The Waltzing Widow/Smith (7 page)

Lord Avedon executed his threat with unholy celerity. When the ladies rose the next morning, they saw a crew of workmen already digging up the road to a depth much greater than the laying of tiles required, and making a deal of noise while they were about it. The air rang with laughter, shouts, and an occasional curse. The road, Lucy noted, was the first thing being dug. The fields on either side of it were also excavated, in case any enterprising carriage had the idea of detouring around the road.

The digging extended, over the morning, in such a wide swath that it met the wild shrubbery growing five or six feet high, and getting a carriage though was impossible. No fresh supplies were brought down from Chenely, but the milk and cream had not curdled yet, so the ladies were not deprived of tea. As the morning progressed, the incessant noise preyed on poor Mrs. Percy’s ears to no small degree.

Although she had the windows closed, dust seeped in around the frames, and soon the furnishings wore a coating of brown powder.

When Tony came cantering along in his yellow curricle, he could hardly see Rose Cottage for the dust, and he could not get his carriage in. He retraced his route down the main road and up the sweeping drive to Chenely, to demand of his uncle what was going forth.

Avedon glanced up from his paperwork and said, “I am having tiles laid in my meadow.”

“You ain’t having tiles laid across the road!” Tony challenged. “And you shouldn’t be doing it now, when the Percys have just arrived. What must they think?”

“I gave them advance warning.”

“Dash it, Uncle Adrian, that’s demmed uncivil. The place is clouded in dust.”

“Civility and consideration form no part of my plan,” Avedon said blandly.

“I see what it is. You want to get rid of them, just because Mrs. Percy is pretty. You never want me to have anything to do with a pretty woman, as though I was still in swaddling bands. Dash it, Uncle, I reach my majority in six months.”

“That leaves me only six months in which to ram some sense into you.”

“But what is Mrs. Percy to do about coming and going? How can she get out of her cottage?” Bigelow demanded.

“I will be more than happy to arrange for her
going
—in my own carriage, if that is what it takes.”

“You’ve got her locked up like a prisoner.”

“She has two legs,” Avedon pointed out. “In an emergency, she could walk or send a servant on shank’s mare.”

“She couldn’t walk if she hurt herself,” Bigelow said swiftly. “And supposing the place caught fire— dash it, it ain’t safe. It’s criminal irresponsibility.”

“A fire?” Avedon said with interest. “Not a bad idea.”

Bigelow, who was not much attuned to a joke, exclaimed, “You can’t burn my cottage down!”

At this, Avedon burst into laughter. “No, cawker, I don’t mean to go that far. Two or three days with no company and stale food will root them out.”

“Well, it won’t,” Tony replied, and left on foot to cut across the brush and dust to Rose Cottage, to present his perspiring self to the ladies to commiserate with them.

“This is beyond anything,” he apologized. “You will think we are a parcel of yahoos. Avedon is always interfering in my life, but to treat
you
in this manner—I hardly know what to say, Mrs. Percy.”

“Call me Lucy,” she said with a warm smile. “And help me, Tony.” This was added in a wheedling tone that turned him rosy with pleasure. “Your uncle has marooned us—no milk or eggs this morning, so I cannot even offer you a cup of coffee or tea. We quite depended on Lady Sara’s offer to supply us.”

“I’ll send some over from Milhaven, by Jove.”

Lucy reached out and patted his hand. “So kind. I knew we might depend on you. But Milhaven is three miles away, and inconvenient to be sending food every day.”

“Yes, it’s a pity you hadn’t a couple of chickens and a cow,” he agreed.

A light flashed in Lucy’s eyes. “How clever you are! Of course, that is exactly what we need. Will you sell me some chickens and a cow?”

Tony beamed with pleasure. “No,
give
them. It is the least I can do.”

This was even better, and Avedon would hear where she got them, too! “Do you know,” Lucy said, “I think I must put in a little garden, there in front where you so thoughtfully thinned out the roses for us. You won’t mind if we have to remove the grass as well?” A garden behind the house would not be offensive enough to anger Avedon, and all her stunts had the same goal of repaying him. “He cannot encroach on your property with his tiling.”

Bigelow puffed up like a pigeon. “Just let him try it!”

