Saving Grace (27 page)

How
was on the tip of Nicholas’s tongue, but he dared not ask. Miss Thatcher had proclaimed her virtue, yet there were limited ways a woman could support herself in this world, none of them pleasant. A sick feeling formed in Nicholas’s stomach. He didn’t want to think of Miss Thatcher’s being involved in those sort of things.

And from age
eight.

“Mother was a washerwoman,” she said, not sounding the least bit ashamed by the admission.

Relief surged through Nicholas. “Perfectly respectable,” he heard himself say and meant it wholeheartedly.

Miss Thatcher nodded. “Mother taught me how to do laundry — how to wash and hang the clothes, how to iron and fold. As she grew more ill, I did more of the work. I made the deliveries, too, so that when she died there wasn’t much change. I didn’t tell her customers that she was gone. I was afraid of losing their business.”

“Did any of them find out?” Nicholas asked, thinking it was doubtful that she would have lost their business, though likely some would have tried to cheat a little girl. He didn’t much care for the image of an eight-year-old bent over a washtub all day either, but it was far better than what he’d initially imagined.

“Not a one,” Miss Thatcher said, a touch of pride in her voice. “I kept them all and even took on a few more as the years went by. It was enough that we survived.”

“Your brother and sister helped as well, I hope,” Nicholas said.

A smile that was both part joyful and half-wistful curved her lips. “Christopher was three and Helen two when Mother died. I was delighted if they stayed out of the fire and didn’t muss the folded sheets,” Miss Thatcher mused. “Of course, they helped when they grew older, but I wanted them to experience childhood, as well — something I —”

“Never had,” Nicholas guessed.

She nodded. He looked over at her, and their eyes met. Hers held no sorrow or bitterness. He felt both on her behalf.

“It wasn’t fair of your mother to leave you with such a burden. You were so young.”

“Who else should she have left it with?” Miss Thatcher asked. Then she continued quickly, as if she didn’t expect him to answer. “It was the best thing she could have done for me. Caring for Helen and Christopher became my purpose. It left me precious little time to grieve, and it fueled my desire to live; it made my work not so wearisome. In giving Mother my promise to care for them,
I
received a gift. I learned what it is to love someone so much that you would do anything for them. And in loving like that, I did more than merely survive. We had joy and love in our home.”

For a long minute, Nicholas said nothing; he couldn’t. He’d never felt more dumbfounded in his life. “But you were
eight
,” he repeated. “Just a child yourself.”

Miss Thatcher smiled at him again, and it lit up her whole face. Clearly he’d found something she liked to talk about. “My birthday was a month after she died. Then I was nine.”

“
Nine
,” he scoffed. “Still far too young for that kind of responsibility.”

“Just as Mother was far too young to die.” Miss Thatcher’s smile faded. “But she taught me much in the few years we had together. She knew children need love. And that our father had none to give. But she also understood that I was old enough to give love — and, in doing so, could also receive it from Helen and Christopher.”

Nicholas flicked the reins, urging the horses on faster. All this talk of love made him uncomfortable. As did Miss Thatcher’s nonchalant attitude about what had to have been a terribly difficult life.

“What you did is admirable. Tell me more,” he said, his voice gruff for reasons entirely foreign to him.

Warmed to her topic, Miss Thatcher rambled on as they drove. She told of cold winters when they were out of coal and she would pile not only every quilt they owned to keep warm, but all of the laundry she’d taken in as well.

“Wasn’t that clever and resourceful of me?” she asked. “You’ve no idea how heavy women’s ball gowns can be. I’ve no doubt that the weight of Mrs. Mackenzie’s silk and petticoats saved us from freezing more than a time or two.”

He gave her a sideways glance and when he caught her grin, found himself smiling. It was funny, sort of, imagining eight — no, nine
-
year-old Grace — heaping dresses upon a bed so she and her siblings would stay warm.

“I take it your customers never found out how their laundry was aired,” Nicholas said.

“Of course not.” Her lips smoothed into a serious line.

“Go on,” he encouraged. This was the most entertainment he’d had in quite some time, though he didn’t feel it appropriate to say so. It didn’t feel right to be entertained by stories of such hardship.

When she spoke of their meager suppers and how they’d learned to survive on two meals a day, he was no longer amused.

“I simply hadn’t the time to cook more than twice,” she said. “As it was, I felt as if I cooked — boiling laundry — the whole day through. Our food went further if we rationed it anyway. Helen and Christopher never complained. We ate breakfast late and supper early and went to bed as soon as the work was done. We’d lie in bed, and I’d tell them stories of Camelot, of faraway castles and princesses and dragons and knights — the same stories Mother used to tell. It was our favorite time of day.”

A strange lump had formed in Nicholas’s throat. He felt angry when he thought of the way his mother had driven Miss Thatcher away from the breakfast table before she’d taken two bites. She was too thin, and no wonder, growing up as she had. The pneumonia hadn’t helped either.

“And did you always have enough to eat two daily meals? Did your father never once help to put food on the table?”

“Oh, he did,” she assured him. “He just didn’t realize it.” Her mischievous grin returned. “Often I’d lie awake, waiting for him to come home — sometimes he didn’t, you see — so I’d bar the door at last before going to sleep myself. But on nights when he came home merry — singing and staggering and the lot — I knew he’d had ‘a good pull,’ as he called it.”

Nicholas slowed the horses, guiding them toward the first of his tenants’ homes.

“On those nights,” Miss Thatcher continued, “when I was certain Father was sound asleep, I went into his room and searched his coat. I never took much, lest he find out, but often it was enough extra that I could buy a fresh meat pie for the children. Once, near Christmas, I bought them each a peppermint stick. We had to be so very careful that Father never saw them, or he’d have suspected.” She lifted a hand, waving to the people gathering to watch as the buggy approached the first cottage. “Look, they’ve come out to greet us. How pleasant.”

