“Jags is simple,” Mrs. Oram said, looking Ren squarely in the eye as she walked toward him. “’Ee can’t be left to shift for‘imself. Mr. Erle and I didn’t see eye to eye on that, or on many things.”
“And, er, Mr. O—?” He left it at that.
She gulped. “’Ee won’t be callin’.” She gave him a challenging look.
Ren deliberated. He knew it was not the done thing for housekeepers to have families. Callers were discouraged for unattached house servants, and housing children was unheard of. They distracted from one’s work and were like to cause damage, get in the way, or at the very least provoke neighboring households to gossip. If the Manor were not seen as being kept to the appropriate standards, how else might his home, and his business interests, suffer?
“Meh.” The boy ambled over to Ren, holding a golden cup in his hand. His eyes, set close together in his face, flickered with interest over Ren’s cane. Without fear he held up his palm. “Meh.”
Mrs. Oram sucked in her breath. “He wants you to smell,” she said. “He don’t usually take to strangers. Jags, ‘is lordship mightn’t?—”
Ren bent forward, bracing himself on his cane, and sniffed at the delicately flared hood of the mushroom.
“I say,” he answered, straightening. “Smells like apricots. I’d never noticed that. Thank you, Jags.”
The boy grunted and ferried his treasure back to his table, carefully replacing it and beaming at his neat array. Harriette would adore this boy. Ren met Mrs. Oram’s worried gaze.
“Jags has a place in my home for as long as you w-work there,” he said. He felt a rush of protectiveness, mingled with sorrow. Jags looked about the age Ren had been the summer he came to Shepton Mallet, and he guessed all too readily how other boys his age regarded Jags’ limitations. “Mr. G-Golledge will see you receive your back pay. How soo-soon can you come?”
Mrs. Oram wiped a hand beneath the frilled lace of her cap, heaving a deep sigh of relief. “I mun finish ‘ere tonight or Stokes’ll put me in the soup. Tomorrah?” she asked. “Tendin’ one big ole empty house’s a sight easier than feedin’ this bleedin’ lot ‘o ruffians, and no mistake.”
“I shall l-look for you tomorrow then,” Ren said. “Thank you, Mrs. Ow-Oram. Good day, Jags.”
He retreated to the dark passage leading back to the public room, drawing a breath and trying to let his tongue untangle. Dealing with strangers always made his mouth feel too small, increasing his difficulties, and there was worse to come.
The public room fell silent again as Ren entered. He stood and let the crowd take him in, scanning their curious, wary, cautious, or scornful faces. “Any ch-chance one of you is a Mr. Fw-Fripp?” he pronounced carefully.
“Don’t ‘spect ‘im till later, yer lordship!” yelled a voice from the back. “After ‘ee’s made ‘is way through the Bell, then the King’s Bench, then the Tare ‘n ‘ounds—” Guffaws of laughter drowned out the last of his statement.
“I’ll wait,” Ren said. “And in the meantime, I should l-like someone to enlighten me about the disag-g-greements over the factories that is taking place here.”
Absolute and profound silence. A light snore drifted from a table in the furthest corner.
An enormous man stood, his tankard still clutched in his hand. “Ye want to ‘ear about ourdisag-g-greements.” He elaborated Ren’s stammer, making it sound worse. A few nervous titters from his companions emboldened him. “Going to fix it all, are ye? The great ‘n grand Duke o’ Limbs.”
Ren guessed the man had only barely kept from calling him Runtwick. He regarded the barrel-sized chest, the thick shock of dirty brown hair, the stubble on the man’s face, and the dust and wear on his leather trousers. An equally dirty leather jacket layover the back of his chair. Ren didn’t have to search hard for the name.
“I make no promises to you or anyone, Abel Cain,” he said, and the ice in his voice helped every word emerge with precision. “But I do agree tolisten.”
The man blinked, clearly shocked at being recognized. While he stood, mouth open, a smaller man beside him surged to his feet.
“If ‘is lordship’ll listen, we’ll spill,” he shouted. “’At’s the first time any fancy ‘as said they’ll at least ‘ear us, and that’s that. Stokes!” he bellowed. “Fetch the earl ‘ere a—what’ll it be, then? Ale? Small beer? Whisky?”
Abel Cain sneered, not about to be bested. “Dandelion wine?”
“Ale,” Ren said evenly, and moved to a stool at the bar in a space that had suddenly cleared for him. “To begin with.”
It wasn’t his first choice to be here. He needed to find a key and open the Manor House. He needed to determine in what state his steward had left the house, as well as its finances. He needed to find Fripp and learn if the adoption of new equipment was causing problems in his factory as well.
More than that, he wanted to be with Harriette. He wished to be there to hold her when she finally decided to let herself cry. He wanted to help her with the small, drab, consuming details of death, of choosing hatbands and dying everything black. He wanted to tell her that, at first, the loss of a parent felt like the world had sagged on its axis, that the North Star had shifted, that the whole world had gone arsey varsey, as she would say.
But in time one learned to accommodate, as one learned to walk with a limp or compensate for a missing limb. It felt hollow and endless and strange at first—even the loss of a parent one didn’t particularly like or feel close to was a blow to the very fabric of one’s being. But it would get better.
He wanted to make it better. He wanted to be there for her, but he sensed he would only be in the way. So instead he sat in the Swan, accepted the bumper of ale set before him, and determined to listen to the complaints of these men as no one else had, and see if he could find a way to make peace around him.
Peace in his own heart, he knew, would be harder to find.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
