“What did he want?”
“Don’t know. Didn’t read it. Here, help with this.”
John grabbed the other side of the sheet and helped guide it off the machine. Together they carried it to the edge of the room and leaned it against the wall.
“It could be what we need?”
Benedict snapped his head around.
John put up his hands in defense. “The heirdom. Not the letter.”
And there was half his bloody problem. The Americans still insisted on seeing him play nice with the English before they’d sign any contract. They needed to know that signing with him wouldn’t jeopardize any of their other ventures. With no one coming to their ridiculous hunt, word of his sudden elevation to the one-day peerage might be all that saved the deal.
He grabbed a rag from the bench and wiped the sweat off his face. “I don’t want anything from that man. Not his title, not his practice estate, not his damned letter.”
He should have told the lawyer to go to buggery. Shouldn’t have let the grasshopper leave without taking those damned papers with him.
But he hadn’t. Now he either had to face his grandfather to hand them back or accept that he had new burdens to bear.
But first, he needed to make up with his wife.
Chapter25
The letters started arriving thick and fast over the following days—belated acceptances to Amelia’s house party.The dog ate my invitationorSo sorry, this fell behind the dresser. OrI asked my maid to answer for me, but she forgot. She’s been fired.
It would be amusing, really, the pathetic excuses for their previous silence, if it weren’t so irritating. Because it wasn’t Amelia that thetonwas replying to.
Certainly, her name might be at the top of each page, but it wasn’t until Benedict’s elevation in status that London had cared about her. Her father was right—to them, she was only worth who she could marry.
She had known that her whole life, but it had only begun to grate in the past few months. It was Benedict’s fault. For making her feel like she was so much more.
But after weeks of complaining that her party was over before it could start, she could hardly tell them all to go jump off a cliff. Besides, it was what they needed to get the contract signed, and it was important for Benedict to be introduced to the people he’d be associating with when he took up the title.
So it was all hands on deck. Every able body in the village had been employed to get the house up to snuff.
All day, Amelia was consumed by wallpaper samples, training her staff on the proper way to set a table, and helping Cassandra master the art of small talk.
The task was tremendous. Every inch of the house needed to be scrubbed and polished. The workmen who came through to fix cracks in the plaster, unstick old windows, and repaint the interiors tracked in mud and dirt that left the floors in the sorriest state Amelia could imagine. Thank goodness new carpets had been ordered.
Getting the house to rights in time to host a contingent of Britishtonrequired more manual labor than the small village of Abingdale was able to provide.
So with a grimace, Amelia rolled up her sleeves—Daisy’s sleeves, to be exact—and got to work with an old cloth, polishing brush, and jar of beeswax.
Polishing was deathly dull. It ranked somewhat below embroidery—which at least had the joy of creating something pretty—and somewhat above spending an hour in the company of the Fairbrights, a family with more money than sense whose small talk was very small indeed.
First, she hummed, hoping to distract herself with a pretty tune. Then she turned to counting backward. By the time she reached zero, she should be done. Four hundred and sixty. Quartre cent cinquante-neuf. Fünfhundert achtundfünfzig. Four hundred and fifty-eight. Each number was accompanied by the sweep of her arm.
By four hundred, her arms hurt so much her strokes had sunk to half their original size. By three hundred, her knees hurt so badly they were bound to be bruised. By two hundred, the muscles in her hands had seized around the brush so tightly she might never be able to pry it from her fingers. She would be forced to go to bed with it. By one hundred, her entire back was in spasms.
Five, four, three, two, one.
She sat back. The floor looked spectacular. At least the twenty percent she’d managed to polish looked spectacular.
Grinding her teeth, she wiped sweat from her brow. She was sticky and grotesque and desperate for a bath. Writing to her “friends” and telling them to visit in a year was more and more appealing. To hell with the contract.
“Well, there’s a sight I’ll never forget.” Benedict’s voice was tinged with laughter.
For an engineer, he wasn’t very smart. Anyone could see she was two brush strokes from murder.
