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The earl raised an interrogative eyebrow.
“I don’t intend to make any change,” Daniel continued. “She can have the house. I just want to know why Papa left it to her, not take it away.”
“Even if the reason is disreputable?”
“It isn’t!”
Macklin turned to look at him.
He’d spat the words as if his own honor was being questioned, Daniel realized, and he felt unaccountably angry. “I can’t believe that it is,” he amended. “Or, if there is some irregularity, it won’t involve Miss Pendleton. She isn’t that sort of person.”
“Of course not.”
Daniel resented the amusement in the older man’s voice. He kicked his heels and urged his mount into a gallop.
Four
Penelope’s cough improved markedly over the next week, confirming her hopes that it would soon be gone altogether. During the warm June days, she made arrangements with the neighboring farm to purchase milk and eggs and found the daily help she’d planned to hire. The young man who took charge of the garden had to chase off the goats a second time, and he recommended a fence. Foyle argued that this was giving in to the marauding animals, but Bob said it would help keep off rabbits and other intruders as well.
A widow who lived nearby agreed to come in half days to cook. Mrs. Hart was glad of the addition to her income and the company. She enjoyed teaching her skills to Kitty and Penelope, and Penelope soon discovered that baking was a pleasure. She produced a good loaf of bread on her third try.
She told herself she was resigned to her small new life. She couldn’t help missing the social round that had been part of her girlhood, but if she needed a topic to occupy her mind, there was always her unexpected inheritance. She examined every inch of Rose Cottage, from the small space under the roof to the earthen cellar to the nooks and crannies of the barn. She found no secret compartments or hidden documents or clues that led to some other location. Through her gratitude, the mystery nagged at her. Why had a man she’d never met, indeed never even heard of, left her a house?
She was considering the larger crevices in the front garden wall and wondering whether any of them might hold secrets when a curricle swooped up the lane and stopped before her. Lord Whitfield held the reins, with just a groom up behind him. “Good afternoon,” he said as the groom jumped down to go to the horses’ heads.
Penelope was concerned to realize how glad she was to see him—not just as someone to talk to, but for his own sake. That was not a good idea.
He stepped down, turned, and reached back into his vehicle. “I’ve brought you the dogs you wanted,” he said, lifting two young hounds down from the curricle and placing them at Penelope’s feet. “Walk the horses,” he told the groom.
“Staying for a bit, are you?” Penelope couldn’t help saying. He might be the lord of all the land hereabouts, but he wasn’t in charge of Rose Cottage.
Her noble visitor looked startled. “I thought I’d introduce the dogs.”
“See that I can handle them, you mean?”
His expression gave him away, but he wasn’t foolish enough to agree out loud.
One of the dogs nosed Penelope’s skirts. Both were white with brown and black patches and ears that hung below their jaws. Though they had long legs and large paws that promised further growth, they weren’t puppies. They surveyed their new surroundings with bright eyes, sniffing at the bottom of the wall and the flowers in the front garden. “Foxhounds?” asked Penelope, recognizing the breed.
Lord Whitfield nodded. “They are. But some dogs don’t want to hunt. The farmer who bred these two said they just don’t have the urge. He thought they’d be happy as family watchdogs. He…umm…altered them.”
Penelope bent and extended a hand. The dogs came over to greet her, interested.
“I thought I’d get them accustomed to—” Daniel began, but she’d snapped her fingers at the hounds and led them away. He followed the three of them around the cottage to the kitchen door.
There he waited with the dogs. Almost as if he was a dog himself, Daniel thought, amused and a bit irked.
Miss Pendleton emerged from the house with a small dish of chopped meat. “What are the dogs’ names?” she asked.
“The farmer called them Jum and Jip. He names his litters by letter. You can choose other names if you wish.”
“I see no reason, particularly if they are accustomed to those. Jip!”
One of the dogs cocked an ear. Penelope held out a morsel of meat. The hounds crowded up to her, and she gave the treat to Jip. “And Jum.” She fed the other. Then she headed across the yard, holding the dish well up. When one dog started to leap for it, she said “No,” in a tone that brought instant obedience and roused Daniel’s admiration. She didn’t require his help, he realized. Yet he had no wish to leave. Watching her take charge of her new acquisitions was a positive pleasure.
Miss Pendleton led the dogs into the small barn. “Sit,” she said.
Daniel knew the command was an experiment. She had no way of predicting what the hounds had been taught. But she sounded absolutely certain they’d do as she asked. Jip and Jum sat.
