She laughed. “Surely, we can afford servantsandelectric appliances.”
“Are you a spendthrift, Louisa?” Though it was her money, Giles wasn’t certain he could stomach watching her spend her millions when he desperately wanted thousands to clear his debts.
“I suppose I have been,” she confessed, “but I’ll curb my spending, if it makes you anxious. Sometimes I feel as if Pappa has invented a money-printer.”
He couldn’t help but agree. “I cannot imagine a world where people won’t need carpet.”
The Thurston-Reids boasted more money than Giles could fathom. He doubted they’d ever run out of capital.
Still, he hoped to be better than those who came before him. He hoped not to squander his newfound wealth, or to use and abuse Louisa as his mother and Venia had urged him to do. He would not hurt his wife for his own gain.
“I’d like to find a way,” he told her while sipping his coffee, “of making the estate pay. I should fancy seeing Granborough become self-sufficient, though I’m not quite certain how that is to be accomplished with the land worth a pittance and the farms woefully ramshackle and empty.”
She smiled at him. “That’s a dangerously modern goal, my lord. Perhaps I’m beginning to convert you to my way of thinking.”
He laughed grimly. “Not bloody likely!”
Truthfully, hewasstarting to understand her opinions on class structure, capitalism, and unabashed Yankee ambition. Louisa wasn’t afraid of hard work and daring investments. She could afford to take risks that many of his countrymen could never hope to shoulder.
She was a prize. An ally. A rare jewel—and he was undeserving of her loyalty.
Why had he ever thought to feel ashamed of her?
“Have you considered opening Granborough to the public? Charging for visitors? I’m sure the parks and gardens would make a lovely day out.”
“I don’t wish to be ogled by strangers,” he said. “I’m not a circus attraction.”
“Oh, but youare,and I am, too. Do you recall the fanfare of our wedding? You said we’d never escape the press. Why not use that notoriety to our advantage?”
“You mean to court attention?” He could think of nothing more demeaning.
“In a way…” she said. “You should embrace it. If anything, you can blame it on my American egalitarianism.”
“Live our lives in a fishbowl? A gilded cage? Is that what you want of our marriage, dear?”
“I want us to be successful. Money won’t make us happy, but I know a steady income would be of some relief to you, Giles, and I know you wouldn’t wish to rely on me for everything. We can make the estate profitable if we modernize and look toward the future. You were clever enough to marry me, which means you are clever enough to change with the times.”
They might open the house and parklands whenever they were away in London, perhaps for four months out of the year. She watched the wheels turn in his head as he seriously considered what had otherwise been an unthinkable solution.
“It’s not unprecedented,” she said, devouring her toast and jam. “Mr. Darcy’s housekeeper led tours of Pemberly and he had £10,000 a year.”
Giles couldn’t help but laugh at that. “I thought you didn’t read Austen.”
She shrugged. “Every schoolgirl readsPride and Prejudice. I just didn’t know I was meant to study it so closely.”
As she grinned at him from her seat beside him on the sofa, Giles noticed a light sheen of marmalade glazing her bottom lip. He leaned over and kissed her, savoring her flavor.
“You always taste so sweet, Louisa.” Suddenly, he was hungry for her.
Perhaps he’d been starved all along.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
After breakfast, Giles sat down to write his farewell letter to Venia. He’d never really contemplated his life without her—even when she’d married Herbert, they’d made plans to reunite after her first child was conceived. No one, not even her husband, had considered their affair to be immoral or indecent, as it was simply the English way of doing things. They knew of no love matches among the upper classes, who married for wealth, political power, and social connections.
His pen nib sailed across the sheet of stationery as he tried his best to explain this shift in him, this new perspective on matrimony. Perhaps Venia loved him in her way—they’d both grown up to be selfish, stubborn, and autocratic in their will to please themselves—yet Giles yearned for a proper marriage. He wanted a loving wife and children whom he could know on a deeper level than a cursory glance once a year at Christmas or on the occasional school holidays.
He longed for the sort of family he’d never known, and understood now that he would not find fulfillment with Lady Venia Herbert.
