Tuppence Read online

  “It matters, Tuppence,” Mark insisted.

  “Why?” Tuppence dragged her thoughts away from Isaac and planted her fists on her hips while glaring at Mark. “Because I am his neighbour, and it wouldn’t do his good name any good for my cattle to die or my crops to fail because word would get out that he hadn’t been a good neighbour?” Tuppence watched Mark’s changing facial expressions and waited.

  Mark was aware of Isaac’s deep and abiding adoration of Tuppence but had no intention of betraying his friend’s confidence by telling her how interested Isaac was in Tuppence’s welfare and why. Mark knew that if anything happened to Tuppence, Isaac would never forgive himself, and would be condemned to a life of misery. But he didn’t tell Tuppence that. “He is a neighbour,” was all he said.

  “Who is waiting for me to fail,” Tuppence persisted, even though the last thing she wanted or needed was for Mark to confirm it.

  “People are concerned about you,” Mark offered gently.

  Tuppence, who was unused to anybody’s consideration, glared suspiciously at him. She knew he had come to the farm because his wife had told him to otherwise Mark wouldn’t have called to visit her. He never did.

  Let’s face it, nobody calls to visit me, not even Harriett, or Beatrice for that matter.

  It was a sobering thought because it warned Tuppence that she had done most of the work to maintain her friendships whereas her friends had remained at home and had expected Tuppence to do all the travelling and visiting.

  As if I am not already busy enough.

  With that thought also weighing her burdened shoulders down, Tuppence sighed heavily. She felt an awkwardness enter the soft torchlight of the barn which put more than a physical distance between her and Mark, and even Harriett in her absence, than ever before.

  “You can tell Harriett that I thank her for reminding me, but I have no intention of going to the harvest ball now or at any point in the future. I have work to do here,” she intoned politely, her gaze distance, her entire demeanour withdrawn and closed.

  Although physically still before him, Mark realised instantly that Tuppence was mentally many moons away. He opened his mouth to say something else to try to persuade her but the implacable expression on her face warned him that he wouldn’t get anywhere.

  “Thank you for calling this evening, but I won’t be attending the ball. Mind the mud as you leave,” Tuppence added before leaving him in the barn. She marched across the yard and stormed into the storeroom beside the stables only to remember that she had no light to see anything with. With a heavy sigh, she stomped back out again only to find herself face-to-face with her second visitor of the evening.

  “God, not again,” she hissed, glaring through the darkness at him.

  “Good evening, Miss Smethurst,” the overly jovial guest boomed as if unaware that she was scowling darkly at him.

  With a heavy sigh, Tuppence dug deep for her patience because her elderly neighbour was a lifelong family friend too. “Mr Lewis.”

  “I hear we have snow coming,” Mr Lewis continued, smiling at Mark. When he saw the worried look Mark slid at Tuppence, Mr Lewis’s smile fell. “I am sorry. Am I interrupting something?”

  “I was just leaving.” Mark made no attempt to climb back into his carriage. He eyed Tuppence questioningly as if silently asking if she wanted his presence or not.

  While Tuppence wanted to send them both on their way, especially Mark, she crossed the yard to stand before Mr Lewis. “What can I help you with?”

  “I came to have a private word with you, if I may?” Mr Lewis sniffed and shivered.

  “I am busy, Mr Lewis. If you have come about what I think you have come about then you should know that my position has not changed.” Tuppence tipped her chin up and glared at the elderly man. “I have no intention of selling the farm.”

  “This foolish notion of yours is all very well and good, my dear, but you aren’t capable of running a farm like this by yourself.” Mr Lewis frowned at her. “It is all very noble and all that, but you aren’t cut out for a life like this. I can understand that you should wish to continue your family’s heritage, but it isn’t going to be as easy as you think. This isn’t just about feeding the animals, my dear. What are you going to do when you need to reap the harvest, and have no labourers to help you?”

