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“Yes, I’m one of those.” Georgie kicked at the hem of their skirt. “But the steward is to blame.”
“Sack him!” Lord Phillip sang it out. “Get a different steward.”
“Harry would have to sack him.” Georgie frowned. “Is that what your father would do? Sack the steward?”
“Of course not.” Lord Phillip laughed. “My father is the other kind. Beastly to the tenantry. It’s what I would do. Farmers have had a bloody time of it, ever since the war ended. Plummeting prices. That goes for grain, cheese, mutton, beef, wool. Everything. And last year the spring was cold and wet, catastrophic for the harvest. They need rent abatement. But that means us taking in less. The landlords. Worth it in the long run. I’m not talking in terms of the soul, although I don’t discount that aspect. I mean, economically. Good morning.” His voice dropped a register.
The farmer was upon them.
“Fine day,” offered Georgie, as everyone came to an awkward halt.
“Fine,” agreed the farmer, shortly. “But foul’s blowing in.”
Elfreda had forgotten just how tall and broad he was. His face was weather-beaten, but he couldn’t have been so very many years older than the rest of them.
“How are the turnips?” asked Georgie, too heartily.
He grunted. “I had to sow my field all over again on account of them sheep running amok.”
Elfreda met Georgie’s eyes. No blaming a steward for that.
The farmer tugged on his blue neckerchief. “How’s the young missis?” His tone was grudging, but his gaze grew intent as he waited for Georgie’s reply.
“Recovering well,” said Georgie. “Thanks to your timely intervention.”
The farmer grunted, with a fraction less animosity.
“Are you going that way?” Lord Phillip pointed at the bridge. “So am I. Lord Phillip Winston. And your name?”
The two men crossed the bridge and took the turning that would lead into the village. Lord Phillip was talking animatedly, and the farmer kept shaking his head, as though beset by a mosquito.
“Hmm,” said Georgie, staring after them. After a long moment, they glanced at her, eyes bright, brows arched.
She could hear the low rush of the river as it slipped along between its banks. The sun was climbing in the sky. The warming air smelled of honeysuckle.
And Georgie. Georgie looked like spring itself. Beautiful, and new, and familiar, all at the same time.
You’re in love.
“This way.” She forced her feet forward, perpendicular to the bridge, cleaving to the river’s western bank.
No distractions. No secluded dells. Or yes, secluded dells, if caves figured among the topographical features. No roses, posies, buttercups, violets. Those were to be avoided.
As she walked, briskly, she explained to Georgie about her evening’s research. Reverend Cruttwell had identified one cave on a walk through the parish that led him past a lime kiln.
She was heading now to the only lime kiln in the vicinity.
Georgie’s stride was longer than hers, and so they gave the impression of strolling in a leisurely fashion, even as she began to puff and sweat.
It was always so cold inside Marsden Hall that she wrapped herself in shawls and wore her warmest woolen garments, and sometimes she went out overdressed. Like this morning.
She stopped abruptly and unbuttoned her pelisse.
“Are we stripping off our clothes?” Georgie had stopped too and was leaning against an oak, that cocky grin splitting their face. “To swim? Or to do something wickeder?”
She shrugged out of the pelisse and hung it carefully on a branch. Sweat was still collecting near her hairline. Georgie’s grin, and the idea of doing something wickeder, had sent heat pouring through her, and it quite negated any relief she might have derived from shedding layers.
What did having one’s wicked way entail exactly?
