by Wilma Counts
“I shouldn’t put too much stock in that,” Hero said. “Alexander Sterne managed to ignore the situation for years. Sir Benjamin died eight years ago. Sterne has allowed Teague free rein for all that time.”
“Well, now, Hero, in fairness,” her father said, “Sterne probably did not know what was happening. I’m sure he thought things were being handled properly.”
“It was his duty to know,” she said, setting her cup and saucer down with a clatter. “It was his responsibility, and now it is all his fault.”
“Be fair, Hero,” her father admonished. “People make choices in life based on matters they see at hand. Isn’t that right, Milton?”
“Yes, sir,” Milton responded glumly and reached for his brandy goblet.
“For what it is worth,” Michael said, “the major has been out of the country for God knows how long. He was in India with Wellington and then on the Peninsula. Injured several times. Men in his regiment practically worshiped him.”
“I have no doubt he was a good soldier,” Hero conceded. “But as a landowner, he abrogated his responsibilities.”
“I’m just saying,” Michael went on, “that a man does not command that kind of respect without showing genuine concern for his people. He earns it.”
Diana brought them back to the topic at hand. “But what are we to do now? I cannot stand the idea that my husband or my son or my brother may b-be killed in a fight with the militia.” Her voice caught.
“I know one thing for sure,” Milton said, patting her hand. “Neither Anthony nor I—nor Jonathan neither—will be parties to luring another ship to disaster.” He looked at the two boys for corroboration of his statement and they both nodded.
“I’d say do nothing for a while at least,” the patriarch of the family said thoughtfully. “Just go along as before. I cannot believe that Lord Sterne has been here in Weyburn all this time without learning a thing or two. Let us give him a few days at least…”
“I suppose eight years later, a few days more will make little difference,” Hero said grudgingly. She knew she was being stubborn, but she was not ready to entertain forgiving thoughts about one Alexander Sterne.
“What about the militia?” Jonathan asked, but no one seemed to have a response. Soon afterwards, Diana and Milton gathered up their brood and departed for home before it got too dark to travel safely.
Chapter 18
By the time Teague was expected at the Abbey, the housekeeper and butler had been up for a good two hours supervising the staff in subjecting the library to a thorough dusting and polishing. Alex found that whatever oil the maids had used on the furniture imparted a pleasant, woodsy smell, and they had left the French doors that looked out onto the garden open, so the fresh outdoors blended with the tangy cleanness. In his comfortable buckskin breeches, his shirt open at the neck and sleeves rolled up, Alex sat at a huge oak desk awaiting the arrival of his steward. He was not at all surprised that the man had chosen to try to assert command of the meeting by arriving late.
When Mullins finally announced Teague’s arrival a good quarter past the hour, Alex stood to greet him. He thought the steward somewhat overdressed for the occasion, in black wool trousers, a silver embroidered waistcoat, and a bottle-green coat. His neckcloth would have made Beau Brummel proud, Alex observed sourly. Teague removed his hat and held it in one hand; the other held the ledgers against his chest, and a large ring of keys.
“Good morning, my lord. I say, I was glad on receiving your message that you have decided you no longer need the protection of Hero Whitby’s skirts in dealing with us Weyburn folks.” His affable tone belied the insult of his words.
Alex sat back down and said in a carefully controlled, deceptively calm tone, “And may I say that an insult is hardly the wisest way to begin this conference.”
Teague made of show of stacking the ledgers on a corner of the desk. He ignored Alex’s comment. “Your ledgers, my lord, just as you requested. I trust you will find them all in order. The keys too.” There was a great jangling of keys as he laid these on top of the leather-bound books. “Can’t see why you wanted all those at once—we cannot possibly inspect every building and enclosed area in a single day.”
“Please, have a seat, Mr. Teague.” Alex gestured to a chair he had himself placed in front of the desk. “We shall not be inspecting property today. And I should expect to find that these books align themselves fully with these that Mr. MacIntosh brought from my solicitor in London.” Alex pointed to a similar stack of ledgers on the opposite corner of the desk and felt a twinge of satisfaction at seeing an expression of surprise on his employee’s face.