  “There is no reason why the labourers shouldn’t help me too, Mr Lewis. I can pay a man a wage as well as you can.” Tuppence sucked in a deep breath of annoyance when Mr Lewis looked doubtfully at the yard that they were standing in. He was clearly looking for problems he could use to support his argument. She didn’t need to look over her shoulder to see the gate half-hanging off the low stone wall bordering the front garden of the farmhouse, or the cold and unwelcoming atmosphere that hung over the simple abode like a sinister cloud. Tuppence knew he hadn’t missed the fact that the stable yard hadn’t been swept in several days either, or that the water troughs had a thin sheen of ice still covering them.

  “Well, I am sure you think you know what you are doing.” The tone of his voice made it clear that he thought she had lost her mind.

  “I don’t think I know what I am doing,” Tuppence interrupted, her voice as icy as the wind swirling around them. “I know that what I am doing is right. I have no intention of selling the farm, Mr Lewis, and that is my final word on the matter. Leave me to concern myself with how I am going to reap my harvest next year. You need to concern yourself with keeping your cattle out of my bottom meadow. They were in there again yesterday. I have repaired the fence again, but if your cattle break it down again, I shall have my solicitor send you a bill for the repairs.”

  Mr Lewis’s face hardened for a few moments causing Tuppence and Mark to share a knowing look. Whatever Mr Lewis wanted to say remained unspoken. With a shake of his head, Mr Lewis looked sadly at her before shuffling toward the gate beside the stables.

  “Well, you know where I am when you change your mind,” he offered, making it clear that he knew that she would change her mind.

  Tuppence hissed a deep breath and forced herself to remember that Mr Lewis was giving her a way out. Even so, it hurt to think that even he didn’t believe she could run the farm. To her amazement, rather than leave, Mr Lewis gave Mark a rueful look and said: “When you have cause to fetch her frozen corpse out of one of her fields, you can’t say she hasn’t been warned. That brother of hers barely managed to keep the place going and he was twice her size. I doubt she is going to be able to do any better, even if she isn’t a drunkard like he was.”

  “My family have been farming in this area for over a hundred years, Mr Lewis,” Tuppence spat, but Mr Lewis had already ambled off into the darkness and didn’t bother to answer. “Damn him.”

  “Where did he come from?” Mark whispered when the man had gone.

  “He must have walked across the fields,” Tuppence replied with a frustrated sigh. “I don’t doubt he thought I was alone.”

  “Has he been here before?” Mark asked, although why he should be so interested about Mr Lewis’s rather decent offer, he couldn’t be sure. After one last, thoughtful look at Mr Lewis’s back, Mark followed Tuppence across the yard. “So, can I tell Harriett that you will be attending the ball after all?”

  Tuppence dropped the shovel she was holding onto the floor and glared at her friend’s husband. Mark Bosville, even at forty-five, was still exceedingly handsome, but reminded her so much of Isaac Chester that Tuppence suddenly couldn’t bear to be in his company anymore. Mark, like Isaac, reminded her of everything she couldn’t have because life and circumstances prevented her from ever being in their social circuit. Even if she could now make the necessary changes to get a far simpler, more comfortable lifestyle, her life thus far had made her a different character to Mark, Harriett, Beatrice, Beatrice’s husband Ben, and even Isaac Chester, Lord Aldridge. He was naturally more distant than the rest of them because he was a Lord of the Realm whereas she was an impoverished farmer desperately cli
nging onto a livelihood she didn’t like so she didn’t starve.

  “No, you may not. People may think that I am some addle brained female who is going to ruin everything, but I have been on this farm since the day I was born. I don’t see any reason to leave. Most of the work is something I can do. While I don’t profess to be able to fetch next year’s harvest in by myself, there are labourers who will work an honest day for a decent wage. I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t wish to work for a woman, especially one they have known for most of their lives. I don’t care what people are saying about me, or who is expecting me to fail, I can’t. I won’t. I am not going to sell this farm. People will have to accept that my life doesn’t allow me much free time to socialise anymore. Consequently, I won’t be attending the late harvest ball no matter what Harriett, Beatrice, or anybody else thinks or wants. I have a farm to run. Thank you for calling by.” Tuppence was about to turn away when Mark’s next question brought her to a halt in the middle of the yard.

