“Won’t you have some of this roast beef? It’s cooked perfectly.”
Claire sat down at the table and Harry put a slice of beef on her plate, but she didn’t eat. “Tell me about him. What has made him so cold, so much without feeling?”
That startled Harry. Trevelyan a man without feeling? Trevelyan was the angriest, most emotional man alive.
“Why is he here? Why have you taken him in?”
“What did he tell you about his kindred to my family?” Harry held his breath, waiting for her answer. Trevelyan said that he didn’t want the dukedom, but all he had to do was change his mind and Harry would be out in the cold. He would have some money from his mother, but not much else. That is, he would have nothing if he lost his heiress—which he did not mean to do.
“He says he’s a cousin of sorts.”
“Yes, he is. He is related to me, just as the other people in this house are.”
“And you take care of them,” she said, looking into Harry’s beautiful eyes.
“I do my best,” he said modestly.
Claire left the table to start pacing again. “Explain his name to me. Why does he keep his identity a secret?”
Harry took his time in answering. “He was sent away from his home when he was nine years old.”
“To school?”
“No. As far as I know, Trevelyan has never been to a formal school.”
“Then why was he sent away?”
Harry gave a little shrug. “It was only a couple of years after I was born, so I don’t really know. I’ve been told he was a difficult child. He and his older brother used to get into scrapes, always at the instigation of Trevelyan.” Harry smiled. “One time the two boys were in France with their father and there was a disease in the town, a plague or something, I don’t know what, and there were men with carts who came and picked up the dead bodies. Trevelyan and his brother bribed the cart driver to let them accompany him on his nightly rounds. I was told that inside the pit where they threw the bodies was a blue flame.”
“Yes, that sounds like something he would do. He was sent away by his father for pulling such boyish pranks?”
“His mother sent him away. She sent him off to live with her father.” Harry swallowed. “The old man was called the Admiral. He was said to be a stickler for discipline and it was hoped he could teach Trevelyan some discipline.”
“But he couldn’t.”
“No. Trevelyan never would do anything anyone else wanted him to do. I think he and the Admiral fought a great deal. I know they came to hate each other. When Vellie was sixteen he left the Admiral and went into the army on commission.”
“As Frank Baker?”
“Yes. The Admiral wanted Trevelyan to go into the navy but Trevelyan didn’t like ships or water. In the end Trevelyan bought his own commission in the army. So his grandfather wouldn’t find him, he enlisted under another name. I think his disguise started out as just another prank, but later became something important to Vellie. He wanted to make his grandfather eat his words when he’d said that Vellie would never amount to anything, that if he didn’t have his attachment to our family name, he would be nothing, that he could never attain anything. I think Vellie wanted to prove his grandfather wrong.”
“I think he did that. Captain Baker has proved himself to be a great man.”
“To some, maybe.” Harry was frowning. This woman was his. Not his brother’s. He turned in his chair and smiled at her. Harry knew how to use his looks to advantage.
With a smile, Claire went to sit on a chair near him.
“Now tell me, why have you been spending so much time with my…cousin? Isn’t there enough here in this house to keep you occupied?”
“I guess I have been a bit bored.” She looked down at her hands. She didn’t want Harry to think she was a complainer; she didn’t want to do anything to make him think less of her. “Just a little bored.” She looked up at him. “Oh, Harry, when am I going to meet your mother?”
“Anytime you want,” he said with confidence. But he didn’t feel confident inside. When it came to stubbornness, his mother made Trevelyan seem like a child.
“Harry, I want to spend more time with you. I want us to be as we were in London. I want us to go places together and do things together and to have conversations. I want us to be the couple in love, as we really are.”
“Well, of course.” Harry thought that he ought to call Trevelyan out over this. To Harry, he had done his courting in London and now he was free to live his own life again. The work was done. He had gone to London because he had heard there was a pretty little American heiress up for grabs and he’d gone and won her. Now, because of the interference of his brother, he was going to have to do more courting.
“And I want to spend some time with your sister.”
Harry brightened at that. “Leatrice? Why, of course, spend all the time you want with her. She loves all the things that you like.”
She moved to look at him. “What are the things that I like?”
“Books. History. You like the Scots a lot.”
She smiled and Harry breathed a sigh of relief. Women and their damned tests of love! Every one of his mistresses was the same. They weren’t content with a man’s presence, they repeatedly wanted him to prove he loved them.
“I know Leatrice likes books. What else does she like?”
Harry reached for his wineglass. He’d eaten few meals in his life without someone nearby to serve him and one of the worst aspects of it was having to fill one’s own glass. “You mean besides James Kincaid?”
Claire sat up on his lap. “Who is James Kincaid?”
Harry could have bitten off his tongue. “No one. I was merely making a joke. Believe me, he’s no one. He’s probably dead by now. In fact I’m sure he is.”
“Who was he then?”
Harry drained the glass and reached for the bottle in the silver bucket on the stand by the table. He couldn’t reach it unless he turned his back on Claire, but he thought he’d better not do that at the moment. Women who were in a state of distress sometimes thought the oddest things. If he turned away from Claire to get at the wine bottle she just might think he liked wine better than he liked her.
