He was largely unconcerned with the actual income of his wool sales, for he accumulated such a hoard of wealth through his rents, on this continent and otherwise. What’s more, he already sat atop a massive fortune, the likes of which very few could relate to, but he did next to nothing with it. But now that was changing. He would again be a functioning member of the economy and society. Well, perhaps he would start with the economy, he thought. Society was a strange place.
This was the unique energy that drove Neil out of bed that day, and he marveled at the scenery as he opened his eyes. It was as if everything had been scrubbed clean, and the hillsides shone out in the morning light.
Neil loved this time of year and looked out of his window fondly at the crystallized dew on his lawn, melting slowly in the morning sun as it crept over the ridges to the East.
There was certain magic, he thought, to the changing of the seasons, and he stepped out onto one of his encircling porches to take in the frigid smells. It was like a chilled glass of the freshest cider, he imagined, garnished with a sprig of fennel. He did not know why that combination had occurred to him, but something about it nagged at his taste buds, and so he resolved to find out just what it would truly taste like.
Neil rushed through his house, electrified by the idea of creating something original. He scurried to the kitchen, his slippers slapping against the cool hardwood, then sliding across the polished marble.
He turned the door frame into the kitchen with gusto, his robe washing out to his side as he came to a sudden halt, surprised at himself at the way he had just moved.
The servants in the kitchen were likewise surprised to see such animation from The Duke, who generally moved half as fast on a day when he was not shouting every three minutes.
“Good morning, Your Grace,” Thomas said, seeing the Duke’s rapid entry. “Can I get you some breakfast? I apologize if I did not hear your bell, you are up earlier than usual,” Thomas began to go through his daily motions of preparing a silver gilded tray with coffee, tea, fruit, and eggs.
“No, no, Thomas, never mind that, never mind it,” Neil said, scanning the room for his necessary ingredients, but he found quickly that he did not know where anything was.
“The cider, Thomas,” Neil said. “Where is all the cider from last year?”
“Why, in the larder, Your Grace,” Thomas said, startled by the Duke’s strange request.
“Yes, why of course it is!” Neil said, turning in place and pointing towards the cellar door. “Open it up, Thomas, bring me some cider.”
“Of course, Your Grace,” Thomas went to the pantry and began to descend the wooden stairs, wondering why the Duke required cider so early in the morning. He hoped that it was not a precursing action to a week or so of drinking. It had been three years since the Duke remained at altitude for multiple days, and Thomas dreaded for it to occur again. Still, he did as he was bid, and retrieved one very dusty bottle of hard apple cider from the larder shelves.
“Here you are, Your Grace,” Thomas said. “Allow us to prepare it for you,” and he began to set up a drinking glass.
“What of fennel, Thomas?”
“Your Grace?” Thomas cocked his head. “Fennel, you said?”
“Yes, Thomas, fennel, we grow it in the garden, don’t we?”
“Well, yes, Your Grace, but it is generally harvested come the first week in October.”
“Well dash that,” Neil said. “It’s September now, that seems good enough to me. Go down, fetch a sprig or two.”
Thomas snapped at Oliver, who had just come in with the morning’s eggs. “Fetch his grace a sprig of fennel.”
“Fennel, sir?” Oliver stuttered, looking for a place to set down the basket of eggs.
“You heard me, Master Hanson,” Thomas snapped, growing irritated with the new house servant. It was not his place to ask any questions, let alone in front of The Duke. He makes a rubbish house servant, Thomas thought, then his mind quickly returned to the subject of the Duke, and his strange morning requests.
Oliver was back in a flash, and Neil paced the kitchen floor all the while.
“Here, Your Grace,” Oliver said. “The fennel.”
Neil took the fennel and sprinkled it ever so carefully, just in the pattern that he had imagined, into the top of the drinking glass. The sprigs floated there, sending their tiny ripples against each other, and Neil rejoiced in his creation.
“So, who shall it be?” he asked the room. “Who shall be the first to taste my new favorite beverage?”
“It should be you, Your Grace,” Thomas said after a moment of silence. “For as you said, it is your new favorite beverage.”
“Ah, on your toes this morning, are you not, Thomas?” Neil said, pointing to him. “Anyone else then?”
Just then Mary-Anne came into the kitchen, looking to fetch morning tea and a glass of milk for Phyllis, which was how the old lady started all of her mornings.
“Emily,” Neil exclaimed, waving the delicate drinking glass in the air, but carefully as not to spoil the aesthetic of the fennel sprigs. He was quite proud of it all. “You must try my new beverage, for I know you shan’t tell me lies about it, hmm?” he raised his eyebrows at her, offering a smile along with the glass in his outstretched arm.
Mary-Anne looked around, gathering everyone’s attention inadvertently.
“Here, truly, you must try it,” Neil said warmly.
