by Lily George
How could she possibly answer this call fully? Could she really give up her shop and devote herself entirely to the needs of the estate? In doing so, she would give up the very thing that she’d worked so hard for, that she’d driven herself to achieve.
Was she really ready to let that independence go and turn her full devotion to Daniel and his estate?
Chapter Eighteen
Daniel swirled the brandy in its sparkling glass. The diamond pattern of the vessel pressed his palm and he gripped it more tightly. The feel of the rough edges was something.
He stretched his booted feet closer to the hearth. Was he ready for all the changes that lay before him? If not, surely his existence would continue this way forever. Susannah would be out of his life—forever this time. For if he acted the coward a second time, there would be no forgiveness. Indeed, he was a fortunate fellow to even warrant a second try with Susannah. If he was too afraid of committing to Goodwin, to Susannah and to change, she would leave him. He would be a failure in truth. And he would drink. There would be no companionship, no warmth of feeling in his life.
And no children. He’d never given real thought to having a family of his own. Somehow, the idea of family had stifled him as a young man—they were burdens, mere weights to hold him down. But now—he glanced out the window at the moors, the yellow grass bitten with frost. Now, the thought of a little girl with Susannah’s auburn hair and freckles scattered across her nose wasn’t a weight at all.
He couldn’t bring himself to drink the brandy, not yet. Even though he needed to stop feeling anything at all. Somehow, it was as though drinking it was admitting to his own weakness. That he could never, ever change. Was he ready to make that admission, despite Susannah?
Daniel rose and strolled over to the mahogany table beneath the window. An array of cut-glass decanters winked alluringly in the late-afternoon sunshine. He traced the stoppers with his fingertips. He wasn’t ready to make the trip back to his chair just yet. Propped nicely against this sturdy ledge, he could study the moor-grass and feel—for a brief moment—that all this land was really his, that he was a good and gracious and steady lord of the manor.
A flash of gray caught his eye. Susannah. She was half walking, half running across the field, her cloak billowing behind her. Her bonnet dangled from its strings down her back and her bright hair tossed carelessly in the wind. He straightened and set his glass down. His mind, muddy as it was, could not reconcile the image of his betrothed—his decorous, proud fiancée—and this apparition who fairly skimmed the frozen ground. He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes, and when he removed them, Susannah was gone.
It must have been a dream. It couldn’t be the drink. He hadn’t swallowed a mouthful yet.
The study door banged open, a sound sharp as a musket shot. He jumped and turned toward it.
“And there he is, drunk as a lord. I am not surprised, but I vow, Daniel, I had hoped to speak with you in a sober state of mind.”
Susannah stood in the doorway, panting, her cheeks rosy from the cold. He strode over to her, taking her hands in his. “I vow I haven’t had anything to drink yet. What’s the matter? Are you unwell?”
She withdrew her hands from his and crossed her arms over her chest. “No. I am not unwell. But I fear many of your tenants are.”
“Oh. The tenants.” He quirked his eyebrow and shook his head. Why was Susannah rattling on so about the tenants?
“Yes.” The single word cut through his unsettled emotions sharply as a knife blade. “Your tenants. I’ve just come from there, and did you know that they live in dreadful conditions? Were you aware of this? Can you imagine such poverty exists? The hovel my sisters and I purchased in the village is a palace compared to most of the huts your tenants call home.”
“Yes. Well.” He cast around for something sensible to say. “The tenants, you know, are always rather poorer than the rest of us. We care for them as we can, of course.”
“You do not care for them at all.” She spat the words out and strode into the room, slamming the door behind her.
“Susannah, stop this.” He struggled to get a grasp of the situation, to be the master as he should. “We provide our tenants with the basics of care. I do not understand why you are carrying on so. They are as well provided for as any others in the county.”
“Oh!” Susannah rounded on him. “I will not stop this. It is time someone told you the truth. Who better than your betrothed?”
“You aren’t my wife yet.” The words slipped out before he could stop them. Weeks of this dance between them still to come—conditions she chose, terms she dictated—his heart pounded painfully in his chest as Susannah’s eyes flashed.
“If I am to bear your name then I vow that I shall ensure that name is respectable and good. What I saw today was neither.” Though her voice had grown quiet, the set of her shoulders and the haughty tilt of her head betrayed her fury. “You don’t know what it’s like to be poor. To have other people in control of your destiny. Selfish people, who care naught what you suffer. I will not inflict that misery upon others as it was inflicted upon me.”
Something in her voice gave him pause. Susannah was furious, but she was hurt, too. Wounded. He suppressed a sudden urge to gather her in his arms and stroke her hair until she calmed. Would Susannah ever want him to hold her? ’Twas unlikely.
“I know you think you are doing all you can,” Susannah continued, her voice steady and even. “But there is so much more that can be done to care for your tenants. The roofs of their cottages are straw—straw, Daniel! ’Twas like stepping back in time to see them—and they leak like a sieve. Some of the tenants lack the proper attire to weather a harsh winter.” She sank onto the settee, her eyes downcast. “We must do more, Daniel. We cannot allow others to suffer so. Not when we have so much.”
