Amy Lake by The Earls Wife

Author:The Earls Wife [Wife, The Earls]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

“Come to bed, my love.”

These words were repeated each night as Edward lay back in a mound of pillows, smiling his lazy, toe-curling smile and watching Claire brush out her hair in front of the glass. The words thrilled her, but at the same time they made her uneasy. ‘The incident in the window seat,’ as Claire had come to think of it, marked the beginning of weeks of contentment and passion between her and her husband. Even so, she was not really his “love” at all.

The mild English midsummer had arrived, and warm sun washed over the Kentish hills. She and Edward rode every day in the cool of the morning, roaming wide with Achilles and Athene. Claire learned a lot about the countryside from her husband. It was clear that he delighted in his estate and took his responsibilities to the people living there seriously. Wrensmoor Park was a far larger place than Claire ever could have imagined. She gathered up names and bits of local history and was heartened–but not really surprised–to learn that the earl was held in considerable respect by his tenants. The land was rich and husbanded well. The hops fields–she had smelled them from the carriage that first day–were expected to yield a good crop that year, and Edward checked on their progress every few days.

“Jimmy!” he would call out, as they rode up to the oast house. “Come on out, ye scurvy dog!” It was apparently an old joke between the two men. Jimmy Wyndhall would emerge with a fistful of hops vine, and the two men would confer over–well, whatever one conferred over with hops.

Once Claire took a few of the queer little pine-cone shaped flowers and crushed them between her fingers. “Bitter,” she said, inhaling the pungent aroma.

The foreman’s face was badly scarred, the mark of a sword cut running from forehead to chin. He gave Claire one of his crooked smiles. “Aye, milady. Bitter it is, bitter it should be.”

“I take it this is an advantage for the brewing of ale?”

“Aye, milady, right necessary. The Englishman wants ’is beer,” said Jimmy with a satisfied grin, “and ’tis our job to give ’im the bitter hops for it.”

The amiable, albeit ferocious-looking, Jimmy Wyndhall was a favorite of Claire’s, but she also took particular delight in the children of the estate. Apparently her husband was known for his own interest in the children, and Claire wondered at this, since he seemed to have spent little time at Wrensmoor during the past few years. The young ones crowded around the earl at every cottage where he stopped, and he knew virtually all of them by name. She cherished the memory of one late-afternoon visit, when Edward, babe in arms and another child riding on his broad shoulders, had been led by an insistent nine-year-old to see the tree fort “what we builded all by ourselfs.” Her husband had expressed his admiration for the youngsters’ construction skills and promised to allow them to attach the Ketrick coat of arms to the tree.

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