The Cavendon Women by Barbara Taylor Bradford Read Free Book Online

deserve the treatment meted out to him by Miss Meldrew.
    Aristocrat my foot, he thought, with a flash of snobbery mingled with anger. Nouveau riche, he muttered to himself, and the title very new, given for some kind of business endeavor. Hardly a match for the heir to the Earldom of Mowbray, centuries old, created in the mid-1770s. Miles’s pedigree is bred in the bone, and he’s to the manner born, Hanson thought, and she’s a nobody. Certainly she’s shown that to the world. And with bells on. Sometimes he wondered what that young woman would do next to upset Miles.
    Henry Hanson, who was now sixty-four, had worked at Cavendon Hall for thirty-eight years. The stately home and the Ingham family were the be-all and end-all of his life, and he was devoted to both.
    He had arrived here in 1888, when he was twenty-six, hired by the famous butler Geoffrey Swann, who had seen great potential in him. He had started as a junior footman, and risen through the ranks, well trained by his mentor.
    When Geoffrey Swann had unexpectedly died rather suddenly, ten years later in 1898, the fifth earl, David Ingham, had asked him to take over as butler. He had done so with great alacrity, and never looked back. The fifth earl had trusted him implicitly, and so did his son, Charles Ingham, the sixth earl. He had proved their faith in him many times.
    So much so that the earl had recently confided in him, explaining the real reason for this reunion with his children and the rest of the family. Hanson was sworn to secrecy, and he would tell no one, as the earl well knew.
    Hanson was aware that Lady Daphne and Mr. Hugo also knew what this reunion was all about, and no doubt the Swanns did. They usually were aware of everything, and that was the way it had been forever … since the time of James Swann, liege man to Humphrey Ingham, who became First Earl of Mowbray and built Cavendon Hall.
    The Swanns were true blue, in Hanson’s opinion, and he had a lot of time for them. And whatever would the Inghams have done without them? God only knew. He, personally, was grateful for their existence.
    Turning away from the window, Hanson decided he would go to the wine cellar, look at the different champagnes. Dom P é rignon was undoubtedly the best, though. He would also look in on Cook, reassure her about Saturday’s dinner. She was a wonderful cook, having inherited the culinary talents of her aunt, Nell Jackson. Tomorrow there would be nineteen people for dinner, and she understood she had to be deft, prompt, swift, and on her toes the entire time. She was a capable young woman, and her food was delicious, but she had told him last week she was concerned about the big dinner. He knew she would be fine, do well, but now he must go and tell her that again, give her a boost.
    Hanson went out of his office, thinking about Nell, Susie’s aunt. He had been sorry to see her retire, but after standing on a stone kitchen floor for hours on end, day in, day out, cooking for the Inghams for the best part of her life, she had started to have problems with her legs. They were always swollen and red, and painful, and she had a backache, which troubled her greatly.
    In the end, retirement had been the only solution, but she still lived in Little Skell village, and had stayed in touch with them.
    There was a lot of the Jackson flair around Cavendon because of Susie. Nell’s niece was like her in almost every way, not only in her cooking, although she was taller than her aunt, heavier built, and a comedian at times, making all of them laugh. Her sense of humor was often a boon.
    â€œMr. Hanson! Hello!” she exclaimed as he strode into the kitchen a moment later. “You’ve arrived just in time for a cup of tea. And how about a few sweet biscuits?”
    â€œThank you, Cook, I wouldn’t say no,” he murmured, and sat down. “I just wanted to pop in to tell you to stop worrying about tomorrow evening.