Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

"There's no need for you to accompany me to the market today," Robert told her the next morning as he fastened several crates filled with vegetables to the cart. "Instead, I'd like you to go to Mrs Gary's and help her on the farm. I promised to help in return for a pail of milk and a dozen eggs."

Louisa frowned. "What kind of help does she need?" She'd intended to spend some time at the lake thinking through this entire situation with Robert—the costermonger-who-wasn't-really-a-costermonger—and coming up with a suitable plan of action. Whoever he really was, she must have humiliated him terribly for him to take his revenge to such extraordinary lengths.

There was no doubt in her mind that this was what it was all about: revenge.

How much had she humiliated him? And when?

She suspected it must have been quite bad if he'd gone through the trouble of disguising himself just to get back at her. It was not just his elaborate disguise. There had been the long journey in the donkey cart. The uncomfortable nights sleeping on the ground. The poor cottage. The trip to the market. It had all been carefully planned to teach her but one thing: humility. And now, to drive the point home, he wanted her to do manual labour on a farm.

At best, he wanted to show her what life was like for the lower classes, and then to pull back the curtain to reveal the truth, saying, "Aren't you relieved that I'm not a costermonger, but one of your former suitors? Aren't you glad to have escaped such drudgery? Aren't you glad to be married to a gentleman of good breeding after all, madam wife?"

How magnanimous he would appear, like a deus ex machina rescuing her from impecunity, offering her a luxurious home, wealth, perhaps even a title, which she would, of course, accept with grateful humility. Spared a life of drudgery, sweat, and toil. What a relief!

A wave of anger shot through her, but she held her emotions in check. She was still deciding on whether to deal with the matter head on, or to continue playing along and hatching her own plan of revenge. Let him think he'd had her hoodwinked, then turn the tables on him and surprise him with—with what? She did not know. She needed time to think.

However, this would mean feigning ignorance and enduring this situation for a little while longer. It would mean to continue living in the ramshackle hut, wearing coarse clothes, and eating poorly cooked food with no possibility of taking a hot bath. It would mean going to this Mrs Gary and helping her with the farm .

"She mentioned she needed help with the vegetable garden as her back aches and her eyesight is poor. Both her sons died within a week of each other at Waterloo, and the farmhand broke his leg, so he's no use to her. The woman is entirely on her own. I have promised her help for the remaining week. After that, her daughter will return with her family to take over the farm."

Louisa felt a pang of sympathy for the woman. "Poor woman, to have lost both her sons at the same time. This is a hard fate to bear."

"It is, indeed. Will you help her?" He picked up the ribbons but waited for her answer.

She had made up her mind. Regardless of Robert's true motives for helping Mrs Gary, she would help out of her own good will. Simply because she wanted to.

"Very well, Robert. I'll go see Mrs Gary."

He gave a curt nod, lifted the reins, and led the donkey along the road to Dorchester.

Mrs Gary's farm consisted of a stone building with a thatched roof, a barn, a stable, a chicken coop, and a vegetable garden. Surrounding the farmstead were fields and pastures.

Louisa knocked hesitantly at the door and waited until she heard a voice call. "Who is it?"

"Miss Louisa High—that is, Mrs Louisa Jones, of course. My husband has sent me to help you."

She heard some dragging footsteps, then the door opened.

Mrs Gary was a small but wiry woman, her grey hair tucked under a cotton cap. She was hunched over with grief or hard work over the years, possibly both. Her wizened face looked tired. Her eyes were not focused.

She was blind.

"I'm here to help," Louisa repeated, wondering how on earth the woman could cope if she couldn't see.

"So, you came, did you? I didn't think you would. But Robert is a man of his word, a man you can rely on. Came every day to help me pick the vegetables and milk Bessie."

The stark, direct words took her aback. "Robert milked a cow?" Louisa repeated.

"Aye, that he did. He's a man worth his weight in gold. Remains to be seen if you're worthy of him."

Before she could think of a suitable reply, the woman took her by the arm and marched her to the stable. "Open the door."

