The Bishop's Daughter (12 page)

Harry tapped a piece of parchment laid before him. "I have compiled a rather long list of matters that need attention."

Warren stiffened. "I have done my best, my lord, as I have always done—"

"I am not blaming you," Harry interrupted soothingly. "Even a good servant cannot make up for a bad master. I know that in the past I have given you short shrift when you attempted to discuss estate business. The truth is . . ."

Harry trailed off. The truth was that although his father had taught him many things, to ride like the devil, to drive to an inch, to fire a pistol with creditable accuracy, the governor had never done much by way of teaching Harry how to look after the estate. Although he now regretted that circumstance, Harry was far too honest to lay all the blame at the old earl's door.

"I have been an idle and ignorant fellow," Harry concluded instead. "Now I want to take more of a hand with Mapleshade, but I must rely on you for instruction, Warren. Do you-think you could contrive to teach a dull dog like me?"

Mr. Warren gaped at him for a moment, looking both flattered and disconcerted, "Certainly, my lord. That is not that I think you are a dull dog, but that if you really mean it, I would be most happy to assist you."

Harry bit back a smile at this flustered speech and assured Warren he would be most grateful. But in the next few minutes, Harry was not quite so sure. Never would he have guess the dour Warren could be so voluble.

With an eagerness that bordered on pathos, the steward proceeded to barrage Harry with a stream of facts about land taxes, farm leases, and crop rotation until Harry was laughingly obliged to fling up one hand.

"My dear fellow, I don't think I can quite master the whole of it in one morning. Perhaps we could deal with the most immediate problem. I am concerned about the state of some of my tenants' farm buildings."

Warren's face fell. As Harry outlined his plan for repairs to the Huddleston roof, the steward looked downright uncomfortable.

"That would be wonderful, my lord, and I should have seen it to myself long ago." Warren paused and coughed delicately against his hand. "But for one small problem—the funds."

Harry felt his face wash a dull red. He did not require any further explanation from the steward. His estates had been encumbered with debt when he had inherited them, due mostly to his father's penchant for gaming. Harry had never acquired the governor's taste for the dice and cards, but with a stab of conscience, he realized he had never been good at practicing economies himself, his own particular vices being his horses and an openhanded policy about lending money to friends.

He sighed. "Surely there must be at least enough income to thatch the Huddleston roof."

Warren said nothing, merely reached for the quill pen and sketched out some estimated figures for Harry.

"That much for a wretched pile of straw?"

"The war caused a shortage, my lord. Perhaps if this year's crops do well and none of the money is drained out of the estate, by next spring—"

"By next spring, the Huddlestons will be using their roof for rushes. There must be some quicker way."

"I suppose you could sell off some of the timber."

Harry thought of the ancient fell of trees that was the crowning glory of his lands. No, he would not figure in the history of Mapleshade as the earl who had cut the timber. Neither did he find Warren's next suggestion any more palatable. "Raise the farm rents? That would be worse than a window tax, and like asking the Huddlestons to pay for the privilege of having a hole in their roof."

Warren spread his hands in a helpless gesture. "Then I don't know what other remedy remains, my lord."

Unfortunately, Harry did. The thought came to him with the swiftness of a sword thrust and just as piercing. He tried to resist the notion, but he feared the longer he dwelled on the prospect, the less likely he would be able to act upon it.

"I know of another way to obtain the necessary money," he said quietly. He offered Warren no explanation, but reached for the quill with grim purpose. He scrawled out a note which he sanded, folded, sealed and handed to Warren.

"See that this is delivered to Squire Gresham."

 "Oh, my lord. Not your hunters!"

Harry attempted a careless shrug, but could not quite manage it. "No sense having a pack of horses eating me out of house and, stable. I daresay I shan't have much time for hunting in any case."

Warren accepted the note, but he regarded Harry with a new light of respect in his eyes and a sympathy that made Harry uncomfortable. Harry turned away, adding gruffly, "I suppose if one means to do a thing, there is no sense of going at it by halves. The chestnuts may go as well. I am meeting my old friend, Sam Ffolliot in the village this afternoon. I am sure he would offer a fair price."

"Mr. Ffolliot!" Warren choked in dismay. When Harry regarded the steward from beneath upraised brows, Warren flushed.

"That is, I have heard tell the Honorable Mr. Ffolliot is a most amiable gentleman."

Harry grinned. "Folly is a complete ass, but he takes good care of his horses."

Within days of his return, Harry had been besieged by an invitation from the honorable Samuel. Folly meant to race his footman against Lord Erwin's, laying a monkey on the outcome. Even if Harry did not wish to place a wager, he might just want to come along and crack a bottle or two with the fellows.

But such pleasures had long ago begun to pall for Harry. All too frequently he had found himself yawning behind his hand and checking his watch. Somehow he seemed to have outgrown his former companions. Perhaps falling in love with Kate had done that. His stint as a soldier had surely finished it.

Yet he could not bring himself to completely snub his old friend. Of a certainty, Folly had far more hair than wit and Harry had hauled the man out of more than one scrape. But there was no real harm in him, no trace of that streak of meanness that characterized Harry's other erstwhile companion, Lord Erwin. Thus Harry had agreed to pass at least the afternoon with Folly at the Arundel Arms in the village. The meeting would serve a double purpose if he could persuade Folly to buy the chestnuts.

Having reached his decision, Harry refused to dwell on the sale of his horses any further, wanting neither pity nor praise. Instead he engaged Warren in a discussion of how the money thus raised could best be spent, a talk that moved on to some schemes the steward had been perishing to set into motion for many a day that would improve the future income of the estate.

Harry could not say that the morning sped by. When he arose from the desk, he felt more drained than after a hard day on the hunting field. But he carried away with him a satisfied feeling of having accomplished something.

