“Ah.” Mrs. Carstairs nodded in understanding. “Sir Humphrey’s pets, I take it.”
“Just so. They were attracted to the scent of ripening hops and thought to take a wander in the manor’s fields.”
“Such smelly things, goats.” Mrs. Folliwell waved the distraction aside and focused once more on the matter the three ladies were determined to prosecute. “We’ve just been telling Miss Martingale of the summer evening party Mrs. Carstairs will be hosting on Monday.”
“It’s just my usual event,” Mrs. Carstairs informed Christopher. She paused, then added, “Of course, as you’re usually gadding about the country, you might not realize that, but Mr. Carstairs and I hold it every year. A summer get-together for all the local families—with dancing, too.”
“Gives everyone something to look forward to in what is otherwise a rather slow season, socially speaking,” Mrs. Folliwell added.
“It does seem a wonderful idea,” Emma chimed in. She looked longingly at Ellen. “I do hope, dear, that now everything about the estate is running so smoothly, you’ll be able to attend.”
Until now, she’d managed to avoid the local matchmakers—no mean feat given they’d arrived at Bigfield House in October the previous year. She’d ducked and dodged and slipped through the nets they’d cast, but it appeared her luck was about to run out.
“And you, too, Christopher.” Mrs. Carstairs directed a pointed look at him. “I understand your brother is off somewhere—gadding as you used to do, no doubt—and of course, your sister is with her family in the north, but you are here, in residence and remaining so, and I’m quite sure your mother would urge you to attend.”
“ Expect you to attend,” Mrs. Folliwell put in.
A wise man knew when he was outgunned. Christopher glanced at Mrs. Fitzwilliam and realized she was looking from her niece to him and back again, a very faint hope in her eyes.
As for Ellen Martingale, her attitude suggested she’d been backed into the same corner he had, and she was no more enamored of that than he.
Perversely, that realization made him smile. He turned that smile on Mrs. Carstairs and inclined his head. “I will be honored to attend, ma’am.” He recalled Drake’s investigation and smoothly added, “Unless some unavoidable emergency calls me away, I’ll be there.”
“Excellent!” Mrs. Carstairs nodded approvingly, then turned her bright eyes on Ellen. “And you, Miss Martingale?”
Christopher heard her sigh, but she found a smile and inclined her head with acceptable grace. “An evening party with dancing—how could I resist?” She tipped her head toward her aunt. “I will accompany Aunt Emma and Robert.”
“Wonderful!” Mrs. Folliwell boomed.
Having achieved all—and rather more—than they’d expected, given they hadn’t known they would catch Christopher there, with gay farewells and satisfied looks, the two local grandes dames took their leave of Christopher, Ellen, and Mrs. Fitzwilliam.
Christopher remained standing with Ellen in the drawing room while Mrs. Fitzwilliam showed the other ladies out. All three bustled into the hall, busily discussing the plans for Monday’s event.
He and Ellen waited in silence as the trio moved toward the front door and the porch, and their chatter faded.
Finally, Ellen huffed and, her gaze on the doorway, asked, “What unavoidable emergency will occur on Monday evening to keep you from Benenden Grange?”
He arched his brows. “I haven’t really thought of it.”
“When you do, please endeavor to have this emergency involve Bigfield House in some way, so that I can escape the ordeal, too.”
He chuckled. “It’s only a summer evening party.” He glanced at her. “You must have attended any number of garden parties in town.”
“Which is why I know I won’t enjoy this one.”
He shrugged lightly. “The country’s different—and there’ll be dancing!” He grinned. “You never know, you might find yourself swept off your feet.”
She gave vent to a disgusted—and disbelieving—sound.
Christopher decided that was challenge enough.
Almost as if she could read his mind, she fixed him with a narrow-eyed look. Then she blinked and frowned. “Why are you here?” She hurried on, “Don’t tell me those wretched goats have got free again.”
“No.” Recalled to his purpose in coming to Bigfield House, he replied, “I came to consult about when you—Bigfield House—are likely to need the gypsies. We usually work out a roster so they know which estate needs their assistance on any given day.”
“Ah—I see.” She thought, then waved him to the door. “Come to the study—I have the estimated harvest schedule Hopper prepared in there.”
He followed her across the hall and down the corridor to the study.
As usual, she took the chair behind the desk, and he lounged in the armchair angled to face it.
“It’s here somewhere.” She flipped through a pile of papers stacked to one side of the desk, then pulled out a sheet. “Here it is.”
After studying the sheet, she held it out to Christopher. “How do we go about this? What do we need to decide?”
From his coat pocket, he drew out his own notes, leaned forward and took the sheet from her, then laid the two side by side on the desk. “I mentioned that three other estates in the vicinity use Aaron’s men as well, but only the manor and Bigfield House grow hops, so when the hop harvest starts, the gypsies divide their time between us.”
He ran a finger down the dates listed beside each hop field on her list, then on his. She folded her arms on the desk and leaned over them to look.
“These,” he explained, “will be Hopper’s best estimates of when each of your fields will be ready, and these are my man Radley’s estimates for the manor’s fields. There’s a week or more leeway in when, exactly, the hops need to be brought in, but these estimated dates give us a reasonable order from which to plan. For instance”—he tried not to notice the upper swells of her breasts that, with her leaning forward as she was, were now on display, and tapped a particular entry—“this field of ours, which is farther east, comes into flower first every year, so it will be the first to be harvested. But after that—see here and here—it will make better sense for Aaron and his lads to switch back and forth across the lane.”
“I see.” Her attention was wholly focused on the sheets. She reached with one hand to point to several dates—and he nearly closed his eyes and groaned. Oblivious to the insight she was affording him into how well-endowed she was, she blithely continued, “Then, I suppose, the gypsies move here and then to here.”
“Exactly,” he croaked.
She sat back, sitting straight once more, and he breathed again. “Should I speak with the gypsies directly?” she asked. “Or…?”
He cleared his throat and said, “We both should meet with Aaron, but I suggest we wait until the first field is ready. By then, we’ll be more certain of the order in which the other fields will peak and can be more definite in our decisions regarding to what schedule Aaron’s troop should work.”