After some awkward fumbling, she managed to pull back the bolt that locked the shed.

The sharp, pungent smell of animals and dung enveloped her. Louisa gagged.

"Exactly," the woman said. "The manure needs to be removed. The animals are lying in their own excrement. And Bessie needs milking. I would've done it myself in the morning, but my back is giving me trouble and I can't for the life of me sit on that low stool."

Louisa's mouth dropped open. "You want me to clear out the manure? And milk a cow?"

"That's what I said."

Louisa crossed her arms. "I've never done either."

"Good for you, missy, because now you'll learn how to do it. Get the cow, the goat, and the horse out of the shed and tie them to the fence. Then take the pitchfork and scoop up the manure. Throw it on the wheelbarrow and take it to the pile behind the barn. Sweep the floor and spread fresh straw. Then milk the cow. The bucket is in the corner. That's all there is to it." As if everything she'd just said was crystal clear, the woman simply turned and walked back to the house. Having lived on the farm for decades, she apparently knew her way around, even if she could no longer see.

Louisa stared after her in shock. She was to shovel manure?

She, the Incomparable, the queen of London's most glamorous balls? She, who had danced with dukes and princes? Who had received one hundred proposals of marriage from the pinks of the ton?

Her nostrils flared.

Surely not.

An hour later, Louisa's dress was soaked with sweat, her hair was in disarray, and she smelled from head to toe of the substance she was shovelling. Earlier, she'd slipped on a warm, mushy pile of excrement and landed bottom first in the wheelbarrow—filled with even more manure.

She had not allowed herself to burst into tears. Instead, she'd pulled herself up and wiped off her dress as best as she could, but it was hopeless. She looked worse than the night soil man, and likely smelled even worse than him, too.

With every dig into the manure pile, she imagined it was Robert's face and cursed herself for ever having laid her eyes on him.

But give up?

Never!

She would show him. She would do a better job than he had. She would finish sweeping that stable and it would be so clean one could eat one's supper off its bare floor.

After another hour of heaving the manure onto the pile behind the barn, she decided the stable was clean enough. She swept the floor and spread the fresh straw as Mrs Gary had instructed. Then she stared at her hands. A lump formed in her throat. Blisters and calloused hands were the mark of the labouring class. Her hands had always been manicured, soft and white, and in her entire twenty-six years of existence, she'd never even touched any tool that belonged to the working class.

How could Robert do it with such little effort? Selling things in the market. Harvesting vegetables. Milking a cow. She cast a disheartened glance at Bessie, still tethered to the fence, waiting to be milked. It seemed incongruous with the image of her suitors. It seemed impossible to her that a gentleman of her acquaintance would know how to do such a thing.

Louisa rubbed her aching hands on her dress as she rested on the milking stool.

Who was he, then?

Celeste had pointed out that he might have been an army officer. His behaviour and ability to take command of a situation where everyone else was panicking certainly suggested it .

But officers were gentlemen. Was Robert truly a gentleman? If he was, or had been, a soldier, that narrowed down the list of suitors somewhat, but there were still a considerable number of gentlemen who might fit the bill. After all, many of the gentlemen of Quality who'd courted her had been officers who'd returned from the Continent to take part in the victory celebrations in London. She'd danced with countless officers. The drawing rooms had been full of uniforms, and to Louisa, who couldn't tell the difference between a major and a colonel, they all looked the same in their scarlet regimental regalia.

She could rule out that hero—Twiddlepoops—because the gossip sheets had announced that he'd found solace with someone else and had married less than a week after she'd turned him down so spectacularly. It was almost insulting how quickly he'd found his happiness with someone else.

Nor was he Carrothair, unless … Louisa gasped. Robert might have dyed his ginger hair black. Zounds! He hadn't, had he? Could he have gone to such lengths to hide his identity by dyeing his hair? She shifted uncomfortably as she remembered how badly she'd humiliated him. She'd slapped him, then dashed a glass of ratafia in his face. He'd been furious, furious …

She wrung her hands. Heavens, Robert might really turn out to be Carrothair. What would she do if he was?