“Ah, well, I cannot say what another man’s books will have in them, but I guarantee you that mine are in order,” Teague blustered, and sat, casually leaning back in his chair, draping an arm along its back and crossing his legs, either perfectly relaxed or trying hard to appear so.
Alex had previously studied the solicitor’s ledgers at great length, and now he opened first one and then another at random and compared certain entries with what he found in those Teague had produced. He ignored Teague’s signs of growing restlessness, shifting in his chair and drumming the fingers of one hand against his knee.
Finally, Alex nodded and said, “Yes. They do line up quite nicely.”
“I could have told you they would, that this is a waste of time—mine and yours.” Alex looked up to see a smug sneer on Teague’s face.
“I expected nothing less, given the fact that Mr. Montague merely recorded for me information you sent him.” Alex paused and held the other man’s gaze for a long moment. Then he reached into a drawer of the desk and extracted several sheets of notes. “Perhaps you were unaware that Mr. Montague visited Weyburn some months ago.” Alex watched closely as Teague tried to hide his alarm and calculation in absorbing this information.
“Seems I might have heard something about some stranger nosing around, but he did not show the simple courtesy of contacting me.” Teague sounded aggrieved, but Alex could not tell if the grievance was real or feigned.
“Mr. Montague’s notes coincide almost precisely with those I made after Miss Whitby and I inspected the properties very recently.”
Teague sat up straight; his face was flushed with anger. “Now, see here—”
“No, Mr. Teague, you see here.” Alex tapped the ledgers with a forefinger. “There are too many instances of expenses listed in these books for things like a roof on a farmhouse, an enlarged barn, new windows on outbuildings of the copper mine, labor for fencing, and so on—improvements here and there that were simply never made.”
Teague gave him a condescending look. “You’ve been listening to too many whiners, my lord. Lazy rascals always expecting something for nothing.”
“I have talked with a number of people—but I also have Montague’s report, and I have eyes in my head. What Montague and I have actually seen simply does not add up with recorded expenses. It is called embezzlement, sir. And for that reason I am terminating your employment, effective immediately.”
“You’re what? Terminating—? You can’t do that.” Teague raised his voice in surprise and fury; his face took on an even deeper shade of red. His hands fisted on his knees. “I’ve been steward here for fifteen years, for God’s sake.”
Alex held his gaze in an accusing glare. “For at least half that time, you seem to have been far more interested in lining your own pockets than in tending to the needs of the people and property of Weyburn Abbey.”
“Sir Benjamin found no fault with my work.”
“In his last years, my uncle was a sick old man. He liked you and he trusted you. You abused his goodwill. And he’s been gone for a long time—during which you have abused mine. It’s over.”
“You can’t get away with this. I’ll sue. I have a contract—”
“I can and I am.” Alex was adamant. “Th
e contract was with Sir Benjamin. Both my solicitor and I have studied it carefully. I am giving you twenty-one days to vacate the steward’s house that you currently occupy. If you are still in the area after that, I shall bring suit against you in a court of law. As it is, you are getting off easy—far too easy for what you’ve stolen, first from Sir Benjamin and then from me.”
Teague jumped to his feet and bent over the desk. “You rotten son-of-a-bitch. You’ll pay for this day’s work, let me tell you! Nobody—nobody!—treats Willard Teague in such a high-handed fashion and gets away with it!”
Alex stared at him, one eyebrow raised. “Save the threats.”
A single hard knock sounded at the door. Mac poked his head around the edge and asked innocently, “I say, my lord, do you need anything?”
“Mr. Teague is just leaving. Show him to the door, will you?”
“I know the way.” Teague jammed his hat onto his head, mussing his perfectly coiffed blond hair in the process, and stomped out of the room, brushing by Mac as he did so.
