It had been a dreadful shock for Chrissi—listening to the solicitor read Stephen’s will and not to hear a single mention of herself. To realize that her own inheritance had been lost.
Thomas had been recalcitrant, refusing to release a single penny of her own monies from his late father’s estate. He considered his father’s marriage to a much younger woman an affront to his deceased mother. According to him, Chrissi, in her poverty, only reaped what she had sowed. If his father had wanted her to have the money, he would have made provision.
A solicitor Chrissi had consulted about the matter had been equally unsympathetic. The man had stated, quite solemnly, that she must have been a difficult wife for her husband to so summarily dismiss her from his will.
And so, desperate to avoid the poorhouse, Chrissi had thrown herself upon Aunt Eunice’s strained charity.
Chrissi’s throat still tightened to think upon the bleak months after Stephen’s death. The cold nights shuttered in Aunt Eunice’s dingiest bedchamber, selling her mother’s jewelry to pay a portion of Eunice’s household expenses.
Archeology had been her only hope of income. She had penned letters to colleagues of her father and Stephen,inquiring after work or possible publishing opportunities. Some had responded. Slowly she had begun to eke a living from the work that came her way.
But this project with Lord Farnell was to have been her saving grace—a large commission that would finally see her coffers replenished and give her a modicum of stability. Perhaps a few coins for a new bonnet and dress. Or even enough clout to garner a publication under her own name.
As long as Aunt Eunice breathed, Chrissi would have a place to rest her head. And if she could continue to work and live by the strictest economy, she might eventually save enough to support herself once Aunt Eunice’s “largesse” reached an end.
Sitting back in his chair, Alis nibbled on a wedge of shortbread, his gaze speculative and far too understanding.
Drat him for knowing Chrissi so well, even at this juncture.
He appeared poised to ask a dozen questions about her circumstances that she desperately wished to avoid.
“And yourself, my lord?” she inquired, a bit too brightly, helping herself to the last roast beef sandwich. “How did you come to inherit the title of Lord Farnell?”
His dark eyes pondered her for another long moment before replying. “As ye may remember, my great-uncle was Lord Farnell...a Lord of Parliament in the Scottish Peerage. His son inherited, and the title was to have passed to three cousins before myself. But illness and an accident claimed their lives one after the other. My predecessor, Captain Michael Maclagan, was a cavalry officer with the Royal Scots Greys and was badly wounded in the siege of Sevastopol. He returned home only to succumb to his injuries a year later. And thus I inherited the lot.” He motioned to indicate the room, the castle, and all that lay beyond.
“Was it a dreadful shock?”
“The death of a family member is always a bit of a shock, I suppose.” He sipped his tea. “And though I cannot say I dislike inheriting, I greatly dislike that it took Michael’s death to bring it to pass.”
“Wisely said.”
Chrissi set a slice of Victoria sponge on her plate.
Alis drank his tea.
So civilized, she mused, the pair of them. An outsider would merely see two friends becoming reacquainted after the passage of many years.
None would suspect the roil of emotion churning like the wind-whipped North Sea within her ribcage.
How could she work with Alis on this project? To relive, day after day, the headiness of that long-ago summer? To ponder, again and again, her many mistakes and wonder if she should have forgiven his shattering choices in the end?
It felt impossible.
But then, returning to Aunt Eunice’s drafty bedchamber felt equally impossible—perhaps literally so unless Alis lent her the funds for the train journey.
No.
She needed this opportunity, this paid commission, too badly to quit the field.
Swallowing, Chrissi decided to match his earlier directness and merely ask what she most wished to know.
“So, my lord, your proposed excavations?”
Those dark eyes continued to assess her, imparting nothing of his thoughts.
“Do ye think it possible to work together, lass, given everything?” His words wafted across the room to her, all the more devastating for their softness.
No. She absolutely did not.