The problem was that for the life of her, she couldn't recall what Robert—ruggedly tall and broad, with his beard and shaggy hair—would have looked like in the ballroom, in full evening dress, clean-shaven, styled hair, and in a perfectly tailored suit—or rather, a uniform.

If not Carrothair, could he be the Corinthian in disguise? The nonpareil who'd bored her to tears. What was his name again? Lord something-or-other. She'd called him Frippery Fop. He'd also been tall and athletic. He'd been perfect in every way. Louisa chewed on her lower lip. No doubt she'd made no secret of the fact that she'd found him a bore. She'd probably made fun of him. Since he'd been the catch of the Season, no doubt she must have hurt his pride by rejecting him.

One incident with Lord Frippery Fop made her cringe.

Like any gentleman, he'd conversed with her father, asked to be introduced, and then he'd asked her to stand up with him in a set. It had been the supper dance. Afterwards, he'd led her to supper and arduously tried to charm her. The problem was that she'd been uninterested … and simply bored. And he'd been oblivious, talking on and on, well, about what? It could have been about horses and horse racing. Or had it been some military campaign he'd been involved in? Some action he'd seen during the wars, for he'd been an officer before he'd sold out.

The next day, as true as clockwork, like they all did, he'd turned up with a bouquet and a request to talk to her.

This was the moment she hated the most, the moment of the proposal. It was intensely embarrassing, and nothing about it had ever been romantic. They all got down on their knees as if she was some kind of goddess they worshipped. Why did they do that? All she wanted to do was to run away. Then, they would stammer out something in the nature of, "You would make me the happiest man in the world …" and that was always followed by a conditional clause: "if you would marry me/give me your hand in matrimony/become my wife." There were not many varieties thereof.

Frippery Fop had been more suave than others. But in the end, he'd uttered the same clichéd proposal.

"No." Short and to the point, she believed, was always the best answer.

He had still looked at her expectantly, as if he hadn't heard or believed that she could possibly turn him down.

She'd huffed impatiently and left the room, leaving him kneeling on the floor like a fool.

Alas, she'd left the door to the drawing room wide open, so her father's visitors had a good look at Frippery Fop on his knee.

"Did you just refuse him, Miss Highworth?"

"Naturally," Louisa had answered. "I couldn't imagine being married to a tulip."

"Dash it, I just lost a wager," complained another.

The entire group had burst into commentary, and he'd pushed past them, his ears burning red with such a look of hurt and anger in his eyes that she'd felt a pang of discomfort.

She pursed her lips. If Robert was Sir Frippery Fop, he certainly had reason to be angry with her. He certainly had reason to want revenge.

"What are you doing sitting there, staring a hole in the air?" Mrs Gary called out .

Louisa jumped. How on earth did the old woman know that she was sitting on the stool, doing nothing?

"Have you milked Bessie yet?"

"Er, no." Louisa looked nervously at the cow.

"Then do so. I promised your husband a good pail of milk and a dozen eggs. You'll have to fetch those eggs yourself, of course."

Louisa groaned. What more must she do?

"I promised it to him," Mrs Gary continued. "And what would you like?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"I asked what you'd like as payment for your hard work."

"You mean you will give me something in return for the work I have done?"

"Of course. I am fair with my payment."

"I thought the milk and eggs would be sufficient payment."

"I asked what you wanted."

Louisa didn't have to think twice. "A bath," she blurted out. "With soap. Real soap."

"Very well. I happen to have some real soap. Milk the cow first. I'll heat the water."

Louisa almost fell off her stool. Then, with renewed determination, she turned to Bessie the cow.

"I can do this," she said, as she reached out to touch the cow's teats.

Louisa returned to her hut, pleased with herself. She had blisters on her hands and been covered from head to toe with substances too horrible to mention. She'd shovelled manure, swept the stable, and milked the cow. The first few tries she'd squirted milk everywhere but where it was supposed to go. It ended up on her face, her clothes, and the floor. Then Mrs Gary had shouted some instructions and with grim determination, Louisa had done it. She'd milked a cow.

