“Well, look here, it’s Herself,” Wes greeted her with a grin. His black hair was wind ruffled, his cravat obligatory. Cravats were the very devil when working out of doors. Or so he told her. Often. He was a handsome man with a ready smile and strong shoulders. The village was lucky to have him; there were few people who could both put up with her uncle and endure his rubbish. “You look well.”
“Thank you, as do you.” The villagers were already lining up to pay him the rents. No one wanted to be left straggling when the constable arrived. And he was nearly over the hill. “Hughes is on his way.”
By the time he rode his pony into view, she had set the scene, like she would have composed a painting. She sat daintily, holding Tom’s youngest in her arms, who was gnawing on a stale bit of biscuit to ease his swollen gums. The sun hit the embroidery on her dress just so. She was slightly out of the way so as not to seem interfering, but perfectly situated to see Wes with his ledger. Mr. Hughes liked to stand behind him, with the villagers lined up, orderly and polite. He did not like dogs or cats or Little Agatha’s pet frog. Nor her pig. Nor her spiders. Really, he was a puzzle to the little girl.
“Ready?” Wes murmured under his breath.
Meg nodded.
“Don’t let my little piglet there ruin your dress,” Tom added, when soggy biscuit landed on her sleeve.
“It doesn’t signify,” she assured him. She tried to project an air of calm, and of the kind of mildly pretentious snobbishness she hated but which Mr. Hughes enjoyed greatly. Tom doffed his cap at her with exaggerated humility. She wrinkled her nose at him.
“Miss Swift,” Mr. Hughes greeted her with a bow.
“Good morning, Mr. Hughes.”
“Campbell,” he said to Wes. “Everything in order?”
“Of course.”
“Hmph. And what finds you in the village, Miss Swift?”
“Just visiting,” Meg answered, rocking the baby. “I’ve been away.”
“It’s lucky they are to have your charity.”
He would never understand that they had saved her often enough, leaving loaves of bread on her windowsill, bunches of foraged greens, mint for her tea. A kind word. Especially that.
“Speaking of which,” she said, intending to speak of no such thing. “I was nearly caught in one the traps at the edge of the path through the woods today.” She hadn’t been. “I’m afraid one of the children might come to harm.”
“My dear, you should not walk alone through the woods! Those traps are there to protect your uncle’s lands from poachers and yourself from danger.”
“Of course.” If her uncle didn’t want poachers stealing his pheasants and hares, he ought not charge them quite so much for quite so little of everything else. She knew those appeals would fall on deaf ears. The law was the law. Theft was theft.
She, obviously, had a slightly different view of theft.
“Perhaps you might point the traps out to me?” She asked in a whisper. “So I need not be frightened.”
He patted her shoulder arrogantly. “Certainly, my dear.”
Wes stifled a snort. He knew she hated to be pet like an indulged lady’s pug. And he also knew she would mark each trap in her memory and tell Tom the locations so they might be avoided. “I knew I could count on you, Mr. Hughes.”
The collection of the rents went as smoothly as expected: villagers lining up, Wes accepting payment and ticking off names in his ledger. Old men, fit men, widows, one after the other. Gavin was three pennies short, and Wes allowed an extension, but not without Mr. Hughes giving a condescending lecture first. He had the power to reverse Wes’s extensions and so no one spoke out. They stared at their boots and waited.
“The haying left its mark this year,” Tom’s wife, Emmaline said, nodding to the scar on Meg’s forearm. They had washed their faces in May morning dew together every year until they turned eighteen and decided they were too old for fairy stories. When she’d married Tom, he’d claimed it was the dew on her rosy cheeks that did it.
“It’s not too bad,” Meg shrugged. Dougal hadn’t seemed to mind it.
No, don’t think about that.
“My Tom there would tell you the toffs can keep their gold watches and shiny shoes, he prefers the fields and a good loaf of bread. He even likes the haying.”
“And you?”
“I have three little ’uns and a powerful need for quiet. Not to mention those shiny shoes come bleedin’ winter. Don’t see why I shouldn’t have them.”
“You’re turning into a revolutionary,” Meg teased. “Not that I disagree, mind you.”