The Taste of Innocence (41 page)

Although he spoke to Quince, his eyes meaningfully touched Sarah’s. She turned to Quince. “You’ll have to take care, Quince. You’re the best with the babies—they need you healthy and well. Lily can come up and be your hands for you until your arm heals.”

“Aye, well, she’s already had to feed them this morning, and they do sleep for hours, but there’s the preparation and cleaning—the poor girl can’t do everything.”

“I’ll get someone from the village to come up and help. We’ll sort something out.” Exchanging a glance with Katy, Sarah turned to see the doctor out. “I’ll come back in a moment and we’ll plan.”

Doctor Caliburn waited until they were on the stairs to say, “I’m quite serious about her being extra careful. She’s not young, and old bones knit slowly.”

Ahead of him, Sarah asked, “How is she otherwise?”

“Badly shaken, I’d say, and she must be bruised, although she’d have none of the laudanum I suggested. Said she had to wake at the first cry from one of her charges.”

Sarah nodded. “I’ll have them move another bed up there for Lily, so Quince won’t have to cope alone, even at night.”

“Good.” Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Caliburn bowed over her hand. “And if you want someone extra who’s reliable, you might try Mrs. Cothercombe’s Lizzie. She’s a steady soul and good with children.”

“Thank you. I’ll stop by at the Cothercombes’ and ask if she can help.”

Sarah did, then rode slowly home. She was starting to feel like the Dutch boy plugging leaks in the dike; where and what would their next “leak” be?

More importantly, who was behind this? Could it really be a deranged simpleton now bent on revenge? Regardless, had they seen the last of the accidents, or were there more to come?

Those questions revolved in her head, following her through the rest of the day and into the evening.

Charlie couldn’t help but notice her absorption, her concern. Yet what it was over, what was so troubling her, he didn’t know; he didn’t even know if it involved the orphanage or something else. But the impulse to aid her, to ask and do and set things right, was eating him alive.

It was, quite literally, like a beast burrowing under his skin; he couldn’t ignore it.

But after his so-unwise words about certain aspects of her life not being of any interest to him—undoubtedly the most stupid remark he’d made in his life; how could he cherish and protect her if he didn’t know what was happening in her life?—he could do nothing to soothe the burning, incessant itch. On such matters, he could no longer ask and expect to be answered; he had to wait for her to tell him—if she ever did.

He’d lied, but he couldn’t take back the words, any more than he could admit the falsehood. If he did, he’d open the floodgates…and he was very sure he couldn’t handle what would ensue.

One thing she’d demonstrated over and over again was that their love was stronger than he was. Stronger than his will, powerful enough to override his determination. It could and assuredly would control him, and that he could never risk.

So…as the evening closed around them, he stared at the pages of his book, and tried to keep his attention on it, rather than on his wife, sitting on the chaise mending some threadbare towel, a frown deeply etched on her face.

By Friday morning Sarah was close to biting her nails, both anxious and frustrated, wondering when the next message from the orphanage would arrive and what news of disaster it would bring.

On Wednesday had come the news that the fences keeping the animals from the fields and the kitchen garden had been broken, and their small band of livestock had spent enough of the night trampling through the crops and vegetable plots to have ruined much of what was in the ground. Luckily, it was winter, and other than some early plantings in the kitchen garden, they’d lost little more than cabbages, easy enough to replace.

Nevertheless she’d ridden north again, and spent most of the day soothing and calming, getting both the staff and children involved in redesigning the kitchen garden prior to replanting, then organizing with Kennett and Jim to have the fences repaired.

The unbudgeted expenditure wasn’t her primary worry. What would happen next was. Fences and wells were one thing; after Quince’s broken arm, she lived in dread that someone else would be hurt.

She’d spent the hours since wrestling with the question of what to do, if there even was anything they could do. She’d consulted with Skeggs and Mrs. Duncliffe, but no more than she could they imagine the constable in Watchet taking much notice of this sort of “crime,” let alone being of any practical help.

