eat!” She shoved a spoon in his hand and then turned to go back to her kitchen.
“Managing female,” Kendell slurred, but he did dip the spoon in the hearty stew for a bite.
Sir James laughed. He looked over at Mr. Hopkins.
“Quite like Lady Branstoke.” He tossed coins on the bar and slid off his stool.
He clasped Kendell’s shoulder. “Best take Mrs. Hopkin’s advice and eat the stew.
You’ll need your strength. Remember, Miss Hope Jones has a sister, and she might be here by tomorrow if the tides and weather stay in Captain Horsley’s favor. ”
Kendell slid him a side-eyed glance. “You don’t need to spoil my meal.”
Sir James merely laughed again and left the tavern to return to Summerworth. It was time to compare notes with his darling wife.