She gave a tight, entirely joyless smile. “It was never personal. Simply, his greatest requirement of women and children was that we should not be troublesome to him.”
“I don’t think I was very much trouble,” Gareth said, and heard the echoes of boyhood pleas.
“I’m sure you weren’t.” Her mouth twisted. “But once he’d sent you away, you would be none at all.”
“Did you like him?” Gareth hadn’t planned to ask that; the words just came out. “You needn’t answer that. I beg your pardon.”
“I’m not offended,” Mrs. Inglis said. “I can hardly be. I… My sister’s child was here. I wanted to be with her, I had no money of my own, and his demands weren’t excessive.”
And this was the home Gareth had spent years longing for. Dear God.
“I think,” he said carefully, “I think someone should have given him a lot more trouble. A lot. I think it is a great pity you didn’t—I don’t know. Put frogs in his boots.”
She gave a startled splutter of laughter. “Frogs?”
Gareth felt himself flush. “I mean—”
“I know what you mean, but he liked frogs. Teasels in his sheets.”
“Cayenne pepper in his food.”
“Lots of it. And adders, they bite. I should have filled his study with adders while he sat there with his books and his letters and didn’t once—he didn’t—”
She put her hands over her face. Gareth sat in awkward silence for a moment, then fished out his handkerchief and passed it over.
“Thank you,” she said, muffled. “I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry for everything.”
“So am I,” Gareth said, and found he meant it.
After a few moments, she gathered her composure and wiped her eyes. “And now, where do we stand? Because this is your house, Sir Gareth, and we have nothing but whatever charity you might care to offer us. If you want us to leave, that is your right, but—but Cecilia is only seventeen, and none of this is her fault.”
“I don’t know where we stand,” Gareth said. “I’m entirely at a loose end at the moment. I was a clerk in my uncle’s practice, but we parted ways a couple of days before I learned of my father’s death. And in any case I can’t do that now. Not as a baronet.” The title still sounded absurd applied to himself. Sir Gareth Inglis. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with any of this—the inheritance, the title, the house.” Himself. “I need to see what all this means, and I don’t want to rush into any decision.”
“No. Do you—will you require us to leave the house immediately?” She managed that very levelly, almost matter-of-fact, but her hands were shaking again, as well they might. He’d be perfectly within his rights to tell them to fend for themselves, and think nothing further of the matter. He’d come here with that thought, if not determined, certainly in mind.
“I think we should all take a little time to come to terms with the situation before we make decisions about the future,” he said. “It’s been something of a shock for me and must be much worse for you both. His death wasn’t expected, was it?”
“No. It was quite out of the blue. His heart.” She hesitated. “Sir Gareth, you should be aware that Cecy didn’t know you existed. She thought she was his only child.”
“You aren’t serious.”
She made a helpless gesture. “He didn’t speak of you, so I didn’t either, and—well, the subject simply never came up. We, uh, we—”
“Forgot. You forgot about me.”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“And nobody mentioned me at all—”
“Until he died and left you everything.”
“So quite a shock for Cecilia, then.”
“Something of one, yes.” She grimaced. “She’s a lovely girl, usually. But it hasn’t been easy for her. So if you could grant us just a little time, I would be very grateful. Or—or if you are prepared to maintain her but not me, I shall not make trouble.”
She’d been his father’s mistress, cared for his daughter, and was now facing penury because the man who’d used her hadn’t valued her enough to write a single line on a sheet of paper to protect her future. Gareth knew dependency all too well, and he saw it now: the ever-present fear of abandonment, the humiliation of being at another’s whim, the resentment that had to be stifled because to show it could be fatal.
“We will take as much time as we all need,” he said. “But let me say now that I will provide a portion for Cecilia and a sum for you. Nobody will be left penniless.”
She looked up sharply. “You—?”
“Of course I will. That was my father’s duty, and if I’ve inherited his wealth, I’ve inherited his responsibilities. I’m not going to throw you out, Mrs. Inglis.”
She set her shoulders, a tiny motion. “You know I was not his wife.”
“Then he did all the worse by you on that account. It seems to me that my father did not meet his obligations to any of us. I don’t think very much of that.”
“No,” Mrs. Inglis agreed. The word sounded flat, but Gareth suspected it covered the kind of emotion that others would express with breaking crockery. “No, nor do I. And you are far kinder than I could have hoped, Sir Gareth. Thank you. You’ll stay here while you decide?”
“If you’ve room. And if it wouldn’t bother Cecilia.”
“It’s your house,” she pointed out. “You’re the head of the family.”
He didn’t have a family, hadn’t since he was six. He wasn’t sure how to react. “It’s my house but it’s your and Cecilia’s home, Mrs. Inglis. I’m not going to forget that.”
“Thank you,” she said again, softly. “And my name is Catherine.”
Three
April
There was a hare right in front of him.
It was not long past dawn. Gareth had woken up in a fit of nerves to see it was a beautiful morning, which made a change after all the rain, and had taken advantage with a walk out along the dyke.
Dyke. The waterways that criss-crossed the Marsh were called dykes, Kentishly pronounced ‘deeks’; They ran into sewers which, despite the name, carried clean water to the outfalls, or as the locals called them, the guts. Guts and sewers. A poetical lot, the Marsh folk. He’d been here close to two months, and he was only just beginning to get a sense of what a strange place this was.