Chapter Two

Content notes can be found here

Hedge finally caught Peaches as she came down to the kitchen in the hopes of a late supper. The cook had cleared off to bed, so there were only a couple of scullery maids still knocking about, them and the Dragon of Forthenby himself, sitting by himself at the scrubbed white table. 

From the look of it, he’d been there for the last four hours with no intention of moving until his reprobate underling arrived for a dressing-down. 

Peaches was not in the mood. Her voice was still hoarse from bellowing and, frankly, she was exhausted from trying to keep up with this latest development in Teddy's damn fool escapades. 

“Henry,” said the immovable Hedge, not rising.

“Mr Hedge.” She was careful to drop the aitch to warn him that she was not receptive to his bullshit tonight.

“And when exactly did you learn of this latest… enthusiasm of his Lordship's?”

She did not hurry to answer, instead helping herself to a ladleful of mutton stew which Cook had left warm for her, and a heel of bread. Only when she’d done that did she shrug and say, “Bout half an hour before you did, sir. You heard the crash.” 

She glanced up through her lashes to see the flinch pass across his face. 

It was becoming an article of faith with Peaches that every time she or Teddy did something especially outré, Hedge suffered a twinge to what was becoming an increasingly dickie heart. She expected that – between them – they could pack him off to a green and comfortable bed within the next five years or so.

However, the bumpkin was not to be dissuaded from his primary bone of contention, “I was given to believe –”

“If I'd had the faintest what he was planning, I'd have stopped him doing it, right?”

“I have spoken to you before now, Henry, about the appropriate tone in which one should speak of one's master.”

She did not have time for this. “Yeah, because that's the issue here, ain't it? That I talk about Teddy with the proper fucking respect while he’s –” 

“I shall repeat –”

“No, you bloody won’t. Instead, you’re going to answer my question. Can you get him off this before he has to go through with things?"

Hedge stared at her with a steady distaste that was far more disconcerting than outright hatred. “An engagement is a legal contract.” 

“Not like a marriage it ain't.”

Hedge clasped his hands in front of him, “This connection is most unsuitable,” he said, “and it is unfortunate that it has been contracted.”

“Yeah. So let's un-contract it.” She paused, recalling who she was talking to. “So long as you don’t hurt the girl.”

Hedge did not change his steady, unsettling stare, “Forthenby cannot afford a breach of promise suit so soon after his Lordship's last,” a flicker of pause, “indiscretion.”

Peaches shifted, “Well, we made a nice mess of that one, didn't we? Let's try for a lower fatality rate this time.”

Hedge slammed his hand against the, a sudden loud sound that was matched by no emotion on his face, and set the scullery maids to flinching. 

“Your master and yourself seem to have some misconception regarding the extent of my abilities.” He spoke in a low, furious tone, “If I am to be entirely frank with you, Henry, then I feel that we have reached a point where I can only ameliorate the disasters you create between you, not forestall them entirely. My care is for the reputation and fortune of the Forthenby estate, and I tell you that it cannot weather another such scandal without some tarnish. I will not suffer that to stand.”

“Because that's the issue here?”

Hedge continued to stare, and there was something like poison in it.

“Sir,” she added, surly.

Hedge said nothing, and the atmosphere in the room pressed harder upon them both, swelling. The scullery maids stopped pretending to work and took themselves elsewhere. Peaches broke off a piece of bread and dipped it into the rich, brown gravy of the stew. 

Only when she was quite sure they were alone did she say, "I’ll own, there ain't no love lost between me and Mr Thornton. I’d as soon see him hanged. But the girl? She’s got no fault in this. I ain’t letting you hurt her.”

“Are you threatening me, Henry?”

Her hand, she realised, had crept closer to where she kept the shiv hidden. The steward could not have missed it. "Maybe I am at that, Mr Hedge.”

Hedge nodded, slow. “The Forthenby estate is not the only one,” he said in a slow, dangerous voice, “who might be damaged by a scandal.”

It took Peaches a moment to see what he was getting at.

“The law is quite explicit on the point.”

Peaches bit the inside of her cheek. “You can't get me on that without it touching my Lord worse.”

“Is that so, Henry Peach?”

She took a breath, steady and measured. She had, after all, one trump card to play that Hedge – impossible as it seemed – knew nothing of. All the same, if he couldn't get Henry Peach on a charge of sodomy, there were plenty of reasons the magistrates might be interested in one Peaches Waghorn. 

Fuck.

“So what are we going to do?” Another pause, “Sir.”

“I do not see what we can do except allow this foolishness to stand. My Lord seems quite set upon the course. And, were we to attempt… some remedy, there are marked risks.” The voice had lost its threat, had become meditative, masterful, “He has, as I have said before, hardly been discreet in his pleasures. Sufficient rumours attended his relationship with you, speaking of which – ”

“I don't want to hear it.”

“That decanter alone would be a full quarter’s wages, Peach.”

“Take it up with Teddy.”

“Henry.”

Peaches raised her eyes, full of challenge. Yeah, you might have a winning card, her look told him, but you don’t want to play it any more than I do.

“Were you any other servant, I would have you dismissed.”
 
"You're welcome to try it, sir."

Another of those weak-heart flickers crossed the indomitable steward's face.

He said, “The favour of great men is fickle.”

“And you’d be more likely to be out on your ear than me,” she paused, relishing it, “sir.”

Hedge harrumphed. “After my years of service to the Forthenby estate? In the evidence of my singular devotion and the expertise of my management?”

Peaches shrugged, “No-one’s indispensable. I made my peace with that years back.”

Another hard stare, “My Lord Forthenby, for all his faults, is an honourable man.”

She nodded. “Important word that. Teddy puts a lot of stock in it.”

Hedge brought his hands together. “So that is your end game, Henry Peach.”

“Only if you push me to it.” She grinned, quick and impudent. “Otherwise, the pair of us rub along very nicely, don’t you think, Mr Hedge?"

She gave that a moment to sink in.

"Now, if you don’t mind, I was hoping to eat something before laying out his Lordship’s linen. Can’t do my duty if I’m famished.” She dipped her head to the bowl of stew, still watching the steward. 

For a few moments, he remained, and she felt the fear that he would pull something else from his endless resources to use against her. 

Instead, he only watched her - as one might watch a venomous snake or a wild dog. She continued to smile until her face hurt with it, not moving, and watched him back until at last, he rose and left the room.