A Lord Apart Read online

  “No,” she said.

  Daniel’s worry eased without disappearing entirely. She was frowning.

  “But parents who stay home have difficulties, too.”

  He’d seen that shadow in her eyes before. He knew what she was thinking. “Like your brother?”

  “He and Papa could never agree. Not from the time Philip was very young. Yet I can’t say that either was to blame. Not really. They didn’t want to quarrel. It just kept happening. Do you think a parent has any control over how a child turns out?”

  It was a daunting idea—that a family could go wrong despite good intentions. And what did he know about happy families? Did he have any chance of creating one of his own? Penelope was gazing at him as if he might produce a solution. But he didn’t have one.

  “Though I must say Papa wasn’t very good at listening,” she added. “Once he got going, he could only seem to hear himself. I’ve found that you can get on with most people if you listen to what they have to say. I think it must be the same with children. Don’t you?”

  And she was a champion listener, Daniel thought. But would he be good enough? He would learn from her. He nodded, an acknowledgment of her question and a promise to himself for the future.

  “I suppose one does the best one can.”

  “You’ll be splendid.”

  She looked touched by his vehemence, when she ought to have been dubious about his family history. Her faith in him was a gift. Daniel longed to give her something in return. “We should go out,” he said.

  “Out?”

  “Tonight. You said you’d never been to a proper theater.”

  She blinked as if adjusting to the change of topic. “No, only amateur theatrics.”

  “We must remedy that. I’m sure Macklin’s people can get us a box, with town so thin of company.”

  “I’m not sure I brought the right gown.”

  “Whatever you wear, you will be beautiful.”

  This clearly required a tender acknowledgment, and it was some time before Daniel left to make arrangements for the play.

  The evening found them in gilt chairs in a box at the Theater Royal in Drury Lane. The players were presenting Hamlet, which Penelope had heard of, naturally, but never seen. The lower floor was full of patrons for whom society’s season was an irrelevant concept. They lived in London, and partook of its amusements, at all times of the year.

  Under the light of the huge chandeliers, this mass of audience members talked and ate and ogled those in the rows of boxes above. Despite the minor roar they generated, Penelope enjoyed the spectacle. “Candle wax just dripped on that man,” she said, watching a burly fellow shake his fist at the chandelier and wipe the hot wax off his cheek.

  “One of the drawbacks of the pit,” Daniel told her.

  “They call it the pit? Why?”

  “Oddly enough, I know the answer to that. It’s named after the old cockpit, because it was used for cockfighting years ago.”

  “Why do you know?” Her dear husband wasn’t usually a font of obscure information.

  “I had a friend who became obsessed with the theater, or with one of the opera dancers anyway.” He blinked. “Er, that is… What I meant to say—”

  “A friend?” Penelope asked with a sidelong look.

  “Not me! Reggie Galthorpe. Known him since Eton. You’ll meet him when he’s back in town.”

  “And I can ask him all about the…theater.” Penelope enjoyed teasing him.

  “He certainly found out all he could about the subject, and he was only too glad to go on and on about it.” Though he’d never gotten up the nerve to approach the dancer, Daniel remembered.

  “There are no chairs. Do they stand for the whole play in the pit?”

  “Yes. The tickets are cheaper down there.”

  Watching the people jostle one another, Penelope could understand why they would be. “Well, I’m glad we got a box.”

  “Much better,” Daniel agreed.

  The play began with a ghost. An actor painted in shades of gray wailed and admonished the not-so-young Hamlet, who received this visitation with great starts of surprise. As the Prince of Denmark went on to think and fret and plot, the audience in the pit freely expressed their approbation or disapproval of what was presented to them. They seemed to think nothing of shouting at the actors and criticizing their manner or appearance.

  “I must say I agree with that,” murmured Penelope when one of these commentators urged Hamlet to “just get on with it for the lord’s sake.”

  “What would you have him do?” Daniel asked. “Challenge his uncle to a duel?”

  “Talk to his mother?” Penelope shook her head. “His choices are unappealing. But he needn’t have been so unkind to Ophelia.”

  “No. Though she is rather—”

  “Wet.” Penelope bit her lip. “In the sense of a bit spiritless, I meant.”

  “Rather than drowned?”

  “Yes. What a stupid thing to do.”

  Daniel rather wished he’d chosen a comedy, particularly when they reached the pile of corpses at the end of the play. But Penelope declared herself quite satisfied with her first visit to the theater. “And one should see Shakespeare,” she concluded. “It’s practically obligatory.”

  They made their way through the crowd leaving the theater. Progress was slow, and after a bit, Penelope became aware of someone staring at her. Turning, she discovered the Pratts, neighbors in Lancashire all her life. “Oh,” she said.

  “What is it?”

  “I know those people. They lived two miles from us.”

  “Shall we go and say hello?”

  It would be a pleasure to have an acquaintance in London. They started toward the older couple. When it became obvious that they meant to speak, Mrs. Pratt ostentatiously turned her back, pulling her husband along with her. She pushed between two clusters of theatergoers as if a pack of foxhounds was after her.

