The Regency Season Collection: Part Two. Кэрол Мортимер

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       Chapter Eight

      When they got to Home Farm he could see nothing wrong. Allcott was at the local market buying and selling cattle, but the neat-as-a-pin house and yard spoke of a diligent master. Yet Mrs Allcott didn’t meet his eyes when he complimented her on her hen yard and the neat gardens and the thriving orchards surrounding the ancient stone house.

      ‘Tell your husband I’m well content with his tenancy,’ he tried to reassure her.

      ‘Thank you, my lord, he’ll be glad to hear it,’ she said, her mouth in a tight line, as if it might say something it shouldn’t if she let herself relax.

      ‘Are you going to tell me why I might think Allcott an unsuitable tenant if I had actually managed to meet him, Miss Trethayne?’ he asked when they were in open country again.

      ‘He’s a fine farmer and a good man,’ she said defensively.

      ‘And?’

      ‘He was pressed into the navy as a lad and spent ten years at sea. They let him go after Trafalgar.’

      ‘And the navy don’t give up experienced seaman in times of war unless they can find no further use for them.’

      ‘No, Allcott was blinded as well as lamed in the battle,’ she replied as if she expected him to rescind the tenancy of Home Farm on the spot.

      ‘Then he’s an even more remarkable farmer than I thought,’ he said tightly, angry that she thought him such a shallow fool.

      ‘He knows more about soil and seed and weather with four senses than most men do with five,’ she said as if she needed to defend the man anyway.

      Squashing another of those nasty little worms of jealousy, he nodded at the outskirts of Cable Wood ahead of them. ‘Is there anything I should know before I meet these woodsmen I’ve heard so little about?’

      She couldn’t mean anything to him, or he to her, he reminded himself, so it didn’t matter that she thought him a hard-hearted monster. He only had to imagine the reception she’d get if he introduced her to the ton to shudder on her behalf. The fops and gossips would make her life a misery and the wolves would ogle her magnificent legs, raise their quizzing glasses to examine her lush breasts and tiny waist with leering attention, then pounce on her as soon as his back was turned.

      He’d probably have to kill one or two to punish such disrespect, then flee to the Continent even though Bonaparte controlled most of it. No doubt she would follow, cursing his black soul while she lectured her brothers about the places they were seeing on their less-than-grand tour. No, the very idea of Miss Trethayne making the best of things at his side like that really wasn’t as seductive as it seemed and he had plenty to keep him occupied here for the next three months without fantasising over a woman who would like to pretend he didn’t exist.

      ‘What are you doing your best not to tell me this time, Miss Trethayne?’ he insisted wearily as she hesitated over answering his question honestly or leaving him to find out for himself.

      ‘One or two of them are a touch impaired,’ she said tightly.

      ‘Can they do their job?’

      ‘Of course, you only have to look around you to know that.’

      ‘Then why expect me to turn off men who keep the rides neat and my woods just so?’

      ‘Because they could get no work elsewhere.’

      ‘Until today not even my worst enemies have accused me of following the crowd, yet you seem to have done so before we even met, Miss Trethayne.’

      ‘You turned your back on a heritage most men would give their right arm to possess in a fit of pique. What did you expect the folk who depend on the castle and estate to think of you after that?’

      A fit of pique? Oh, damnation take the dratted woman. Had she no idea what beatings and hardship the ragged little lord of all this had once endured? The old mess of rage and hurt pride and that feeling of being cut off from the good things in life threatened to spill out of him. If he let her, she’d wrench details out of him he hadn’t even confided to Virginia. No, if his beloved godmother couldn’t coax the details of his old life from him, he wasn’t dredging them up for the amusement of a vagabond Amazon queen determined to think the very worst of him.

      ‘How very tedious of me,’ he drawled as indifferently as he could manage.

      ‘Oh, why pretend? You watch every change here like a lover looking for changes in a beloved he hasn’t seen for too long, yet you expect us all to believe you hate the place and don’t care a tinker’s curse what happens to it? No, my lord, I don’t believe you and why should you stay untouched by life? You behave as if you are a summer butterfly; too gorgeous and empty to understand life isn’t only made up of sunny days and nectar.’

      Tom felt Peters try to meld into the quiet wood like a green man. Part of him admired the trick, but the rest was busy fighting a ludicrous idea this woman had the right to rage at him. Tall and magnificent in her man’s saddle, she met his angry gaze as if it cost her nothing and if only life was different he might have agreed.

      ‘I don’t think I should care to start life as a caterpillar, or make a quick meal for a hungry bird or frog,’ he managed with a careless smile and a shrug that made his horse sidle, as if it sensed the turmoil Tom was trying so hard to ignore.

      ‘Perhaps you’re right, my Lord Mantaigne should be eaten by something nobler than a slimy little creature with a harsh voice.’

      ‘Aye, he ought, Miss Trethayne, but if it makes you feel any more charitable towards me, I’ll admit I have missed the Mantaigne lands, if not the castle that goes with it.’

      ‘I beg your pardon, my lord. I forgot our unequal stations and trespassed on your privacy,’ she said as if he’d intended a subtle rebuke by reminding her he was a marquis and she was only here because he hadn’t been for decades.

      ‘I think I preferred you in a rage,’ he said, her unexpected humility shocking the truth out of him.

      ‘I don’t suppose you’ll have to wait long for that. I’ve never been very good at minding my tongue,’ she admitted with an almost-smile even as her sharp eyes picked out the deep marks of a heavily laden cart on one of the cross-rides, and she veered off to examine them more closely.

      ‘I don’t think Miss Trethayne is concerned that your phantom woodsmen have been shirking their duties, do you?’ Peters muttered as if Tom might not have noticed.

      ‘No,’ Tom agreed, frowning as an image of similar ones leading to the cove at Dayspring reminded him this could be a dangerous coast for more reasons than unexpected currents and powerful spring tides.

      He wished he’d listened harder when the subject of evading hefty government duties on so many things arose. This was his place, his heritage, and it was time he took some responsibility for it. He wondered about quizzing Polly Trethayne about the so-called free-traders, but something about her closed expression told him she would evade his questions. He decided Partridge would be his best source of information. СКАЧАТЬ