With a delicate, nervous grin she took the glass and held it to her nose. Smells like cider, she thought. She glanced down, Is that grass? Or no, fennel? She looked up again at the Duke, who beckoned excitedly for her to taste it.
She drank the small glass down. It is just cider with fennel on top, she thought, as she placed the glass into Thomas’ waiting hands. He had not entirely yet grown accustomed to her handling of the crystal.
“Well, what do you think then?” Neil asked as she wiped a drop from her lower lip.
It was good cider, to be sure, undoubtedly pressed within five miles from the house, and it had kept well enough for being forgotten about. The fennel, she felt, had made no discernible difference, but the Duke seemed incredulous about it not having an all-powerful effect.
In the Duke’s face though, she could see that there was something more. There seemed to be, for the first noticeable time to Mary-Anne, a proper glow in his cheeks. Something looked back at her from those eyes with a certain kindness, and it warmed her, just as the cider warmed her belly. The image of him running about on the night of the fire flashed before her mind’s eye, and she felt a tickle beneath her heart.
She smiled at the Duke, nodding her approval of the drink, and he twisted about in a display of victory. As he turned, she ducked quickly away to conceal her cheeks. She could feel herself blushing.
“I knew it,” he said. “I thought it so, and it was so. Cold cider and fennel.”
Then, without bothering to try the mixture for himself, as he was wholly convinced of his success, Neil marched proudly from the kitchen shouting behind him, “Thomas, I shall take my breakfast on the East balcony.”
“Very good, Your Grace.” Thomas turned away quickly to move his existing place setting.
Mary-Anne watched the Duke go with a faint fondness, feeling his charged person linger in the room for just a moment, then regretfully turned to gather up Phyllis’ morning tray.
What an intriguing man this Duke was turning out to be. And why do I have these feelings for him?
Chapter 14
The season was in its full turn now; leaves dumped down from their branches in repeated sheets, swirling around themselves until touching down on the wet, frosty grass.
The window collected a fog of condensation, layering thick over the pine-framed panes, and thoroughly obstructed a clear view of the outside world.
Julian Bastable found himself staring deeply into one of these windows from his corner seat at the lodging house. The bench was worn down to a smooth slant, and Julian was constantly shoving his feet out a bi
t to keep himself upright.
“Bloody bench,” he muttered beneath his breath, propping his elbows up at a more favorable position. He was scribbling away in one of his leather journals; the pencil made a soft striking sound with each fall of his heavy, rounded hands.
3 October 1818
Visited two farms today and found success at the first but not the second. It seems the Setons have finally caught up to me, if in fact, they are not already leading in this race across the countryside. What was I to expect? They are better funded, to be sure, and between the two of them can cover far more ground than I on my own.
My head start will have to prove sufficient. I must secure at least fifty-one percent of the immediately local wool supply if I hope to run them out of the market. Why must they try to take this from me? They have it all and chase after my success like a lurch after a hare. Those grubbing nabobs will be sorry to have crossed me when I am through with their business.
Back to business, of course, I am sorry to have rambled. Julian wrote, taking a pinch of snuff from his travel box and batting his eyelids several times. He preferred to keep things professional when journaling, for perhaps in time, he thought, they could be published as a demonstration of sound business; for Julian knew that one had to create one’s own brand, after all.
“Your soup, sir,” Julian yanked his nose out of the book, leaning back in the booth to make room for the hot wooden bowl to be placed in front of him. The steam wafted upwards, touching onto Julian’s nose, and he found his mouth watering intensely. It had been some time since he had eaten; most of the day had been spent in the bounding carriage. He had thought that they would take a meal at the lord’s house in Surrey, but after learning that the lord had already signed a contract with the Setons, Julian had quickly left.
“Very good, thank you,” Julian said, watching the brimming bowl intently. The tavern keep smiled and nodded, bringing his hands together in a friendly gesture. He began to turn away, but Julian halted him at the last moment. “Wait!” he called. “Where is the bread?”
“The bread, sir?”
“You cannot expect me to drink this down without a bite of bread, can you, man?”
“Well, I suppose not, sir,” the tavern keeper said, his face souring.
“Well, I suppose you should hurry it along then,” Julian retorted. “Two pieces, rye, toast it black.”
“The tavern keeper marched away to the kitchen, battering under his breath, “Of course, sir,”
“Everything all right, sir?” Randolph asked, jogging up to the table.
“What? Yes, what are you doing?” Julian shot back, looking up from his bowl at Randolph, who had brought the cold breeze in with him.
“I heard you shouting sir,” Randolph said.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Julian said, slurping at the broth before him. “The fool behind the bar forgot my bread.”
“You didn’t order bread, sir,” Randolph said, blinking nervously.
“The devil I didn’t!” Julian became red in the face. “Not your place is it, contradicting me? Eh? Don’t you have a task to see to?”
