Page 66 of Dare it all for Love

“I only meant to frighten you a bit, Mr Stanhope,” Susan said, weeping openly now. “But that Joe Foster, he caught me putting the corn dolls on the hedge and he… he said it weren’t enough. He said you was a rich man, and you ought to pay for all the wrong done my family. I thought he was being kind, that he was on my side. But he wasn’t on anyone’s side. When I got frightened and wanted to stop, he hit me and said he’d tell you I’d done it all if I didn’t behave. He made me write Mr Knight that letter, too. He was just plain wicked, and all he wanted was to steal from you. I couldn’t do it no more, though. I told him I wouldn’t hurt anyone else, and I wouldn’t help him, and he went mad. He threatened me with all sorts if I didn’t do as I was told, but… but I couldn’t let him hurt Miss Knight, and I knew he was planning on robbing the house. I was frightened what he would do if she went poking about up at the Hall, so… so I panicked. I thought if I kept her out of the way until he was caught it would be all right, but then he discovered me coming to see you, Mr Stanhope, and….”

She broke down and Henry felt like an utter brute.

“Miss Cooper,” he said. “Susan.”

Susan looked up, sniffing and drying her eyes. “Yes, sir?”

“Susan, I don’t know what I can do to repay the wrong my family has done yours, but I should like to try. Especially as it seems you are our kin.”

Susan laughed, a rather bitter sound that sat ill against her youth and damaged beauty. “No, sir. I don’t want nothing from you but your forgiveness. Please… I know I’ve done very wrong, but please, don’t send me to the magistrate.”

“Send you to…?” Henry got up, appalled that she should think he would do such a thing, but why should she not. His kin had done nothing but use and abuse the women of her family, why should he be any different? “Susan, if my father or grandfather were alive, I would have something to say to them, but they are dead and so their shame is mine. Certainly, I won’t send you to the magistrate, but I must do something for you. I know you work at Holbrook now, but… but surely, there must be something I can do to help you?”

“Henry,” his sister said. “I think I have an idea.”

Henry could have kissed her. “I’m listening.”

“I’ve been teaching any of the staff who wish to learn, to read,” she said. “And Susan has been doing rather well.”

“My lady, that’s very kind, but you know my spelling is not very good,” Susan said, blushing a little.

His sister waved this comment away with her usual brisk impatience. “Susan, you’ve only been learning a short while. You have an aptitude for the work and, what’s more, I believe you enjoy it.”

“Oh, I do, very much,” Susan said, her expression lighting up for the first time. “The best time of the week it is.”

Harriet smiled at her. “And if you were properly taught, do you think you should like to take over the lessons?”

Susan gaped at her. “Like… Like a schoolteacher?”

“Exactly like a schoolteacher,” Harriet said, nodding. “Of course, a schoolteacher would earn a proper wage, and they’d need a place to live, Henry.”

Henry shot his sister a look of deep gratitude. Trust Harry to know how to fix this. Not that it changed the past, but perhaps they could do right by Susan, and any of her children that came after her.

“I can certainly provide a property on the estate, a cottage with a bit of land, so you can have a garden.”

Pippin nodded at him approvingly. “That sounds just what’s needed, Mr Stanhope, Lady St Clair. That should settle the past and give Susan a bright future, but I think she needs a bit of a rest first, and perhaps it is time she learned some other lessons, the things her grandma was too afraid to teach her. If you would like that, child?”

“You?” Susan asked Pippin, wide eyed. “You would teach me?”

“If you’d like to. You could come and stay with me. For a month, say. Let the dust settled here and the bruises heal.”

Susan looked in astonishment from Pippin to Henry and then to Lord and Lady St Clair, all of whom smiled at her and nodded.

“My word,” she said. “My word, I…. How did this happen?”

Dharani shrugged. “The Maiden takes care of her own.”

Pippin chuckled and nodded her agreement. “The goddess will provide. She always does, doesn’t she, my lord?” she said to Lord Montagu.

Montagu sighed and reached for his wife’s hand, giving her the ghost of a smile. “I shall never contradict you on that point, Pippin, believe me. I know better.”

Henry laughed, shaking his head. Montagu just shrugged.

“I told you to listen to them, didn’t I?”

“So you did,” Henry agreed. “So you did.”

Chapter 18