“Lee fell in love with him when she was a girl. Or maybe she had always been in love with him, I don’t know. I was just a kid when it happened and I don’t remember very well.” He didn’t remember what had happened before his sister had for the one and only time defied their mother, but he certainly remembered what happened afterward. He imagined there were rooms in the old house that still echoed with Leatrice’s screams.
“What happened?”
“Kincaid was entirely unsuitable. Lee is a duke’s daughter, you know. Kincaid was—” He didn’t say any more, because Claire was getting that look on her face that women got when they thought they smelled romance in the air. “Kincaid really is—was, if he’s dead—the most dreadful person. Very strange. Walked around talking to himself. Always had papers falling out of his pockets. The village children used to follow him and jeer at him. Mother was right in not allowing her daughter to marry the man.”
“But Leatrice didn’t marry anyone else?”
Harry shook his head. He wasn’t about to tell Claire of the war that had gone on between mother and daughter. Lee had said that if she couldn’t marry the man she wanted then she wouldn’t marry any man. Mother had said that if Lee didn’t obey her and marry a man the duchess had chosen for her, then she’d make Leatrice’s life a living hell. Lee had said, “Better that than to marry a man I hate, as you did, and live the life you have led.” It was the last bit of defiance Leatrice had shown toward anyone. Harry knew his mother had long ago broken Lee’s spirit, for, as far as Harry could tell, his mother was stronger than anyone else on earth.
Claire left the chair and Harry immediately reached for the wine bottle. “Harry, I must have something to do. In America I was always busy.”
It was Harry’s opi
nion that all Americans were always busy. They seemed to have no conception of how to sit still and do nothing. They were either doing something or talking about what they were going to do. He’d heard that some horrid American woman bragged that she got her guests through dinner in a mere fifty minutes.
“Of course you want something to do, darling. We all need tasks to keep us busy. A man’s life is worth nothing if he does not accomplish something during his time on earth.” He had read that somewhere and was pleased with himself for remembering it. “What did you have in mind?”
Claire looked out the window. It was dark outside and the curtains hadn’t been drawn. She could see her own reflection and the handsome one of Harry lounging in his chair, drinking his wine. She turned back to him. “I want to see all of the estate. I want you to introduce me to your overseers or foremen or whatever you call them. I want you to show me how this great place of yours works, how you run it.”
Harry gave her a weak smile. He wouldn’t know a foreman of Bramley if he met the man in the drawing room. He’d have to get Charles to help him. “Of course. It will be my pleasure to show you. Anything else?” Maybe the moon delivered to you, he thought. If anyone ever hinted to him that he hadn’t earned his wife’s millions, he’d shoot the son of a bitch.
She widened her eyes. “Harry, you do manage this place and the others you own, don’t you?”
Americans and their disgusting work ethic, he thought. They all, every last one of them, believed that a man should work. It was a concept he couldn’t begin to understand. “Of course I do. It takes a great deal of my time. Has someone said something to you?”
“Trevelyan said you didn’t—” She smiled. “It doesn’t matter what he said. That’s done with now. Now I’m going to start my new life as a duchess. I have a great deal to learn and I’m looking forward to it. Could we go riding early tomorrow morning? I’d like to begin to see the estate. I mean, see it from a worker’s point of view.”
“Yes, of course you may. I’ll take you riding at first light. Or perhaps you’d like to sleep in the morning,” he said hopefully.
“No, I don’t need that much sleep. And I’d like to meet your mother, and I’d also like for you to find out whether or not James Kincaid is alive and where he’s living.”
Harry took a deep drink of wine to keep from groaning aloud. “I’m sure the man is dead. I’m sure I heard he was run over by a farm wagon. Probably wasn’t watching where he was going. Now, dear, isn’t it time for you to retire?”
“Yes, I think it is. Harry, I feel that everything is going to be all right now. I don’t know what I was doing spending so much time with that man when I could have been with you. Tomorrow I’m going to start my new life.” She put her arms around his neck, kissed his forehead as he patted her arm, then left the room.
Harry sat where he was until a servant came to clear the table. “Call Charles to me,” he said.
“I believe Mr. Sorenson has retired, sir.”
“Then get him out of bed!” Harry snapped. “He has to tell me who runs this place. And how it’s done.” He drank more wine and wondered if his ancestors had had to work this hard for the money they’d married.
When Claire awoke the next morning, she was in a state of excitement. Just thinking of spending the day with Harry was enough to make her happy. She went downstairs but was told that Harry was not yet up this morning due to the fact that he had been awake late the night before tending to estate business. The footman told Claire that Harry was usually up before the birds. Something about this statement seemed to amuse the man as he unsuccessfully tried to keep from smiling.
She waited in the entry hall for Harry and he came down, beautifully dressed and ready for their tour of the estate. He introduced her to Mr. Charles Sorenson, who was the estate agent and who would be riding with them on their tour. Claire was a little disappointed that they wouldn’t be alone, but she swallowed her unhappiness and went with Harry to the stables.
