Silence fell over the room.
Daniel stared at Miss Whitcombe, his mind racing to follow the implications of her reasoning. She was right. She was entirely, undeniably right. If Garrett's grandfather had planted the oak as a windbreak for his own fields, then the land beneath it must have belonged to the Garrett family at the time of planting. The tree was not a neutral boundary marker; it was a feature of the Garrett tenancy, as much as any barn or hedgerow.
Why had he not seen it himself?
"But..." Hobbs began.
"Did your family ever object to the planting of the tree, Mr. Hobbs?" Miss Whitcombe asked, her voice gentle but inexorable. "Did they ever claim that it was on their land?"
"Not that I know of," Hobbs admitted, his shoulders slumping slightly. "But the surveyor..."
"The surveyor's records were lost in a fire, by your own account. And memories, asI heard His Grace observed, are unreliable after forty years." She smiled; a small, sympathetic expression that softened the blow of her logic. "I do not mean to suggest that you are mistaken, Mr. Hobbs. Only that the planting of the tree suggests a history that supports Mr. Garrett's claim."
Hobbs opened his mouth, closed it, and then turned to look at Daniel with the expression of a man who has been outmaneuvered and is not entirely sure how it happened.
"Your Grace?" he said. "Is this... Is this your judgment?"
Daniel forced himself to speak past the peculiar tightness in his throat. "Miss Whitcombe's reasoning is sound," he said. "If the oak was planted by Mr. Garrett's grandfather as a windbreak for the Garrett fields, then the land beneath it was Garrett land at the time of planting. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, a formal objection, a surveyor's record, a documented dispute, I must conclude that the strip in question belongs to the Garrett tenancy."
Garrett's face broke into a relieved smile. "Thank you, Your Grace. Thank you, miss."
Hobbs's expression was less sanguine, but he nodded slowly. "I... I suppose I can see the logic," he said. "I still believe my father about the surveyor, but…...Well, you have made a fair ruling, Your Grace."
Daniel inclined his head. "I trust this matter is now resolved?"
"It is, Your Grace."
The two men rose, shook hands with the slightly awkward formality of neighbors who had come closer to enmity than either had expected, and departed with murmured thanks and farewells.
The door closed behind them.
And then there was silence.
Daniel turned to face Miss Whitcombe, who was still standing near the doorway with Rosanne hovering at her shoulder like an eager shadow.
"That was..." he began.
"I apologise, Your Grace." She met his gaze steadily, without a trace of the triumph she had every right to feel. "I should not have spoken. It was not my place to interfere in estate matters."
"No. It was not."
She nodded, accepting the reproof with the same calm equanimity she brought to everything else. It should have been satisfying; an acknowledgment that she had overstepped, that he was the authority here, that his judgment was the only one that mattered.
However, it was not satisfying.
It was, in fact, deeply unsettling, because some treacherous part of him did not want her to apologize. Some treacherous part of him wanted to tell her that her observation had been brilliant; that she had seen what he had failed to see, asked the question he had failed to ask, and resolved in thirty seconds a dispute that might otherwise have festered for months.
He said none of this.
"In future," he said instead, "I would ask that you refrain from involving yourself in matters that do not concern you."
"Of course, Your Grace."
She curtsied, correctly, as always, and turned to leave. Rosanne shot him a look of profound disappointment before following.
"Miss Whitcombe."
She paused at the door, turning back. "Your Grace?"
