Page 24 of The Bastard's Iberian Bride
“What’s to do?” Mabel had turned the corner of the house and was advancing, her thick butcher’s knife in her hand. “Good morning, Mr. Cummings. Did you stop to pay your respects on the way to services? I’m just cutting a piece of the ham I put up.” Her voice pleasant, she pointed the sharp tip at him. “Has Mrs. Cummings fed you your breakfast? Och, I see not, considering the way you’re gripping my miss’s arm.”
Cummings pulled his hand away and wiped it with the other. “That will be my ham. I might as well eat some of it.”
As Bink passedthe small church, worshippers spilled out and mingled, most of them turning to watch him. He pulled up his horse and called over a young boy.
“Which is the way to Ferndale Cottage?” he asked.
All conversation at the church stopped, and the boy’s mouth gaped.
Bink searched the crowd for a particular reaction. If Mr. Cummings was among them, he should shove his way through the crowd of mostly ladies right about now.
“You are looking for Ferndale Cottage?” It was the vicar who plowed through, a harried-looking man of middle years.
“I am,” Bink said.
“It is not right, sir,” the vicar said. “It is the Sabbath. Your employer—”
His employer? He sat up straighter and searched the crowd, his heart pumping harder. Cummings had set upon her already, this day.
“Cummings is not my employer. I’m here on behalf of Lord Shaldon. Where is Cummings? I would speak with him.”
“He took his man and a wagon this morning and—”
Bink pointed at a lane leading east. “This way, Vicar?”
“Yes. A mile or so.”
Bink was already spurring his horse.
Outside the village the lane was not so well maintained. Shallow muddy tracks showed a wagon had passed here. That it had not passed again heavily laden meant he might be in time.
When he rounded a bend, he saw that he was not. Two women, laden like the refugees he’d seen in Spain, trod along, trying to find purchase in the muck at the side of the road. Paulette’s skirts had a band of mud a foot thick, and the burdens she bore were surely too heavy.
“Miss Heardwyn,” he called, quickly dismounting.
She ducked her head, and when he reached her, turned away.
“Oh sir,” Mabel said. “That Cummings—”
“Mabel.” Miss Heardwyn spoke tersely, her voice gravelly.
“He’s evicted you?”
The young lady nodded without looking at him.
“Yes, and taken everything, even the ham my Miss bought with her money. He’s left us a few shifts and a change of clothing and not even our horse to carry them out.”
“Mabel.” The lady’s chin came up and he saw tear tracks on her dust-spattered face.
Something twisted inside him. Miss Heardwyn—Paulette—would end up on the streets somewhere, if not in London, then York, or Manchester.
His insides roared, and he all but strained himself to speak gently. “We’ll see about that. Let me help you.” He tugged at the lady’s parcels until she released them, and tied them onto his horse.
Her hands fisted and she looked away while he took the maid’s burdens also. Anger rippled off Miss Heardwyn, but it was overlaid with grief, and astonishment, and an icy kind of fear.
He’d seen this before, women and children wide-eyed, stunned, hungry, cold. Homeless.
But now you can do something about it, man.
