It was rather difficult.
He had arrived at Frome Abbey, been greeted politely by the butler, and shown to his suite of rooms to ‘warm up and refresh his person’ before joining the family for dinner.Whothat family would be, Alex could not say with any certainty. Lord and Lady Frank—the parents of young Frederick—most likely. What other family would there be? Lady Charlotte and her husband? He hoped the man she had married was a good sort. Alex had been taken by her ladyship’s warm vivacity. Enough so that he remembered Lady Charlotte even three years on.
He rubbed his hands together before the fire, the crackling flames enveloping him in a cozy warmth. But glimmers of plush fabrics and luxurious furnishing danced in his peripheral vision.
The room was well-appointed, as befitted a guest bedchamber of a marquess. Expensive silk hangings draped the poster bed and thick Savonerrie carpet sank like spongy moss with every step. Two overstuffed wingback chairs flanked the hearth.
A repast of hot tea, warm scones, and roast beef sandwiches had been laid on a small table between the wingback chairs. Hot water sent up a ribbon of steam from the pitcher on the wash stand in one corner.
Every luxury.
It wasn’t that Alex was a stranger to affluence. He had been raised a gentleman, and he stayed with Andrew often enough to appreciate the elegant trappings of extensive wealth.
It was simply . . . he didn’t wish to find any part of this life alluring.
And yet thewholeof it was bloody-well enthralling.
His journey from Edinburgh had been tedious and yet not.
The Committee on Privilege had insisted that Lord Lockheade’s estate send a carriage to Edinburgh to retrieve Alex. He had ridden the length of the Isle of Great Britain in grand style.
But no matter the luxury of the carriage, travel was still . . . travel.
Day upon day of bone-rattling roads through the desolation of the Scottish Borders morphing into the muck and grime of the Midlands only to reach this lush corner of the world—the rolling hills of Wiltshire and an endless parade of charming villages.
The contrast could not be more pronounced.
And then the grandeur of Frome Abbey itself, nestled into the landscape and glinting in the icy winter air as if it were some priceless jewel.
That Alex had even experienced such a florid thought upon first seeing the house was irritating.
That he found the expanse of the entrance hall fascinating and the view from his bedchamber idyllic only increased his ire.
Everything in the room beckoned for him to stay, to allow the comfortable chairs to massage his weary muscles, to sip his tea and read a book just . . . because.
When had he last read a book just . . . because?
He frowned.
He had long ago eschewed such ephemera. If life was to be meaningful and purposeful, it could not be experienced from an armchair, resting on one’s laurels.
But that was exactly what being a marquess entailed, did it not? Resting on laurels? In this case, the laurel leaves of a titled coronet.
He gritted his teeth and turned, placing the fire to his back.
Thankfully, no one knew he was here.
He hadn’t even told Catriona or McNeal. The truth had simply stuck in his throat.
In the end, Alex had rattled something about a personal matter in London before kissing Catriona goodbye and handing McNeal a sheaf of notes, detailing his patients’ care while he was away.
Perhaps part of his reluctance had been tied to the portfolio of documents he had received from Mr. Carter, describing the marquisate’s extensive holdings.
Alex supposed most men would be awed by the list. The whole read like an inventory of Aladdin’s Cave of Wonders.
Frome Abbey with its twenty thousand acres of arable land.
Three other large estates in England with a combined total of another thirty thousand acres.