Mac came in and, at Alex’s gesture, took the seat Teague had vacated. “I heard that discussion only when he started yelling. I must say, Major, you ain’t lost your touch in dressing down some miscreant.” Mac grinned broadly, then asked, “Now what, sir?”
Alex reached behind him to give the bellpull a tug. “Now, we call a meeting of Abbey people.”
Mullins answered immediately.
“Guess you heard him yelling too, eh?” Alex asked, knowing full well Mullins had probably been hovering in the hallway.
“Yes, my lord.”
“Well? What did you think? Are we well rid of him?”
“I—uh—that is not for me to say, my lord. Did you need something, my lord?”
Alex sighed inwardly at the man’s continued caution around his new employer and said, “Yes. I should like you to send one of the grooms around to all the farms and the homes of the mine foremen and their deputies, if such exist, calling them to a meeting here in the ballroom tomorrow morning at, say, ten o’clock. That should give them time for morning chores and such.”
“Very good, my lord.” The butler turned to leave.
“Oh! And say they are to bring their wives as well. Wives always seem to have a great deal to say about any matter at hand.”
Mullins grinned and nodded. “Mine does, at least.”
“I want you and Mrs. Mullins at this meeting too—as well as the entire indoor and outdoor staff here at the main house. You will need to arrange chairs and benches in the ballroom. Maybe bring up one of those kegs of ale from the cellar, and provide some lemonade—whatever Mrs. Mullins thinks. This is a meeting, not a party, but people deserve a drink, at least, for their efforts.”
“Very good, my lord.”
When the butler had closed the door behind him, Alex said, “Now, Mac, let’s go and look at the master’s suite and find more permanent bedchambers for both of us.”
* * * *
Several miles away, Hero was also involved that morning in the allocation of bedchambers. It had started when Hero joined her father, who sat at the head of the breakfast table before any of the others had come down yet. Whitby waited until his daughter had filled her plate from the sideboard, taken a seat on the corner at his right, and poured herself a cup of coffee from the carafe on the table.
“The topic of the day,” the doctor announced with mock solemnity, “is bedrooms. More specifically, who’s to be in which bedchamber.”
“I’m quite satisfied right where I am,” Hero said, sidestepping the topic she knew her father was broaching.
“I am not talking about you, and you know it. You have been in your corner room ever since you left the nursery—well, except for those years you were away at school. Even then, that room was yours—with Michael just across the hall. No, my dear, I am talking about Michael and Monique.”
“Yes, Papa.” She recalled Mrs. Hutchins’s comment on the same subject.
“His room is too small for the two of them. They should move into my rooms, and I will take the room down here, now that Adam—Sterne—has vacated it. After all, I designed that room for just this eventuality. Just not this soon, perhaps.”
“Michael should have the master’s suite?”
“Why not? He will be the master in due time. He will take over my position at the clinic. Relieve you some. Lord knows you have carried the practice in the last year what with gout and arthritis and general attacks of old age that have bedeviled me.”
Hero laid down her fork and reached for her coffee cup. She smiled. “Do stop, Papa. You are not so decrepit as all that.”
“I’m getting there, though.” He shoved his empty plate aside and relaxed more casually in his chair. “Mind you, I intend to fight the good fight all the way. And the two of you will just have to put up with my meddling.”
“Your meddling? Papa, you are the mainstay of this clinic. When Weyburn people need to see a doctor, they think immediately of Dr. Whitby—Dr. Charles Whitby—you.”
“Perhaps. But we—and they—have always known that Michael would take over one day.”
She looked down at her plate. “I—uh—yes, I suppose they have.” She had always known it too, but it had been years since it had been said so baldly in her presence.
He sat up straighter and reached for her hand. “Hero, I meant no slight to your medical expertise. You do wonderful work. Wonderful. You make all those naysayers about women in medicine seem the fools they are. We are. Sad to say, I once thought the way they do. But you taught me otherwise.”
Hero felt tears welling at his sincere compliment of her work, which was so integral to her sense of self. Had she not buried herself in this work for years and struggled to learn and learn and learn? “Thank you, Papa,” she whispered and squeezed his hand.
