Trenton Lord of Loss (Lonely Lords) (9 page)

Cato sighed mightily and before he quit the library, took two more tea cakes, having an apparent preference for pink icing. “At the very least let your family know what’s afoot, and give serious thought to who could mean you harm.” 

“Sound advice.” Trent walked with his stable master toward the door. “My thanks for your concern.” 

“Sleep with one eye open,” Cato warned. “Better yet, don’t sleep alone.” 

“Is that any way to address your betters, Catullus?” 

“You’re showing me to the
front door
, Amherst,” Cato retorted, his tone long-suffering. “I’m not even considered an upper servant.” 

“This does appear to be the front door, and I’m tucking the last sandwich into your starving pocket,” Trent said. “It’s the least I can do when you denied yourself a lifetime of Cook’s charms to tend my stables.” 

“Ever your humble servant.” Cato bowed elaborately, accepted the linen-wrapped sandwich, and sauntered out the door. 

Trent munched a tea cake of his own—one with lemon icing—and hoped that last part about being ever his
humble
servant had been the only lie to pass Cato’s lips. 

Chapter Five 

The evening spent with Drew Hampton had yielded two results in addition to cut stirrup leathers. By virtue of delicate questioning over the port, Trent had learned that the Rammel heir was all but terrified of taking responsibility for young Miss Andy. A session of gentlemanly small talk was little price to pay for reassurances that the viscountess’s authority over the child was safe. 

The second, less sanguine result was an invitation to join Drew Hampton and the Earl of Greymoor, considered the local expert on horseflesh, in a review of the equine stock gracing the Deerhaven paddocks. 

After more than two hours spent tromping around the wet fields and chilly barns, Greymoor and Hampton had volunteered Trent to explain the situation to the viscountess.

According to Hampton, that good lady had had the sense to remain indoors in a cozy private parlor. Trent tapped softly on the door, no doubt closed to keep in the heat of a fire on this dreary day. No response greeted him even after he tapped again, so he opened the door, expecting to find that her ladyship’s whereabouts had changed without notice to the new viscount. 

Lady Rammel was the sole occupant of the room. She sat in a rocking chair by the fire, a shawl around her shoulders, an afghan across her knees, while she slept, her chin dipped low. She was an endearing sight, all tucked up and warm, slightly rumpled by her slumbers. 

Trent endured an impulse to kiss her awake. Not a naughty kiss, just a pressing of the lips to her cheek, or her forehead. A sweet kiss, a token. 

And a stupid idea, if ever his brain had produced one. 

He stepped back and drew the door closed, then rapped loudly from the corridor. He was rewarded with a sleepy summons, after which he paused an extra moment to give the lady a chance to compose herself. When he entered the room, he closed the door behind him, warmth being a greater priority between a widow and a widower than strict propriety.

“My lord.” Lady Rammel smiled up at him, though when tousled and sleepy, she struck him as more of an Ellie than a Lady Rammel. “Please have a seat, for I’m loath to leave my comfy nest. Has Drew offered you tea?” 

“He did.” Trent lowered himself to the end of the sofa near the rocker. “Greymoor is with him, decimating your crème cakes as we speak.” 

“Cook will be pleased. You look like a man with something on his mind beside the pleasantries.” 

“I do?” That she could perceive as much was unnerving. “How is that?” 

“You’re…animated. You’ve sprung your mental horses. Did Drew say something to offend?” 

“Amuse, maybe. He’s not much of one for sport, is he?” 

She straightened the shawl around her shoulders, a silky green paisley shot through with gold, the furthest thing from mourning colors. “He and Dane had some kind of cousinly agreement. What the one did well, the other eschewed, or appeared to.” 

“What does Drew do well?” Besides talk. The man could talk as incessantly as two little boys in anticipation of a visit from Father Christmas.

“He loves his books, and he’s known as something of a collector of tea ware. I’ve been to his estate only once, but the place is packed with little gems of porcelain and silver, and his kitchen served the most exquisite fare.” 