  “Are you going to take tea with Harriett tomorrow?”

  Tuppence slowly turned around to glare at Mark through the gloom of the autumnal evening. Her voice was low but still ferocious when she hissed: “No. I won’t be visiting Harriett to take tea tomorrow either.”

  “Is something wrong?” Mark frowned.

  Tuppence, who was struggling not to cry, shook her head. “I am fine, I just don’t have the time to pander to any more selfish people. I have enough to do and if people don’t understand that then it isn’t my problem.”

  Mark glanced longingly at his waiting carriage. He heard every word, every change in Tuppence’s tone, and suspected that she was annoyed about something Harriett was or wasn’t doing. When he looked back at Tuppence to take his leave of her, though, Mark realised he was once again alone in the stable yard. Shaking his head in disgust, he slowly clambered back into his carriage, but was deeply troubled by the knowledge that his visit this evening had most probably caused more problems for his wife and her friendship with the stunningly beautiful yet stubbornly resistant farmer. He could only hope and pray that during his journey home he would be able to identify the moment when everything had gone so horribly wrong.

  Tuppence stood inside the barn amidst the muffled snorts of the animals enjoying their hay and listened to the wheels of the retreating carriage rumble into the distance. What Mark’s departure left behind was an uncomfortable silence that Tuppence was truly starting to hate. Silence, and isolation. She was alone. Again. With nobody around for miles and miles. If she had an accident, or cause to scream, nobody would be able to hear her. Nobody would know there was anything wrong until it was too late. She would be alone, and nobody would know what had happened to her, or how, or when.

  It was a deeply troubling thought and one which made her start to reconsider her options, and her future on the farm.

  “But I have no choice but to stay,” Tuppence whispered miserably as tears rolled down her pale cheeks. “Because there isn’t the money to move anywhere else. Even when the farm is sold, the money I received from the sale will have to pay for my upkeep for the rest of my life because I cannot do anything else. I have no other skills to offer anybody.”

  With one last look at the cattle, Tuppence blew the sconces out and quietly closed the farm down for the evening before slowly trudging toward the farmhouse. Once side, she was hit with a damp air of abandonment in the home that made her clutch her cloak tighter about her shoulders. The heavy slide of the bolt being slid across the door echoed hollowly around the empty house and added to her already tormented isolation. With a shuddering sniff, Tuppence pressed her back to the front door as if trying to back out of the property, but with the door now locked and bolted behind her, it was a solid barrier against the rest of the world more than a reassuring solidity that kept the rest of the world away.

  Tuppence slowly slid down the door and allowed the worst of her tears to fall. The floor was just as icy beneath her as the wind was outside. It forced her to curl into a tiny ball. Clutching her knees to her chest, Tuppence lowered her forehead to her knees and surrendered to a wave of misery, heartache, grief, and loneliness which seemed to engulf her. The complex emotions overshadowed her, overwhelmed her, and left her helpless to fend them off. Strangely, Tuppence wasn’t sure if she was ever going to find the strength to be able to break free from any of them or make sense of them. The world was, in that moment, many, many miles away, and there was nobody around to help her survive it.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Isaac Chester stepped into his study and heaved a sigh of relief that he could have a few moments to himself. In the farthest corners of the house, the Chester’s Autumn Ball was still in full swing. It was attended by the family’s wealthy connections, distant relations, and connections of all kinds, but Isaac was sick of the noise. He was fed up of having to smile at people he really didn’t like very much, and pretend to be interested in endless stories he had absolutely no interest in.

  “What do you think you are doing in here?” His mother, Gertrude, demanded imperiously from behind him.

  Isaac cursed. He hadn’t been aware that she had been following him creeping down the hallway. The last time he had seen her, Gertrude had been deep in conversation with Lady something or other. He had been positive that she hadn’t notice him slip out of the house’s ancient ballroom.

