‘Undoubtedly!’ Thomas snapped. ‘A best in class means he has to show again next year, thus rendering the farm eviction notice I signed last week,andJennings’s application for a grazing extension, entirely null and void.’
There was a moment’s silence while almost everyone stared at their plates.
‘Well, it sounds as though he deserves another chance?’ Matilda frowned. ‘If he’s our smallest tenant andstillmanaged to produce a prize-winning?—’
Thomas rounded on her bluntly. ‘What it sounds like is that Alfred made a complete and utter farce of the one task I entrusted to him! Have you any idea how difficult it is to balance the accounts of an estate as large as this?’ He growled. ‘The decisions you have to make just to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table?’
‘We would, if you allowed us,’ Josephine interjected. ‘And for what it’s worth, I thought Fred made the right choice. The Tamworths were small for the time of year,’ she added, her calm voice belying the shake in her hand.
Thomas eyeballed her intently while Josephine’s eyes flickered in Sir Francis’s direction, urging Thomas to recall their guest. But his lips only twisted harder.
‘And much you would know about right choices, with your three expensive seasons and no match to show for it,’ he snarled. ‘At least your sisters understood their duty to marry well and swiftly, butyou? You seem to think you’re living in one of your nonsensical novels! Do you think I spent hard-earned funds on new dresses and finery for you to look down your nose at every possible suitor who tried to solicit your hand?’
Josephine felt a dull flush of injustice creep up her neck as Thomas indicated for his glass to be refilled again.
‘And don’t even try to deny it.’ He swirled his Bordeaux before tossing it down his throat. ‘Aunt Higglestone wrote me how often she would look for you at soirees, only to discover you’d stolen away to some damnable library? She found it highly diverting, but she doesn’t have to support you. It was the height of selfishness! What debutante indulges in such behaviour when they have all London’s bachelors within reach? You’re just lucky I wasn’t there myself…’
‘I’ll call on Jennings first thing in the morning,’ Fred intervened in a pitiful attempt at distraction, ‘and explain to him personally about the land.’
‘You’ll do no such thing!’ Thomas rounded back on him, eyes blazing. ‘The only Fairfax with any business sense was Phoebe, and now it seems she’s too indisposed to eventhinkabout travelling before July– even if I have need of her.’
Josephine frowned into her soup, wondering what possible need Thomas might have for her eldest sister in July.
‘The library, you say?’ Sir Francis quipped, his bright tone at direct odds with the mood in the room. ‘I must admit I’ve often sought refuge in one, particularly if the speaker at a soiree has rather less of a grasp on poetry, or literature, than myself.’ He chuckled before turning a golden smile on Josephine. ‘I suspect that is what drives you to seek the company of books, is it not, Miss Josephine? To seek entertainment of a moresophisticatedorder? Indeed, I am quite certain it is the Achilles heel of the well-read… Alfred and I certainly indulged when we travelled around Athens, didn’t we, Alfred?’
Josephine flushed, grateful for his attempted defence, while her brother gazed at his bronzed friend.
‘Indeed,’ Sir Francis continued, ‘we quickly discovered the ruins of the ancient world were the perfect place to get to know one’s fellow traveller. There are those who embrace a Grand Tour simply because it is consideredde rigueur,and those– far fewer, I hasten to add– because they carry Homer’sIliadand theOdysseyin their hearts. Naturally, we inclined towards their company, or we would have been forced to hide in a library ourselves!’
He beamed his perfect smile then, leaving no one in any doubt about the sincerity of his relief, and Josephine pondering how one gentleman could win both the mind and features of an actual Greek god.
‘Well, not sophisticated exactly…’ she replied, her flush deepening under Thomas’s intense glare.
She glanced at her siblings, eyeing her with sympathy, as Sir Francis continued to project his winning smile around the dining table.
‘…And I did enjoy London, I just found some of the company different to what I was expecting… That is to say… the libraries were hard to resist because…’
‘Josephine prefers libraries because she has yet to meet a gentleman who knows half as much as she,’ Matilda interrupted with a stubborn set to her lips. ‘And I do not believe she should marry one who knows less! And while we’re on the subject, I do not understand why gentlemen should be the only ones to pursue their travels or studies before marriage, when it seems a most sensible course for everyone!’ She paused to draw breath in a way that made Josephine wither into her worn evening slippers. ‘Just think how much more sense it would make for gentlemen to marry someone who can actually converse about real places and real sights, as well as sketch or play the pianoforte,’ she continued passionately. ‘Yet, we ladies are barely allowed to breathe before we’re married, and required to provide an heir for some ancient line that sounds remarkably like one of Knightswood’s prize-winning pigs!’
Fred sank between his collar points, as Matilda’s valiant defence descended into a full-scale protest against the institution of marriage. ‘And before you start casting aspersions on our character, or questioning our stamina for such opportunities, may I point out that we ladies didn’t lose any of our serve points in the tennis!’ she concluded on a note of triumph.
‘It’s true you did deliver a most bruising serve, to which my right arm will attest,’ Sir Francis concurred fairly. ‘Though I do believe Alfred also demonstrated significant skill when it came to the dreaded backhand: never my strong point.’ He shot a swift smile at his friend. ‘But in response to your interesting and forthright views, Miss Matilda, I must say I have no objection to the female mind being well-read. Indeed, I believe a match can be all the stronger if there is knowledge in common, for who knows what song the whimsical heart will sing a year or twenty years from now? A shared love of fine literature, however? Now that can be truly immortal!’
There was a moment’s silence while everyone stared at the perfectly coiffured gentleman, who could not look more Herculean to Josephine. His hair was styled a la Brutus, with a flair that put poor Fred’s efforts to shame, while his broad shoulders were perfectly accentuated by a coat of superfine blue, that reflected in the glint of his sea-spray eyes. His nose was proud in an academic way, and when his smiling lips parted to display a clutch of brilliant pearly teeth, they also suggested some heroic or mystical descent.
In short, Josephine had never seen a gentleman who so clearly belonged within the pages of the novels she loved, rather than around their fractious dining table– which only made his beaming presence all the more mortifying.
Josephine glared at Fred’s wilting form, willing him to intervene before Thomas let him know exactly what he thought of his modern ideas.
‘I do wonder at the idea of young ladies attending Oxford alongside gentlemen, though,’ he continued thoughtfully. ‘And perhaps any dedicated places of study should be carefully suited to thesensitivitiesof the female mind? Indeed, my tutor at Oxford quite often remarked that the nature of the female brain is such that it is naturally attracted to quieter studies such as poetry, classics and reading, not medicine, science or evolution?—’
‘Pooh, that isnotthe case at all!’ Matilda objected heatedly. ‘Why, my oldest sister Phoebe knows just as much as any doctor when it comes to Josephine’s lung condition, and Josephine loves to read all theextremelygothic novels with all thefiendishlyghoulish murders, and don’t even get me started about Sophie’s obsession with?—’
‘So, Dashton,’ Thomas drawled, cutting Matilda off mid-flow, ‘from this admirable and progressive opinion that you so openly share, I’m supposed to believe you would take a wife who prefers the company of books to the drawing rooms of Mayfair?’
His tone was dangerous, and Josephine glanced at Fred, who only shrank further between his shirt points and intricately tied cravat.
‘When I take a wife, and it is by no means certain that I will,’ Sir Francis replied blithely, ‘I will most certainly be interested in her conversation, as well as her lineage.’ He paused to take a deep draught of his wine. ‘Naturally, she should also be a consummate hostess, but again I would expect this as a natural development of truly understanding one another. This Bordeaux is excellent, by the way. You really must let me know who fills your cellar.’