He still gripped her hand and gave it a little shake. “But you know as well as I do that England is not ready, Cornwall is not ready, and I very much doubt Weyburn is ready, for a woman to head an important medical clinic—even if it is that woman’s innovations and dedication that have made much of its reputation. But be assured, my daughter, so long as I am alive, you have a place right here. And Michael feels the same way.”
“Michael feels how?” Michael asked as he entered the room right behind his wife.
“I am just assuring your sister that her place in our medical facility is assured,” the elder Whitby said, releasing Hero’s hand. “And in our home,” he added with a direct look at her.
“Of course it is.” Michael held a chair for his wife and gave Hero a piercing look across the table. “Good Lord! Don’t tell me you doubted that.”
“Um, not really,” she lied, “but it is pleasant to hear it said aloud.”
Michael grinned at her and raised his voice to shout, “Hear ye! Hear ye! Hero Gwendolyn Whitby is ours! She belongs to us—whether she wants to or not.”
“Michel…” his wife chided with a laugh.
Mrs. Hutchins came running into the dining room, a footman following. “What on earth?” she asked, her hand on her chest.
“Sorry, Mrs. Hutchins,” Michael said with a chuckle. “Just a little family clarification, if you will.”
“Goodness. I had quite forgot how chaotic things can get with two young men in residence. I’ll send in more coffee,” the housekeeper said, and left just as Jonathan entered the dining room.
“What was all the shouting about?” he asked, making a beeline for the sideboard.
As the three latecomers filled their plates, the doctor said, “Would you believe it started with a discussion of bedrooms?”
“Bedrooms?” Michael echoed as he and Monique sat down.
“I’m not moving out of my room,” Jonathan said around a mouthful of scrambled egg.
The elder doctor explained his plan.
“O
h, no, no,” Monique said, placing a hand on her husband’s arm. “We would not dream of putting you out of your chambre, mon père.” Hero found her mixture of French and English charming. She was sure Michael did too.
Michael said, “My old room is crowded for the two of us, but why don’t we just knock out a wall between it and the guest room next to it? Or, Monique and I can move to the room on this floor. That room is quite spacious, as I remember it.”
“Ridiculous,” his father said. “That is just postponing the inevitable. I built this room for me. I intend to enjoy it. Now you and Monique finish your breakfast and then take a look at my suite of rooms and see what changes you would like to make.”
“Yes, sir.”
Later in the morning, as she reviewed that scene in her mind, Hero was glad to see the issue handled so amicably, and she was heartily warmed by reassurance from both her father and her brother of her place in their world of medicine. She had no doubt there would have to be accommodations made from time to time. It was apparent that Monique and Michael had worked together well in Belgium and it was equally apparent that they both intended to continue working together here.
But what changes would have to be made in the family dynamics if—when—Michael and Monique had children? At the moment, Annabelle was the darling of the household. Would she still be so treasured when there were other children in the house—children who were known to be truly Whitby children? Hero wondered if she shouldn’t just set up her own household—in town, say. Her mother had established small legacies for both her daughters, so such a plan was financially feasible, though she knew it would cause quite a stir for a young single woman to live apart from her family. Or perhaps she could remove to Sally Knowlton’s establishment and help enlarge it.
Stop it. Just stop, she admonished herself. You are already borrowing problems from a future that is not even showing itself yet. Have you learned nothing about enjoying what you have at any given moment?
Her mind immediately, and unwillingly, shifted itself to Adam—Alex, as her father had said he preferred to be called. She had certainly enjoyed that interlude in her life, had she not? But it had been no more real than one of Annabelle’s fairy tales. Oh, come now, she chastised herself. At least be honest with yourself. His lovemaking was the most real experience of your entire life. As she delved further into what had been between them, she was forced to admit, though only to herself, that it was not merely the physical passion that had awakened a long hidden need in her—real and wonderful as that had been.