  “I am going to take a few moments to myself in my study, mother,” Isaac replied dryly.

  Unsurprisingly, Gertrude followed him into the room, all the way over to the brandy decanter. She stared pointedly at him while he poured a liberal dose of brandy into a crystal goblet. When Isaac turned to find his seat, he found his mother blocking his path, glaring at him. Sidling around her, he headed toward his desk, and defiantly took a seat.

  “You do know that we have nearly a hundred guests in the ballroom, don’t you?” Gertrude hissed, pointing at the now closed door.

  “I do indeed know,” Isaac replied with little interest. “What of it? They are your guests, mother. Your friends. Your associates. This ball was your idea. You need to go and entertain your guests. I have done my duty and greeted everyone. Now, it is up to you to keep them all busy.”

  “This is a family ball, Isaac. The Chesters have been hosting an Autumn Ball for centuries. Your presence is expected, required, needed, and demanded of you.”

  “How do you know?” Isaac challenged and mentally cursed when he saw his mother scowl.

  “Know what?” Gertrude blinked at him.

  “That the Chesters have been hosting an Autumn Ball here for centuries?”

  Gertrude stared at him. “Because my mother told me.”

  That, clearly, was a lie.

  “How do you know your mother was telling you the truth and not just using it to try to coax you into doing the right thing like you are with me?” Isaac challenged. “For the benefit of the Chester name, of course.”

  “She told me about the splendid balls hosted here,” Gertrude persisted impatiently.

  “Did you see any?” Isaac asked conversationally, leaning back in his seat to sip at his brandy with an air of disinterest that alarmed Gertrude.

  “Well, of course not. I was not alive when my mother was a young girl,” Gertrude snapped.

  “She wasn’t a Chester then, was she?”

  “Well, no, but mother attended the balls here,” Gertrude replied, losing none of her waspish determination to get him to return to their guests.

  “But you have no proof that she was telling you the truth,” Isaac challenged.

  Gertrude looked horrified. “Are you calling your grandmother a liar?”

  Isaac was well versed in how much the ‘good Chester name’ was used as a weapon to wield over his hapless head whenever his mother wanted to force him to do something that she knew he wasn’t happy doing. He was sick of it. It wasn’t for the first time that he wished his surname were anything but Chester.

  “I am just saying that you have no idea wh
at social functions grandmother attended. You can only base your judgement on the stories she told you, which don’t come with any proof. This isn’t the Regency era anymore, mother. Hosting resplendent balls was something my ancestors did routinely when Prince Regent was on the throne. Victoria is our reigning Monarch now. Times have moved on and so should we.”

  “Don’t think you are going to succeed with this, Isaac. I know what you are doing. You are trying to distract me or annoy me so I leave you here and you can hide out in the study rather than spend time with our guests.”

  “You invited them. I have greeted them. I have shaken more hands than I care to count, smiled limpidly into more matriarchs’ eyes than I care to remember, and have listened to enough stories, anecdotes, and tall tales, to last me a lifetime. Now it is your turn to keep everyone entertained if they are bored with the orchestra, or the food, or the dancing, or each other’s company.”

  “Isaac Chester, you get out of that chair this instant and get out there and spend time with the guests. Some of them have travelled for days to reach us. It isn’t fair for you to leave them to entertain themselves like this,” Gertrude blustered, stomping her tiny foot in annoyance.

  “Yes, and will be here for days more, won’t they? How many did you invite to stay again? Twenty, was it? Because costing me a small fortune accommodating them for one evening isn’t enough, is it? We have to spend the entire weekend accommodating them, feeding them, and squiring them around town too, all because you like to repeat history apparently,” Isaac growled.

  “What’s gotten into you?” Gertrude, having heard the bored disinterest in his voice, knew that badgering him to return to the ball wasn’t going to work. She had to find a different tack. Perching elegantly on a chair opposite Isaac’s desk, Gertrude frowned in concern. Her tone was soft when she said: “This isn’t like you, Isaac. What’s gotten into you?”