Page 251 of The Ladies Least Likely
He’d helped her dress after, lacing her stays and pinning her gown to her bodice as well as any maid, and they’d located his stockings and breeches and shirt and he had turned her toward the bed and told her to lean on her elbows, then he’d lifted her skirts and petticoats and with her rump shamelessly exposed he had taken her from behind, and she’d gasped at the new places he had touched, and when he reached between them to rub at the bud of her pleasure while he stroked her long and hard and deep, she’d been astonished to feel herself rising and responding, hardly believing she could come again until she did, falling apart in his arms, letting herself go limp while he held her hips and stroked to release again, she muffling her cries in the bedclothes while he roared in his triumph.
Then he had let her skirts down and straightened her black lace apron as if hiding all traces of their passion, tucked himself inside his breeches and buttoned up his waistcoat and coat, let her help him into his boots, and they had walked down the street together in a changed world, and she was changed too on the inside, the space between her legs raw and full and humming with a surfeit of pleasure. She wondered how everyone couldnot see on her face the wicked, wonderful things they had done to each other, the pinnacles of pleasure she had scaled, the way she was marked and claimed by him. But no one looked at her while the Earl of Renwick climbed the platform to address his factory workers, and Harriette curled her hands in her gloves and silently willed him strength and a fluent tongue.
She knew he was nervous. Terrified, actually. She was so proud of him as he stood before the people who depended on him and carefully, in his measured, thought-out speech, assured them that their livelihoods were not at risk. That he had heard and understood their concerns, and he could not see replacing a skilled man or woman with a machine.
“This fact-factory will not adopt the spinning jen-jenny,” he concluded. “We will hire-hire more men if needed to match the pw-production of-of other factories. It is the opinion of Mr. Fw-Fripp and my-myself—” He stumbled, beginning to rush, then paused to take a breath and steady his voice. “This factory benefits from the expertise of real people spinning our thread, not dumb machines.” He paused again. “And you will all be getting a way—a raise of ten percent of your pay.”
Whatever else he had to say was drowned out in the whoops of relief, disbelief, and pure joy that followed this announcement. Ren relinquished his perch and was immediately overwhelmed with handshakes and congratulations, some of his workers even going to far as to clap him on the back. The effrontery to manhandle an earl! Harriette suppressed a smile.
This was because he had sat in the Swan all day yesterday, so he’d said, drinking ale with these men and hearing their grievances. He’d worked on this speech with her this morning as they broke their fast and dressed and tried to disguise the traces of what they’d been up to before Mrs. Oram and Jags arrived.
“Mrs. Oram is your housekeeper?” Harriette had paused in the act of making the bed. It was fortunate her Aunt Calenberg had insisted that Harriette take a turn learning various housekeeping skills under her roof. She understood now that her aunt had been, in her way, training Harriette in what tasks were required in a large household, preparing her for the day when she would be reclaimed as a duchess’s daughter and, in due time, a duchess herself. In the meantime, Harriette could fix a decent pudding, make up a bed, and make and snuff a fire.
“She has the son who doesn’t speak? Jags?” She’d heard of the simple boy, had met him once or twice. Harriette quite liked Mrs. Oram and she wondered at the type of man Mr. Oram must be, to abandon such a wife and the sweet, innocent boy he’d sired. But she was also aware of how deeply some people feared those who were different.
“I met him yesterday.” Ren paused in the act of arranging his neckcloth and watched her, trying to evaluate her reaction.
“He’s a lovely boy. I’m glad you will give them both a place. It always seemed silly to me that housekeepers aren’t supposed to have family. That they are only to live for the pleasure of their employers.”
That was when he had come to her and interrupted her task of making the bed to hitch up her skirts and—well. Harriette flushed with the memory, caught up in recollection until she realized that two large hulking men had come to stand before her, neither of them Ren.
“Ten percent? Does ‘e mean it, or is ‘is lordship toyin’ wi’ us?” one demanded.
Harriette blinked, gathering her senses. “Bram Wright? You work here? You didn’t take up your father’s trade?”
“Would if it paid anowt to keep body ‘n soul together,” Bram grunted. Beneath the same black mop of hair he’d had as a boy, his adult features had grown coarse, his nose broken, his poreslarge in the manner of a man accustomed to drink. A belly filled out his fustian jacket.
“Gil Roper!” She recognized the second man, the third in the triumvirate who had made Ren’s life miserable that summer. “You are employed here as well?”
“Them’s all buy they rope elsewhere, ‘stead of repairin’ it,” Gil Roper said, shrugging a shoulder. “So what’s to do?” He, too, had grown massive, his shoulders as broad as a bull’s. His knuckles, she noted, were scraped raw, and a jagged cut ran across the back of one hand.
“And so you live on the salary of a man you once taunted mercilessly as a youth,” Harriette murmured. She could hardly say she was surprised.
“Aww, that’s all fun, miss,” Bram Wright said. He was missing a few teeth, displayed by his embarrassed grin.
Fun? Ren had feared for his life. It was poetic justice, in a way, that he now held their livelihoods in his hands. And he had shown mercy, which proved the kind of man he was. Harriette’s heart swelled with pride.
“’Er’s a ladyship now, ye great clod,” Gil Roper informed his friend. He looked Harriette up and down, judging the shape of her. “’Ow’d ye get to be a duchess, we all’d like ta know?”
“Born that way,” Harriette said shortly.
She watched Ren move carefully and with measured step through the congratulatory throng. He used his cane as if it were merely for show, a fashionable gentleman’s accessory. Her insides warmed as he took her arm, staking his claim before the other men. Were it any other man, she would have immediately objected to such a territorial move. With Ren, she melted, glad to be claimed as his.
“Renwick,” she said briskly, shaking off her foolishness, “can you but fathom? These are your old chums, Bram Wright and Gil Roper. We saw them everywhere that summer you lived inShepton Mallet, didn’t we? And now they work at your factory! What a very small world indeed.”
Ren looked at each man in turn. He was taller than they, his elegance and refinement as obvious in his manner as in the contrast between their garb. Renwick was expensive, well-bred, and well-fed, while these men grasped for every penny they made and faced lives of constant danger and uncertainty. Harriette imagined they snarled and hoarded everything they had, lashing out in anger at the slightest threat, real or perceived. While Ren was and could afford to be generous, holding no grudge. He held his hand out to each man in turn.
“I recall that summer,” Ren said. “I w-learned to fish. I hope you are treated well here, and Mr. Fw-Fripp rewards hard work and diligence?”
The men shuffled and mumbled in response to this, fumbling with their caps. “Times we had!” Bram Wright said heartily. “Did’n we have fun wit ‘is lordship, Gil?”
Harriette saw no need to draw out their embarrassment. Ren had told her how Abel Cain sat at his side yesterday, drinking steadily and filling Ren in on the background of every man who spoke. How he’d ribbed him as Runtwick as casually as if they were equals, which they would never be.
She wondered if part of the boys’ cruelty that long ago summer had been resentment toward a boy born so high above them in class, a boy born to the kind of wealth and security they would never know save by glimpsing it drive past their town from time to time. Perhaps they’d felt a boy with his imperfections didn’t deserve such a lucky fate. Or perhaps they’d simply turned on a weaker creature as many animals did to ensure their own survival.
“Those were certainly times,” Harriette said. “Fare well, Bram, Gil. I am stealing his lordship away now.”
“Stealing me where?” Ren asked with interest as they exited the factory and headed toward the old part of town. It was a pleasant walk, though Ivy Cottage was at some distance. They had agreed they would visit his factory first, then call on Mrs. Demant. There were discussions to be had, the business of death to dispense with.
