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Chapter 8
People Will Talk
“Laurence, you wool-headed miscreant!”
Laurence looked up from his seat on a stump in front of the house, where he had been taking a moment to trim a length of rope for use in the barn. A cunning smile spread across his face at the sight of the lanky man with an unruly beard strolling down the path in his direction.
“James!” Laurence laughed, rising to meet his friend and setting his work on the stump. “Haven’t found anywhere better to beg for your supper tonight, eh?”
The men exchanged a hearty handshake, slapping one another on the back in their usual ritual greeting. Without releasing Laurence’s hand, James began bobbing his head in all directions, as though trying to look into the house a few dozen yards off.
“Lose something?” Laurence asked, pulling his hand free.
“No, but you seem to have,” said Laurence snidely. “Didn’t I hear you had a certain lovely young houseguest? Or have you misplaced her along with that twenty pence you still owe me from last month’s market?”
Laurence shot a glance back to the house. Margaret’s cooking fire was still burning strong, judging by the thin stream of smoke drifting up from the kitchen chimney. “I need to bring in the goats from the back pasture. Walk with me.”
“Sounds fine to me,” said James, removing a pipe from the pouch at his hip. “I need a smoke anyway, and that sister of yours has made it quite clear how dangerous a habit it is…if I do it in front of her, at least.”
With a grin, Laurence clapped a hand on the back of his friend as they walked down the well-worn path toward the farm’s hilly northern patch of grass. “It’s good to see you, James.”
This was met with a hearty chortle. “Either it’s been so long since I’ve visited you’ve forgotten how bad a houseguest I am or you must be even more turned-around than they’re saying,” James replied, stuffing a bit of tobacco into his handmade pipe. “Thank you either way, though.”
Laurence’s stride slowed. “What do you mean, ‘more turned-around than they’re saying?’ Who’s saying things?”
“Come now, Laurence, you know as well as I do that the farmers around here don’t have anything they’d rather do than gossip, and the fishwives over in Dunwood are no better. I expect half the town knew about what’s happened by midday yesterday.”
“And just what has happened, pray tell?” Laurence asked, his voice uncharacteristically tinged with sarcasm.
James stopped in place. With his pipe held in his mouth and both hands fussing with his spill and tinder, all he could do in answer was roll his eyes and gesture helplessly.
“Miss Ramsbury’s carriage suffered an accident on her way home to London,” Laurence said, pacing in a slow yet aggravated circle around his friend. “She is staying here with Mary-Anne and me just for a day or two, until her driver can get the carriage fixed.”
Pipe still clenched between his teeth, James mutely waggled his eyebrows suggestively, still struggling to light his tinder.
“Urgh,” Laurence grunted, scowling as he turned on his heels and began pacing in the opposite direction. “I can only imagine what mad stories people have been inventing down at the White Hare in spite of the facts. Probably something entirely depraved—entirely a product of their own filthy imaginations, mind you. And no doubt helped along in their fabrication by a Mister James Barton in exchange for another round of ale.”
“Prfl,” said James around the pipe. Frustrated, Laurence grabbed the pipe and yanked it out of James’ mouth, earning him a grateful smile and a repetition: “Piffle, I say. And while our countrymen may be bored enough to repeat such calumnies, no one is fool enough to believe any of it. Don’t suppose you have a candle anywhere?”
Laurence shook his head and thrust the pipe into his friend’s hands, then resumed walking toward the pasture with a huff. “Can’t do a good deed for another without being punished for it,” he muttered under his breath, ignoring the sound of James hurriedly packing away his pipe and jogging after him.
“Really, Laurence, don’t take it so personally. People will talk. It’s just a bit of something to do, nothing wrong with that.”
“Maybe to you lot down at the pub,” Laurence said out of the side of his mouth. “Miss Ramsbury is a real woman with a real reputation that I’m sure she wouldn’t appreciate you dragging through the mud for your sport.”
Now walking alongside him, dancing around and over the weeds and low bushes that lined the path, James put a friendly hand on Laurence’s shoulder. “Well, you have a friendly ear beside you so you can set the record straight. Two of them, in fact.”
Laurence stopped in his tracks, sending his friend wheeling about to avoid crashing into a nearby tree. He blew out a heavy sigh and lowered his shoulders, trying to shake out the tension that had cropped up in his sore muscles. “I’m sorry, James,” he said in a voice heavy with resignation, looking down at the dirt path. “I know you’re just having a bit of fun. Of course you’re not responsible for people talking. And besides, there’s nothing to the rumours anyway, so why should it matter what people—”
He burst out laughing, looking up to see James was mimicking his serious expression. “Will you stop making that dreadful face, you buffoon!” he chuckled, swinging out a hand in a friendly punch.
“Right away, just as soon as you do,” James replied. “So what has been going on, then, Farmer Laurence?”
His mood much improved, Laurence told James all about the circumstances that had led to Alicia staying with him. Avoiding some of the details of her conflict with her sister, he excitedly narrated everything about the carriage crash, about taking her around the property earlier that day and how much fun he had had telling her about all the wild and cultivated plants in the area, how she made him laugh so hard when they had capered across the field, leaping over holes or cow pats. How she had just gone up for a rest before supper when James had arrived. Laurence hardly noticed when they reached the pasture, continuing his chatter as they stood by the edge of the green, grassy hill.
When his words finally seemed to have run their course, Laurence gave James a careful glance and saw a curious smile on his lips. “So you see?” Laurence added, demanding some sort of confirmation. “All perfectly innocent. Just putting up a young lady in distress.”
James coughed gently, his eyes darting away. “Yes, absolutely. And…frolicking with her in a field. As one does.”
