This was something she definitely knew how to do.
Of course, she'd also known how to fix stoves and grow roses, and look where that had gotten her.
It was a bit past noon when Ellie returned, and Rosejack informed her that the earl had gone out for a ride. That was just as well; meeting the tenants was something she'd rather do without the imposing presence of the earl behind her. Helen would be a much better choice of companion, and Ellie hoped that she'd be agreeable to such an outing.
As it happened, she was. When Ellie found her in the drawing room, Helen replied, “Oh, but I'd love to. The task of visiting the tenants has rested solely on my shoulders for several years now, and, if truth be told, I'm not terribly good at it.”
“Nonsense,” Ellie said with a reassuring smile.
“No, it's true. I can be rather shy, and I never know what to say to them.”
“Well, then, it's settled. I am more than happy to assume this responsibility, but I will need your assistance this morning to show me about.”
The air was crisp when Ellie and Helen got on their way, but the sun was high and bright with the promise of a warm afternoon. It took them about twenty minutes to walk to the first patch of tenants' cottages. Ellie could have probably shaved five minutes off their travel time, but she had long ago learned to adjust her normally brisk and no-nonsense walk to the pace of others.
“This first house belongs to Thom and Bessie Stillwell,” Helen said. “They lease a small plot of land where they grow oats and barley. Mrs. Stillwell also takes in mending for a few extra coins.”
“Stillwell,” Ellie said to herself as she jotted the name down in a small notebook. “Oats. Barley. Mending.” She looked up. “Any children?”
“Two, I think. Oh, wait, it's three now. They had a little girl a few months ago.”
Ellie knocked on the door, and they were greeted by a woman of perhaps two and a half decades. “Oh, Mrs. Pallister, how do you do?” she said to Helen, looking rather apologetic. “I wasn't expecting you. May I offer you some tea? I'm afraid I haven't any biscuits.”
“No worry, Mrs. Stillwell,” Helen replied. “We didn't tell you we were coming, so we certainly cannot expect you to entertain us.”
“No, no, of course not,” Bessie replied, looking unconvinced. Her gaze shifted to Ellie, and she began to look even more nervous. Clearly she had heard that the earl had married, and was correctly guessing that Ellie was the new countess. Ellie decided that she must immediately put the woman at ease.
“How do you do, Mrs. Stillwell,” she said. “I am the new Countess of Billington, and I am very pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Bessie dropped a quick curtsy and mumbled her greetings. Ellie wondered what sorts of experiences the tenants had had with the aristocracy for them to be so nervous around her. She smiled her warmest smile and said, “You are the first tenant I have visited. I shall have to rely on you for advice. I am certain you will know the best route for me to take today if I am to meet everyone.”
Bessie warmed to the suggestion that she actually could advise a countess, and the rest of the interview proceeded just as nicely as Ellie could have hoped. She learned that the Stillwell children were called Thom Junior, Billy, and Katey, that they were thinking of buying a new pig, and that there was a small leak in their roof, which Ellie promised to have fixed as soon as possible.
“Oh, but Thom can see to it. He's quite handy,” Bessie said. Then she looked down. “We just haven't had the supplies.”
Ellie sensed that times had been hard for the Stillwell family this past year. She knew that in Bellfield crops hadn't been as plentiful as usual, and she imagined that farmers had felt the same poor harvest here near Wycombe Abbey. “Then I shall make certain we send the proper supplies over,” she said. “It is the very least we can do. No one should have to live with a leaky roof.”
Bessie thanked her profusely, and by the end of the day Ellie had had such success with the rest of the tenants that Helen was saying, rather frequently, “I don't know how you do it. You have just met the tenants today, and already I think they would all lay down in front of a speeding carriage for you.”
“It is simply a matter of making sure they realize that you are comfortable with them. Once they realize that, they will be comfortable with you.”
Helen smiled. “I suppose Mrs. Smith could have little doubt that you were comfortable with her after you climbed up a ladder and inspected the bird's nest in her roof.”
“I couldn't very well not look at it. If the birds had been pecking into her thatching, they could create serious damage. As it is, I think the nest should be moved to a nearby tree. I am not certain how to do it, though, without disrupting the chicks. I have heard that the mother bird will not tend to her young if a human has touched them.”
Helen shook her head. “Where do you learn such things?”
“From my brother-in-law, actually,” Ellie said with a wave of her hand. “He has always been quite scientific. Ah, here we are. The last cottage of the day.”
“This is the home of Sally Evans,” Helen said. “She has been widowed for nearly a year now.”
“How sad,” Ellie murmured. “How did her husband die?”
“A fever. It swept through the village last year, but his was the only death.”
“Is Mrs. Evans able to support herself? Does she have children?”
“No children,” Helen replied. “She had been married less than a year. And I am not certain how she makes ends meet. I think she will be looking for a new husband soon. She has a small vegetable garden and a few animals, but when her pigs are gone, I don't know what she'll do. Her husband was a blacksmith, and so she has no land on which to try to grow crops. I doubt she could manage it on her own even if she attempted it.”