  Penelope went still. In the excitement of her first London outing, she’d forgotten that the Pratts had dropped her when Philip’s crimes became known. Indeed, she’d forgotten the fact of her disgrace for a few happy days. Now humiliation and hurt came flooding back. “She gave me the cut direct,” she murmured, stunned at this public rejection. “Oh, how could I have done this?”

  “You haven’t done anything. That woman is obviously a harridan.” Daniel put his hand over hers where it rested on his arm.

  “I shouldn’t have allowed you to burden yourself with a disgraced wife.” She felt as if everyone was staring at them, whispering about her brother’s transgressions.

  “You really must stop this nonsense.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “I do. You’ve explained it to me innumerable times. But what you can’t seem to see is that I don’t care a fig.”

  “Because you don’t really know. The Pratts ran away as if I was poison.”

  He shrugged. “And who are they? Small, petty people. We need have no regard for them.”

  “They were friends of my family.”

  “Obviously not, or they would not have behaved so badly.”

  Penelope gazed up at him as the crowd thinned around them. “Why do you act this way when people I knew all my life just turned their backs on me?”

  “Because I am a sterling person,” he replied with a smile.

  A wave of love coursed through Penelope. She wanted to throw her arms around him, to hold her happiness close. She couldn’t do that here, but as soon as they reached Macklin’s again, she would show him just how much she appreciated his attitude.

  Seventeen

  Still, the incident at the theater cast a pall over their London idyll. While Macklin’s house remained delightful, the world outside seemed less welcoming. They stayed in town another week, then drove back to Frith
gerd on a sultry July day with thunder rumbling in the distance. Once again, Daniel’s mother’s notebooks traveled with them in a strongbox, returning to their place in the estate’s safe.

  As they pulled up before the front door, Penelope tried to think of it as coming home. On the one hand, she knew the place and its denizens well by this time. On the other, she met them now in a new role—as mistress of the house—and she had wondered if this would cause difficulties. She found no hesitation in their greetings, however. Even the housekeeper seemed pleased to greet her.

  Foyle, who had stayed on at Rose Cottage with the dogs and their goat, also seemed content. He had no desire to join the Frithgerd household. He preferred his autonomy, at least for now. Penelope suspected that eventually he and Mrs. Hart might come to an understanding, and she would join him there.

  Kitty was another question. She’d stayed at Frithgerd during their absence, and enjoyed the company thoroughly, as she was quick to tell Penelope. Indeed, she was full of chatter about the other servants and the routines of the place. Already, they seemed to have become more important to her than Penelope had been. “Only fancy,” the girl told Penelope. “Cook learned her trade from a Frenchman who worked in the king of France’s kitchens. The one whose head they chopped off!” She clove the air with one hand. “He saw the gee-o-tine come down like an outsized meat cleaver and decided then and there to get out of the country. Well, who wouldn’t?”

  Penelope was not yet well acquainted with Frithgerd’s cook. Clearly she was worth knowing better.

  “He came over on a fishing boat, not knowing a word of English and only seventeen, and got a lowly place in a pastry shop. And his con-fections were so good he was hired away by a duke. That’s where Mrs. Jensen met him, when she was just a scullery maid.” Kitty’s pointed face was full of animation. “His name was A-tee-enn. She helped him with his English, and he showed her how to make hawt qui-sine.”

  Penelope wondered what else they might have taught each other. And then she wondered if Mrs. Jensen could make éclairs. “An interesting story.”

  “She told me while I was helping in the kitchen. And, miss, if you please, Mrs. Jensen said she’d teach me.”

  “To cook?”

  Kitty nodded. “Particularly pastries. That’s what I like best to make. Remember my Shrewsbury cakes?”

  Penelope remembered the shapeless blobs all too well.

  “I’d have to start out peeling vegetables and the like,” Kitty went on. “But if I work hard and do well, Mrs. Jensen’ll show me all she knows. She says some great houses have cooks who just do pastry. The royal palaces do.” The girl’s blue eyes shone.

  “Have you spoken to the housekeeper?”

  “Well, she knows what I’d like, but she said we must wait for you, miss. My lady, I should say.” Kitty ducked her head and grinned. “Forgot. Forgot to wish you happy too, my lady.”

  Marveling that Kitty had found ambition, Penelope agreed with the plan. It was actually a relief. To fill her position as a viscountess, Penelope required a trained ladies’ maid, which Kitty was not. She’d worried that Kitty would expect to serve her personally, but in fact, as soon as her own future was settled, she had put forward the claims of her friend Betty, who’d been learning all the necessary skills. And so the latter was appointed Penelope’s attendant, Kitty plunged into the mysteries of sugar and butter and cream, and everyone seemed happy.

  Henry Carson called the following morning to report significant progress on the bath project. Penelope and Daniel walked with him to inspect the small mill that had been erected on the banks of the creek behind the house. Its wheel was already turning, driving a pump that spewed water into a line of wooden pipes running off toward the house. “Quite a powerful flow,” said Daniel, observing the racing liquid.