“A garden wouldn’t produce in time to do us any good,” Mrs. Percy said with unusual crossness. The maddening persistence of the noise and dust were driving her to distraction. With all the windows closed, the house was like an oven, but still the dust was everywhere.

“I have a strange notion these tiles will set a new record for slowness in being laid,” Lucy replied. “Where can I hire a couple of garden boys, Tony?”

“It won’t be easy,” he worried. “I see Avedon has hired up every spare man in the neighborhood, along with his own men.”

“The crew are your uncle’s own men?” Lucy asked softly.

“Certainly. Who else should he use?”

“Who indeed?” Not a word was uttered about a crew from Canterbury.

“I’ll send a couple of my own lads over, the Crawley brothers,” Tony decided. “They’re not bright fellows, but they’ll do well enough to dig you up a garden.”

The day was spent in a thoroughly enjoyable manner by Lucy, and incidentally by Avedon’s crew, who had to admire the young lady’s ingenuity. The cow was led on foot up the dusty, excavated road. The Crawley boys left off their digging to lay planks across the ditch and guide her to safety. Half a dozen hens were carried in, and the backhouse boy was sent off to the village on foot to order lumber and wire mesh for a henhouse, and seeds and seedlings for the garden. Lucy also had him post a letter to London, ordering her mount and phaeton. The latter she arranged to stable at Milhaven—and let us see how milord Avedon liked that! Certainly his nephew was tickled pink.

Tony stayed discreetly away from Chenely for a few days, and neither Avedon nor Lady Sara went near Rose Cottage. The latter was occupied with arranging her garden party, and Avedon stood too high on his dignity to be seen hanging around the meadow.

The men continued moving earth around, making a deal of noise and generally having such a holiday as they had never before enjoyed. The Percys were much discussed at Chenely, but there was no direct news of them. The servants, who could have told them the whole tale, were reluctant to receive Avedon’s wrath.

On the evening of the third day, Mrs. Percy’s nerves were frayed from all the commotion, and she retired early to her dusty chamber. Avedon’s frustration at not knowing what was going on reached a peak, and he had his mount saddled up. With great inconvenience he worked his way through the meadow to Rose Cottage. He arrived powdered in dust, with his hands pricked from a detour into nettles to reach the stable, and his cravat disarranged from branches flying against him. He surveyed with grim satisfaction the damage done to his road and the piles of earth all around the exterior of the cottage.

At the rear he saw one of Tony’s milchers tethered to a post, grazing idly. He uttered a low curse just before his lips clenched angrily. The henhouse of wire and wood had been hastily constructed. Movement within told him it was already stocked. He went around to the front and stopped short. His eyebrows rose when he spotted the seedlings planted in what used to be a lawn. Mounds of dirt that surely held cucumbers had been formed along the west side. Other neat rows bespoke carrots and onions.

Very much accustomed to having his way, Avedon was vexed with the ladies’ tactics. His nostrils pinched, but there was an unwilling wisp of admiration, too, at such high initiative and low cunning.

He fully expected to find Tony inside and went to the door ready to haul him out by the ear. He was greeted by a butler—such ostentation, a butler in a cottage—and shown into the parlor, where Lucy sat at the tambour frame in a state of the utmost serenity, to judge by her placid smile. The butler had alerted her to Avedon’s arrival, and she had had time to compose herself.

“Good evening, Lord Avedon,” she said very civilly, with just a glint of battle showing in her dark eyes. “So kind of you to drop by this evening.” She cast a bland look at his disheveled toilette and said, “And what a job you had reaching us, too. You took pity at our being cut off, I assume?”

He batted at his dusty trousers while trying to think what to say. “Is Miss Percy out this evening?”

“How could she be? She doesn’t have wings. She has retired early. The dust and noise bother her a little. If you feel your reputation can withstand sitting alone with me, I shall invite you to sit down.”

“Thank you. I have no fear for
my
reputation.”

“Nor I for mine,” she said demurely. “My being a widow allows me a certain latitude in social matters.” Avedon took a seat, and she continued, “Dear Tony usually accompanies me in the evening, but he has deserted me tonight.”

This speech was intended to irritate her visitor, and did so to a satisfying degree. Avedon’s brows rose and his lips tightened. “Indeed,” he said.

