She shaded the drawing carefully, adding depth to James’s profile. Perhaps that shared experience of loss was what drew her to him. She recognized in him someone who understood what it meant to have everything stripped away by forces beyond one’s control.
Setting the sketch aside, she gazed out at the frost-covered window. Tomorrow would bring early rising and whatever challenges James Ashford might present. But tonight, she allowed herself this moment of quiet fascination with a man who’d surprised her in ways she hadn’t expected.
One thing remained certain—he wanted his home restored, and she intended to give him exactly that.
Chapter Three
James
James rose beforedawn, unable to sleep for the second night running. The cot in his father’s chamber was too small for his large frame, but it wasn’t discomfort that kept him wakeful. It was the weight of what lay ahead.
Mrs. Fairfax and her sister would arrive in a few hours, ready to begin the monumental task of restoration. Ample time to take a ride around the countryside and into the village. He’d not had much time to explore the community he’d been forced to leave behind and it felt important that he do so.
He saddled his stallion in the pre-dawn darkness and set out toward the village as the first pale light crept across the horizon. The gravel drive gave way to a rutted country lane bordered by hedgerows heavy with winter’s grip. The horse’s hooves fell into a steady rhythm against the packed earth.
To his right, fields that should have been prepared for spring planting lay neglected, the soil hard and unworked. The Barton farm had always produced the finest grain in Sussex, but now the farmhouse windows stared blindly at the morning, no smoke rising from the chimney to signal the early stirrings of a working household.
The abandoned mill came into view, its great wheel motionless and green with moss where water once flowed. Before his father’s hanging, it had churned day and night, the heartbeat of their littlecommunity. Now silence ruled where industry had once thrived.
James slowed his mount as they approached the Widow Collins’s cottage. The garden, once famous throughout the county for its herbs and vegetables, had grown wild with neglect. A thin trail of smoke rose from the chimney. At least someone still lived there. But the cottage looked smaller somehow, as if poverty had compressed it.
The lane widened as it curved down toward the village, revealing more signs of decline with each passing furlong. Fences sagged where once they stood straight. A cart with a broken wheel lay abandoned beside a field where two old men labored to do the work of ten. Without the Ashford estate’s employment and custom, everything was slowly coming undone.
James’s grip tightened on the reins. The false accusation that had sent his father to the gallows had torn more than one family apart—it had unraveled an entire community. The weight of that responsibility settled heavier on his shoulders with each passing yard.
The road widened as James guided his horse into Ashford-on-Wey proper. The village green, once immaculately maintained by estate groundskeepers, now sprouted weeds between the cobblestones. An ancient oak stood at its center, the wooden benches beneath it weathered and empty where once they had hosted gossiping housewives and resting laborers.
The inn and tavern where he’d dined the previous evening looked different in the harsh morning light. What had seemed atmospheric by candlelight now revealed itself as simply worn. The sign hung askew, paint peeling from the once-fierce beast. Beside it, Perkins’s Bakery stood with shuttered windows. A faded notice hung on the door.Closed until further circumstances allow.He remembered Mrs. Perkins’s currant buns from childhood visits, how they’d filled the morning air with their sweet fragrance. Now only emptiness remained behind those dark windows.
The butcher’s shop displayed a meager selection behind cloudyglass. Through the window, he could see Mullins arranging what little stock he had. The man had served his family for decades, but now operated on scraps where once he’d sold the finest cuts in the county.
The chandler’s shop remained open, though the display looked thin. Next door, the seamstress had converted half her establishment to mending. A practical pivot when few could afford new garments. A hand-lettered sign advertised darning and patches at fair prices.
Where Cooper’s workshop had stood, crafting barrels for the estate’s ale and preserves, only a vacant building remained, its windows boarded against weather and vandals alike. The blacksmith’s forge still operated. Horses needed shoeing regardless of fortune, yet the rhythmic ping of hammer on anvil sounded sporadic, hesitant.
James dismounted near the village well, his boots crunching on the frost-covered cobblestones. A woman drawing water straightened warily as he approached, but it was the thin man emerging from the tailor’s shop who caught his attention.
“Mr. Drayton?” The name came to him suddenly. The man had been young when James was a boy, apprenticed to his father who had measured the Ashford children for their Sunday clothes.
The tailor paused in sweeping his threshold, recognition flickering across his gaunt features. His clothes, James noticed with a pang, were impeccably mended but showed the telltale signs of a craftsman who could no longer afford new fabric for himself.
“Master James.” Drayton straightened, setting aside his broom. “We heard you’d returned to us.”
“How do you fare?” James kept his voice gentle, remembering how the young man had always taken such pride in his work, even as an apprentice.
Drayton’s laugh held no humor. “I manage, my lord. Mending and patching mostly now. Not much call for new garments when folks can barely afford to keep their old ones whole.” He gestured toward his shop window, where James could see the sparse display of thread andsimple notions. “My eldest is apprenticed to a tailor in Brighton now. More opportunity there, you understand.”
That hurt him to hear. The Drayton family had served the estate faithfully, and now the next generation had been forced to seek fortune elsewhere.
“Your father made fine clothes for us when we were children,” James said. “I remember how carefully he measured my first proper jacket.”
“Aye, he’d be pleased to know it. Though I doubt he’d recognize what his shop’s become.” Drayton’s voice carried the weight of a man watching his legacy crumble. “Still, we endure. As we must.”
“That will change,” James said quietly. “There will be work again—proper work. The manor will need furnishing, and I mean to employ local craftsmen wherever possible.”
Drayton studied his face for a long moment, as if assessing whether he spoke the truth. “There’s been talk around here. Hopeful talk. First time in a long time.”
“There’s reason for hope,” James said. “You mark my words.”
