Page 58 of The Baronet’s Bartered Bride

“You’ve a letter or such identifying yourself, don’t you?” Inez asked, trying to calm the waters. Joseph usually kept a level head, but he’d been twitching like a cat on hot bricks since Exeter. Being barred entry to this inheritance he wasn’t yet certain he wanted was going to light the fuse on his temper.

“And what’s that to me?” The young woman crossed her arms over her chest, not to be cozened. “Couldn’t read it if ye did.”

“Oh, for the love of Creation.”

Joseph strode toward the door. The young woman grasped her broom stick with both hands and banged the butt of it on the stone steps, where the sound vibrated. Three bold strokes, like a summons. Her expression was fierce, and Inez marveled at her courage. She would have given in and bolted, herself.

What was the woman defending?

“Close my own door to me?” Joseph’s mouth fell open. “I hope you don’t work here, you harpy. I’ll turn you off without a character.”

The other lifted her chin as a man came around the side of the house. Inez’s chest squeezed. Jock stood next to the horses, but Jock couldn’t stop a man bent on physical force.

And this one was big. Broad shoulders filled out his fustian jacket, and he wore the trousers and boots of a laborer. Dirty blond hair showed beneath his round hat. As he neared, his glower broke into a puzzled expression as he glanced over Jock, then studied Joseph from head to toe.

He looked back at the woman in the doorway. “Says he’s the baronet,” she told him, moving her hands as she spoke.

The man grunted, pointed to Joseph, then the house. He made another gesture, ending by tapping his chest.

The woman’s face fell as she turned to regard Joseph. “Is ee un? Oh, dear. I hope he will’nt be the perjinkety type.”

Joseph gaped at the new man, then shook his head as if to clear it. “Thaker?” He lifted his hands, moving them as he spoke much as the woman hand. “Is that you? You’ve—grown.” He lifted one palm in the air, indicating the man’s height.

The laborer grinned, showing stained teeth between a blond beard, and made more gestures in the direction of the doorway.

“Your wife?” Joseph said. “Well, that’s—” He nodded stiffly to the woman, who had set the broomstick aside but close to hand, as if it might yet prove a method of defense. “I suppose I won’t turn you off, then. Amaranthe said Thaker had married.”

“Did the Duchess tell you of usun?” The other still employed her hands as she spoke. “I suppose so, if you’re een.”

“Her brother.” Joseph nodded. “The new Baronet, if the solicitor’s letter is to be believed.”

“Ah, well. I hope you can see we weren’t to let just anyone in, no matter if he called hisself the King of Rome.” She surveyed Inez with interest. “And who’s this party? Your wife? Sweetheart?”

“No.” Joseph fumbled for words. “This is my—er—this is Inez.”

Inez nodded, her throat pinching on the polite words of greeting. Her head ached, and her chest felt like one of the horses had sat on it. If he couldn’t introduce her to his staff, how would he introduce her to his equals?

What was she to him?

The men busied themselves about the chaise, unloading luggage, and the woman in the doorway beckoned to Inez. “Come along then, and I’ll give ee the tour. The others can follow about as they may.”

Inez joined her on the porch. At least she was arriving at Penwellen through the front door. She hadn’t been bid to go ’round back to the servant’s entrance.

But she hadn’t been introduced with a status, either. She had no proper place here.

Once again, she was all on her own.

“You cannot be all the staff,” Inez said as she followed the other woman into the house.

The entrance hall was small but well-proportioned, light struggling through the smudged window set above the door. A carved wooden staircase lifted to the upper floor, with a wooden door behind closing off, Inez guessed, the servant’s hallways. Doorways on either side opened into broad parlors. The woman led her into one. Everything within lay under a hazy film of dust.

“Me luv and I are the only uns as stayed. I’m Wenna. Ee’s Thaker. We’ve two young’uns, a boy and a cheel, so if the sir don’t like ee’s people with cheldern, best we know now. An me Thaker don’t hear, so if you speech at’un, ee’ll only nod and give thee a grin.” Wenna smiled fondly. “Ee sees t’ the stables and the animals, now, though ee can’t do for all’en. I cook.”

Inez surveyed the parlor. The style was not old, but the dark, dull colors seemed inharmonious somehow, and the furniture ought to have been under covers. “Housekeeper? Maids?”

Wenna shook her head. “Himself, the old Baronet, we couldn’t keep a maid about, ee’d ’ave at ’er if ee could. Mrs. Wadge was fusty as they come, but when the Baronet took ill and stopped paying wages, she skuppered off to another post. Took the footman an hall boy with her.”

“You can’t be looking after all this yourself.” Inez peered into a smaller parlor set off the larger, this one lined with windows. It overlooked a lovely stone patio and the green swales beyond.