  “Has to be, my lord, to get the water up to the tank in the attic,” replied Carson.

  They followed the line back to Frithgerd. The pipes rested first on a wood framework and then on top of the wall that circled the garden, partly to hide them and partly to maintain their elevation. Water gurgled and hissed inside.

  In the bathing chamber, the walls were newly plastered and the floor tiled. More importantly, the tub had arrived. “It’s as big as a horse trough,” Daniel exclaimed.

  “I believe it began manufacture as one, my lord,” said Carson. “But it’s been lined with copper and trimmed in oak.”

  “You could fit two people in there,” said Penelope.

  Daniel had been thinking the same. He caught her eye. When she flushed, he smiled. It seemed quite possible that his wife shared his imagining about their new bath. “Drains?” he asked.

  “At the bottom there, my lord. We’ve connected it to the main one in the scullery.” Carson put his hand on a sheet of metal that had replaced part of the wall behind the tub. “This tank is fitted into the kitchen fireplace. The water comes in from above and is warmed by the fire.”

  They rested their palms on the metal and felt the warmth.

  “There’s also a place to put coals underneath the tank—in the kitchen that is—to get the water hotter if need be. We’ll be attaching the spigot tomorrow.” He indicated a protruding stub of metal pipe, now sealed.

  “And then we can try it out,” said Daniel. Penelope didn’t look at him this time, but she didn’t need to. He could tell she had followed his train of thought. “Very well done, Carson. You’ve surpassed yourself.”

  “Thank you, my lord. It was a new sort of work, but we figured it out.” The man patted the side of the tub, looking proud.

  “You did indeed.”

  “Other local landowners might be interested in having baths,” said Penelope. “If they’d like to see ours when it’s done, we can arrange that.”

  Carson blinked, then looked intrigued at this prospect of more work. “Thank you, my lady.”

  How like her this was, Daniel thought. She was always thinking ahead, seeing possibilities for others. He’d provided his household with a skilled and thoughtful mistress, which was more than it had had in many years. How lucky for him that she was also a sweet and passionate wife. His heart swelled in his chest as they walked out of the bathing room through the new doorway into the blue parlor.

  Penelope surveyed the trunks of papers still stored there. “We should get back to the records,” she said.

  “Ugh,” said Daniel.

  She smiled at him. “The mess hasn’t gone away just because we married.”

  “More’s the pity. Where’s the fairy godmother with the magic wand? Or the elves who come in the night and finish all the work?”

  Penelope laughed. “Don’t they make shoes?”

  “The brownies then. They clean, don’t they?”

  “Not the same as sorting documents, I’m afraid. I can take over the job, if you like.”

  Daniel was tempted. The disarray was as much hers as his now. But he realized that he liked working with her. How else was he to see that tender smile? “No, I’ll help.”

  There was the smile. She was glad of his company. Daniel smiled back.

  A footman appeared as they were about to enter the estate offices. “Callers for you, my lord.”

  The look on the young man’s face told Daniel that these were the visitors he’d been dreading. He had left instructions about them. “I’ll see who it is.”

  Penelope turned. “If we have visitors, I should come.”

  “They seem to want me.”

  “I want to be a good hostess to the neighborhood.”

  “I’ll send word if you’re needed.”

  With a nod, she went on. Daniel closed the door of the estate office behind her and turned to the footman. “Is it the two men I told you about?”

  “Yes, my lord. I put them in the front parlor as you ordered.”

  This was the least welcoming of Frithgerd�
��s reception rooms, right off the front door. “Good. Now you may go and tell them that no one is available to receive them. Take Joseph with you. They won’t be pleased.”

  “I can handle them, my lord.”

  “I don’t doubt you, Ned, but it will be better to have two large footmen ready to show them out.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Their horses were left outside?”

  “No one took them to the stables.”

  “Very good.” Daniel let the footman go, then slipped upstairs to watch from a window. He kept well out of sight behind the draperies.

  A few minutes later, the two Foreign Office men appeared in the drive. They were obviously annoyed, particularly the blond one with the side-whiskers, who was gesticulating angrily. His companion tried to calm him, but he turned and stared up at the house. Though he knew he was invisible in the shadows, Daniel felt an urge to step back in the face of the fellow’s glare. He resisted, and after a moment, the two men mounted up and rode away.

  Penelope sat at the desk in the estate office with a pile of papers before her. She was looking into space rather than at the records, however. She’d suspected the identity of the visitors from Daniel’s manner and a sidelong glance. And of course she’d known they’d come. Men like her interrogator didn’t give up. She felt a little guilty leaving them to Daniel, but she didn’t want to see them. After all, they were here about the notebooks, not her. Not her, she repeated silently. It was time to put those fears behind her. Still, she couldn’t concentrate until Daniel came back, after a surprisingly short time. Perhaps she was wrong about the callers, Penelope thought. “Who was it?”

  “No one important.”