Sitting at her escritoire, she tapped a pencil on the blotter and grimaced. Meekly waiting for the next blow to fall went very much against her grain.

The sound of Crisp’s measured footsteps reached her, then he appeared in the sitting room doorway. Although he was carrying his salver, to her relief it bore only a card, no note.

Crisp advanced, bowed, and offered the card. “A solicitor from Taunton to see you, ma’am.”

Sarah lifted the card and read: Mr. Arnold Switherton, Switherton & Babcock, Solicitors, East Street, Taunton. She frowned. Charlie had, of course, noticed her concern and her extra trips to the orphanage; over the last days he’d developed the habit of informing her where he was going when he rode out. Today he was visiting Sinclair. She couldn’t imagine what Mr. Switherton wanted. She looked up at Crisp. “The gentleman asked to see me? Not the earl?”

“He specifically asked to see you, ma’am.”

Brows rising, she laid down the card. “Show him in.” With a bow, Crisp withdrew.

Sarah considered, but elected to remain seated before her escritoire. Was this about the orphanage again? But it was a different solicitor; a different office, too.

And the man Crisp ushered into her sitting room was cut from a distinctly different cloth than the hapless Haynes. Mr. Arnold Switherton had a long thin nose with pinched nostrils, and his face bore an expression of perpetual distaste. Sarah found it hard not to dislike him on sight, and his opening speech did nothing to endear him.

“Countess.” His bow was stultifyingly correct. “I am here to present an offer for a property to which I understand you still retain title.” His brows contracted. “Most unusual in light of your recent marriage. I would have preferred to discuss such matters with your husband, however, I have been instructed to lay the offer before you.”

Sarah did not invite him to sit. She waited, silent and unresponsive, while he fished in his leather satchel and drew out a slim sheaf of papers.

He glanced at them. “Yes—this is all in order.” He offered her the papers and she took them.

“As you will see here”—reaching over the top of the sheets, Switherton pointed—“the offer is for Quilley Farm, house and land, and the sum offered is here.” He pointed farther down the sheet.

Sarah looked at a sum that had grown significantly since Haynes’s offer. She scanned down the page, then turned over to the next, and the next, ignoring Switherton’s surprised frown. After scanning the last page, she looked up at him. “Who is your client?”

“Ah —that, my dear countess, is not something you need to know.”

“Indeed?” Her icy hauteur and the cold fury behind it made Switherton blink. “And I am not your dear anything, Mr. Switherton.”

He swallowed, carefully inclined his head in apology, but then rallied and drew himself up. “My client insists on complete anonymity. I comprehend you would, of course, have no experience in such matters, but such a stance is not unknown when buying land.”

“I daresay.” Sarah had had enough of Mr. Switherton. “Regardless, I have no interest in selling Quilley Farm. You may tell your anonymous client that.” She held out the papers.

Switherton stepped back, refusing to take them. “This offer is a very generous one, Lady Meredith. I strongly advise that you seek your husband’s counsel before you act rashly only to later repent. I’m sure the earl will see the sense in capitalizing on my client’s whimsical caprice in offering such a patently ridiculous sum for such a property. Ladies cannot be expected to understand such matters—I urge you to lay this matter before your husband. He will know what’s best.”

Sarah let a moment pass in utter silence, then quietly said, “Mr. Switherton, what is beyond my comprehension is that you have failed to perceive that the title to Quilley Farm remains in my hands for a reason. In part, that reason is so that I can refuse all such offers as this”—she flung the papers at Switherton; he gasped, clutched, and caught them to his chest—“saving my husband, the earl, from having to deal with the importunings of solicitors such as yourself. Such refusals are not rash—they are entirely deliberate. Quilley Farm will remain in my hands—for reasons that do not concern you, that will not change. And I assure you the only repenting I am likely to do is that the earl is not here to deal with you as, in my view, you deserve—there are, indeed, instances where being a lady is restricting.”

