She removed all her possessions to the cottage that had been Miss Galen’s and arranged and rearranged them to her satisfaction. At first she did everything for herself, including the cooking, since she could not afford to hire a servant. She spent many hours in the small garden, restoring the overgrown hedges and rosebushes to their original neatness and splendor.
And she taught the twenty-two pupils at Miriam’s school alongside her friend and discovered the challenge of instructing more than one child at a time.
She kept an eye on an elderly couple who lived next door to her, taking them some cakes when she baked, sitting and listening to their endless stories of the past, including many of her mother and father.
And she had friends to visit and be visited by. There was always Miriam, of course, who spent a great deal of her free time with her and who was cheerfully friendly without ever prying. For undoubtedly she knew. There had been that tact of hers in sending Daniel inside the house after Adam had left, and her simple words of sympathy and understanding. But if she was curious, she never showed it. She never asked questions. She was a true friend.
And there was Daniel too. He did not cast her off despite her confession to him and her improper behavior afterward in going to Wroxford with Adam. And there were several other inhabitants of the village and a few of the neighboring gentry who had held off as long as she was living at Heron House with her relatives but who were only too pleased now to make a friend of her.
Matthew did not come home. Neither did Cousin Caroline and Amelia, even when the London Season came to an end.
Word came to the village that the ladies had traveled north with friends. Rumor had it that Matthew had removed himself to the Continent to avoid some unknown embarrassment. Fleur did not know the truth of any of the stories. And she did not care where any of them were, provided they stayed away. She hated the thought of Cousin Caroline’s coming back, and she dreaded that Matthew would come.
She spoke with the steward at Heron House, and he promised to communicate with Lord Brocklehurst’s man of business in London concerning her affairs.
She had her answer in an unexpected way. She was sitting in her small parlor one afternoon, sipping on a cup of tea after a tiring day at school and wondering if she had the energy to go outside later to clip a hedge that had grown untidy again. She got to her feet with a sigh when there was a knock at the door. And she stood gaping at Peter Houghton a few moments later, her stomach feeling as if it were performing a complete somersault.
“Miss Bradshaw,” he said, making her a polite bow.
“Mr. Houghton?” She stood aside, inviting him to enter.
“I was sent to London to carry out some business for you, ma’am,” he said. “It seemed as well to call here on my way back to Willoughby Hall instead of writing you a letter.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Thank you.” She would not at all have enjoyed receiving a letter from Willoughby, only to find that it was from the secretary. “Won’t you have some tea?”
She sat on the edge of her chair listening to him, drinking in the sight and sound of him, this fragile link with Willoughby and Adam. And remembering the first time she had seen him at Miss Fleming’s agency.
Matthew had indeed fled the country. Someone must have tipped him off to the fact that his deception had been uncovered and that awkward, incriminating questions were about to be asked. Mr. Houghton, it seemed, had spoken with Matthew’s man of business, had pulled a few strings in high places, and had arranged it that her guardian was now a distant cousin, Matthew’s heir, whom she had met only once. And that man, whom Mr. Houghton had also called upon, had been quite uninterested in guarding either the person or the fortune of a twenty-three-year-old female relative he did not even know.
She was to be given a very generous allowance for the following year and a half, after which her dowry and her fortune would be released to her whether she was married or single.
Mr. Houghton coughed. “I believe his exact words were that you could marry the sweep’s climbing boy tomorrow for all he cared, ma’am,” he said. There was a gleam in his eye for a moment.
She had never known that Mr. Houghton had a sense of humor, Fleur thought, smiling.
He would not stay for dinner or even for a second cup of tea. He wished to cover several more miles before darkness, he said.
Fleur got to her feet and clasped her hands in front of her. He would be gone in a few minutes. Until then she would hold firm. She would not ask a single question about him. Not one.
Peter Houghton coughed again, pausing by the outer door before opening it. “His grace could not go himself to London, of course,” he said. “He sent me in his stead.”