Daniel closed his eyes, breathing in deeply. This was all he’d run away from years ago. Responsibility. Duties. He could continue to shirk any semblance of accountability—but in doing so, he would live a life apart. The years stretching before him would remain bleak and cold. Susannah would remain a stranger to him. He set his untouched glass aside.
His Susy. Beautiful, brave, determined Susy. He opened his eyes and looked at his betrothed, but her glance remained stubbornly fixed on the floor.
Passionate words, words that begged for Susannah’s forgiveness and kindness, bubbled to the surface, if only he had the courage to say them. He sank down beside her on the settee. He was as close to her as he’d been in the shop when they pledged their troth—and now, as then, he caught her scent of orange blossom. Sweet and innocent. Susannah had shown him that she was no fragile, shrinking miss, but she was deserving of protection and shelter. And what she said had a ring of truth to it. Why should others suffer while he had so much?
“You are right.” The words fell heavily from his lips. He turned to look at her, his heart warming, and she lifted her gaze to his. “But I don’t know how to start.”
“There is much to be done,” she agreed, nodding slowly. “Cottages that need mending, children that need warm clothes. But I think the most fundamental change must be wrought today.”
“Very well.” He rubbed his hand over his brow. “Help me. Where shall we begin?”
She cleared her throat and turned to face him squarely. “You must stop drinking.”
* * *
The words had to be said. His drinking was the root of his inactivity, his carelessness—every aspect of Daniel that detracted from the man he should be. But in saying them aloud, and in saying them with a purpose beyond mere nagging, she made a commitment. And that thought was terrifying.
How could one commit to a man who’d left her so long ago?
Wouldn’t he just leave her again?
Why invest any time, any energy, with this man after he’d crush
ed her girlish hopes of being rescued?
And Daniel’s face, rapidly draining of all color and his clouded expression—certainly she had crossed a boundary with him. He rose from his place on the settee and turned his back on her, facing the hearth.
“Y-you see,” she stammered, “when you drink, you lose all sense of perspective, of time. And I am left to run things in your absence, for even if you are still here in the flesh, it’s as though you are still out on the high seas, without a care in the world. Even when I came to luncheon that day, and you were drunk, I had to run the household and order the servants to serve luncheon. I don’t mind doing so, but I need a helpmeet. You are not a helpmeet when you are drunk.”
Daniel looked over his shoulder at her and winced, the corner of his mouth turning downward.
“I’m saying this stupidly. I don’t know how to say it right. But I do feel that giving up drink would help you to manage the estate and help your tenants.” If only she could phrase things well, if only she had the gift of blarney to gloss over such a difficult and tender issue. Blurting things out as she always did—what good could come of it?
“Our estate. Our tenants. What I have is yours, Susannah.” He turned from the hearth and walked with slow, halting steps to the window. The room turned chillier without his warmth beside her, and she moved closer to the blazing hearth.
He always said things like that. Why did he say it? This was not her home. Not in reality. Everything about her life had become a sham in the course of but a few weeks. She’d come to Tansley to start afresh, to build a life of solid strength for herself and for Becky and Nan. And here she was, trapped in an engagement she wasn’t sure she wanted, facing the thought of living in a fine home with a drunken husband, caring for tenants whose needs were overwhelming. This was not the life she’d imagined when she climbed on the mail coach bound for Tansley.
“I don’t feel that way.” She suppressed a shiver and inched closer to the hearth.
“You just said that while you bear my name, you will attend to the tenants,” he reminded her with a snap, his back turned toward her. His head bent down, and she could glimpse the bare skin between his collar and the trimmed edge of his dark hair. Funny, she’d always thought of him as she remembered him at sixteen, tall and rangy with long arms and legs and that uniquely loping gait he used when he walked, as though he were a farmer stepping off rows of maize in a field.
But Daniel was a boy no longer. His broad shoulders, the heavy strength of his arms belied the fact that the years had wrought changes in him. And in her, for that matter. She glanced down at her hands, once so pretty and small and white, now work-roughened and decidedly, well, older. She clasped them together in her lap. “Yes, I did,” she admitted, her voice hushed.
He glanced at her over one broad shoulder. “Is there no way to bridge this divide between us? Will you not at least admit that we shall share a home, that the problems of Goodwin Hall will be ours to handle together?”
It was a fair enough question. If she was willing to take his name to escape her own troubles in the village, surely she couldn’t shirk all the responsibilities. Even if she and Daniel were wed in name only, she would have a duty to maintain the facade and to assume the cares that came with the running of a household. She lifted her chin. “Yes, I will admit that.”
“I need you here.” The words, a low rumble, caught her off guard. “I can’t lose you to the village and to your sisters’ millinery shop every day. I know you want to keep the shop, and I shouldn’t interfere with that. But I can’t help how I feel.”
“Yes, of course.” He must mean that the duties of running the estate and seeing to the tenants would be too time-consuming. Her sisters had encouraged her to give up the shop, it was true—but to have such a thing requested by Daniel was something else altogether. Could she possibly capitulate? Perhaps she should merely promise him what he wanted and hope in time that the issue of the shop would abate. “I shall visit my sisters on Sundays, but I could spend most of my time here, helping you. I know now that the cares of the tenants will occupy most of our time, as it is.”
