Mrs. Drew Plays Her Hand (2 page)

Everyone wants to know my business it would seem, she thought as she came to the fence and climbed over it as gracefully as she could with her shoes still in her hand. She sat on the fence a moment until she had her directions again, and started through the larger meadow.

A short walk showed her that she had reached the lawns of Moreland Park. Sheep
grazed
around her as she admired the order she saw everywhere. If Lord Winn was still out of the country, he certainly had put his faith in the hands of a loyal bailiff, she thought. She skirted around the manor, observing that no smoke came from the chimneys, Nowhere was there any sign of habitation, and she thought it a pity. The honey-colored stone glowed in the morning sun, and if some paint was needed here and there, it only added to the air of shabby country charm that seemed to reflect from the walls of Moreland. She could imagine the interior, all ghostly with Holland covers on the furniture, and cobwebs and mouse nests. The building cried out for someone to throw open the draperies, raise the window sashes, and get on with the business of turning it into a home again.

She admired Moreland for another moment, smiling to herself at the thought of approaching the bailiff with fifty pounds and asking for a year's lease on the place. He would think me demented, she observed with a chuckle. Still, it was a shame for such a building to remain idle when her need was growing greater by the minute.

She looked at her watch again. Eight o'clock. The girls would be up now, and pestering Meggie for breakfast. And so I should be home, she thought. Oh, I hope Lord Whitcomb does not call again today.

She was crossing the park behind the estate, her eyes on the road that would lead back to Whitcomb, when she noticed the dower house tucked in the shade of Moreland's large trees. She started toward the house as if drawn there by magnets, then stopped and looked toward the road again. I must hurry, she thought, even as she continued until she stood on the front steps of the two-story house.

It was of honey-colored stone, too, and more shabby than the manor, with crumbling mortar, and rain gutters stuffed with debris. She noticed several broken windows as she walked around the house, wishing for a box to stand on so she could peer into the rooms. She found a wooden bucket with the handle missing, and turned it over to balance on it and peer into the front room. She rubbed at the glass with her sleeve until she cleared a small spot and then raised herself up on tiptoe.

"Mrs. Drew, if ye overbalance yourself, I'll be blaming myself."

Roxanna gasped and dumped herself off the bucket and into the arms of an old man scarcely taller than she. With a chuckle, he set her on her feet again.

"And barefoot, too? Beware of broken glass."

She did not know him, even as she held out her hand and allowed him to shake it. "You seem to know me, sir."

He released her hand and after sweeping off a winter's accumulation of rotting leaves, motioned for her to sit on the edge of the porch. "I'd feel better if you put on your shoes, ma'am," he said. "My name is Tibbie Winslow, Lord Winn's bailiff. And I've seen you walking about the place before, Mrs. Drew."

"I hope you do not mind," she said as she pulled on her stockings as discreetly as she could and pushed her feet back into her shoes. "I am not really one to cause alarm."

He chuckled again and looked carefully as she tugged her stockings to her knees. "I belong to St. Catherine's parish, ma'am, and let me tell you we were as sorry to hear about your husband's death as the folks in Whitcomb parish."

"Thank you, Mr. Winslow," she said quietly, touched by his matter-of-fact words.

When her shoes were tied, he stood up and patted his pocket. "Now then, Mrs. Drew, would you like to look inside?"

It was ridiculous, she told herself as she smiled into his face and nodded, her eyes bright. "If you please, sir," she said. "I like old houses." And I am desperate to find a place, she did not say.

He opened the door, leaning his shoulder into it when the key was not enough to allow entrance. "Warped," he grumbled, and then stepped aside to let her in.

There was a parlor, dining room, kitchen, and library on the main level, with floors buckled by rain from broken windows. She skirted carefully around a gaping hole of burned timbers in the parlor floor.

"Gypsies," Winslow muttered, and motioned toward the second level, where she found three bedrooms and a modest dressing room. The roof leaked in all these rooms and the wallpaper hung in sorrowful tatters, dismal evidence of neglect. As she gazed about her with growing interest, Roxanna could see what twenty-five years of off and on war with France and absentee landlords had done.

Then she did what she never should have done, but what all women did in a deserted house. As she walked from empty room to empty room, she began to put her furniture in each place, imagining the girls' bed next to that window, and Helen sitting on that floor with her dolls and a cozy fire in the rusty grate. She would take the front bedroom, with its view of the park behind Moreland. She could pull up her chair to the window on cold days and watch winter birds at the feeder she would hang right under the eaves.