“Of course, sir, I am sorry sir,” Randolph said, shaking his head. “Not my place. But I came in to tell you, sir.”
“Tell me what?”
“The Seton’s carriage, sir,” Randolph said. “I’ve seen it come into the drive.”
“You’re sure, are you?”
“I am, sir, you had me look at it for an awful while.”
Julian let out a dragging sigh over his soup, sending little splashes up over the brim that danced across the table top.
“And now they have spoiled perfectly good soup,” Julian said. “Go on, get the coach ready. No doubt they will rent my room out from under me. But I will eat my soup first, that much I will do.”
“They can do that, sir?”
“Of course, they can do that. They have more money than this whole hovel of a town can claim in a lifetime.”
“Your bread, sir?” the tavern keeper said, walking over with a small plate. Two pieces of dark, coal-fired rye bread sat idyllically atop the wooden dish, casting a long shadow across the wall.
“Yes, just set it here,” Julian mumbled back. He was staring off into the distance, looking vaguely in the direction of the door, waiting for the dreaded confrontation he knew was rapidly advancing.
“Don’t burn yourself on it,” the tavern keeper said, sneering. “Just came off the fire.”
Julian did not hear him. He was fixated on the door. Waiting to see his dreaded opponents. He began to methodically dip his bread into the soup. He brought it out of the bowl and let it cool just in front of his face, allowing the steam to bathe his skin in the aroma of pork and carrots. After a moment of this, he bit from the bread, and let the soup squeeze out and dribble down his chin. It was warm, delicious, comforting; it was how he worked to balance himself as he plowed forward through the world of business, all on his own.
Eventually, the door swung open loudly. Even though he had been expecting it, Julian jumped at the sound and further spilled soup over the table.
In they walked, those prim-fitted peacocks of men, Julian thought. The Setons walked into the establishment as if they owned it, conscious of their effort directed at Julian.
“Mr. Bastable,” the elder called out, clicking his heels loudly across the dining room floor. Morris Seton had set his mind to Julian’s destruction and made his intentions very plain through his body language. “What a funny thing it is, to encounter you here.”
“Funny is one word,” Julian said. “Irritating is another. Would you join me, gentlemen? Please, sit. The soup is exquisite.”
“How kind of you,” Morris said. “It would be our utmost honor. Come, Lawrence,” Morris gestured to his son, and the two of them wedged into the corner booth across from Julian.
Lawrence felt his cheek twitch, betraying his annoyance at his father’s commands. The merchant quarrel was between Julian and Lawrence, but since Morris had gotten involved, it seemed all Lawrence did was follow orders.
“Evening, gentlemen,” the tavern keeper said, walking up to the booth. He smiled enough at the new customers but gave Julian an annoyed glance.
“I hear the soup is divine,” Morris said offhandedly, barely looking at the tavern keeper.
“Two soups,” Lawrence said.
“Two soups for the gentlemen,” the tavern keeper repeated.
“What about their bread?” Julian spat. Although he hated the two men in front of him, he hated the demeanor of this tavern keeper even more. Every man deserved bread with his soup, Julian thought. It was only natural.
The tavern keeper glared down at Julian, not daring to verbally berate him, but visibly annoyed.
“Yes, that sounds splendid. Two breads, as well,” Morris said.
“Of course, sir.”
“Best of luck with those breads,” Julian said as the tavern keeper walked away. “That man has no presence of business.”
“I have heard a rumor, Mr. Bastable,” Morris said. ‘That you believe the poor are so because they are unresolved, and the wealthy are the fruition of evolution’s due course. Is this true?”
“To a point,” Julian said. “But that is more or less the sum of it.”
“And so, where do you imagine yourself on that scale?”
Julian bit his lip and smiled. He would not take the old man’s bait. Instead, he smiled wide and abruptly changed the subject.
“So,” Julian sat back folding his hands together on his swelling belly. “What brings two fine gentlemen such as yourselves to such a remote and muddy place?”
“We—” Lawrence began, but his father cut him off with a wave of his hand. Julian smiled to see Lawrence humiliated in such a manner.
“As I am sure you are aware,” Morris said, leaning in. “There seems to be a shortage of local wool on the domestic market.”
“Why, how can that be?” Julian looked surprised. “I have been looking firml
y to the revival of domestic wool, sir, I promise you that.”
“Yes,” Morris said. “As, of course, have we.”
“Of course.”
“So, what will it come to, Mr. Bastable?”
“What will what come to?”
“Come now, there is no need for further games. Just give us the price for your existing contracts, transfer your business into ours, and be done with it. Walk away a wealthy man, far wealthier than you are now in any case. Why drag this into a muddy run through the October countryside? Why do you insist on such complication?”
“Complication?” Julian asked, batting his eyes innocently. “I see no reason for any complication.”
The Unusual Story of the Silent Duchess: A Historical Regency Romance Novel Page 8