“Yes,” Ellie agreed, lifting her hand to knock on the door, “farming is truly backbreaking work. Surely too much for one woman to do by herself. Or one man, for that matter.”
Sally Evans was younger than Ellie had expected, and Ellie could instantly see the lines of grief etched on her pale face. Clearly the woman was still very much in mourning for her husband.
While Helen made the introductions, Ellie looked around the small cottage. It was neat and tidy, but there was a distracted air to it, as if Sally could manage the small tasks of life but couldn't quite tackle the larger ones yet. Everything was in its proper place, but there was a pile of mending as tall as Ellie's hip, and pieces of a broken chair stacked neatly in the corner, waiting to be fixed. The cottage was so cold that Ellie wondered if Sally had lit a fire in days.
During their interview it became apparent that Sally was just going through the motions of life. She and her husband had not been blessed with children, and now she was all alone in her grief.
While Ellie was pondering this, Helen suddenly shivered, and it was a toss up as to who was more embarrassed—Sally for the temperature of her cottage, or Helen for drawing attention to it.
“I am so sorry, Mrs. Pallister,” Sally said.
“No, do not worry, it is me, really. I think I am coming down with a touch of a cold, and—”
“You needn't make excuses,” Sally interrupted, her face rather melancholy. “It is colder than death in here and we all know it. It is just that there is something wrong with the fireplace, and I haven't gotten around to having it fixed, and—”
“Why don't I have a look at it?” Ellie said, getting to her feet.
Helen looked suddenly and extremely panicked.
“I'm not going to try to fix it,” Ellie said with an annoyed expression. “I never try to fix anything I don't know how to fix.”
Helen grimaced in such a way that Ellie knew she was dying to bring up the toast incident.
“But I do know how to recognize what is wrong,” Ellie continued. “Here, why doesn't one of you help me move this log?”
Sally got up immediately to help her, and a few seconds later Ellie was standing in the firepla
ce, looking up and seeing nothing. “It's dark as night in here. I say, what happens when you try to light a fire?”
“It spews black smoke everywhere,” Sally replied, handing her a lantern.
As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Ellie looked up and saw right away that the chimney was beyond filthy. “All it needs is a thorough cleaning, in my opinion. We shall send someone over immediately to sweep it out. I am sure the earl would agree with me that—”
“I would agree with you that what?” came an amused voice from the doorway.
Ellie froze. He was not going to be pleased to find her with her head up a chimney.
“Charles!” Helen exclaimed. “What a surprise! Come over here and see—”
“I am certain I heard my lovely wife's voice,” he interrupted.
Sally replied, “She has been ever so helpful. My fireplace…”
“What?!”
Ellie winced and seriously considered crawling up.
“Eleanor,” he said sharply, “remove yourself from the fireplace this instant.”
She could see a foothold in the masonry. Just a step or two and she'd be out of sight.
“Eleanor!” Charles, not sounding amused.
“Charles, she was only—” Helen, sounding conciliatory.
“All right, I am coming after you.” Charles again, sounding even less amused, although Ellie hadn't really thought that was possible.
“Your lordship! There really isn't room.” Sally, sounding quite panicked.
“Eleanor, I will give you to the count of three.” Charles again, sounding—well, Ellie didn't really see any point in contemplating how unamused he sounded.
She meant to get out and face the music, she really did. She wasn't naturally a coward, but when he said, “One,” she froze, when he said, “Two,” she stopped breathing, and if he ever said, “Three,” she certainly didn't hear it over the blood rushing in her ears.
Then she felt him squirming into the fireplace beside her, and she suddenly located her brain again, and yelled, “Charles! What the devil are you doing?”
“Trying to pound some sense in that contrary little mind of yours.”
“Trying to squeeze it is more like it,” Ellie muttered. “Ow!”
“What?” he snapped.
“Your elbow.”
“Yes, well, your knee…”
“Are you all right?” came Helen's concerned voice.
“Leave us!” Charles roared.
“Well, really, my lord,” Ellie said sarcastically, “I think we're quite alone here in—”
“You should really learn when to stop talking, wife.”
“Yes, well…” Ellie's voice trailed off as she heard the door slam. She was suddenly very much aware that she was squeezed into a very tight space with her husband, and his body was pressed against hers in ways that ought not be legal.
“Ellie?”
“Charles?”
“Would you care to tell me why you are standing in a fireplace?”
“Oh, I don't know,” she drawled, feeling rather proud of herself for her savoir-faire, “would you like to tell me why you are standing in a fireplace?”
“Ellie, don't test my patience.”
Ellie was of the opinion that they had already gone way beyond the testing phase, but she wisely kept that thought to herself. Instead she said, “There wasn't any danger, of course.”
“Of course,” he replied, and Ellie was impressed despite herself at the amount of sarcasm he managed to pack into those two words. It was a talent, that.
“It would only have been dangerous if there were a fire in the grate, which clearly there wasn't.”
“One of these days I'm going to have to strangle you before you kill yourself.”
