Chapter 17
A few days passed and Amelia stood with her shawl loose over her arms, chin already lifted before her father had said a word.
"I have had a report," the Baron said, "that you spoke rather warmly of Mr. Russell to several people in the village. At the market, I am told. And once, apparently, to Mrs. Cobb's own sister."
"I was asked my opinion of him," Amelia said. "He lives beside us. Everyone in Ashcombe has an opinion of him now, and mine happened to be asked directly. I gave an honest answer. I do not see why I ought to have lied."
"I did not say you should have lied." Her father's voice stayed even, almost mild.
"Nor did I ask you to speak ill of him. I will grant you — the man has never once lied to me.
Not truly. He deceived me for an hour, perhaps, the very evening we met him, and then corrected it himself before the night was through.
That took a kind of courage I do not often see.
" He paused. "It changes nothing. He is already doomed, Amelia. Powerful men want him gone."
"You mean your friends from London," she said. "Those Earls of yours."
"Among others. Society has softened a great deal in my lifetime. The aristocracy never has."
"And I imagine you have already told them what they wished to hear."
Something flickered behind her father's eyes.
"Watch your attitude, young lady." His voice had risen.
Amelia's jaw tightened, and she spoke. "It is curious, is it not, how the moment a conversation grows uncomfortable for you, your voice climbs and mine does not. I have noticed that pattern is rarely a sign that you are the one in the right."
"There is no way out for him," the Baron went on, pressing a hand briefly to his own forehead as though the whole matter tired him.
"We gain nothing by defending him — whether I like him or not is entirely beside the point.
What we do gain, a great deal of it, is by staying out of his ruin entirely.
We will not be the ones responsible for his downfall.
But we will not be the ones standing beside him when it comes, either. "
"Is that all it is to you?" Her voice, despite herself, had risen. "Money? Political favor?"
"I care about my family." He said it simply, without apology. "And when I see a way to strengthen what I care about, I take it. That is not a vice, Amelia, whatever you have decided to believe of me this week."
"Even when it means an innocent man suffers for it?"
"I did not force that man into anything.
He chose, bravely and foolishly in equal measure, to stand up at his own dinner table and hand his enemies exactly what they needed.
That was his choice to make, and he made it with his eyes open.
" Something in her father's face went distant then, further back than tonight, further back than either Earl.
"I knew his parents, you know. Not well — we were neighbors, nothing closer than that.
But everyone spoke of them highly, and on the few occasions we did meet, I found them kind.
Interesting people. The sort a man could imagine, in another life, becoming genuine friends with. "
Amelia went very still.
"And when everything came apart for them," her father continued, "I did nothing.
I did not speak for them. I did not write letters.
I did not stand beside them the way half the county claimed afterward that they wished they had, once it was safe to say so.
I calculated — correctly, as it turned out — that putting my family at risk to defend people I merely happened to like was foolish.
Irresponsible. And I have never once regretted the choice, whatever it cost my conscience to make it. "
"So you did nothing then," Amelia said, quietly. "And you intend to do nothing now."
"I intend to be on the winning side of history, exactly as I was twenty years ago.
" He straightened his coat, the conversation, for him, already concluding.
"I will not risk this family for another man's battle, however much I may respect the man himself, and however much you may have grown to care for him.
I hope, one day, you will come to understand that. "
He left the room without waiting for her answer.
Amelia stood alone by the hearth for a long while, her hand tightening slowly on the mantel, and understood, with a cold and sinking clarity, that the danger to Benjamin had just grown a great deal larger than either of them had let themselves say aloud.
◆◆◆
Benjamin was barely past the gate of his own drive when he saw them on the lane ahead — Amelia and Frederick, walking at an easy pace toward the village.
He hesitated. Only a moment, but long enough to feel it.
"Good day, Lady Amelia. Mr. Frederick."
"What a pleasant surprise, Mr. Russell." Amelia's voice came quick and bright, pitched carefully for the open road. "Are you bound for the town?"
"I am. I mean to surprise Mrs. Miller with something, if I can manage it."
