“Whatever accusation you are about to make, sir, don’t. Last quarter day included proceeds from all of last year’s beeswax and what wool we got from our small herd. You can’t expect that every quarter,” Lucy told him with her waning supply of patience.
“Perhaps I should seek the insights of an experienced steward regarding what should be expected.” His eyes slid over the paper and over Lucy’s person, coming to rest on her breasts.
A man, he means.Lucy anchored her arms to her side to keep from covering her chest with great effort. She refused to give the reprobate the satisfaction. Her chin rose even as she bit back a retort and her backbone stiffened.He’ll grow old trying to intimidate me with his height and vile glances.
Spangler stepped forward. “Come, come, Miss Whitaker. We both know you are in a difficult situation. Perhaps we can come to an arrangement. I’m prepared—”
“That will not be necessary.”I would die first.The avarice and hunger behind his carefully arranged facial expression made Lucy’s skin crawl, but she stood her ground and glared at him.
The silent confrontation lasted several breaths before Spangler shot a hateful glance at Agnes, and, by a flicker of eyelashes and a twitch of his lips, showed her that he backed down, no less angry and no more respectful. “I will go over this more carefully after my visit to Caulfield Hall,” he said, lips tight and a drop of spittle sliding to his chin.
He thinks to remind me he’s the earl’s man,but we both know his lordship is in London.“You won’t find the earl in residence. You will, however, find my accounting to be accurate and the contents of that envelop correct to the ha’penny.”
“We’ll see, Miss Whitaker. We shall see. For now, I plan to call on the duchess.”
He said it as if access to Her Grace lent him some superior status—as if Maddy hadn’t befriended Lucy soon after moving to the dower house.
“Give her my regards,” Lucy replied, drawing a flare of fire in his eyes. “Allow me to escort you out.” She couldn’t resist the emphasis on that last word.
Agnes darted to his side and thrust his hat toward him. He snatched it away and smacked it on his head. “Your servants must be a lazy lot, Miss Whitaker, if the appearance of your house is any indication.”
Lucy kept her peace. She stood in the massive entryway door and watched him stomp down the stairs. His carriage waited in the drive, his furtive-looking footman holding the horse’s heads.
She thought he would climb directly in, but he spun around and examined the manor with a sour expression as if looking for signs of mismanagement. He peered up toward the roof, and sly satisfaction flickered briefly across his face before he turned a smug glance her way. “Enjoy your time here, Miss Whitaker. It will be brief enough unless you come to some accommodation with the eventual owner.”
“Awful man,” Agnes murmured at Lucy’s elbow.
“Quite. What do you suppose he meant by ‘eventual’?” Lucy lifted her skirts without waiting for an answer, stepped down into the curved drive, and shaded her eyes with one hand to look up as Spangler had. It took several minutes, but eventually, she spied loose tiles to the right side of the roof that she hadn’t noticed before.
“What do you think? Will the new heir care about a few loose tiles?”
“Who knows with that one. It might impress him to know you had it fixed,” Agnes responded.
Lucy thought it might indeed impress the man.He might leave us on. “It wouldn’t hurt to have a look,” she said.
“Can’t Thatcher see to it?”
“I need him in the fields,” Lucy responded. “Iwill take a look.”
“Can we afford to hire it done?” Agnes persisted.
“Perhaps we should put that to the new owner,” Lucy murmured, still looking up. The manor wasn’t Lucy’s to fix, and even if she did, she doubted any man would give her credit for it. Once again, a home was about to be snatched out from under her and given to men who didn’t love it as she did, just as her father’s had been given to his feckless cousin. Spangler’s visit brought that reality home.
Where will we gothen?She kept her gaze on the roof. “It wouldn’t hurt to take a look,” she repeated.
Chapter Thirteen
“Idon’t knowhow much I can tell you without digging.” A bit of Welsh always lingered in Brynn Morgan’s English, even after a dozen years in the king’s own regiment and another two in London on half-pay. “Glad to take a look, though.”
Morgan tipped his head toward the sun letting his overlong black hair grace his collar, closed his eyes, and breathed deep. “I’m grateful to you for prying me out of that foul-smelling city for a bit, I’ll give you that much, Benson.”
The two men rode side by side through the woods and over the well-maintained bridge Rob had noticed before.
“I’ll thank you for anything you see, Morgan.” Rob was even more grateful for the company of a friend, a solid fixture from his real life, the one that lay on the battlefields of Spain and Brussels, the drawing rooms of Paris and London.
“Coal—or better, copper—would fetch a better price if you’re determined to sell. I don’t know why you would want to, though. What does his Irritable Lordship offer you that is better than this glorious place so near to family and possessed with trees, air, and sunshine!”
Escape. Rob let the thought drift away. “Rockford? A career. Work.”
