“Ye canna keep secrets in my ’ouse,” Eliza warned. She turned it over. “It’s not finished.”
“No.”
Eliza suddenly tucked the piece into the bodice of her gown. “Mine now.”
“No, please!” Ruby cried. “Give it back to me.”
Ruby had hoarded that linen and thread since the day she’d left home. If Eliza took it, she’d have nothing of any real value left.
“It’s not finished, and you won’t have time.” Eliza went to the kitchen hearth and crouched down. She moved a log of wood, and then turned back to Ruby. “You need to leave,” Eliza repeated. When she approached Ruby, she held a tiny pile of coins in her hand. “Go to your family.”
“I will not leave my son behind.”
“I expected nothing less.” Eliza grabbed Ruby’s hand, uncurled her fingers, and started counting out coins into Ruby’s palm until she had enough for the fare and food on the journey home to England for both her and Pip too.
Ruby gaped, stunned. She had to stop her when it became too much. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You raise him right, teach him what he needs to know about his father and his family. Give him the education his father would want Pip to have. You send him back to me when he’s fully grown to take up his inheritance.”
Pip was heir to their lands. Irreplaceable to the family. Mr. Roper would be furious with Eliza for helping Ruby get away. “What about you?”
“My place is here with my husband. He knows I’d never help the silly English chit my son shackled himself to. She’s only ever been a burden. I’ve made my disapproval of you plain as day since my Liam brought you into my home.”
Ruby held the woman’s stare and didn’t believe a word she said. Eliza wouldn’t be helping her leave, giving her money, if she hadn’t come to care about her welfare. Her eyes filled with tears. “All this time. You only pretended to dislike me all this time.”
Eliza shrugged. “You’ve grown on me a little. You still babble too much, but you’re a good woman, faithful to my Liam in life and in death. He’d want me to help you get back to your people.”
Impulsively, Ruby hugged the woman. Eliza was stiff as a board at first, and then she suddenly embraced Ruby tightly. “You go back where you belong, lass, and find yourself a good man to marry soon. Someone who will care about the boy.”
“I’ll write.”
Eliza pulled away. “Don’t. I canna read.”
Ruby blinked, shocked by that. She’d been living in this household for five years and had never once suspected Eliza was illiterate. But when she thought about it, it was always Mr. Roper or Liam who’d read any letters that came and shared the news.
“Then I’ll send something instead. Once we’re settled in a good place, I’ll send a warm shawl to you.”
Eliza nodded. “That would be grand,” she said.
Ruby stood there a moment until Eliza scowled. “Well, what are you waiting for, lass? A carriage isn’t going ta come to our door to whisk you away like some fancy lady going to a ball.”
“I have to wait for Pip to come back.”
Eliza handed Ruby two apples and cut off some cheese, too. Then she snatched up her nearly threadbare shawl from the peg by the door. “I’ll go to my husband and send Pip back to you. I didn’t let him have his breakfast today, and the boy is bound to be hungry. He can eat on the journey.”
She gaped at the woman who had everything arranged for her. “You planned for this.”
Eliza nodded again. “Mr. Roper said he will go out to the fields, and I’ll go with him to help with the lambs. You go now to your chamber and collect what you can’t live without and carry upon your back. He’ll be after you for the boy by sunset, so you’ll have to run far and fast.”
“I’ll not go to my father,” Ruby decided.
Eliza held up her hand. “Don’t tell me what you plan. It’s best I don’t know so I don’t have to lie about that, too. As it is, he’ll likely beat me for not watching you as I should.”
Ruby hugged Eliza again, afraid for the woman. “I can never thank you enough for your kindness.”
“Did I ask you to? Typical Englishwoman. Always trying to fill all the peace of the world with your endless babble.”
Ruby laughed, hugged Eliza one last time, and then fled for her chamber to collect the satchel already packed with her few remaining possessions from under her bed. When she got back to the kitchen, Pip was munching on the cheese left on the table and was eager to run off outside with her.
Chapter Two
Lord Hector Stockwick stuffed his book back into his satchel and looked ahead as far as he could see. Derbyshire wasn’t precisely his favorite place in the winter months, but he felt a sense of anticipation as he neared the end of his journey. He had promised to meet a friend here, though he should probably refer to Lord Clement as his brother-in-law, instead. Clement had married his sister Meg ten months ago, which meant a family reunion of sorts. Hector’s arrival was a surprise for Meg to make up for spending Christmas away from Cornwall for the second year in a row.
Lord Clement and most of his family—mother, brother, and sisters—had been living in Cornwall for most of the past year. Meg loved it there, but Hector had not gone back since they’d moved in. Too many memories; not all of them bad, but some he preferred never to revisit again.
He’d been rather shocked to learn that Meg had consented to spend another Christmas freezing her knees off in feet-deep snow in Derbyshire, at her husband’s family’s ancestral estate, The Vynes—and with Lord Vyne himself, her papa-in-law, who was not a terribly nice man. Hector trusted Lord Vyne about as far as he could throw him.
The last Hector had heard, Lord Vyne had been in a snit over plans for his wife and unmarried children to visit Cornwall for an extended stay. Lady Vyne didn’t want to return, and her son and new daughter-in-law hadn’t been in any hurry to send her back to her angry husband.
But now he suspected some sort of reconciliation had taken place. Why else would Meg willingly return to a place she’d disliked so much? Meg had not hidden the fact that she’d been miserable traveling to Derbyshire last year. At least, in the beginning. Meg had fought Hector over going. She might have even hated him for dragging her from Cornwall, too. That had all changed, of course, when she’d fallen in love with Lord Clement.
Damned if Hector had seen that coming. Also, damn inconvenient to lose a fellow bachelor to the parson’s noose. He couldn’t even complain or tease him since the man was his brother-in-law. His sister and Clement were devilishly happy, and that was that.
Hector glanced up at the sky. It was still a few hours till total dark. The weather was holding, but he suspected it wouldn’t for much longer. Thankfully, he was almost at The Vynes. He would have his feet up and a drink in hand before a cheery blaze very soon.
When the carriage topped this next rise, they began the descent into the bowl-shaped valley where the great house stood. “There it is,” he said to his companion.
“Very good, sir,” his new valet replied, somewhat sourly.