It was the first time she had seen the stables in daylight, because when she had spent time with Trevelyan he had always wanted to walk. She blocked that man out of her mind. She was doing everything she could not to think of Trevelyan, or Captain Baker.
She was surprised to see the beauty and the cleanliness of the stables, and she was shocked to see that they had running water. The house didn’t have running water but the stables did. When she saw the affectionate way the horses greeted Harry, she almost understood why.
She was properly and pleasantly surprised when Harry presented her with the prettiest little mare she had ever seen. The animal had dainty and delicate feet and she softly nickered at Claire’s shoulder. “She is beautiful, Harry, really beautiful.”
He smiled, glad to have pleased her. He was also very, very glad that yesterday she had not broken their engagement, for he had charged this horse and four others to an account that was to be paid after their marriage, after he had received her dowry. He had also bought some rather fine pictures, and a few pieces of porcelain, and a rather nice piece of fifteenth-century silver.
He helped her onto her horse and they began the tour of the estate. At first Claire asked Harry all the questions she wanted to know, but Harry, with a lovely sense of humility, always referred the questions to Mr. Sorenson. She admired Harry for not trying to make his servant feel his position was less than his master’s.
They rode for hours, going over acres of land, traveling down what must have been miles of road. Claire was introduced to gamekeepers and tenants and comptrollers. They rode through woods and gardens and fields. Everywhere they went, people came out of their houses to look at them and offer them food and, for Claire, bunches of heather and flowers. Claire ate and drank of everything and tied all the flowers onto her horse, so that in a few hours she looked like part of the landscape moving slowly down the roads. The children came out to see them and laughed with Claire when they saw her horse, then they ran to gather more of the soft purple heather to tie to the animal.
Claire enjoyed herself immensely, but there were times when enjoyment wasn’t easy. Harry was not in the best mood that he had ever been in. He would not eat or drink anything the crofters offered him. At one point he said, “I prefer my food on a plate.” When the children offered him flowers he told them to get the hell away. Claire tried to soothe him. Her father found children a nuisance and she could see that Harry did too. There was nothing wrong with that.
She also did her best not to see some other things about the estate. The stables that housed Harry’s horses were monuments of beauty, done in marble and mahogany, with brass nameplates for each of his horses. Yet the crofters’ houses—which Harry owned just as much as he did the stables—looked very much the same as they must have when the Normans first invaded England.
There were, of course, a few good houses. Claire had been glad to see these places, houses with slate roofs as opposed to thatch, two-story and heated with nice coal stoves instead of ill-vented peat fires. But as she talked to the owners of these houses she was confused. She asked them about farming, what they were doing with the acres of land they rented from Harry. Claire’s grandfather had had some farms and he had made them pay very, very well. But here she saw fields lying fallow, plows rusting in sheds, and no one working the land.
She asked Harry about this and got the perplexing answer that the men who rented the nice houses loved animals. She couldn’t understand what this had to do with farming.
She was also confused by the wooded areas. To her, timber was a renewable crop. You cut trees and replanted them; they were harvested just like corn. The only difference was that the trees took longer. She saw woodland that looked as though it had been harvested probably twenty years or so before, but now it was being allowed to be covered with undergrowth. There were blackberry brambles everywhere.
She asked Harry about the trees being left as they were and what was being done to harvest them. Mr. Sorenson told her that the underbrush was a good hid
ing place for foxes and partridge. Claire said she hadn’t understood that the estate did a business in these creatures.
Harry looked at her as though she’d lost her mind. “The foxes are for hunting and we shoot the partridge. We don’t sell them.”
Claire realized she was being an American again. She had seen a fox hunt and she knew that Englishmen loved to shoot things, whether flying or on foot. She had just never realized that cropland was dedicated to that purpose.
By the time they returned it was midmorning and a grumpy Harry went off to eat and Claire went to her room to change from her riding outfit. She didn’t listen as horrid old Miss Rogers complained about everything. Miss Rogers was a firm believer in schedules and Claire had changed the schedule for no reason that she could see.
“Leave me,” Claire said, then when the old woman stayed where she was, Claire turned and glared at her until she left the room.
Claire sat in her underwear at her dressing table and looked at herself in the mirror. She didn’t seem to understand anything about her husband-to-be’s life. She didn’t understand the people or the country.
She saw hungry people, but fields that could have been used to raise crops were barren. Timber that could have been harvested was not. Even blackberries that could have been put to commercial use were allowed to rot on the ground. She’d seen horses that were housed better than people.
She put her head in her hands. She wasn’t a socialist. She wasn’t a person who believed that all people should have the same. She was her grandfather’s child. She believed in hard work, and those who worked the hardest and were the most clever made the most money. But money carried a responsibility with it. Her grandfather had always said that the best resource was manpower and he had always taken care of his workers. Because of this he’d never had the trouble with strikes and burn-outs that other employers had. Her grandfather had had a long list of people who wanted to work for him.
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