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Brushing aside the suspicion that he wasn’t entirely blameless for his predicament, Daniel picked up another thick document. Regrets and resentments were a waste of time. Things were as they were. He should be working. He began to read.
A familiar irritation rose when he was scarcely three sentences in. Lawyers didn’t want you to understand what they wrote, he’d concluded some time ago. They’d created their own twisty, impenetrable language expressly to confuse, so that you had to hire more lawyers to tell you what the devil the first ones had meant. He imagined gangs of them tittering in their fusty chambers, vying with each other to devise yet more obscure phrasing for some obvious point.Tontine, they’d cackle.Partition of messuages lands. Let’s see what they make ofthat!
Well, they weren’t going to defeat him; he was going to puzzle out this deed of conveyance without help or additional fees. But as he tried to push on, his brain jumped to the many other tasks awaiting his attention. Lists upon lists. The sheer volume made it difficult to focus on any one job. Particularly when the jobs were as dull as ditchwater and nearly as stagnant. What the deuce was mortmain? Sounded like some sort of fungus. When he was interrupted a few minutes later by a brisk knock on the office door, Daniel felt only relief. “Yes?”
His stately butler came through. “You wanted to be told when anyone headed for Rose Cottage, my lord. A carriage has been observed approaching the place.”
“Indeed.” Daniel dropped the document back on its pile and rose. “Thank you, Grant.”
Twenty minutes later, Daniel was riding down the avenue of trees at the front of his home and out into the countryside toward a dwelling at the far edge of his lands, once part of them but now separate under his father’s will. Finally, a mystery that had been nagging at him for months would be solved.
* * *
Dust kicked up by the horses’ hooves drifted through the open window of the post chaise, and Penelope Pendleton felt the ominous tickle at the back of her throat that heralded a fit of coughing. She swallowed repeatedly to fight it off, but the cough would not be quelled. The spasms seized her, shaking her shoulders and vibrating through her chest, making her eyes water and her throat ache. There was nothing to do but hang on and ride it out.
Her younger companion shrank away from the paroxysm. “I’m feard you have the consumption, miss. What’ll I do if you go and die?”
“Won’t,” croaked Penelope. She took a swallow of well water from a flask she’d taken care to bring. And then another. A cough tried to rise. She pushed it back. “It’s nothing of the kind,” she rasped when she could speak again. “This is just a lingering cold, Kitty. That’s all.” Which was undoubtedly true. She was certain. The smoky mills of Manchester had prolonged the irritation of her lungs. No more. And the coughing was over now, for a while at least. “I’ll soon be well here in the country. See how pretty it is.”
The Derbyshire countryside rolled away from them, lush and green under the June sun—hills crowned by clumps of trees, neat fields bounded by stone walls.
Her sixteen-year-old maid eyed it uneasily. “Are there bears?”
“Not for hundreds of years, Kitty.”
“So thereused to bebears?”
“Yes, I think so, but—”
“So some might be left, hiding in the woods. Or in a dark cave maybe. Just waiting to jump out and rip your insides.” The girl clawed at the air with her hand.
“No.” Penelope made her voice authoritative. “They were all hunted down long ago.”
“Wolves? With red eyes and teeth as long as your thumb?”
Penelope shook her head. “No wolves.” Small, skinny, and addicted to drama, Kitty was a challenging personal attendant. The girl had never been out of Manchester before, and she had a dim view of vegetation. She saw every forest tree as poised to fall and “crush the life out of you.” In her mind, undergrowth teemed with monstrousthingseager to sting and bite and tear. The lack of nearby shops was almost incomprehensible to her. Yet she’d wanted to come along in Penelope’s employ. Kitty had an odd sense of adventure that seemed to savor the idea of impending disaster. Her enthusiasm counted for a good deal as Penelope salvaged what she could from the wreck of her family fortunes.
The carriage bounced in a rut. Penelope gripped a strap and held on. The journey from Manchester to Ashbourne, over fifty miles of bad roads, had been exhausting. She couldn’t imagine what it would have been like without the indulgence of a post chaise. But all would be well when they reached Rose Cottage, the mysterious miracle that had descended upon her when she’d nearly lost hope. It simply had to be.
They had to stop twice for directions, but at last the chaise slowed, turned, and pulled up before their destination. Penelope pushed open the door and jumped down, her soul awash with gratitude and relief.
Rose Cottage might have been anything. On bad days she’d envisioned a broken-down hovel with gaping windows and rotting thatch surrounded by fever-ridden swamps. But in fact it was a real house, built of mellow stone with a slate roof. The central door promised decent rooms on either side, and a second story showed three windows. There were chimneys at either end. Carved stone lintels suggested age, but the structure looked sound. Yes, it was small compared to what she was—had been—used to. But that mattered not a whit these days. The source of the name was obvious. Climbing roses had gone wild in the neglected garden, engulfing one end of the building and filling the air with scent.
Penelope took the key she’d received from the solicitor out of her reticule and hurried up three steps to unlock the door. It opened on a small entry with stairs at the back and bare, dusty rooms on either side. No furniture graced the wooden floorboards. No draperies softened the windows. But Penelope had two wagons coming behind her, carrying all her worldly goods under the care of a crusty old manservant who had tended to her father and then her brother. She would soon have a bed and other necessities. Penelope smiled. Foyle would spit when he saw this place.
“Smells like old people,” said Kitty, coming in on Penelope’s heels.
There was also a dead sparrow in the fireplace on the left. But Rose Cottage was an actual house, and it really belonged to her. Penelope had the deeds in her trunk—miraculous evidence, in black and white, of her ownership. Though it was nothing like the spacious mansion where she’d grown up, the little stone building felt like sanctuary. “We will open the windows,” replied Penelope. “And scrub it clean.”
Kitty groaned theatrically.
Exploring further, Penelope discovered an extension on the back of the house, like the stem of a T, holding the kitchen. A door at one side led out to a small cobbled yard and privy. A neat little barn stood some yards away. Like the house, it seemed in good repair.
She returned to find the postilions setting down one of their trunks by the front door. “Upstairs, please,” said Penelope. Looking grumpy but unsurprised, the two men hauled the luggage up the narrow stairs.
“That one goes back here,” she said when they brought in the large hamper of food she’d packed. “In the kitchen.”
When they’d set it down, she walked with them back to the chaise and paid them off. Five minutes later, the equipage was rattling away.