"I wonder how many fine old homes have been ruined because too many men have been too busy fighting Napoleon?" she mused out loud as she mentally rearranged her furniture and put curtains at each bare window. Broken glass crunched underfoot as she folded clothes into imaginary bureaus and placed flowers in phantom vases.

"More than I care to mention," Winslow stated and closed the bedroom door behind them. "Mind yourself on them stairs, now then, Mrs. Drew." He laughed. "In fairness to Old Boney, I think Moreland was deserted long before Lord Winn left Yorkshire. He got this property by default through a cousin. He has never lived here. Ain't it a sight how the rich get richer?"

"Oh," she said, stepping carefully around a tread rotting away from the leaking roof.

She stood on the porch again in a moment, and the bailiff pocketed the key. "Pretty sorry, eh, Mrs. Drew?"

If she had been in a calm mood, she would have nodded, made some throwaway comment about the sad state of ruined things, said good-bye, and hurried toward the road that led to Whitcomb. Instead, she took a deep breath.

"It can be repaired, Mr. Winslow. Oh, sir, how much would you charge me for a year's rent?"

Thank God Napoleon is banished to St. Helena, brother. You have no more excuses now to avoid your family duty." Fletcher Rand, Lord Winn, colonel late of His Majesty's 20th Yorkshire Foot, looked up from his newspaper. He settled his spectacles slightly lower on his long nose and peered over them at the woman who had administered this opening shot across the bows.

"Amabel, I wish you would drop yourself down a deep hole," he replied, and returned his attention to corn prices in Yorkshire. He cared not a flip for corn prices, but there was no need for his sister to think she had his attention. Corn it would be, until Amabel wearied of the hunt.

"Look at it this way, Winn," said his other sister. "Your eyes are going. Who knows what will go next? I wish you would marry and provide this family with an heir before it is too late."

"Lettice, there is nothing wrong with my virility," he commented, turning the page and directing his attention to pork and cattle futures. "I can refer you to a whole platoon of high flyers in London who were almost moaning to see me return from Brussels."

It wasn't true at all, but that should do it, he thought, in the shocked silence that followed. He returned to pork and waited for the reaction.

It was not long in coming, taking the form of several gasps from Lettice. He waited behind the paper, unable to resist a slight smile. Now she will fan herself, even though the room is cool. Ah, yes. I can feel the little breeze. Now Amabel will approach her with a vinaigrette. He took a deep breath. Yes, there it is. I wonder if Clarice will intervene now. She will clear her throat first. There we are.

"Winn, you are vulgar. I wish you would not tease your sisters like this. You know we are concerned about you."

He put down the paper to regard his older sister, who sat with her mending at the opposite end of the sofa. She returned his stare, unruffled, unblinking.

"Perhaps you are, Clarice," he said. "But that is because you are married to the juicy Lord Manwaring, and you do not need my money." He glanced at Amabel, who was chafing Lettice's wrists and making little cooing noises. "Amabel, on the other hand, hopes that I will burden some female with a son, and cut out Lettice's oldest, who is my current heir."

"I never considered it!" Amabel declared, dropping her sister's hand. "I only want what is best for you."

The fiction of that statement was not lost on any of the sisters-Clarice turned her eyes to her mending again, while Amabel and Lettice glared daggers at each other. Lord Winn waited for the next statement. It was so predictable that he had to resist the urge to take out his watch and time its arrival.

"It is merely that I do not think it fair that Winn has all the family money," Amabel exclaimed to her sister.

Lord Winn put down the paper, removed his spectacles, and glared at his youngest sister, who pouted back. Hot words boiled to the surface, but as he stared at her, he was struck by the fact that although almost ten years had passed since he went to war for the first time, the arguments had not changed. Amabel was still feeling bruised because more of the estate was not settled on her; Lettice was smug because her son, a worthy if prosy young fellow, was heir; and Clarice did not care one way or the other.

Nothing has changed, he thought. Nations rise and fall, and the Rands remain as predictable as ever. We continue as we did before, getting each others' backs up, thinking ill thoughts, nursing private wounds that we will throw at each other every time we are together. Next Lettice will give me an arch look and ask if I have heard the latest scandal about my former wife. We dig and hurt and pry and wounds never heal.

