Chapter 17 #2
"I understand," he said quietly, "that our presence here has grown uncomfortable for you and your family, and I would not wish to be the cause of further difficulty. I have come to settle what is owed. I will return later for Mrs. Miller's belongings, if that is agreeable."
He set the coins on the counter. She gathered them, counted them with a small, practiced motion, and looked up at him with something apologetic in her face.
"Thank you for understanding, sir. I do hope she has had a pleasant time of it here, whatever else is said."
"She has been well looked after. That much I know for certain." He inclined his head, and returned to Mrs. Miller, offering his arm once more. "Shall we?"
◆◆◆
The lane was warm under the afternoon sun, and they walked it slowly, Mrs. Miller's arm through his, neither of them in any particular hurry.
When Russell Hall came into view, the workers were already gathered near the entrance — Thomas at the front, arms crossed, the rest of the men shifting on their feet with the particular nervousness of men awaiting judgment.
"Let us see," Mrs. Miller said, eyeing them all with theatrical severity, "whether all those muscles produced anything worth the boasting."
"It is exactly as you instructed, ma'am," Thomas said, straightening.
"We shall see about that." She swept past him into the doorway. "And if there is a single thing wrong with it, understand plainly that it will be entirely your fault."
"It will be, ma'am. Entirely."
Inside, the kitchen was everything she had described to Benjamin a dozen times over — the range rebuilt and blacked properly, shelves set at precisely the height she preferred, the old stone sink restored with water running clean and true from the pump.
She walked its length slowly, running a hand along the counter, testing a hinge on a cupboard door, saying nothing at all — which made every man in the room considerably more nervous than if she had shouted at them outright.
At last she turned to Benjamin.
"Although I knew what to expect, the result still surprised me."
"That was not the surprise."
He led her up the stairs and down the corridor to the door at the very end, and opened it without a word.
The room beyond was finished. Properly finished — plaster smooth and pale, the fireplace drawing clean, a bed made up with linens chosen with evident care, a window thrown open to let in the whole gold weight of the afternoon.
Thomas hovered in the doorway behind them, cap in his hands now. "We had no instructions for this part, ma'am. We only hoped it would be to your liking."
Mrs. Miller did not answer him.
She stepped into the room slowly, turning in a full, silent circle, taking it all in — and when at last she looked back at Benjamin, her eyes had gone bright and unsteady in a way he had rarely seen from her.
"Well," she managed finally, her voice not quite as sure as it usually was. "I suppose I ought to stop expecting anything less from the new Duke of Beaumont."
Something tightened in Benjamin's chest at that. He said nothing. He only let her have the moment, quiet and whole, without asking anything more of it.
She recovered herself after a beat, wiping quickly at her eyes with the back of one hand, and turned briskly for the door.
"Come, then. Let us go and see your room now, Your Grace."
"Those two rooms," Benjamin said, gesturing back down the corridor, "and the roof standing over both of them, are the whole of what is finished in this house, I am afraid. The rest will have to wait its turn a while longer."
She looked at him a long moment, something soft and rueful passing over her face.
"If I had the ingredients," she said, "I would cook for you all this very hour, and put your builders' skill to a proper test alongside my own."
"I anticipated that." Benjamin's mouth curved faintly. "I picked up what was needed on the way through the village. It is downstairs, in your new larder, waiting for you."
Mrs. Miller stared at him.
"You planned this?"
"I have been known to, on occasion."
She was already moving for the stairs.
The kitchen filled, within the hour, with the smell of something rich and slow — onions gone soft and gold, beef browning in the pan, the whole room warm with steam and woodsmoke by the time she called the men in from the yard.
They came in dusty and uncertain at first, caps in hand, unused to being asked to sit at a table rather than eat standing by their tools.
But Mrs. Miller would not hear of anything else, and within a few minutes the long table was crowded properly for the first time since it had been set back on its feet — bowls passed hand to hand, bread torn rather than cut, the room loud with the particular ease that comes only after real work has been properly finished.
"Best meal I have had in this county," Thomas said, around a mouthful, "and I include my own wife's cooking in that, though I will deny it under oath if she ever asks."
"You would be wise to," Mrs. Miller said, refilling his bowl without being asked.
Jacob ate like a man who had not eaten in days, though he had — his second helping disappearing nearly as fast as the first.
"My mother will be glad to hear I have already had a full meal today," he said, between bites. "One less mouth for her to worry over feeding tonight."
Something in Benjamin's face softened at that, though he said nothing of it aloud.
The talk rolled on easily after that — the roof, the next stretch of wall, a story of Thomas's youngest son and a goat that had gotten into somebody's washing, laughter breaking out more than once loud enough to carry out through the open window into the yard beyond.
Benjamin sat at the head of it all and said little, content mostly to watch — Mrs. Miller presiding over her table with the particular satisfaction of a woman finally back where she belonged, the men easy and unguarded around her in a way they had never quite managed to be around him alone.
When the last of the bread had gone and the light outside had started to lean gold and low, Thomas finally pushed back from the table.
"We had better be off. We have not earned a single coin of today's wage, sitting here eating like kings."
"On the contrary," Jacob said, grinning, "my mother will consider today's wages very well earned indeed, given how much you have all saved her the cost of my supper."
That drew a real laugh around the table, and Thomas shook his head, rising.
"My own wife will not be nearly so understanding, I promise you that."
More laughter followed him up from the table, and the men filed out toward the yard, calling their thanks back over their shoulders, Mrs. Miller waving a wooden spoon at them like a woman seeing off her own sons.
"Enjoy your room, ma'am," Thomas called from the door. "You have earned it twice over."
"Go on, the lot of you, before I find something else for you to do before dark."
They went, laughing, gathering their tools from where they had left them scattered near the entrance — and it was there, crossing the yard toward the gate, that they stopped.
A man was coming up the drive on foot. Well dressed. Unhurried. Walking with the particular ease of someone accustomed to doors opening before he ever had to ask.
Thomas set down the tools he was carrying without a word.
The rest of the men fell into place beside him without needing to be told, forming a loose, unbroken line across the entrance before the stranger had covered half the distance to the house.
"Until we have approval from the owner of this estate," Thomas said, voice level, "you will not set foot on it."
The man stopped. He said nothing at all — only inclined his head once, calm and unhurried, neither offended nor troubled by the refusal, as though he had expected precisely this and found it no more than a minor delay.
Jacob broke from the line without waiting to be asked and ran for the house.