Dazed by this achievement, she felt she could do anything. She'd even crawled into the henhouse to collect eggs, which she now proudly carried home in a basket.

She'd had a bath.

True to her word, Mrs Gary had prepared a steaming bath for her in the kitchen, and there had been a bar of soap! It hadn't been Pears soap, but neither had it been that coarse stuff they'd sold at the market. It was homemade lavender soap made with goat's milk, Mrs Gary had explained. Louisa had loved it.

She'd soaked in the bath until her skin was wrinkled like a prune. She couldn't recall ever having enjoyed a bath more in her entire life than the one she took in Mrs Gary's kitchen.

Then she'd washed her hair, dried it, and plaited it into a long braid.

She felt reborn.

Mrs Gary gave her a fresh linen dress and tucked the soap in the basket she'd prepared for her. Inside was mutton pie, cheese, butter, a pint of fresh milk, and the eggs.

"My daughter doesn't fit into these clothes anymore. It is best that you wear them. They are good and sturdy. Now, carry this basket carefully and don't drop it, or you'll break the eggs," she advised.

"Thank you," Louisa said, speaking from the heart.

"Hush. It's not easy for a lone woman like me to get everything done around here. But there is no one else. All my men are all gone." She sniffed. "My Gregory died too young. And my two sons died in the war. It's always the women who are left behind. Always us women who must survive and be strong." She groped for Louisa's hand and patted it. "You're a good one, too. A proud exterior that hides a heart of gold. Your worth isn't in your status or in what they say you are. That is a lie. Therefore, listen to what I'm telling you now. Learn to fend for yourself. Don't rely on men to take care of you. Learn how to do it yourself. Mark my words, there is nothing dishonourable about it. Only fools say it is. And never forget your true worth."

It was unlike anything anyone had ever told her. In fact, she'd been raised to believe the opposite. A warmth filled her chest. "Thank you, Mrs Gary. You're too generous. Both with your gifts and your advice."

As she carried the heavy basket home, she thought about Mrs Gary's words. How everything had turned out differently.

She felt proud of herself.

While her parents would surely be horrified to learn that she'd spent the entire morning shovelling manure, she felt oddly … accomplished. She'd done this on her own, without anyone's help. She'd milked a cow and collected eggs from the henhouse.

She'd learned to fend for herself .

She set the basket down on the table in their cottage and looked around for Robert.

Where was he? The donkey cart was in the yard, therefore he had returned. Louisa walked around the back of the cottage to the river. There he was, motionless on the edge of the bank. She hid in the shade of the apple tree, watching him.

This was no polished gentleman of the drawing room. This was a rough, rugged figure. The problem was his overgrown facial hair, which obscured his features and gave him an air of neglect.

But—good heavens, what was he doing now? He took off his shirt, tossed it aside, and then proceeded to remove his trousers. Louisa stifled a gasp and covered her eyes with her hands. She peered through her fingers and saw him in the middle of the stream, the water up to his hips.

He was washing himself with the soap she'd bought at the market.

She couldn't tear her eyes away.

He was beautiful, like one of the Greek statues she'd seen, the Elgin Marbles come to life. A hard male body with narrow hips flaring out to broad, wide shoulders, rippling with muscle. Several thick welts, some red, some white, curved along his back. They were terrible scars.

Louisa forgot to breathe.

He turned around, and she saw it was the same on the front part of his body, though not quite as many.

"You might as well hand me that towel," his voice rang out.

Louisa jumped. He knew she'd been watching him the whole time .

She met Robert's intense gaze. A slight smile played across his lips as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. Louisa turned and ran away as fast as her legs would carry her.

Out of breath, hot, and with her mind whirling, she ran.

Past their cottage, past Mrs Gary's farmhouse.

Without thinking twice, she ran up the familiar path across the meadow that led to Meryfell Hall.