“No. I need you.” He turned to face her. His eyes were ringed with fatigue, his broad shoulders slumped. The mischievous glimmer in his expression was quenched. He was a man hounded by troubles, and she rose from her seat and took a step closer before she realized what she had done. Abashed, Susannah stood perfectly still and waited for him to continue.
“I’ll give up drinking if you want me to. But I cannot do it alone. I need you, Susy. Please. I won’t ask any more than that. I just...need you here. This is hard for me to do. Staying on at Goodwin and giving in to duties and tradition—it goes against everything I wanted as a lad. I don’t want to become like my father. You can help me. Please, Susy.” He twisted his mouth downward in a grimace and folded his arms across his chest.
Susannah paused. Since their engagement, she’d refrained from using her usual admonishment about her nickname. When he spoke like that, the years fell away. She was as close to him in that moment as she had been at sixteen, and his use of the old, tender Susy drew them ever closer.
“I’ll be here. I promise.” She said it soothingly, as she would to Nan or Becky if they’d had a nightmare and she’d awakened to care for them. “It won’t be as bad as you think, Daniel. In fact, it might be fun. Look at all the work you’ve done on your mother’s chapel. That was your effort, you know. And it’s paying off beautifully.”
He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, then took his glass, still half-full, from the table beside him. With one swift move, he parted the curtains wider and opened the window latch with a flick of his hand. Then he poured the amber liquid out, spattering the frozen moor-grass.
She gasped, and Daniel smiled at her from the window ledge. “Come help me, Susy.” He motioned to one of the decanters on the table. “Let us pour them all out.”
Susannah crossed to the window, the bitter and chill wind of October spanking her cheeks as she drew near. She grasped a heavy cut-glass decanter in both hands. “This one?”
“All of them.” He grabbed one and lifted out the stopper, pouring the contents out with a mighty splash.
She laughed at the ridiculous sound and removed the cork from her bottle, accidentally spraying the side of the manor house with the liquid. “Oh, dear. I am not a terribly good shot, I must admit.”
“Ah, I am certain scotch is good for stone. Probably helps it set well, or some such nonsense.” Daniel chuckled and dumped another decanter out.
She grinned. This was more the way they had been in childhood. The easy banter. The tenderness between them. They’d helped each other then, just as they were doing now. And it felt right. She would have to watch herself and guard her emotions. Daniel was easy to fall in love with when he was so charming. If only he could be so loving and kind and delightful always.
The smell of alcohol wafted in on the bitter north wind, making her eyes water. “What about your father’s wine cellar? Certainly we cannot flood the moors with the finest vintage in the county.”
“Ah, well. We’ll keep a few bottles around for sickness. And I’ll send the rest of them to Paul and to our friends throughout the village as a goodwill gesture. And I shall have to learn to enjoy the rather tepid thrills of water and tea, starting now.”
“I shall have Baxter bring in some tea directly.” She placed her now-empty decanter on the table and drew on the bellpull. “And do close the window, Daniel. You’ll catch your death.”
There she was, bossing him around again. Just as she had everyone else, for as long as she remembered. But instead of looking perturbed, a shadow of that old playful grin crossed his face. “At least I shall have a wife to nurse me now. You promised, after all. I am your responsibility, you know—utterly and completely.”
A wave of exasperation seized her, but at the merry look in his ey
es, she broke into a mirthful chuckle and tossed a needlepoint pillow, smacking him square on the shoulder.
“Ah. I see my future bride has excellent aim when it comes to firing vessels,” Daniel teased. “If not as much when pouring out whiskey. I shall have to take you along on a hunt, Susy. You would be a formidable shot.”
Her heart lurched as he spoke—the reality of all she’d done flooding her with a mixture of anxiety and hope. This would be her home, and Daniel would be her husband—and somehow, that was all rather daunting.
Chapter Nineteen
Well, Susannah had promised to stay with him during marriage and not try to divide her time between the shop and the estate—which was rather remarkable, Daniel reflected. But he had made a promise to her, as well. His promise to stop drinking was not idly made, for the anger and passion he’d glimpsed in Susannah’s eyes had shamed him into giving up the vice. He was asking a lot of her. And in return, he needed to make a commitment, as well.
It scared him—more than any typhoon had, buffeting his ship about on the high seas.
And it was going to be well-nigh impossible to maintain, given that Paul had written, warning Daniel of his impending return to Tansley, with a promise to get the prospective bridegroom well and truly sloshed long before the wedding. Today marked a week after Paul’s letter had arrived, so if his friend had traveled at his usual breakneck pace, Daniel could expect to have company for dinner tonight.
Daniel tugged on his jacket before descending the stairs. Bother the cravat, he wasn’t going to go that far. He was meeting with his estate manager, and the fellow could accept a little informality on Daniel’s part. Taking the steps two at a time, he rushed downstairs and burst into his study, where Mr. Donaldson was waiting to receive him.