The Inheritance (34 page)

“We can talk more about this later,” Colin said, letting her know he wasn’t finished with the subject.

“All right,” Roanna agreed. She had a few more questions to ask herself.

Douglas was at home and walked out on crutches to greet them. “Hello, Colin.” He was surprised to see Lady Roanna Warenne. She wasn’t known for her visits to the poor. He touched his forelock. “Lady Roanna.”

“You’re looking great, Douglas,” Colin said. “How soon before you can wear your boot?”

“The doctor says the leg is healing nicely. As soon as I can bear the weight on my stump with a little padding, he says I should do it. I try it every day, just to see. It won’t be long now, I’m guessing.”

Roanna marveled at the fact Colin didn’t seem the least bit self-conscious or uncomfortable talking with a man who was clearly his social inferior, and a cripple besides. She struggled not to cringe from Hepplewhite. She had no experience with anyone who wasn’t a whole person. She felt sorry for Hepplewhite of course, but beyond that, she wasn’t certain how she should act toward him.

Roanna’s reluctance to approach Hepplewhite hadn’t gone unnoticed by either man. Douglas accepted it as typical aristocratic behavior.

Colin was disappointed.

“I suppose I should have explained to you why I was coming here today,” Colin said to Roanna.

“I thought it was for visit,” Roanna said. Although, now that she thought about it, she wasn’t sure what that entailed, either.

“I’m going to be helping with some work that needs to be done which Douglas can’t do himself until he’s back on two feet.”

“Oh.” Roanna wondered what she was supposed to do while he was working. The expectant, encouraging look on Colin’s face told her what he wanted to hear. So she said it. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

She saw the astonishment and cynicism on Douglas Hepplewhite’s face and knew she deserved them both. She had never in her life done any manual labor except for the fun of it. Her hands were still soft as a baby’s skin and though she was fit from all the riding she did, there was no necessity that she use her muscles for anything more than walking up and down the stairs. Everything else was done for her.

“Do you have something Lady Roanna could do?” Colin asked Douglas.

Douglas was in a quandary. “I can’t ask a lady to wash dirty dishes or sweep the floor,” he told Colin.

“Why not?” Roanna said. She desperately wanted Colin to be proud of her. And she was willing to do whatever it took to earn his respect. “I can certainly manage those things if you’ll tell me where to find the soap and water and the broom.”

Douglas scratched his head. “I suppose my sisters
can do that. If you’re sure, m’lady, that you really want to do such menial labor.”

“I’m sure,” Roanna said. She was even more sure when she looked at Colin and saw the smile of approval on his face.

What would have been simple chores for Colin were confusing adventures into realms of the unknown for Roanna. She was appalled to discover that seven children, including Douglas, lived in the house. Mrs. Hepplewhite was confined to her bed with consumption. While the oldest girl, Patty, did her best to care for the children and cook and clean, she was only eleven. The rest were all younger, the youngest being a year-old baby.

Roanna had never thought much about what it meant to be poor. The younger children, four girls and two boys, were dressed in rags that she suspected were cast-off clothing. They were all barefoot, but their feet were no more dirty than their hands and faces and hair. Their bodies were thin, so she suspected they were hungry. More telling was the look in their eyes. Hopelessness. Despair.

She thought of her glowing skin, which she bathed in various lotions every night. Of her glossy hair, which was brushed daily and washed to keep it clean. Of the groaning sideboard of food that waited to be served each morning. Of the silks and velvets and satins she donned. So many filled her closets that she would never wear them out.

She felt guilty. For the first time in her life she saw the unfairness of a system that provided a very few with so much and everyone else with so little.

But it wasn’t her fault. She had only been born into the system, she hadn’t created it. And she had
no desire to change it, even assuming she could. Which was doubtful.

Yet she could help this one family. She had nothing else planned, and she was certainly strong enough and able enough to do what had to be done.

Colin left Roanna in the house and followed Douglas outside. The duke had arranged to have deadwood from Severn’s forest delivered to the Hepplewhites for fuel. But there were several large tree trunks that needed to be chopped up. Douglas handed Colin an ax, and he went to work. After Colin chopped the wood, he carted it over to the growing pile beside the house.