“I wouldn't recommend that course of action,” she said weakly, starting to slide downward. If she could just wiggle out before he did, she might be able to buy enough time to make it to the woods. He'd never catch her amidst those trees.
“Eleanor, I—What in God's name are you doing?”
“Umm, just trying to get out,” she said, into his belly. That was about as far down as she'd gotten.
Charles groaned. Really groaned. He could feel every inch of his wife's body, and her mouth—her mouth!—was dangerously, deliciously close to his groin, and—
“Charles, are you ill?”
“No,” he croaked, trying to ignore the fact that he could feel her mouth move when she spoke, and then trying even harder to ignore the fact that it was moving against his navel.
“Are you certain? You don't sound well.”
“Ellie?”
“Yes?”
“Stand back up. Now.”
She did, but she had to wiggle an awful lot to get back upright, and after Charles felt her breast against his thigh, then his hip, and then his arm—well, he had to concentrate very hard to keep certain parts of his body from getting any more excited than they already were.
He wasn't successful.
“Ellie?” he said.
“Yes?” She was back to standing, which put her mouth somewhere at the lower part of his neck.
“Tilt your head up. Just a touch.”
“Are you certain? Because we might get jammed, and—”
“We're already jammed.”
“No, I could wriggle back down and—”
“Don't wriggle back down.”
“Oh.”
Charles took a deep breath. Then she moved. Nothing big, just a slight twist of her hips. But it was enough. And so he kissed her. He couldn't have helped it if France were conquering England, if the sky were falling in, even if his bloody cousin Cecil were inheriting his every last farthing.
He kissed her, and he kissed her, and then he kissed her some more. And then he finally lifted his head for a second—just a second, mind you—to take a breath, and the confounded woman actually managed to get a word in.
“Is that why you wanted me to tilt my head?” she asked.
“Yes, now stop talking.”
He kissed her again, and he would have done more, except that they were wedged in so tight that he couldn't have wrapped his arms around her if he tried.
“Charles?” she said, when he took another breath.
“You have a talent for this, you know.”
“For kissing?” she asked, sounding more delighted than she'd probably meant to let on.
“No, for rattling on every time I stop to breathe.”
“Oh.”
“You're rather good at the kissing bit, too, though. A little bit more practice and you'll be superb.”
She elbowed him in the ribs, quite a feat considering he couldn't move his own arms an inch. “I'm not going to fall for that old trick,” she said. “What I meant to say before you led me into a digression is that Helen and Sally Evans must be terribly worried about us.”
“Curious, I imagine, but not worried.”
“Yes, well, I think we should try to get out. I'll be terribly embarrassed to see them. I'm sure they know what we're doing, and—”
“Then the harm is already done.” He kissed her again.
“Charles!” This time she didn't wait until he took a breath.
“What is it now? I'm trying to kiss you, woman.”
“And I'm trying to get out of this bloody chimney.” To prove her point, she began to slide back downward, subjecting him to the same erotic torture he'd suffered just a few minutes earlier. Soon she landed on the fireplace floor with a soft thump.
“That ought to do it,” she said, crawling out into the cottage and giving him a nice view of her sooty backside. Charles took a few breaths, trying to get a firm rein on his racing body.
“Are you planning to come out?” Ellie asked. She sounded disgustingly chipper.
“Just a moment.” He crouched down—moving was much easier now that she'd left the chimney—and crawled out.
“Oh my!” Ellie laughed. “Look at you!”
He glanced down
as he sat next to her on the floor. He was covered with soot. “You're rather filthy yourself,” he said.
They both laughed, unable to deny the silliness of their appearances, and then Ellie said, “Oh, I forgot to tell you. I visited Mr. Barnes today.”
“And was everything arranged to your satisfaction?”
“Oh yes, it was perfect. It was really quite heady, actually, being able to take charge of my finances without subterfuge. And it will be a boon for you, as well.”
“How is that?”
“You wanted a wife who won't interfere with your life, correct?”
He frowned. “Er, yes, I suppose I did say that.”
“Well, then, it stands to reason that if I have something to keep me busy, I'll stay out of your hair.”
He frowned again but didn't say anything.
Ellie exhaled. “You're still angry with me, aren't you?”
“No,” he said with a sigh. “But you must stop taking on potentially dangerous tasks.”
“It wasn't—”
He held up a hand. “Don't say it, Ellie. Just remember this. You're married now. Your well-being is no longer just your own concern. What hurts you hurts me. So no more unnecessary chances.”
Ellie thought that was just about the sweetest thing she'd ever heard, and if they'd been at home, she probably would have thrown herself into his arms on the spot. After a moment, she said, “How did you find us?”
“It wasn't difficult. I simply followed the trail of tenants singing your praises.”
She beamed. “I did rather well today, I think.”
“Yes, you did,” he said softly. “You'll make a fine countess. I always knew you would.”
“I'll fix up the muddle I've made at the Abbey, I promise. I checked the oven and—”
“Don't tell me you fiddled with the oven again,” he said, looking very much like the most beleaguered man in Britain. “Whatever you do, don't tell me that.”
“But—”