Page 36 of Once a Scoundrel

Mama’s shoulders sagged. “All right,” she acquiesced, “we’ll go. But only to check on her and make certain she’s under proper care. Then we return immediately, understand?”

Her heart leapt into her throat as she kissed her cheek. “Thank you, Mama!”

“Don’t thank me yet,” she scolded with a grimace. “We’re going to have to tell your father.” Mama arched a brow and clarified, “Youare going to tell him.”

Faith took a deep breath of resolve. Facing Papa certainly wouldn’t be easy, not after what happened last night. But she knew in her heart that helping Mary Halstead was the right thing to do. “I know.”

Then she hurried into the stable to ask Masters to ready the carriage.

*****

Three hours later, the carriage reached Elmhurst Park just as the sun was setting. As Faith peered out the window, what greeted them was nothing like she expected.

Always before, Stephen had never cared about the estate, viewing Elmhurst as just another burden. One that represented what he loathed most about his life as a peer, trapping him into a life of responsibility and expectation. The last she’d heard anything about Elmhurst had been rumors of how neglected it had become. How a series of bad land agents had left the estate buildings and roads in disrepair, the farms untended, the fences and walls falling down...There had been grumblings from the tenants themselves about the absent marquess and how he simply didn’t care about them, and the constant turnover of staff at the manor house and stables only added to the troubles. None of that surprised her. It was exactly what she’d expected from Stephen.

But the estate Faith now saw passing beyond the window looked nothing like that.

The buildings had been freshly whitewashed, the roads and bridges all repaired. The farms were filled with crops in well-tended fields, and the animals were kept safely within mended fences and walls. The entire estate had been transformed from the disarray of the past. Was this Stephen’s doing? It had to be...and not just short-term fixes either to pretty it up but time-consuming and costly repairs that said he planned on returning Elmhurst to the grand estate it had once been. The same estate that he would leave as a legacy to his heirs and the generations after him.

Confusion churned inside her. Had she been wrong about him? If he could make this kind of long-term commitment to the estate, then could he make the same kind of commitment to her as his wife?

She simply didn’t know.

They stopped at the manor house only long enough to speak to Mrs. Olsen. The housekeeper gave them directions to the cottage where Mary Halstead was living and confirmed that the physician had been called last night. The man had finally arrived that morning shortly before noon, tended to her for a few minutes, then left. He hadn’t been back since. Her mother muttered a string of opinions beneath her breath about old physicians and what they could do with their leeches and physic all the way back to the carriage and across the estate to the cottage.

Yet it wasn’t a cottage that greeted them but what must have once been a former residence for a county squire before the estate subsumed it. With at least twenty rooms sitting nestled behind tall gables reaching into the darkening sky, the old Tudor house was an amalgamation of stone, timber, and waddle and daub fronting a garden. If Stephen had placed Mary Halstead and her son here, then he’d taken his commitment to them seriously.

All the windows were dark, except for the soft glow of a lamp from a window on the first floor. The darkness crept a cold foreboding into Faith’s bones as she stepped down from the carriage. If they were too late, if the worst had already happened—oh how would Stephen bear it?

“Remain here in front, John, in case you’re needed,” her mother ordered the coachman. Then she gestured for the tiger. “You’ll come with us, Marcus.”

He grimly tugged at the brim of his hat and followed them to the house. He pounded the iron knocker against the door, then stepped aside.

A few minutes later, the door opened. A girl who couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen peered out at them from the light of a candle stub. She looked curiously from Kate Westover to Faith to the uniformed tiger behind them. “What do ye all want?”

“We’re here to tend to Mary Halstead,” Mama announced. “We received a message from Mrs. Olsen that she’d come down with fever.”

The girl’s shoulders sagged as a look of relief crossed her tired face. “Oh thank the heavens!” She stepped back and held the door open wide. “This way.”

In the dim candlelight, she led them up the stairs and down the hall. The house was silent, dark, and cold.

“I put her up here in the last bedroom,” the girl explained, “ ’cause ev’ryone knows that fever likes them low places.”

“Yes, everyone knows that,” her mother repeated in a mutter that Faith recognized as one of suppressed frustration, the same tone she’d used last month when one of the farmers sought to cut the pain of his wife’s childbirth by putting an ax beneath the bed. “Who are you?”

“Polly, ma’am. The maid o’ all work.”

“Where are the housekeeper and other servants?” Faith interjected. She’d not noticed another person in the dark house.

“Ain’t none here, miss, ‘cept for Mrs. Bailey, who keeps the kitchens and cooks for us. And me, o’ course.”

Her mother frowned. “Surely his lordship provided a manservant or footman for a house this large.”

“Oh yes, ma’am!” She nodded earnestly. “He did. His lordship has been real good an’ kind to Mrs. Halstead—to all o’ us at Elmhurst, since he returned.”

Another pang of doubt stabbed Faith’s chest about what to believe about him. Stephen was good and kind to the servants, right down to the lowest maid? The man she knew before had never paid any mind to his staff or tenants at all.

Polly stopped outside the last door. “But when the fever hit, Mrs. Bailey thought ‘twas best to send ‘em away, along wi’ th’ other maid.” She bit her lip. “Yer angels to come here. Thank heavens Dr. Howston sent ye.” She blinked as tears of fatigue and worry gathered in her tired eyes. “I didn’t know what to do.”