He inclined his head slightly. “Ma’am.”
The young woman regarded him with a directness that did not waver. “You are the keeper?”
“I am.” He looked to Mrs Hargreaves.
“She’s Miss Bennet,” Mrs Hargreaves supplied. “Come to take up the stewardship.”
His hand closed at his side. The word entered him the way cold water enters a boot—with the certainty that nothing below would remain dry.
The stewardship?
He had been told the line was finished. The trustees had written it plainly when he took up the post: the female succession had lapsed, the last known heir had failed to present herself a generation ago, and no further claim was anticipated. He had filed the letter with the rest of the administrative correspondence and thought no more of it. His post was the lantern. The stewardship was a legal matter, belonging to solicitors and drawing rooms, and it was, he thought, extinct.
Except that the woman standing before him was not extinct.
He returned his gaze to her. She had not moved. Her chin was level, her weight settled, her hands still at her sides. She was ready to be challenged.
“You intend to reside at Blackscar,” he said. It was not a question.
“That is my purpose.”
He glanced back down the slope; in the direction the carriage had taken. “And you’ve no companion, no family to stay with you?”
Miss Bennet’s chin rose by the smallest increment. “My uncle has seen me settled.”
“Your uncle,” he said, “has left.”
Mrs Hargreaves stepped between them with the efficiency of a woman accustomed to heading off quarrels before they had properly begun. “Here, now, Wickie, Mr Gardiner did his duty by the lass. ‘Twere a matter of prudence what made him leave now. And I was just about to tell Miss Bennet we’d best make our way down to the village before the rain sets in. My son’s house is dry and warm, and there’s a bed aired and ready.”
Miss Bennet’s brows drew together. “Down to the village? But I am to stay here. The cottage is my residence.”
“In summer, perhaps,” Mrs Hargreaves replied. “The roof leaks along the south seam. The chimney smokes when the wind sits wrong. There are no stores laid in and no stove fit to cook upon. I’ve said as much already, Miss.”
She blinked, and her chest rose in a shocked breath. “You said the stove was being mended. You said so before my uncle.”
“I said Robson took the scrap down and would fashion something better. I did not say when, and I did not say the cottage was fit for a night like this one coming.” Mrs Hargreaves folded her arms. “Your uncle did not mean for you to stayhere.”
“I assure you, he did, and so did I! We trusted your assurances that all was in hand.”
“And so, it is. In hand, down at the village, where there’s a fire and a proper roof and folk about.”
Miss Bennet turned from Mrs Hargreaves and took three steps toward the cottage. She pushed the door wider. He could see from where he stood what she saw: the narrow room, the cold grate, the damp stone, the lack of furniture. She stood in the doorway and did not flinch from it.
“The walls are sound,” she said. “The door fastens.”
“The walls won’t keep you warm when the chimney fills the room with smoke,” Mrs Hargreaves answered. “And the door won’t matter if the ceiling drips upon your bed.”
“Miss Bennet,” he said at last.
She turned to him.
He frowned. Outrageous that he should have to state the obvious, but there it was. “You are an unmarried woman. There is no household here. Mrs Hargreaves resides in the village. The nearest dwelling beyond this cottage is the tower, which is my quarters.” He held her gaze and saw the comprehension arrive before he finished. “If you remain upon this headland tonight, you do so alone, without a chaperone, and within two hundred yards of an unmarried man. There is no construction of that arrangement which would satisfy propriety. None.”
The colour came into her face. Her shoulders drew back—a small, precise correction, as though someone had pulled a thread at the base of her spine. She did not look away.
“I am aware of the geography.”
“Then you are aware of what will be said.”
