Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Penwellen wasn’t what Inez had expected.
She feared it wasn’t what Joseph had expected, either.
The manor itself was lovely, a symmetrical box of dressed gray stone rising three stories under a slate roof.
Four bays of windows stood on either side of a small porch with Doric columns twined with climbing ivy.
It faced a southerly direction, warming like a nesting bird in the sun, and the aspect took in swelling green hills, a coppice that Joseph had called Birton Wood, and a small pond fed by the river they’d crossed on the dirt lane leading westward from Callington.
The cottages and outbuildings behind were fashioned of the same dressed stone, all laid out in pleasing proportions, and a larger cottage she guessed was the carriage house stood attached to a stables.
A paddock held a bay gelding that watched their approach with pricked ears, and sheep browsed the pastures beside a few small cows that suggested the manor housed its own dairy.
As long as she wasn’t required to get closer to any hooved beast than she was from the horse right this moment, Inez thought she would go on fine on a country estate.
But the gravel approaching the drive had not been raked in some time, and weeds poked through.
A basin for a fountain stood empty of water, brown algae streaking the sides.
Black wreaths hung from paned windows dull with dust, and as Jock pulled the carriage to a halt, Inez saw that the steps had not been whitewashed, nor the door repainted, in some time.
She glanced at Joseph in the chaise beside her. He looked as apprehensive as she felt.
“It’s still standing, so that’s a beginning.” He climbed down from the carriage and held out his arms to help her descend.
“Did you think it would not be?”
His fingers brushed her ribs as he set her on her feet, and heat lanced through her innards like a charge set alight. She hungered every moment for his hands on her. Their time in Amesbury had formed an appetite that only seemed to grow when it was fed.
He’d spent the night in her bed at The George, only sneaking out in the morning after the boots boy had returned his footwear—so much for leaving no sign of himself, Inez thought.
At the Lamb and Flag in Honiton he’d arranged adjoining rooms, which happened to comprise the entire upper story and thus secured them privacy.
She’d thought it outrageous to pay for two unused rooms, but Jock and his purse seemed well able to stand the expense.
And so Inez had succumbed to the dangerous luxury of a spacious room, a hot dinner accompanied by more wine, and the body of the man she loved in bed beside her, hers to explore and touch and kiss at her leisure.
He still hadn’t taken her properly, too cautious about planting a babe, and the ache for him was growing. What a harlot she was becoming, Inez thought, pushing back her cap to squint up at the house.
The late afternoon sun had lit their way from Honiton that morning, through Exeter and the great moor Joseph called Dartmoor, through a medieval-looking town he called Tavistock and then along a fresh turnpike to Callington.
Penwellen was well-situated, enjoying the air of the country but within a stone’s throw from a market town.
It wasn’t as lovely as Portugal, but this was Joseph’s home now.
And she wanted to be where Joseph was.
The windows seemed to suck in rather than beam back the sunlight, giving the place a sullen aspect, and Inez heard no movement from humans behind or around or within. No calls of scullery maids sent out to fetch water, no boys shouting to the animals as they moved them along.
No one moved through the fields that ran in strips and hedged squares across the low hills, no one plowing or planting or walking a survey of boundary stones, though there had been plenty of other such activity everywhere else they’d passed, saving the moors. It was the season for it, after all.
No servants pouring out of the house to greet the new master.
Jock swung down from the horse they’d procured at the Queen’s Head in Tavistock and retrieved his crutches. While she felt bruised and weary from the road, Jock looked as fresh as the morning they’d met.
“Not a terrible pile,” he remarked, nodding toward the house.
Joseph straightened his coat and stepped toward the porch. The front door opened.
“And ye be?”
The woman standing in the frame was not much older than Inez. A pert cap held back hair the color of straw, and freckles covered her pink face. She had bright blue eyes and while her appearance was neat, her expression was wary and tired. Her apron was well worn, and so were her shoes.
Joseph paused at the bold address from what was clearly a servant.
“Illingworth,” he said. “Joseph Illingworth. Er—Sir Joseph now, I suppose.”
The girl rolled her eyes. “Another ’un coming to claim ee’s the baronet!” She glared at all three of them in turn, her mouth pinched into a disapproving line. “Third this week.”
