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Mrs. Hart glanced at her again. Penelope bent her head over her task. “The gelatin we put in will set when it cools,” the older woman answered.
What might she stir up, Penelope wondered, if she took whatshewanted?
“Will it wiggle?” asked Kitty.
A laugh escaped Penelope. Mrs. Hart looked, appeared to catch the scandalous tenor of her thoughts from her expression, and raised her eyebrows. “It’ll be firmer than a jelly,” replied the cook.
“I like to make them wiggle,” said Kitty, stirring.
Mrs. Hart coughed, or choked on laughter. Penelope wasn’t sure which. She rather hoped it was the latter.
The dough was ready. She smoothed it into a ball and put it in a large bowl, covering it with a cloth before she set it aside to rise. She pumped water into a basin to wash her hands.
“What comes next?” asked Kitty.
That was up to her, Penelope thought. Whitfield would tie himself into knots behaving like a gentleman.
“Pour it into the molds,” said Mrs. Hart. “Carefully now.”
Could she give her life a new shape? She had her own money, her own home. If she threw the old rules out the window with her girlhood, what were the new ones?
“Oops!” Kitty said. “That wasn’t my fault.”
Whatever Penelope did, she had to make it clear she wasn’t Whitfield’sresponsibility. She didn’t want to be any such thing. A confidante, a delight perhaps, but not a burden.
“What if it goes wrong?” Kitty asked.
There were always consequences, Penelope thought, no matter what one did. Even when one did nothing at all, as she had been doing when Philip’s recklessness had brought the world crashing down on her. She simply had to accept them.
“It’ll be fine,” said Mrs. Hart. “Put the molds over here where it’s cooler.”
Should she wait until she was calmer to decide? Only, Penelope didn’t know when that would be. Whenever she thought of Whitfield, she felt she might go up in flames.
Filled with the energy of her inner debate, Penelope left the kitchen. There was a pile of mending. She’d planned to wash the windows upstairs. She couldn’t expect Kitty to do all the cleaning. Foyle had left her some bills for fodder and harness to look over, as well as suggestions for a stiff letter to the owner of the goats. He wanted to threaten the man with the law, which would mean appearing before the local magistrate—who was Lord Whitfield. Even had she wanted to antagonize her neighbor, which she didn’t, that wasn’t a scene Penelope cared to enact.
A knock on the front door broke into her musings. “I’ll go,” Penelope called before Kitty could emerge, and went to open it.
A tall, lanky workman stood on the stoop. He pulled off his cap at the sight of her. “I’ve come to see Miss Pendleton,” he said.
“I am Miss Pendleton.”
“Miss,” he said with a respectful nod. “My name’s Henry Carson. His lordship said I should speak to you.”
“Lord Whitfield?”
“Yes, miss.”
Penelope took in the man’s straw-colored hair, powerful shoulders, and craftsman’s hands. One of them held a roll of paper with familiar markings. “About the bathing chamber?” she said.
“Yes, miss,” he said again. “He said you’d be overseeing the building of it.”
He looked dubious, but Penelope didn’t mind that. It was a typical attitude when laborers discovered that a young lady was in charge of their work. In her experience supervising projects on her father’s estate, eight out of ten could be won over by treating them with respect, demonstrating comprehensive knowledge of the task at hand, and paying them fairly and promptly. The other two had to be told that their services were not required, which sometimes changed their tune.
“Come in.” She ushered Henry Carson into the dining room rather than the parlor so that they could spread out the plans on the large table. She weighted down the corners with books and indicated that he should sit opposite her. “I don’t suppose you’ve constructed anything like this before? Almost no one has. It’s a new design.”
This frank admission seemed to reassure him. “No, miss. I’ve built cottages and barns, done a good deal of repairs at Frithgerd.”
“Stonework as well as carpentry?”