She held Switherton’s gaze for a pregnant minute, then calmly said, “Crisp—show Mr. Switherton out.”

“Indeed, ma’am. This way, sir.”

Sarah hid a smile at Crisp’s tone, one that effectively conveyed that, in the earl’s absence, should Switherton give him the slightest excuse, Crisp would be only too happy to demonstrate what she and her house hold deemed Switherton deserved.

The thought laid her temper to rest. She glanced at her escritoire, but there was nothing more to do there. Rising, she returned to the chaise; there was mending—as always—waiting, but…

She was contemplating a walk in the gardens when Crisp returned to report Switherton’s departure and to ask if, in the earl’s absence and as she’d eaten so little at the breakfast table that morning, she would like an early luncheon on a tray in the sitting room.

“Thank you, Crisp. That would be lovely.” She smiled as he departed; Crisp and Figgs, and indeed all the staff, were being very kind. Attentive but not intrusively so. They’d learned her routine and were fitting in with it, rather than imposing that of their last mistress, Serena, on her. That had made filling the position of Charlie’s countess much easier, at least on that score.

As for all the rest that the position entailed…thoughts of that occupied her mind while she ate. Revived by the succession of light dishes Cook had prepared—she’d been unable to stomach more than tea and toast over the last few mornings—she decided a walk in the rose garden would complete her restoration.

Pacing along the paved paths, insensibly heartened by the sight of buds—real buds—pushing out along the sides of otherwise dead-looking sticks, she’d completely put aside the vexed question of the strange occurrences at the orphanage, and quite banished Switherton and his offer from her mind, when a horrible, unexpected, unlooked for thought slipped into her head, and connected them.

“Good God.” Halting, she stared unseeing across the lawns. What if…?

What if there really was a connection? If after being refused once—no, twice; after they’d married, someone had approached Charlie to buy the farm, and it was after that that the accidents at the orphanage had started. What if the anonymous buyer had decided to make life difficult for the orphanage and her, to irritate and aggravate her and even Charlie, and then offer a “patently ridiculous” amount to prompt her to wash her hands of the place and sell?

Surely not. She shook herself; her mind was playing morbid tricks.

Yet once the notion had taken root, it wouldn’t die. She paced on, examining the idea; it was only the relative timing of the accidents and the offers that suggested such a heinous connection—and the timing of the offers could be explained perfectly innocently. Anyone not acquainted with her might well imagine that after a few weeks of wedded bliss her interest in her “hobby” would wane, and she’d be more amenable to selling.

There was, she told herself, no per se reason to link the accidents with the offers to buy the orphanage.

16

Except…she couldn’t get the possibility out of her mind.

Saturday afternoon found her back in the rose garden. The place was quiet, with no one to see her as she paced and occasionally muttered to herself. In her sitting room there was always the chance that Charlie, Crisp, or one of the footmen or maids would pass by and see her—and grow even more concerned for her than they already were.

Since her horrible thought the previous day she’d been distracted, consumed with trying to disprove and thus dismiss the notion of a link between the accidents and the offers. Despite her best efforts, she’d yet to succeed.

Indeed, she’d given up, and was now trying to decide what to do—from whom to seek advice. Her father? Despite all he knew of her, he would probably think—as in some part of her mind she herself still thought—that she was drawing far too long a bow and worrying herself for no reason.

Gabriel Cynster? While with his business background he no doubt would accept that such things might occur, he didn’t know her personally all that well, and her account of the accidents and her suspicions might sound…well, a trifle hysterical. And he would certainly wonder why she was speaking with him and not Charlie.

Which left her with one obvious person to approach—Charlie. She’d snubbed his earlier inquiry when she’d believed she’d succeeded in dealing with the “ghost.” Since then matters had gone downhill, but he hadn’t asked again and his earlier disavowal of all interest in the orphanage still echoed in her mind, still cut. So she’d avoided saying anything, but…he knew something was preying on her peace, just not what.