“They’ve come to tell me their woes,” Nicholas corrected. “They rent the land, so I’m expected to fix their problems — every last one. Finish your story,” he added, wishing they hadn’t traveled quite so fast.

“There isn’t much more to tell,” she said. “I always had to spend the money from laundry before I came home. At first I tried saving a little, but Father discovered it and took it all. I managed to convince him that it was money Mother had saved, but I never did try to hide any from him again. I’d catch him searching every so often, and we needed every penny I earned.” She sighed contentedly. “What a lovely spot this is. How fortunate your tenants are.”

Nicholas knew many tenants felt otherwise about living on Sutherland land — at least, since his father’s death — but he agreed with Miss Thatcher about the landscape. He’d always thought the fields and farmland were beautiful, especially this time of year.

As he stopped the carriage, he noted the wary looks of those gathered in the yard. He raised a hand in greeting, but his movements were stiff, his arm unsure, whereas Miss Thatcher’s wave had seemed natural. He’d not told anyone they were coming, and with the way he’d handled matters the past couple of years, he couldn’t blame them for not welcoming him.

Perhaps Miss Thatcher will ease the way.

It was an odd thought to have when he and Mother had plotted this outing for Miss Thatcher’s failure. But she was already proving them wrong.

“Hello,” she called, climbing from the carriage before Nicholas had made his way around to assist her. She began eagerly shaking hands and asking the names of everyone, from an elderly man leaning heavily on a pitchfork to the toddler tugging at her skirt.

Nicholas hung back, reluctant to intrude.
Utter nonsense. This is my land, and these are my tenants.

He couldn’t deny the echo of truth; he felt uncomfortable as he watched her interacting with the tenants.

She could be a part of this.

She exclaimed over the size of a squash, bent for a closer look at a row of flowers growing along the side of the cottage, and took a fussy baby from a weary-looking mother. Miss Thatcher had a way with people.

Not unlike Elizabeth
.

Miss Thatcher would do well here. If circumstances were different, if they had not been forced to each other’s company ...

Would she have caught my interest? Could she have cared for me?

Both were questions he would do well to forget. He watched as she continued to greet his tenants, walking among them and chatting with far more animation than she had done over breakfast this morning.

Contrary to his mother’s prediction that she would fail, Miss Thatcher seemed to instinctively know what to say and do. She had a certain poise and — well, a
grace —
about her. Too late, he realized that this expedition had been a poor idea. It would only serve to complicate matters.

The people have accepted her already
.

Nicholas couldn’t help smiling as they drove away from their last stop. It was long past midday — when he’d thought they’d be done — and they’d visited but half the farms he’d intended, but he felt as if he’d accomplished a good day’s work.

And I enjoyed it as well.
He wondered absently if Mother had often done these rounds with his father, and if so, how she’d been regarded. Somehow he doubted she’d been as warmly received.

Likely why Mother continues to suggest I find a steward to see to the managing of the tenants. Perhaps I should hire Miss Thatcher.
His grin widened at the thought.

“What are you thinking?” she asked. “You look far too smug to trust,” she added, leaning away to the far side of the carriage, where she’d made sure to sit this morning.

It hadn’t escaped his notice that throughout the day, she’d gradually sat closer to him and had ceased looking as if he might attack at any moment. During the course of their visits, the frost between them, which had shown signs of melting at different occasions, had progressed to a full thaw, one he hoped might be permanent.

“I’m thinking that I may not need to hire a steward if you’ll always accompany me on my tours of the estate. The tenants have never been as friendly to me as they were today, and I know it’s because of you.”

Miss Thatcher shrugged. “They recognize me as one of their own.”

“You’re the granddaughter of a duke,” he reminded her.

“And daughter of a washerwoman,” she countered. “I may fit in among the common folk, but we both know I will never fit in your society. I’ll never be able to accompany you anywhere without causing your reputation harm.”

Nicholas found that this bothered him. And not because he particularly cared what others thought. “I never go anywhere,” he said. “So you needn’t worry yourself about that.”

She gave him an appreciative smile, though her eyes appeared sad, and he experienced a queer tug at his heart that he’d been fighting throughout day.

“But you used
to go out,” she said. “You used to be home only one day out of twenty.”

“Who told you that?” he asked, the familiar edge returned to his voice. He willed it away and wondered how long it would take him to reverse the habit of being curt with everyone.

Miss Thatcher refused to answer.

“The places I went to were no places for a lady.”

“Oh?” She brought a gloved hand to her chin. “I see.”

“You don’t,” he said. “Not at all.” It frustrated him that she would infer the worst. “I did not mean
those
types of establishments. I was referring to solicitors’ offices and the like. Tedious at best.”

“Then why did you spend so much time there?”

It was a good question, considering that no one had forced him to do any such thing and that there had been no financial gain from those many meetings. On the contrary, they’d caused him to neglect his home and his own affairs.

“I was trying to — right a wrong.” Even as he spoke the words, he knew them to be false. Destroying Preston wouldn’t bring Elizabeth back. “No. I was seeking to avenge a wrong.”

“And have you?” Miss Thatcher asked. “Was your quest successful?”

“Time will tell,” Nicholas said. “Time and a few more trips to London, I suppose.”

“Perhaps I could join you on one of those trips,” she said. “With a proper chaperone, of course,” she added hastily. “I, too, have a solicitor I need to meet with, a Mr. Littleton.”

“I’ve heard of him,” Nicholas said, curious about what dealings she might have with the man.