Vixen (v-2) by Jane Feather

Author:Jane Feather [Feather, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: love_history

Chapter 14

" Where's the lass this morning?" Hugo came into the kitchen, yawning, rubbing his flat

palms over his face. His clothes were more than usually rumpled.

"She 'ad breakfast about an hour ago. Said she was goin' t' put nag to grass in the orchard." Samuel cast a sharp look at his employer. It was mid-morning, unusually late for Sir Hugo to rise unless he'd been drinking heavily. But apart from looking as if he'd slept in his clothes, he seemed clear-eyed and refreshed.

Samuel poured coffee. "We need supplies, so if ye've got a few pennies, I'll take the cart."

Hugo grimaced. "How much is a few pennies, Samuel?"

Samuel shrugged. "A couple o' guineas'll prob'ly do for a bit o' flour an' coffee an' the like. But the pig'll 'ave to be stuck soon if there's to be bacon for the winter, and Colin likes 'is money on the dot. An' there's the farrier to pay."

"Won't Colin take payment in kind? A side of bacon?"

"Aye, 'e might. Things is 'ard for 'im at the moment. 'Ard for everyone, what wi' wages bein' cut at the mill."

"Maun." Hugo drank coffee. "And there'll be no reform meetings for a while. Henry Hunt's been sentenced to two years in prison."

"Just makes 'em more riled. They'd see the magistrates swing soon as look at 'em." Samuel set a plate of ham in front of Hugo. "That do ye?"

"Amply, thanks." Hugo cut into the meat. "Take what

you need for the supplies from the strongbox in the library."

He remembered with a guilty pang the three gold sovereigns he'd given Betsy… not to mention the two he'd lavished on the turnip seller for Rosinante- more than enough to pay the farrier and the pig sticker and keep them in flour and coffee for a month. Chloe had insisted it was her money he was spending, but he couldn't see himself recouping the outlay from his ward's pin money.

"I could do with a bath, Samuel," he said, diverting his thoughts to a more easily remediable situation.

"I'll set it up for ye in 'ere," Samuel said. "like I did for the lass. Ye'll be wantin' to use the screen, I reckon."

"Yes, I'd better," Hugo said. Until Chloe's advent, he'd been accustomed to bathing without such niceties, usually under the pump in the courtyard, in clement weather. But they were no longer an all-male household.

Half an hour later, he was ensconced in the hip bath before the range and behind the fire screen, luxuriating in the hot water that steamed gently around him. Toward dawn, he'd finally fallen into a deep sleep and he was now rilled with a sense of physical well-being. He had fought his addiction last night and won, and the sense of achievement was sweet. Chloe's part in the victory had to be acknowledged and he contemplated what he could do to please her that wouldn't involve him in vast expense. Another trip to Manchester… and perhaps he'd bite his tongue when she demanded some hideous monstrosity and let her enjoy her purchase.

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