Lettice looked at him and motioned to her sister to help her up again from her semi-recumbent position. "Poor man," she began, "you have only just returned, and there is more scandal. Did you know—"

"Stop, Lettice," he commanded. "I do not want to hew any sordid anecdotes about Cynthia. She is no longer my concern."

"I think she is your concern!" Lettice burst out. "She goes about the fringes of our circle, telling whoever will listen that you beat her regularly and"—she gulped and blushed—"and forced her into unnatural acts."

Even Clarice's eyes widened at this news. Amabel sniffed at her own vinaigrette and looked everywhere but at her brother.

Lord Winn rose and went to the window, wishing with all his heart to exchange rainy English skies for the heat and dust of Spain, just one more time. "Sisters, let us not split hairs. I should have beaten Cynthia regularly, but I never laid a hand on her in anger. Never. I do not prey upon women, no matter how they deserve it."

"I didn't really think so, Winn," Amabel assured him.

"And as for unnatural acts—"

"Really, brother," Clarice protested quietly.

"The only unnatural act I ever required Cynthia to perform was to keep within her quarterly allowance," he said, and then grinned into the window, in spite of himself. "I suppose that
was
an obscenity to her." He turned around to face his sisters, struck again, as he looked at them, how lovely they were, and how discontent. "And so, my dears, I trust I am exonerated?"

Lettice nodded. "It is more than that."

"It always is," he murmured.

"My dear brother," she began, in a tone almost loving, "Cynthia does you such disservice. There is not a mother in London who would allow you to come within a furlong of her daughter. I do not see how you can possibly find another wife."

He went to the door then and rattled the knob, giving any servants listening time to scatter from the hall. "As I have no urge to ever marry again, this concerns me not at all. Good day, ladies."

The hall was a welcome relief, but it was only a brief sanctuary. The door opened and Clarice stood beside him. "Fletcher, surely you wish to leave all this to a child of your own someday," she said, gesturing grandly to the ceiling, the floors, and the wider world beyond.

No matter his own disgruntlement, he could not overlook her obvious concern. Lord Winn touched her cheek with the back of his hand. "Why would I want to leave a child quarrels, pouts, and wounded feelings? No, Clarice, that argument does not move me. I shall remain childless."

Clarice was not a Rand for nothing. She followed him to the front door. "Fletcher, you can surely find a woman to love you."

He opened the door. "Ah, but can I find one I can trust? That, it appears, is the difficulty. Excuse me now. I think I will hide in the shrubbery until your sisters find some other target."

Lord Winn strolled down the front steps, his hands deep in his pockets. He frowned up at the gray skies and let the misty rain fall on his face, then turned around and walked backward across the lawn, staring at his home and remembering his arrival, only weeks ago. He had taken up a traveling companion in London, a fellow officer heading home to Nottingham. It was an easy matter to travel that way; although he was not much of a conversationalist himself, Lord Winn did not relish long silences. Major Peck was pleased to chatter on about this and that as the miles rolled by. By mutual if unvoiced consent, both avoided the war.

As they neared Peck's home, the major fell silent, watching for familiar scenes. Before they turned onto the family property, Major Peck looked at him. "Do you know, Colonel, I always wonder if she will want me again as much as I want her."

Winn had chuckled then, a dry sound evidencing no humor. "Well, sir?"

"She always does," Peck replied. "But still I wonder. Is any man ever sure?"

And then they were at Peck's home, a comfortable manor by the river Dwyer. Before the carriage rolled to a stop, the major's wife threw open the door and hurled herself down the steps and into her husband's arms. Feeling himself a voyeur, Winn looked away from the Pecks as they kissed and clung to one another. He waited a moment, then spoke to the coachman, who unloaded Peck's kit, mounted to the box again, and drove away, while the Pecks still devoured each other in the front yard.

Winn leaned back in the carriage and remembered his last homecoming four years ago after the triumphant march across the Pyrenees. There had been no greeting from Cynthia. He was there for the trial of divorce and his best friend was one of the correspondents.

"Damn," he said softly as he looked up at his home, a pile of gray stone that meant almost nothing to him. His welcome three weeks ago from Brussels had been so different from Major Peck's, with servants lined up in front to drop curtsies, and tug forelocks. His sisters and their husbands had all been there, too, plus their children he could not remember, and who only knew him as the man with the money. Chaste kisses from his sisters, handshakes from his brothers-in-law. There was no one who cared to throw herself into his arms and eat him alive. But he had only a moment ago declared to Clarice that he did not need anything like that ever again, and it must be so.