“Oh, my, yes, I don’t know what we should have done without him in our hour of distress. So very kind of him to insist on giving us a cow and hens, and supplying our every need now that we are cut off from the world. He sent over a couple of his men to put in our garden, just in case the laying of the tiles should be delayed. I daresay using your own untrained men instead of the crew from Canterbury must set the work back a little.” Lucy continued plying her needle as she spoke.

Avedon was left without a word to say. His attack turned into a defense, and he muttered something about getting on with it, since the plans were made. “Where is Tony this evening?” he asked, to cover his embarrassment at being caught dead to rights.

“His mama returned late this afternoon,” she replied. The incongruity of her telling him details of his own family delighted Lucy. “Cousin Morton came with her for a visit. You must forgive my calling him by such a familiar name, but Tony always calls him so, and I truly do not know whether Morton is his first or last name.”

“Morton Carlton is his name.”

“I should be learning these things.” Lucy lifted her eyes from her work and smiled boldly at Avedon at this thrust, which conveyed that she hoped to join the family.

Avedon felt a burning sensation in his throat and said, “These details are not likely to be of much interest to you once you leave. Have you considered my offer to remove to another place? I have found a cottage quite similar to this—half timbered, with leaded windows.”

“So very thoughtful of you, but we have no intention of removing at all. In fact, we like it so well we may spend our full twelve months here, and not just the summer as we originally planned.”

He was through with controlling himself and flared into a towering rage. “You waste your time and money, madam, if you think to marry Lord Bigelow. When he enters into marriage, in ten years’ time, it will not be to a soldier’s widow five or ten years his senior, but to a lady of his own kind and station.”

“Tony tells me he is only six months short of reaching his majority. Your careful perusal of my face has misled you, sir. I am not thirty years old, nor even twenty-five, but scarcely twenty-two.”

“I tell you quite frankly, your age is the least of your disadvantages. Your circumstances are in every way ineligible.”

“You know nothing of my circumstances, sir.”

“I know you are an officer’s widow, living on your late husband’s half pay. Don’t try to con me, you are not wealthy. If there were property in the family, you would have some better place to go to than a hired cottage. Your social position is infinitely inferior to my nephew’s, you are too old for him, and your manners are too free by half. Your persistence in hanging on where you are so patently not wanted will yield you nothing but a very disagreeable summer.”

“I am wanted by your nephew,” she pointed out. Lucy was so happy to have got Avedon into a pelter that she managed to control her own temper, though it was difficult.

“I am in control of my nephew,” he said categorically. “I repeat my offer to move you elsewhere.”

Lucy’s nostrils dilated and she said in a tightly controlled tone, “Where was it you had in mind, milord? Coventry, perhaps?”

“We have already discussed a suitable destination at our former meeting. Tunbridge Wells is where I usually send Tony’s flirts.”

“Is it indeed? I take leave to tell you, Lord Avedon, that you will not send
me
there or anywhere else. I am here, and I shall stay. I have a signed contract for this hovel, for which I might add, I am paying an exorbitant five hundred pounds a year. Don’t think I couldn’t have Tony this month if I wanted him.”

“I will be more than happy to refund the five hundred and another five hundred with it.”

Lucy’s eyes flashed dangerously and her color mounted. “Are you trying to buy me off? Yes, you are. I expect you have the check in your pocket, on which you have already stopped payment. I recognize that trick.” She came to a gasping stop.

Avedon examined her with a sardonic grin. “I am surprised you choose to admit it, ma’am. No, I would not attempt to weasel out of payment on such an experienced shrew as yourself. How much did you screw out of your last victim?”

“Oh!” It was a squeal of outrage. “How dare you insult me under my own roof?”

“If you care to step outside, I will undertake to insult you more fully.” Her hands were rigid, clasping and unclasping her skirt. Examining them, he noticed she wore no wedding ring and began to wonder if she was married at all.

“You could hardly do so!” Lucy charged angrily.

“Do you consider five hundred an insult? I’ll make it a thousand, then. Mrs. Lacey, the local lightskirt, settled for five hundred last month. Tony would not have actually offered for her. She came hobbled with two children. Do you have any children, ma’am?”