“This week?” Joseph blinked. It was only Thursday.
“Aye, and they all do just the same. Stroll into th’ouse saying as they own it, poke and quiddle about a bit, and by the time the solicitor arrives, they’s gone, and so’s some of the silver.”
“Pretendin’ to be the gentry cove, and comin’ to crack the crib?” Jock nodded, impressed. “Clean job, that.”
“I am not here to steal the silver,” Joseph said with great indignation. “It would be my silver, wouldn’t it? That is to say, Illingworth silver, and so mine, for the moment.”
“You’ve a letter or such identifying yourself, don’t you?
” Inez asked, trying to calm the waters.
Joseph usually kept a level head, but he’d been twitching like a cat on hot bricks since Exeter.
Being barred entry to this inheritance he wasn’t yet certain he wanted was going to light the fuse on his temper.
“And what’s that to me?” The young woman crossed her arms over her chest, not to be cozened. “Couldn’t read it if ye did.”
“Oh, for the love of Creation.”
Joseph strode toward the door. The young woman grasped her broom stick with both hands and banged the butt of it on the stone steps, where the sound vibrated.
Three bold strokes, like a summons. Her expression was fierce, and Inez marveled at her courage.
She would have given in and bolted, herself.
What was the woman defending?
“Close my own door to me?” Joseph’s mouth fell open. “I hope you don’t work here, you harpy. I’ll turn you off without a character.”
The other lifted her chin as a man came around the side of the house. Inez’s chest squeezed. Jock stood next to the horses, but Jock couldn’t stop a man bent on physical force.
And this one was big. Broad shoulders filled out his fustian jacket, and he wore the trousers and boots of a laborer. Dirty blond hair showed beneath his round hat. As he neared, his glower broke into a puzzled expression as he glanced over Jock, then studied Joseph from head to toe.
He looked back at the woman in the doorway. “Says he’s the baronet,” she told him, moving her hands as she spoke.
The man grunted, pointed to Joseph, then the house. He made another gesture, ending by tapping his chest.
The woman’s face fell as she turned to regard Joseph. “Is ee un? Oh, dear. I hope he will’nt be the perjinkety type.”
Joseph gaped at the new man, then shook his head as if to clear it. “Thaker?” He lifted his hands, moving them as he spoke much as the woman hand. “Is that you? You’ve—grown.” He lifted one palm in the air, indicating the man’s height.
The laborer grinned, showing stained teeth between a blond beard, and made more gestures in the direction of the doorway.
“Your wife?” Joseph said. “Well, that’s—” He nodded stiffly to the woman, who had set the broomstick aside but close to hand, as if it might yet prove a method of defense. “I suppose I won’t turn you off, then. Amaranthe said Thaker had married.”
“Did the Duchess tell you of usun?” The other still employed her hands as she spoke. “I suppose so, if you’re een.”
“Her brother.” Joseph nodded. “The new Baronet, if the solicitor’s letter is to be believed.”
“Ah, well. I hope you can see we weren’t to let just anyone in, no matter if he called hisself the King of Rome.” She surveyed Inez with interest. “And who’s this party? Your wife? Sweetheart?”
“No.” Joseph fumbled for words. “This is my—er—this is Inez.”
Inez nodded, her throat pinching on the polite words of greeting. Her head ached, and her chest felt like one of the horses had sat on it. If he couldn’t introduce her to his staff, how would he introduce her to his equals?
What was she to him?
The men busied themselves about the chaise, unloading luggage, and the woman in the doorway beckoned to Inez. “Come along then, and I’ll give ee the tour. The others can follow about as they may.”
Inez joined her on the porch. At least she was arriving at Penwellen through the front door. She hadn’t been bid to go ’round back to the servant’s entrance.
But she hadn’t been introduced with a status, either. She had no proper place here.
Once again, she was all on her own.
“You cannot be all the staff,” Inez said as she followed the other woman into the house.
The entrance hall was small but well-proportioned, light struggling through the smudged window set above the door.
A carved wooden staircase lifted to the upper floor, with a wooden door behind closing off, Inez guessed, the servant’s hallways.
Doorways on either side opened into broad parlors.
The woman led her into one. Everything within lay under a hazy film of dust.