The prospective viscount was also handsome, titled, and amiable—and sharing a roof at Deerhaven with the grieving widow. This was of no moment whatsoever, nor did it matter that the law offered no prohibition against marrying a cousin’s widow. 

“He’ll find the title an imposition,” Trent predicted. 

“Dane certainly complained of it, but you didn’t brave my company to listen to my biography of the Hampton cousins.” 

Brave her company, indeed. 

“I did not.” Trent sat forward and rested his forearms on his thighs, hands linked between his knees. “I’d like to put an idea before you, and I will apologize in advance if you aren’t disposed to consider it.” 

Her ladyship waved a freckled hand. “Say on. I’m not easily offended.” 

“I want to purchase your broodmares, or most of them.” 

Her ladyship grimaced, though even that expression was attractive on her. “They are mine, aren’t they? They’re very pretty, and Dane enjoyed having them, but I honestly hadn’t thought much about what comes next. I suppose they’ll need a deal of hay and oats come winter.” 

“They’re broodmares,” Trent said, sitting back, because “no” hadn’t been the first word from her mouth, and he scented the pleasurable business of a negotiation before him. “Dane was lax about ensuring they performed their intended function.” 

“I’ve wondered if he didn’t have some kind of premonition.” She traced a fold in the afghan on her knees. The colors were blue and green, the same shade of green as the shawl, putting Trent in mind of her gardens under a summer sky. “Dane died just as foaling season would have been getting under way, and what a nuisance that would have been, to contend with foaling in his absence.” 

Trent finished the thought. “You haven’t been of a mind to breed the mares in the last few months, which is understandable.”

Her brow knit, and she stopped fussing with her plumage. “Understandable? Why understandable?” 

“Because you are in mourning? Putting a crop of foals on the ground eleven months hence is not a priority at the moment, is it?” 

“Are they good horses?” 

Bargaining was one thing and lying to a lady another. “Very good. Greymoor was impressed, and he turns down some of the mares people bring to put to his stud.” 

“This discussion doesn’t make you uncomfortable?” 

“No more than you. Little horses come from big horses, much the same as little people find their way into the world. It isn’t complicated, on one level.” 

He batted away the
uncomplicated
image of a nearly naked Lady Rammel singing to his fishes. 

Her ladyship smiled at her hands, the same secretive, female smile he’d seen once before. He wondered if she were breeding and then wondered where such a strange notion had come from. By force of will, he kept his gaze from straying to her middle. 

The smile, alas, disappeared. “So we’ll haggle over my mares. Unless I should keep them and breed them for myself?” 

“Do you want to turn Deerhaven into a stud farm?” 

She turned her head, rubbing her cheek over the shawl draped over her shoulder. Lanie made the same gesture when tired or out of sorts if her favorite blanket was at hand. 

“Really, my lord, who in his right mind would buy horses from a stud farm owned by a female? I like the mares, but I have neither the expertise nor the correct gender for such an undertaking.” 

“I do,” Trent countered. “What I lack is a bottomless supply of ready coin.” 

“You are fearless,” she marveled. “Coin and breeding in the same discussion. Why would you admit such a thing?” 

“So you’ll understand my motivation.” Trent rose and propped an elbow on the mantel, ideas tumbling in his mind. “I’d have to buy them over time, making payments, or providing goods or services in kind.” 

Her ladyship sat up a little straighter in her rocker. “We haven’t even agreed on a price. Is this how you fellows go at your business, all willy-nilly?” 

“Some of us.” Trent admired the lack of dust on her mantel—his own mantels were not nearly so pristine—and wondered whether he even had fishing poles at Crossbridge. “I’ve plenty of wealth, but I tied up a great deal of it in trusts for my children, in part to comply with my wife’s wishes and in part to safeguard the children from my father’s machinations in the event of my untimely demise. Then too, I’m a firm believer in investments that grow steadily, rather than riskier schemes.” 

