Page 186 of The Ladies Least Likely
“You’re the new Earl of Renwick, then? Living in the old Manor House on Leg Square?” She grinned. “Lucky you, with the Blinder Wall.”
The large house was hard to miss, and its location near the churchyard and the center of town meant Ren felt under watch all the time. He had some protection in the infamous Blinder Wall, a hideous fence of bricks that his ancestor built to keep neighbors from spying on him. It was rumored the source of Ren’s grandfather’s wealth was not lucrative woolen mills but something darker in character.
“And you?” Ren asked shyly. Etiquette said they required an introduction, but she already felt familiar to him. It must be her direct, forthright manner that put him at ease, as if they had a long history. Aside from his secret fondness for fairy tales, he was not a boy given to fancy, or Ren would have thought about kindred spirits, past lives, old souls finding each other in new clothes.
“Harriette Smythe,” she said. “Of Ivy Cottage, over by the cattle market. It’s not ours. The Demants took kindly to me mum and now she’s companion to Missus Demant. I was just a babe when Mum brought us to England, and she was knitting stockings to support us when Missus Demant found her and knew she was too genteel for her unfortunate circumstances.” She said this as if rehearsing a story she’d heard many times. “She’s the soul of kindness, the missus, to take in me mum and a hoyden such as I am, and to feed me from her table and put clothes on my back.”
A hard tone entered her voice at the last utterance, and she assumed a defiant air, as if daring someone to challenge her. Renguessed that Madame Demant’s Christian mercy was grudging at best. From his own mother’s example he knew there were ladies who preferred not to be bothered with children, which perhaps explained why the sprite next to him was roaming the hills, linens torn, dress stained, feet bare. Ren was watched with too much care and fretful oversight, and Harriette Smythe had none.
“Nice to meet you, Haow—Haow—” He gulped and stumbled, ashamed that she should see his weakness.
She watched his eyes, his mouth, his eyes again. Her gaze was clear and steady and thoughtful, her eyes a lovely mix of brown and gold and green.
“Call me Rhette,” she suggested.
“And you may call me Ren,” he said, the words for once flowing easily.
“Ren and Rhette.” Her mouth curved in that impish smile that struck him to the core. Every wild, joyful impulse of youth that had been so long stifled stirred and came alive in his chest. “What a pair of odd fellows we are, don’cha think?”
And that was their beginning. The start of a summer of freedom and adventure the like of which the earl’s son had never known, and a friendship that would survive wind and cold and the long ravages of time. The Earl of Renwick would follow Harriette Smythe into hell if she led him there, and he had no doubt that she would as readily lay down her life and limb if it spared him anything. Though he hoped the sacrifice would never be demanded, as he wanted her in his life, his steadfast support, his single unending source of joy, to the end of his God-given days, if he were allowed the choice.
Which of course, since he was an earl, he wasn’t.
CHAPTER TWO
Young earls, even if they are tongue-tied cripples, are not allowed to consort at liberty with nameless orphans, no matter how amusing a guide or how skilled at wilderness craft she might be. They had one summer, the most precious and brilliant summer of Ren’s life, filled with endless stretches of blue-grey days and fleecy clouds, green fields dotted with slow-moving sheep, when Harriette Smythe led him through every trail and well, hill and byway that Shepton Mallet could offer. He lost his fear of caves when Harriette took him exploring the small shafts and holes the locals called a swallet, and he laughed as she held the guttering candle beneath her chin and spun chilling myths of giants and robbers, or told wild tales from her Silesian homeland.
They explored Ham Woods and climbed Beacon Hill, where she pointed out the spire of Glastonbury Tor rising from a hollow of mist. They dug holes around Maesbury Ring, looking for iron weapons, then threw the trinkets they found into St. Aldhelm’s Well as wishes. When Mr. Mortmickle forbade the housekeeper to open the door to her, Harriette climbed the tree leaning against the Blinder Wall and pitched pebbles at Ren’s window to lure him away to adventure. If he fell asleep at hislessons the next morning because he had spent the day rambling about the countryside, he considered the extra beatings from his tutor a fair price to pay.
One night, Harriette drew him out at dusk and dared him to walk with her over the ancient burial grounds on Barrow Down, telling him stories of barrow wights guarding buried treasure and other unsightly apparitions. They spent hours and days inside St. Peter and Paul, while Ren read a book and Harriette sketched the old Saxon stonework, including the runes etched on the baptismal font. Ren preferred the town’s more recent history, especially the heroic and tragic tale of the Duke of Monmouth, who passed through Shepton Mallet leading his men in a short-lived scheme to overthrow James II, for which a dozen of the duke’s supporters were hanged and quartered before the Buckland Cross in Market Square.
But Harriette liked the old tales, the older the better, and in their rambles she was forever stopping to dig for Roman coins or brooches. The smallest broken potsherds delighted her, leading her into speculations about the lives of the people who had lived there before. Ren loved her imagination; her people were always daring, living dramatic lives of danger and passion, not lives of disappointment and shame and ridicule.
One day, as they traveled the Fosse Way, reliving the battles of the Roman legions against the wild stubbornness of the native tribes, Harriette found a small, circular bronze amulet with a symbol he recognized from church, an X overlying a P. She stared at the object as if it were pure gold.
“The chi-ro symbol,” she told him. “From the Greek letterschiandro, which spell Christos in Greek.”
He already knew this, but wondered how she did. He hadn’t mastered Greek yet, despite daily toils with his tutor, but Harriette, who taught herself by poking about Mr. Demant’s library, was full of odd and useless bits of knowledge.
“This was the sign Constantine put on his standard, the one that came to him in a dream—in this sign shall ye conquer.” She traced the bronze circle, her eyes lighting so that the gold in them overshadowed the brown. “Some early Christian carried this, praying for protection and guidance. Where’s my sketchbook?” She groped about the pockets of her apron for the small pad and the porte crayon she always carried.
“It’s not rare,” Ren snapped. “There must have been Christians about since the beginning of Roman times. Since Joseph of Arimathea planted the thorn tree at Glastonbury.”
They’d been to Glastonbury once or twice, walking through pastures and swallets to the storied town and its great ruined abbey, climbing the tor to the stone tower that commanded a view of all Somerset. It delighted Ren to see the place like a regular pilgrim, without any of the attention he’d attract as an earl. And he’d never let Harriette see how the walk had made the calluses on his clubfoot blister and bleed.
“I like it.” Harriette’s eyes narrowed. When she was angry or annoyed, the green emerged. “And I mean to sketch it.”
“Fine.” Ren threw himself to the ground with a surly growl. Or rather, he wished he could throw himself to the ground. He lowered himself into an awkward crouch among the tall, rough grasses lining the road. “I’ll stay here and be bored out of my skull while you putter about with your crayons, shall I?”
“What’s eating you?” she demanded. “Is your foot hurting? We’ve walked a long way.”
“I’m not an invalid, and not everything is about my foot,” he snapped.
“Nay, some things are about the arse you carry about atop your neck!”
She stomped off a short ways, something she did to let off steam when she came to a full boil. He admired how she knew tofind a valve for her strong feelings. He just nursed his until they festered.
“Come back,” he called, struggling to his feet to follow. “I’m blue-deviled today and taking it out on you, as usual.”
