Page 28 of Barbarous

Chapter Eight

God ignored Daphne’s prayers, and three days later the morning dawned clear and warm, an almost unprecedented English spring day. As planned, Daphne and Hugh met after breakfast and rode out to inspect the Dower House.

The old house was a ramshackle monstrosity to the west of Lessing Hall, just beyond the boundaries of its well-manicured park. As they rode down the overgrown drive, Daphne realized it had been over a year since she’d last been near the old house—not since before Thomas had been injured.

“My goodness, the roses are in a poor state,” she said, as Hugh helped her dismount and tethered their horses to a post near the long, rose-covered walk.

“They’re not the only thing that wants tending.” Hugh frowned as his eye drifted over the wild lawn and overgrown shrubbery. “I remember coming here as a young boy.” He ducked low under the rose arbor to avoid long tendrils that snagged at his head. “My great aunts Matilda and Mary lived here for many years. They were spinster sisters of my grandfather. I was terrified of them when I was little and hated it when my uncle made me visit. I was certain they were a pair of skinny witches who cooked and ate children.” He gave her a lopsided grin that made her knees weak. “I was a rude little scrod.” They climbed the moss-covered steps and Hugh knocked on the chipped, peeling door. “Who lives here now?”

“Only old Kenwick,” Daphne said absently, her side on fire where his arm brushed against her habit. Would this horrid, embarrassing infatuation never go away?

“Kenwick?” Hugh paused in his brutal pounding on the door to look at her. “Truly? The man was older than dirt when I was a boy. What the devil is he doing living here?’

Daphne hoped the old butler was too deaf to hear Hugh’s none-too-flattering description of him.

“Thomas offered him a cozy cottage with a servant to tend to him, but Kenwick insisted on staying in the Dower House and doing what he could to keep things in order. Which doesn’t look like much,” she admitted, squinting through the dirty sidelight beside the door.

Hugh grunted and resumed his savage knocking. “Kenwick must be even deafer than he used to be. He cannot live here all alone?” His accusatory look made her defensive.

“A girl comes and does his cooking and cleaning. He is not the most . . .” Daphne was still searching for a polite word to describe the crotchety old caretaker when the door creaked open and a very old man stood in the doorway. He resembled a scrawny bird that had been stripped of its feathers and then dressed with extreme care in an outfit a butler might have worn three-quarters of a century earlier.

He peered up at them down the length of his beaklike nose. “Who is making that infernal racket?” His voice was thin and querulous and his joints creaked audibly as he tilted his head and squinted at Hugh.

“Kenwick, you old rascal,” Hugh bellowed. “Don’t you recognize me?” He gave the wizened old man a broad grin.

Kenwick merely blinked under the onslaught.

Hugh laughed. “I thought you should never forget my face after that thrashing you administered when I knocked a cricket ball through the breakfast room window.”

The old man’s jaw unhinged. “Master Hugh?” His bony old hand clutched at the door frame for support.

“None other,” Hugh shouted. He peered over the ancient butler’s head into the room beyond. “I say, Kenwick, must we keep Lady Davenport out here on the stoop while we reminisce? It’s deuced rude to treat her ladyship like a dunning agent.”

“Er, yes, Master . . . that is . . . my lord.” Kenwick glanced from Hugh to Daphne in some confusion before he remembered himself enough to totter backward into the hall and open the door wider. Hugh’s massive body dwarfed the modest entry hall and his golden head grazed the low chandelier, which was festooned with dusty cobwebs.

“Follow me, my lord, my lady.” The old man crept with glacial speed toward the small first-floor drawing room and flung open the door, nearly toppling over in the process. The room beyond was dark and dank with heavy velvet drapes pulled tight to protect its contents. Kenwick inched toward the drapes and gave them an ineffectual tug, an action which sent clouds of dust billowing but only moved the fabric an inch and admitted a sliver of light. He stared at the uncooperative window covering, a mildly offended expression on his face before he dropped his hands to his sides and turned.

“Would you like some tea, my lord?” He spoke in the loud voice that only the very hard of hearing—or Hugh—employed, swaying gently from side to side with the effort of keeping himself upright.

Hugh let out a bark of laughter, unable to hide his amusement at the horrifying vision of the antiquated man lugging a loaded tea tray across the house.

“We don’t want tea, Kenwick. We’ve come to look at the place.” Hugh gently laid one enormous hand on the old man’s shoulder. “Don’t disturb whatever it is you’re doing, we’re just going to have a look about.”

“A look about?” Kenwick yelled. “Well, you needn’t have disturbed me for that, Master Hugh! Mind you don’t break anything,” he admonished before turning to leave. “I’ve not finished my tea. It’ll be cold now.” He inched toward the door, complaining to himself as he heaved it open and then slammed it shut.

Hugh pivoted on his heel to stare at her. “Bloody hell! You should be grateful he hasn’t burnt the place to the ground with himself in it.”

Daphne grimaced. “I hadn’t realized he was so . . . old.”

Hugh grunted and strode over to the largest bank of windows, taking a heavy drape in each hand and yanking the two open to let some light into the room. The action revealed an enormous water stain that ran from the middle of the window frame all the way up to the ceiling.

“Goodness,” Daphne murmured, feeling guiltier by the minute. After all, she had been the one Thomas had left in charge of such matters.

Hugh stared at the spot where the wall met the ceiling. “We had better look upstairs.”

They made their way up the dark, narrow staircase, smelling the problem long before they saw it. The room directly above the drawing room had a window that must have broken some time ago.

Hugh took a few steps into the room and stopped. “We should go no closer.” He pointed toward a window that was covered with a tattered, rotten curtain. “Look at that stain—it runs all the way up under that bed. I daresay half the room is rotted through. This will be no small project to fix,” he concluded, looking from the soggy mess back to her.