Meanwhile, Roanna had her hands full inside. She quickly realized that the children were so in awe of her they would be next to useless in helping her to find what she needed if she didn’t do something to ease the tension.

She approached the eldest girl, Patty, and said, “Do you think you could find me an apron?”

“We don’t have an apron,” Patty said, her wide eyes glued on Lady Roanna’s face as if she were an angel come down from heaven.

“A towel then, or anything I could use to cover my dress while I’m cleaning.”

“Oh, no, m’lady,” Patty protested. “You can’t do the cleanin’!”

“Why not?” Roanna said with a teasing smile. “Do you think I’m not strong enough?”

Patty was flustered. “Of course you are!”

“Of course I am,” Roanna agreed. “Now, can you find me that apron?”

While they had been talking, the second-oldest girl, Penny, had gone to find a towel they used to dry
the dishes. She held it out to Roanna and said, “Here, m’lady.”

Roanna took the filthy towel and gamely tucked it around the waist of her riding skirt. It was worse than nothing, but she wouldn’t hurt the child’s feelings by rejecting it. “What’s your name?” Roanna asked.

“Penny, m’lady.” The seven-year-old girl dipped a quick curtsy.

“I’m pleased to meet you, Penny. I’m Lady Roanna. Would you introduce me to your brothers and sisters?”

Penny quickly introduced the other two girls, ages six and one, as Peggy and Pippa. The boys, five-year-old twins, were named Diggory and Dolph.

“I see,” Roanna said with a laugh. “The girls’ names all start with P, and the boys’ names all start with D.”

“That’s because Momma named the girls, and Poppa named the boys,” Patty explained. “Momma’s name is Polly, and Poppa was called Denis. There were some others, Danny and Darcy and Dana and Phoebe born between Douglas and me. But they all died.”

Roanna was appalled to think of any woman having to bear eleven children. But she now knew why there was such a large age gap between Douglas and Patty. The other children had not survived.

Polly Hepplewhite had been sleeping when Roanna arrived, but the sound of a strange voice had woken her. She called to Patty from the other room in the two-room house. “Patty? Who is that you’re talkin’ to?”

“It’s a lady, Momma,” Patty replied excitedly. “Will you come meet my mother, m’lady?”

“I’d love to meet her.”

When Mrs. Hepplewhite saw Lady Roanna she tried to get up. Roanna hurried over to her and pressed her shoulders back against the pillow. She was already too late to prevent the woman from suffering a horrible round of deep, hacking coughs. Roanna stood helplessly by, even less certain of her ability in a sickroom than of her ability as a maid-of-all-work.

“Are you all right?” she asked when the coughing had subsided.

“Fine, m’lady.” Mrs. Hepplewhite wrung her hands for a moment before she asked, “What are you here for, m’lady?”

Roanna grinned. “I’ve come to clean.”

Mrs. Hepplewhite looked alarmed. “Oh, no! You mustn’t. A fine lady like you can’t be doin’ my chores.”

“I can and I shall,” Roanna said. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Hepplewhite. All will be well. I’ve come with Mr. Calloway.”

The woman relaxed then. “Oh. He’s a fine man, isn’t he, m’lady? So kind and generous and thoughtful. I don’t know what we’d’ve done without him, and the duchess, of course, over these past sorry weeks. And the duke, the Lord bless him. Givin’ my son back his foot. And a job!”

It sounded to Roanna like the job was as important, or even more so, than the fitted boot Colin had told her the duke had arranged to have made for Douglas. “I’ll be letting you rest now,” Roanna said as she backed her way out of the room.

When she turned around, six grimy faces stared back at her. She knew it was futile to wash them first, since they would only get dirty again cleaning. “Let’s get started,” she said. She began issuing orders like a general.

“Patty, you find a pail and fill it with water. Then put it on the stove to heat so we can wash dishes.”

“But there’s no fire in the stove,” Penny said.

“We’re not allowed to have a fire unless it’s really cold,” Peggy explained.

“Today shall be an exception,” Roanna said. “Diggory and Dolph can go outside and collect wood and get the fire started.”

The two boys raced out of the house and came charging up to Colin, so he had to catch himself in midswing.

“What’s all the excitement?” Colin asked.