“But you lack the kind of cash you think my mares are worth?” 

“I lack a willingness to deplete my cash that greatly with a single, speculative purchase.” He had the cash, easily, if he were to break his children’s trusts, which was not a consideration. 

“So you’re prudent. One has concluded as much even based on our brief acquaintance. If the mares are as fine as you say, then wouldn’t they make a sound investment?” 

Was prudence truly a virtue? Her tone gave Trent leave to doubt. 

“To some extent, they are a sound investment, but if strangles or some other disease should sweep the shire, they’re a flat loss. If they don’t catch, if I lose them in foaling, if they throw foals that are too small, mean, over at the knee, cow-hocked—” 

He’d made her smile, and that was lovely. 

“Do hush, my lord. I’ll be paying you to take them away before they eat me out of house and home.” 

“That’s the idea, more or less.” 

She looked quite fetching in her shawl and blanket as she considered him. “You aren’t joking, though I’m not about to pay you to relieve me of truly valuable horses.” 

“What if,”—Trent resumed his corner of the couch—“I provided the care, the feeding, the early training, and so forth, and you took a percentage of the profits?” 

“What profits? Don’t horses take nearly a year to carry their young?” 

“Nearly, and then it’s another two or three years before they can be sold as riding stock.” 

“Four years before I see any profit?” 

“If such an arrangement with me has no appeal, you could sell them off now, but in any case you’re better off breeding them before you do.” 

She did not appear offended at that blunt speech. “Because they’re
brood
mares.” 

“And because Greymoor will lend you his stud to breed the lot of them at a very reasonable rate, rather than make you take the mares over to Oak Hall where he stands his stallion.” 

“Why would he be so reasonable? I’ve barely been introduced to the man.” 

“He’ll be reasonable because he sees the quality of your ladies,” Trent said. “His stud’s reputation will be enhanced if the foals live up to their mamas’ promise. Then too, summer is upon us, and it will soon be too late to breed anything. For Greymoor, it would be a small windfall. He’s reputed to be a decent sort. He’d do a good turn for a widowed neighbor.” 

Particularly if Trent nudged the earl stoutly in that direction.

“What would you do, if you were me?” 

Interesting question—shrewd, actually. 

“If I were a lady recently cast into widowhood, I’d be reluctant to embark on any substantial venture, particularly one that will take years to see a return—on the one hand.” 

“On the other hand?” 

A gentleman would use a lot of pretty words to present the other hand. A gentleman would probably have left the door open, too, and to hell with staying warm when proprieties were at risk. A gentleman would not have mentioned breeding, Greymoor’s stud, or profit, much less all in the same conversation, with a recently widowed lady. 

Trent was apparently not that much of a gentleman. 

“You’re too damned smart to pretend you’re content to crochet gloves and tat lace, Ellie Hampton. You are competent with horses, your estate runs like a top, and grieving doesn’t preclude looking forward to a meaningful future. Your husband was letting those mares go to waste, and you can do better than he—much better. I think you should consider it, not for the money, not for the homage to your late husband’s taste in horseflesh, but because you’d enjoy it.” 

Her hand went to her throat, as if a lump had formed there, while she digested this dose of plain speaking. “Gracious Halifax.”

“My apologies. I did not mean to imply that
you
were going to waste, I simply…” 

She waved a hand at him to shut him up, for clearly, he’d struck a tender nerve. 

Or maybe he’d said the right thing to inspire her forward in any one of several positive directions. Inspiring the bereaved was a delicate, fraught art, as Trent well knew. 

She studied a spot above his right shoulder. “I’ve always liked horses, but Vicar warned me that mourning can be a time of folly, and I should not embark on any course impetuously.” 

Folly—an apt description for the last fifteen months or so of Trent’s life.

“Heaven forfend you act impetuously with such a rackety fellow as I,” Trent rejoined, but he wasn’t teasing and his tone gave him away.