Charlotte’s features screwed up as if she were going to cry.
“That’s food for the sheep. You mustn’t steal their food,” Elinor said patiently. “Let me get you a biscuit that Mrs. Wembly had Cook put in the basket specifically for you.” She pulled the basket toward her to rummage inside as Charlotte excitedly cried,“Kit, kit!”while bouncing on her bum.
“I suppose that is what I have to look forward to,” Cecilia said with a laugh.
“Worse, probably,” Elinor exclaimed, teasing. “He’s a boy! It will be bugs and rocks and dirt!” she said with dramatic horror.
Cecilia laughed. “No doubt. Ah. Here come our wayward gentlemen. James! I thought you were to stake out our picnic site.”
“You are here sooner than we expected,” James said with his characteristic laconic tone as he dismounted and tied his horse’s reins to a willowy sapling that would allow the animal easy grazing in the area.
“Has Simon convinced you to invest in sheep?” Elinor asked as she wiped biscuit crumbs off Charlotte’s cheeks and chin.
“Nothing to convince, for I have been considering that course for some time, in addition to building an oast house.”
“Oast house? You want to make beer?” Elinor asked.
“Possibly. The estate already has hop and barley crops.”
Cecilia nodded. “With an oast house, we can dry our own hops and either make our own beer or package and sell barley and hops to brewers—or perhaps do both!”
Simon laughed. “When I told James that the villagers in the dry valley use sheep manure to fertilize their crops, his interest piqued.”
Cecilia turned her head to look at her husband. “Surely, they don’t cart the manure down to the fields.”
“No. Aldrich tells me they let them forage on the hills during the day and bring them down into the valley at night so theymight fertilize the fields, then return them to the hills the next day.”
Cecilia frowned. “That seems like a great deal of effort.”
“Aldrich suggests we share resources,” James said as he leaned over to tickle his son’s nose with a blade of grass. Hugh sneezed.
“That is what Elinor told me,” Cecilia said, pushing his hand away. Now Hugh was blowing bubbles through his nose. She wiped his nose with her handkerchief.
James leaned back on his elbow and looked over at Aldrich. “Have you talked to Mortlake at all about this idea to share resources? It seems to me he might be interested as well.”
Aldrich compressed his lips. “Not yet. I don’t feel Mortlake senior would be interested in sheep, and they already have an oast house for Mortlake Brewery. He’s more invested in rebuilding the family seat in Sussex, but that son of his, Viscount Kendell, is anxious to make his mark and see the property producing more.”
“Really?”
Elinor shook her head. “James, you are forgetting the Mortlakes look down on us because I come from trade,” she interjected.
“That is more Lady Mortlake,” Cecilia said. “Her son is cut from a different cloth. He seems a fine young gentleman—very polite and solicitous on all the occasions I’ve met him. And his father, the Earl, seems to be a fair man.”
Elinor shrugged. “Maybe. Charlotte, come back here!” Elinor called out to Charlotte who’d walked all of five steps away from her mother.
The other adults laughed. “She merely wants to explore her world,” Simon said.
“And eat grass,” Cecilia offered.
“I know, I know. I only worry about her so. Makes me wish I had eyes in the back of my head too! I want to get out the picnic things so we may enjoy lunch. I’m looking forward to your estate ale,” Elinor told Cecilia and James. “Simon, would you follow after Charlotte for me, please? Do not let her out of your sight! Toddlers are quick when they want to be.”
“I should be delighted to!” her husband said, sweeping Charlotte up in his arms and giving her a tiny toss in the air. The child giggled delightedly.
Simon set her down, and she ran a few steps away from him, then turned to look back.
“Oh, you want me to chase you?”
Charlotte giggled and ran ahead, and Simon pretended to run after her. Suddenly, Charlotte stopped and plopped on the ground to pick up something.
