“Did you read anything I had written?” she demanded.
“Yes,” her father answered.
“Did you remember any of it?”
“I remembered what was necessary,” her father answered. “Lord Wyndham will be satisfied after he sees the grapes and observes the harvest and will then leave. That is all that matters. Now, I must change and return to the vineyard.”
He marched up the stairs and Caroline glanced at her brother helplessly.
“He could be sacked for not taking his position seriously. Then where would we be?”
“I will see that he is better prepared and remind him that if he fails in his meetings that he might never work in the vineyard again or be near his precious grapes.”
“Thank you.”
Her brother left and climbed the stairs as Caroline wandered into the parlor she used as a sleeping chamber and sank down on the bed.
William’s suggestion may be the only thing that brought her father into line—his grapes. If he was removed from them…Caroline did not even want to think what he would be reduced to.
The problem was, would they be able to convince their father that there was an entire estate that he may have forgotten.
She fell back on her bed. They may not even start to harvest the grapes for a few more weeks and then it would be another week, though more likely a fortnight, before they were all cut, destemmed, stomped, and the juice poured into barrels. She closed her eyes and groaned. It was far too long to have the Earl of Wyndham underfoot disrupting their life and duties and asking questions.
“Something must be done about my son!” Lady Wyndham announced when Caroline arrived to join her for tea.
Caroline glanced around to make certain there was no one else inthe room, nor outside the window that may have heard Lady Wyndham.
“Do you fear he will discover the truth about my father?” she asked quietly as she settled across from her.
Lady Wyndham waved a hand in dismissal, the jewels on her fingers sparkling in the sunlight that came through the windows. “If he has complaints, he can take them up with me and I will remind him that this estate is doing very well. If he were truly concerned, he would have voiced that immediately and would not have allowed me to delay the meeting.”
“Then what worries you?”
“He is just like his father, which is my fault, I suppose, since I was not there…except, by the time I left England he was eight and ten and his father was already had the greatest influence on his life.”
Caroline said nothing as it certainly was not her place to criticize any of them.
“Sterling needs to learn what is important, what his father forgot, and I am going to see to it that he does or he will never be happy.”
As she had no idea what Lady Wyndham meant, Caroline simply nodded.
“And you are going to help me.”
Caroline blinked and pulled back in surprise. “Me?”
“Yes. I have not fully formulated a plan, but when I do, it may require your assistance, especially if we want him away from the estate.”
She paused when a footman entered with an elaborate tea service of purple and gold that Lady Wyndham enjoyed. Caroline’s stomach grumbled at the sight of the finger sandwiches and delicacies. She had barely eaten this morning and was now starving.
“But I cannot be away,” Caroline reminded her once the servant was gone.
Lady Wyndham leaned forward to pour the tea. “You must.Otherwise, Sterling might discover what you have been about,” she said as she handed Caroline her tea.
Caroline bit her bottom lip. As William was here, he could see to those duties that her father no longer found time for. “Very well, but only because you asked.” She would do nearly anything for Lady Wyndham but secretly hoped that whatever distractions she planned for her son would not take too long or take them too far from the estate.
“Ah, Mother,” Lord Wyndham announced at his arrival. “I had not anticipated that we would have a guest at tea.”
Caroline’s appetite quickly diminished and she set her tea aside. “I should go.”
