You May Kiss the Bride(97)

Where was he?

That same chilly, desolate sensation wove its tendrils more tightly about her heart.

Quickly, quietly, Livia went back to her bedroom. She undressed, got into bed, blew out the candle, but it was a long, long time before she slept.



The tumbledown condition of the stables had certainly been an omen of things to come, but it was even worse than Gabriel could have anticipated as he rode, day after day, across the vast estate. His estate: fields lying fallow, timber uncut and overgrown, cottages rotting, surly and suspicious villagers whose greetings were, at best, perfunctory. And who could blame them? He was a stranger to them.

On the morning after their arrival he had sought out Eccles, the bailiff, whom he’d found morosely eyeing a herd of cows grazing in a pasture. He was middle-aged, short, round, as tough as shoe leather. At his side was a young man, as alike him as a pea in a pod, although with black hair, untouched by gray; Eccles introduced him as his son, Young Eccles, this moniker doubtless being the one by which he would be known all his life.

When questioned about the state of things, Eccles was inclined to be defensive. He had done everything he could, using time-honored methods which, he added pugnaciously, were the best—despite the rash attempts of Young Eccles to interfere.

“He’s after me to bring in the Rotherham plow!” said Eccles with a contemptuous glance at his son. “Land drains, rotating in turnips and clover, interbreeding the sheep! If I ever heard such rubbish! The old ways suited my pa, and his pa before him!”

Young Eccles then broke in with an impassioned speech—peppered with references to the Norfolk System, convertible husbandry, and the critical value of the Dutch mouldboard, none of which Gabriel understood—which his sire ferociously overrode, sparking a loud debate between them, one which might have resulted in actual blows if Gabriel had not hastily intervened.

His interview with his man of business, Mr. Farris, was conducted in more temperate language but wasn’t very pleasant either. Gabriel was relieved to learn that the estate’s income hadn’t dwindled away to nothing, and that there were ample funds with which to repair and improve.

He’d been right. The money had been there all along, but there had been no one to see that it was properly disbursed.

“You remain an exceedingly wealthy gentleman,” said Mr. Farris with his dry precision, “and may rest assured that you will continue to rejoice in this status. I trust I may now return to London, having relayed to you the news of your financial situation?”

“Yes. But—” Gabriel glanced around the study which he had appropriated for his own. It had an excellent view to the back of the Hall. If, that is, one enjoyed a panorama of untended shrubberies and gardens, grass as high as one’s waist, and old benches that would likely give way if one sat on them. Inside, while the room was now reasonably clean, it still had a distinct and rather melancholy air of disuse. Gabriel went on: “I wish you’d informed me, at any time these past several years, that the estate was suffering in my absence.”

“I?” Mr. Farris’s eyebrows lifted so high that his forehead was a mass of wrinkles discreetly signifying affront. “My duties extend only to your financial affairs, Mr. Penhallow, and given that they have been satisfactorily conducted, I saw no reason to initiate communication with you. You, of course, could have conferred with me at any time should it have suited you.”

Farris was right, of course.

Gabriel’s sense of shame, his disgust with himself, only deepened.

There was so much work to be done. To his surprise, he found it challenging and engaging—even satisfying. It was just that he had decades’ worth of it to catch up on. Often he stayed up till three or four in the morning, poring over books and papers, studying lists, making notes, and frequently rising before dawn. He’d had his valet bring his things to a smaller bedchamber in a wing far removed from that of the ladies.

He told himself it was for practical reasons, that he wouldn’t disturb them with his coming and goings at all hours, but the truth was that for three nights running he had stood at Livia’s door, stood there like a fool, wanting more than anything he’d ever desired in his life to go inside. In the end, he had turned and gone away.

In the cold light of day he knew that he removed himself from this agonizing temptation because he didn’t know how he could face her.

Inevitably, though, there was a meeting. He was walking down the main corridor off the Great Hall one morning when he heard Livia saying, “Yes, please, Sally, tell Cook to go ahead and make the fricassee, and do ask Crenshaw what he thinks we can do about the candle-smoke stains in the Rose Saloon. I’m going to start mending the draperies now—” and Sally’s voice saying, “Yes, Miss Livia, right away,” and then Livia had turned the corner and was coming toward him with a swift, eager step, and her great green eyes filled with such a happy light that he despised himself all the more.