“We have to get some wood,” Diggory said.

“We’re going to make a fire,” Dolph said.

“What’s that?” Douglas asked.

“The lady said we can have a fire,” Diggory told his older brother.

“We have to heat water to wash the dishes,” Dolph said.

Douglas and Colin exchanged looks. Then Colin said, “If you boys collect the wood, I’ll come help you build the fire.”

“We know how to do it,” Diggory said.

“It’s a fact,” Douglas said. “They do.”

Colin looked at the two five-year-olds, both of whom had teeth missing from their impish grins. It dawned on him that when you were really poor, you grew up very fast. These boys had learned to do their share of the labor at an early age, which in this case
meant learning how to handle fire. “Be careful, then,” he said.

Meanwhile, Roanna had sent Penny hunting for the broom, and picked up the baby, Pippa, and taken her into the bedroom where she could play under Mrs. Hepplewhite’s watchful eyes.

There was enough work to keep them all busy for most of the morning. Sweeping the floor, cleaning the single window, wiping off the wooden table and chairs and the sideboard, which were the only pieces of furniture, and washing the dishes and drying them and putting them away.

When they were done, the front room sparkled. Roanna then set the children to heating more water to wash the linens, while she went out to see how long Colin planned to stay. She stopped in her tracks when she turned the corner of the house and saw him chopping wood.

He was naked to the waist.

In her very sheltered life, Roanna had never seen a man of her own class with his chest bared. She was fascinated at the play of muscle and sinew as Colin hefted the ax and brought it crashing down. His body was covered with a fine sheen of sweat, and a hank of black hair had fallen onto his forehead. His shoulders were wide and strong and narrowed to a slim waist. There was a patch of black curls between two flat male nipples and a thin line of black down started somewhere midchest and ran into his trousers.

She felt breathless, enervated. He was magnificent. She wanted to run her hands over his sweat-slick body, to feel whether the muscles were as taut as they looked on his belly. To feel the crispness of
the hair on his chest. To taste his skin, which was surely salty. She wanted to feel that strength surrounding her, holding her close.

At that moment, Colin happened to look up and caught her gazing at him with mooncalf eyes. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t grinned.

He knew. He knew what she was feeling, and he was laughing at her.

She put her hands on her hips and said, “I only came to see how much longer you can stay.”

Colin set the head of the ax on the log and leaned on it. “I’ve got all day.”

“Good. Because I want to do some laundry, and it will take a while for everything to get washed and hung out to dry.”

“Take your time,” he said. “I’ve got plenty of wood to chop.” Then, knowing she was watching, he lifted the ax and sent it biting into the wood.

Roanna had to force herself to leave. She didn’t miss the satisfied smirk on Colin’s face before she made her escape.

Roanna put a hand to her aching back as Patty emptied the laundry tub of dirty water. Penny and Peggy were hanging the clean sheets out to dry on bushes in back of the house.

“That’s everything, m’lady,” Patty said. “I don’t think there’s another spot of dirt anywhere in the house.”

Roanna smiled and touched the tip of Patty’s nose. “Except here. I think we need to heat some more water. This time for baths.”

“Baths?” Patty said, obviously appalled. “We don’t bathe but once a week on Saturdays.”

“Today we’ll make an exception,” Roanna said.

Apparently, working side by side had removed the awe with which Patty had viewed her earlier in the day. The child continued to argue right up until the moment when Daisy dropped her skinny, squirming body into the washtub.

When the girls were finished, the boys took their turns, and finally Roanna settled the baby, Pippa, in the tub and got down on her knees to wash the child herself.

That was how Colin found her.

Her face was smudged with dirt, and several golden curls had unraveled over her nape and by her ears. She had removed her riding jacket and folded up the sleeves of her blouse so they wouldn’t get wet. From the looks of the no-longer-white linen, she had done her share of the cleaning.

Her collarless blouse was open at the throat, and he could see just the hint of her breasts. His loins tightened, and his heart began to pound. He clenched his hands into fists to keep from reaching out to touch her.

She was crooning to the baby, and the golden-haired child was looking up at her, a smile on her face, her chubby cheeks ruddy from the warmth of the water. He imagined the child was his. That she was his.