It was his turn to sigh. “True.”
Not true. What he had to do was far worse.
And then she had to go and smile, a small, sly quirk to her lips he almost missed. She should have been quite forgettable, a tiny thing with a rather plump figure and freckles sprinkled across her nose. And yet there was something devilishly attractive about those soft brown eyes.
They rode on in silence until the gates to Glenhaven appeared. Easily swinging the horses through, Flint followed the familiar lane. It wasn't an opulent property. He would have called it a tidy inheritance, with quite enough profit to keep him comfortable when paired with his inheritance from his mother's mother. He had always considered it his own promised haven, mostly safe from his father's interference. For some reason, he wanted Felicity to like it.
New guests were greeted by lion-topped stone gate posts, the gatehouse now empty where it looked over a long avenue of beeches, whose yellowing leaves rustled in the afternoon breeze. A herd of fallow dear could be seen in the distance cropping the back lawn.
“What is that?” Felicity asked, pointing to the round white building perched on the edge of an ornamental pond. “A Greek temple? Isn't that a bit pretentious?”
“It was my grandmother's favorite place to spend an afternoon,” he said. “She said it held memories.”
They had found her there, that last day, curled up on the sofa, a book on her lap and an early rose in her hand. Ninety-two, and she'd walked half a mile to be in that gazebo for her last breath.
“I'm sorry,” Felicity said. “Pip said you were very close.”
Flint nodded. “We were.”
It was the house itself, though, that held Flint's best memories. Ah, there it was, just appearing around the last corner, a pink brick E from that lady's reign, with row upon row of sparkling windows and a forest of chimneys littering the roof like a copse of trees. The front door was heavy carved oak and crowned by a triangular pediment bearing the griffon of the Flintrush crest.
It was nothing fancy, in fact a burr under his father's saddle. A duke demanded more regal rooms, a more intimidating façade, he kept insisting. The duke had pestered his mother for years to tear the old girl down and replace it with Palladio's best. The only woman in the world the duke had not been able to intimidate had simply stared him down until passing the antique gem off to the only other person who felt compelled to keep it intact.
With stipulations, of course.
Flint wasn't sure whether it was a punishment for her grandson's lack of purpose in life, or her son's arrogance. Her son might have been a duke, but his mother had been a chandler's granddaughter. And she never wanted him to forget it.
A sigh from Felicity brought Flint back to himself just in time to avoid driving into the ornamental pond.
“I can't say I would not have made the same decision,” she admitted, head up to take in the comfortable lines of the house. “If it were mine.”
He took a quick look over to catch a wistful expression in her eyes. Damn, but he wanted her to like the place, no matter that it might not help either of them.
He pulled the horses to a stop in front of the door. “It could be.”
She shook her head. “No, it cannot. No woman owns her own house. She doesn't own anything. She lives in a man's house at his pleasure, and when he dies, at his son's.”
He found himself blinking. “Her son's, too.”
She stretched her head back to take in the façade. “Indeed. Her son who will marry and evict his mother to the dower house so another woman may temporarily live under his roof.”
For a moment, Flint just sat there staring at this mouse of a woman with her soft eyes and thick brown hair and razor-sharp tongue. She was right, of course. He'd never really thought of it that way, probably because his grandmother had somehow blackmailed her own son into leaving her alone in the one place she most wanted to be.
“I would leave it to you if I could,” he said.
She smiled, and again he noticed how it changed her features, as if it suddenly made her visible. “No, you wouldn’t. You would leave it to your son, just as generations have before. I did not say I don't understand the laws of primogeniture. I said I wish there was room for women in there somewhere.”
And without another word or assistance, she climbed down off the curricle.
* * *
Evidently Flint preferredto get over rough ground quickly. Felicity had barely had the chance to hand her bonnet and cloak off to Higgins before Flint had her by the hand and was dragging her up the grand staircase.
“Have Mrs. Windom in my office in fifteen minutes, Higgins,” he said as he led the way.
Poor Higgins looked as if he'd rather eat nails. Even so, he dropped a pro forma bow and headed in the other direction.
“You won't like Aunt Winnie,” Flint was saying. “Nobody does. But she's absolutely necessary for your reputation.”