"How I envy her." A faint smile. "It has been a long while since anyone thought to surprise me with a gift, and I do not mean a new dress."
"I shall whisper as much into your father's ear," Frederick said dryly.
"I appreciate the offer, Frederick, but it rather defeats the purpose when the person in question already knows to expect it."
"I am aware. I intend to notify him only indirectly, all the same."
"I would do precisely the same, in your position," Benjamin said.
Amelia turned to Frederick. "Do you remember, when I was small, that you once surprised me with a walk through the forest to the east?"
"I remember it well." Something warmed in Frederick's weathered face. "That was the very day you fell in love with growing things, if I am not mistaken."
"We ought to go again sometime."
"We shall."
Amelia glanced at Benjamin then, something careful and deliberate in it. "You ought to see it yourself, Mr. Russell. Thirty minutes' walk east of the market square. It is worth the distance."
"Then I shall certainly visit the place that first inspired your garden." He inclined his head. "Good day to you both."
"I hope Mrs. Miller is pleased with her surprise," Amelia said.
"As do I."
"Try the forest, while you are about it," Frederick added, already turning to walk on. "Give this small town of ours some breathing room from you, now and again. Good day, Mr. Russell."
They went on their way, and Benjamin continued his.
The lane grew busier as it neared the village — carts, a woman with a basket, two boys chasing something small and quick through the hedgerow — and Benjamin found himself, for the length of that walk, more watched than he had been on any of his previous visits.
Some faces gave him nothing at all. A nod, the ordinary courtesy of one passing soul to another, no different than it had ever been.
Others turned away entirely, finding sudden urgent interest in a shop window or the ground beneath their own feet, unwilling to meet his eyes now that they knew whose eyes they were.
One man — broad, aproned, standing outside the tannery — looked at him with something closer to open contempt, his jaw set, and did not trouble to hide it.
An older woman, by contrast, watching from a doorway with a basket of mending in her arms, gave him a look that held something gentler. Not quite kindness. Something closer to pity, or perhaps a private understanding of what it cost a person to carry a name like his through a place like this.
Benjamin walked through all of it without slowing his pace or altering his face, the way a man walks through weather he has already decided he cannot control.
By the time he reached the door of the inn, the hush had already begun to settle over the room before he had even crossed the threshold.
Not silent, exactly — conversation still moved at the far tables, a cup still clinked against a saucer somewhere — but there was a particular hush to it, the kind of quiet a room makes when it is aware of itself.
Heads turned. Then turned away again, quickly, as though the looking itself might be noticed.
He found Mrs. Miller in her usual chair by the window, needle moving through a hem with steady, unhurried strokes.
"Are you well?" he asked, settling into the chair across from her.
"Apart from a few uncomfortable glances, I am perfectly well." She did not look up.
"Has anyone troubled you? In these past few days?"
Her needle paused, just for a moment, before continuing. "No one has troubled me directly. But I have heard talk. That you have brought trouble to this quiet town of theirs. That you ought to take yourself off, and let them go back to being quiet again."
"That is understandable enough."
"Is it?" She glanced up at him now, something sharp in her look.
"It costs them nothing to say it, and it may cost me a great deal if they are right." He said it plainly, without any particular weight behind it. "But today is a good day. I have a surprise for you."
Mrs. Miller's eyes narrowed at once. "It had better be my kitchen, at long last."
"Do you truly want me to spoil it for you?"
"The fact that you are dodging the question so neatly tells me it very well might be exactly that."
"You have caught me." He rose, offering his arm. "Come. I want to see whether those men followed my instructions properly, or whether I shall be hearing about their failings from you for the rest of my natural life."
"They had better hope it meets my standards." She took his arm and gathered her shawl about her shoulders.
"They are already afraid of your reaction, Mrs. Miller. I made a point of telling them so this morning, purely for my own amusement."
"Good. They should be."
"One moment, before we go." He guided her toward a chair near the door, then crossed to the counter alone.
The innkeeper's girl looked up as he approached.