Drops of Gold(33)

“Me?” Layton watched her rising color and felt his pulse quicken involuntarily. “You wish to help me?”

She nodded. “When I first came to Farland Meadows, I envisioned a place of warmth and joy.”

“Which you most certainly did not find,” Layton muttered, turning away a little.

“But I have seen both here. There have been moments when this has felt like a home, sir. I want that for Caroline. For you. There should be happiness here.”

Layton sighed. “There used to be.”

“Before your wife died?”

He nodded. He felt her hand gently touch his arm, and even through the heavy material of his jacket, he felt the warmth of that contact.

“Please tell me, sir.”

“It is not a fairy tale with a happy ending,” Layton warned, careful not to pull his arm away from her soft touch.

“Not all stories have happy endings.” She sounded as if she knew that all too well.

“Shall we walk while I bare my soul, Miss Wood?” He tried to laugh but didn’t quite succeed.

She smiled at him, her eyes empathetic and caring. With the first step, Miss Wood pulled her hand back from his arm and tucked it into her blanket.

“Why a blanket, Miss Wood?” he asked, suddenly wondering. “Is your coat so insufficient?”

“It is not my turn for stories, sir. It is yours.”

“Ah, I’ve been put in my place.” He smiled, and the gesture came more easily than he would have thought. He took a series of deep breaths. Miss Wood didn’t press or hurry him, for which he was grateful. He was about to talk of things he seldom allowed himself even to think about, and yet it felt natural to do so—difficult but right.

“I married Bridget—Bridget Sarvol, she was then—when I was twenty-one and she twenty.” How old was Miss Wood? he wondered. Nineteen, twenty, perhaps. He forced himself back to the task of telling his sordid history. “We’d known each other our entire lives and had grown up together: friends, at times rivals, but never with any romantic attachment between us. When she reached twenty and had no prospects, despite having had three London Seasons, her father decided to take matters into his own hands and began arranging a match for her.”

The horror that darted across Miss Wood’s face pulled a chuckle from Layton. “That, I assure you, is precisely how Bridget felt about it. She couldn’t, of course, be forced to wed the man her father had selected, who was, by the way, fifty if he was a day and about as intelligent as a turnip. Being underage and entirely dependent on her father, Bridget could certainly be coerced. And her father spared no effort in coercing her.”

“Horrible,” he heard Miss Wood mutter.

“Mr. Sarvol is not the most kindhearted of men.” Layton knew that well. He seldom ran across Bridget’s father, but their encounters were inevitably tense and confrontational, just as they had been during Bridget’s lifetime.

Layton pressed ahead with the retelling. “I was already living here at the Meadows at the time Bridget was facing a forced match. I lived here alone and had begun to think it might be nice to have a companion, someone with whom I might share my days. I knew I would inherit my mother’s title after her death, becoming the Baron Farland, and I needed an heir of my own. When Bridget told me of her situation, I thought of the perfect solution. We got along well enough. And, I flattered myself, I was something of an improvement over a portly, bacon-brained man in his sixth decade.”

“A vast improvement.” Miss Wood agreed with so much conviction Layton felt his ears grow a little warm.

“Bridget was ecstatic. We’d always been friends, she pointed out. We liked and trusted and cared for each other. What more, she asked, could a person hope for in marriage?”

Miss Wood didn’t seem entirely convinced.

“Fortunately for our plans, the heir to a barony was quite good enough for her father, seeing as how the older gentleman he’d selected was a mere baronet and not nearly as well connected.” He allowed a generous helping of irony to color his words. “I am related to an earl, you know.”

Miss Wood laughed at his mock pomposity, as he’d intended. The sound did him a world of good. Her tears were gone, replaced by a smile.

“I am surprised he didn’t hold out for the earl himself,” Miss Wood said.

“By that time, Philip was gone quite a lot, off fulfilling his duties.”

Miss Wood nodded. “Better a bird in the bag than one in the bush, I suppose.”

“A lowering comparison, Miss Wood. Remind me to consult you if I ever need to be brought down a peg or two.”

“Right-o, guv’nuh!” she said with a laugh and a mischievous wink.