He found a bench in the shrubbery and sat awhile, wondering what to do with himself. His first inclination on returning to England had been to sleep for a week and eat all his favorite foods, in the hopes of putting on some lost weight. But his good old English cook had retired and been replaced with a French chef, who only rolled his eyes and fanned himself when Lord Winn ventured to suggest that he would like a good roast of beef and Yorkshire pudding.

He had forgotten that Cynthia had replaced the old comfortable furniture with a style he could only call Demented Egyptian. His bed was the same, however. Cynthia never slept in it anyway, and even Amabel, who lived the closest, lacked the courage to replace it. Other than his bed, with the homely sag in the middle, the only thing that was the same was the view from his window. Cynthia had begun one of those ridiculous fake ruins, but his bailiff, in his infinite wisdom, had seen to its removal when the divorce was final.

"And so it goes," he said as he sat in the rain in the shrubbery, waiting for his sisters to occupy themselves with matters other than his own welfare. All he wanted to do now was leave again. His brothers-in-law had made their excuses two weeks ago, mumbling something about duty calling, when he knew it did not. They were men of leisure, even as himself. Lord Manwaring at least had the grace to wink at him as Winn walked him to his carriage. "Don't let'um get on your nerves, laddie," Manwaring had said. "Put Clarice in a post chaise when you can't stand her another minute."

I think I will take myself off, he thought, and started a slow walk to the manor. Unlike that of my wife, I have never doubted the loyalty of my bailiffs, but it is time to see if there is any heart left in my land. He strolled along, his own heart lifting at the idea. He would travel to Northumberland, and make his way back to Winnfield, stopping at his estates along the way. He knew there were some he could let go. Others were willed upon him, and according to law he must keep them, but he would look them over and decide what use to put them. The war was over at last. Napoleon would not be returning this time.

He knew there were homes in Yorkshire where he needed to visit. He would condescend to sit in smoky kitchens and speak to work-worn mothers and fathers of valiant sons, buried now under Spanish and Belgian earth. The good people of Yorkshire would never understand that the condescension was theirs, and not his. He owed his own life to their sons, and not the other way around. All he had done was direct their dying. But they would never understand that, so he would let them make much of him, even as he thanked them for their sacrifice at Quatre Bras and Mont St. Jean and Bussaco and Ciudad Rodrigo, and a hundred other unglamorous forgotten places that took lives as readily as the horrific battles schoolchildren would still be studying, when he was clay in hard ground.

And then he was hurrying faster, this time to the stables. The horse he had just bought at Tattersall's wickered at him as he entered the low-ceilinged stable, but he went first to the chestnut eyeing him from the best loose box. "Now then, Lord Henry," he murmured to his horse in his best Yorkshire accent, " 'av ye sum-mat to tell me, awd lad?"

"Only that ye 'av put t'lad on a brawny pasture, my lord," said his groom from his perch on the railing in the box.

"Mind that Lord Henry's comfortable, Rowley," Lord Winn admonished. "He took me from Lisbon to Brussels, and I won't forget."

The groom only nodded and grinned at his master. "Carrots anytime he says, and sugar tits at Christmas?"

"I'll be back by then, Rowley, but yes, of course." He ran his hand down the old horse's long nose. "And if you should ever see the knackennan eyeing ta' Lord prematurely, you have my permission to shoot the man."

The groom cackled in appreciation and rubbed his hands together. "I'd love to shoot a knackerman!"

Lord Winn laughed for the first time since his return. "I'd like to see that, too. You know what I mean."

"Indeed, I do, my lord. Carrots and sugar tits for the old warrior."

He looked at the groom, struck by the fact that he was an old warrior, too. "Aye, Rowley. And have my new bay saddled and ready to go tomorrow morning early."

The groom nodded. "Have ye named him yet, my lord?"

"Not yet. I'm sure I'll think of something."

He chuckled to himself as he left the stables, remembering last month's final gathering of the regiment in London, when his staff and line officers presented him with a plaque that read, "Colonel Fletcher Rand, Lord Winn—From 1808 to 1816, we trusted him to think of something."