It did not surprise him when he received a reply from Squire Gresham as early as that same afternoon. In his eagerness to close the deal, the squire had sent along not only the necessary bank notes, but a groom to fetch away the horses.

Harry had reconciled himself to the loss of the hunters, but he did not feel particularly enthusiastic about watching them being led away. Directing the squire's man toward the stables, Harry betook himself to another part of the house to change into his riding clothes for the meeting with Folly.

Before he departed, he thought he might as well see to another grim duty and be done with it—that of his daily inquiry after the state of his stepmother's health. Ever since his return, Sybil had kept to her rooms. Their initial reunion had proved disastrous, Harry's continued refusal to receive Lucillus Crosbie causing Sybil to collapse in tears. Although he remained adamant, Harry did his best to make it up to her in other ways.

As he passed through the long gallery that contained the portraits of his ancestors, he fancied that from within their gilt frames, those raffish gentlemen regarded him with amused sympathy, from the first bold cavalier to that bewigged rogue who had been Harry's grandfather.

The line of portraits stretched unending until recent times, where nothing but a bare panel remained. The spot where the last earl should have been was empty. It filled Harry with regret that his father had ever been too restless even to sit for his own painting, leaving Harry with nothing more to remember him by than recollections of some rollicking good times.

And Sybil.

Harry drew up outside the door to his stepmother's sitting room. Squaring his shoulders, he knocked, but not too loudly, lest Sybil accuse him of giving her a headache before he even set foot in the room.

He waited for the familiar quavery response, but nothing but a heavy silence greeted him from the opposite side of the portal. After a moment, he thought he detected a hushed whispering and then a scuffling sound.

Harry knocked again. "My lady?"

More scuffling and then renewed silence.

Harry frowned. Headaches be dammed. He knocked louder this time. "My lady, is anything—"

"Ohhh." He was cut off by a low groan. A weak voice bade him enter, an unnecessary command for Harry was already pushing the door open.

He paused on the threshold, fearing he might find Sybil going off into one of her swoons. She was indeed reclining on a gilt Egyptian-style sofa, her usual posture, but not in her usual attire. Even by this time of day it was nothing to find Sybil still in curl papers, her dressing gown draped about her ample form.

But although she lay upon the sofa, one hand flung over her eyes, her brassy curls were arranged neatly beneath a lace cap, and she was attired in a sprigged muslin gown that would have looked quite charming on someone thirty years younger.

"Oh, Harcourt," she said. "What are you doing here? I thought you had gone out riding."

Was it his imagination or did Sybil seem even more dismayed than usual to see him? Harry started to answer her and then recalled Sybil did not like anyone 'shouting' across the room.

Closing the door as softly as he could, he inched forward, taking care to avoid an étagère crammed with bric-a-brac. Ever since he was a lad, his stepmother's sitting room had always made him edgy, every available surface cluttered with fragile china objects. He never failed to break a piece of it, sending Sybil off into tears, while he slunk guiltily away, the evidence of his crime clutched in his hands.

"I came to see how you are getting on today," he said, "before I ride into the village. If there is anything that I can do for you—"

"No, nothing. Nothing at all." Sybil stunned him by the brightness of her smile. She fidgeted with the gold filigree bracelet banding one plump wrist. "Do run along, my dear boy. You are looking positively piqued. I am sure you must want some fresh air."

Never could Harry recall being Sybil's "dear boy" or her showing solicitude for the state of his health. Harry eyed her dubiously and wondered what might be in the latest medicine she was quacking herself with. He moved to examine the small table at her elbow, only to be brought up short. The familiar tray with its array of smelling salts, headache powders, and assorted strange bottles was missing.

In its place was a teapot, cups, and saucers—two sets of them to be precise. At that same moment, Harry caught a whiff of a familiar, cloying odor. Lavender water. Sybil had many faults but dousing herself with scents wasn't one of them.

Harry's eyes narrowed dangerously, but he concealed his suspicion and sudden flare of anger behind a tight-lipped smile.

"It is good of you to be so concerned about me," he said, strolling about the room with forced casualness, his gaze darting here and there. Most of the furniture in the room was as dainty as Sybil's china, with elegant scrolled arms and legs. The only area of the parlor that afforded any place of concealment was . . .

Harry glanced toward the open window, the brocade drapery billowing ever so slightly with the summer breeze. At the curtain's hemline Harry could just make out the toe of a boot.

"But fresh air does not seem to be my problem," Harry continued. "In fact, I think I am taking a chill. If you don't mind, I'll just close the window."

"No," Sybil shrieked, sitting bolt upright. But Harry was already striding toward the casement. In another second, he had collared the slender young man hiding behind the draperies, dragging Lucillus Crosbie from his place of concealment.

Crosbie was a good-looking youth, his waves of light brown hair flowing past his ridiculously high shirt points. His dreamy eyes, which most of the ladies declared so poetic, now bulged with alarm.

"L-lord Lytton," he gasped, struggling to free himself from Harry's grasp. "Please don't do anything hasty. I can explain—"

"No explanations are necessary. I thought, upon one another occasion, I had made my feelings about your calling upon her ladyship perfectly clear."

"You did, sir, but—" Crosbie paled as Harry tightened his grip. "Oh, pray, not the pond again!"

"No, I wouldn't dream of so disturbing the fish,"

Before Crosbie could say another word, Harry hefted him off his feet and tossed the fellow out the window. Crosbie's own startled howl was only eclipsed by Sybil's scream.

As Harry slammed the window closed, she flung herself across the room, pressing both her hands and face against the glass.

"Oh, Harcourt, you ruffian! You have dropped poor Mr. Crosbie into the rose bushes."