“I manage the best that I can.”
Lady Octavia grew quiet. “That is the way that I feel. I want to be happy, but the guilt always rears its ugly head at the most inopportune times. How can I be happy when my mother is dying, despite her insistence that I go out and enjoy the Season?”
Harred’s gaze shifted forward as the team entered Rotten Row and joined the line of carriages. “I can see why you are so reluctant, but should you not honor your mother’s final wish?”
“I am trying to, but it is not easy,” Lady Octavia replied.
“What a pair we make,” he said lightly.
Lady Octavia started fidgeting with her hands in her lap. “Besides being proficient at giving advice, I know little else about you.”
“Well, you have already seen my exemplary horseback riding abilities,” he joked.
She laughed, just as he hoped she would. “That was hardly your fault that you fell off your horse.”
“You are right. It is not every day a young woman jumps a hedge right in front of me,” Harred said. “But I am glad that you did. It gave me the opportunity to get to know you.”
She ducked her head, but before she did, he saw a faint blush on her cheeks. Perhaps his words had affected her more than she was letting on.
Harred glanced up at the sky and said, “The weather is rather nice for this time of year.” Drats. Had he truly resorted to speaking about the weather? Had they nothing else to talk about?
Lady Octavia brought her gaze up and asked, “Do you have any hobbies, my lord?”
“I do not have time for hobbies, I’m afraid.”
“What do you do for fun?”
“I work.”
“But what else?”
He shrugged. “What else matters?”
She eyed him curiously. “Surely you jest,” she said. “You cannot possibly work all the time.”
“If I am not working, I am at the House of Lords,” he shared. “I have been given a great responsibility and I cannot fail.”
“Why do you think you will fail?” she asked.
Perhaps it would be better if they discussed the weather, he thought. But he decided it was only fair that he answered her question. She had answered his, after all. “My father wasan important man and he did great things for England. I am nothing like him.”
“Why do you believe that?”
With a frown on his lips, Harred admitted, “I am barely keeping everything together. My brother is of no use and I have no idea how to properly run an estate. It is doing well, but for how long?”
“I see. So you are a naysayer.”
“I wouldn’t say ‘naysayer’ but more pragmatic,” Harred said. “I have to be. The burden lies solely on my shoulders.”
“I cannot imagine the stress that comes with running an estate, but expecting the worst can’t be the best way to deal with it.”
Harred adjusted the reins in his hand. “It is the only way I know how.”
“Have you asked for help?”
He huffed at the mere thought. “I have a man of business, a solicitor, a steward and a myriad of servants that see to the estate thriving. I can’t let them know that I have no idea what I am doing. What would they think of me?”
“Who cares what they think?”
