Page 5 of Courting the Vicar’s Daughter

“If you’re going to let the house, then why stay? Why not visit faraway lands and exotic destinations?” Christine asked, half-smiling at him.

Travel. He’d considered it briefly. “I would miss my sisters too much,” he admitted.

“And us,” Hugh said from his place on the floor, then grinned unrepentant when Harry raised his eyebrows at him.

“Children are always listening,” Christine informed him with a grin that was nearly the same as her son’s. “Yes, Hugh. I imagine your uncle would miss you, too.”

Charles and Hugh both looked up at Harry, their eyes widening in a way that reminded him of puppies begging for attention. He didn’t bother hiding his affection for them. “It is true. I would miss you both too much. I cannot possibly go far, for that very reason.”

The boys shared a smile and went back to their game.

“Don’t do it, Harry. If you are staying in England,” Christine said, holding the paper out to him, “then you should keep the house. Look after the tenants. Be a good landowner.”

Harry sighed and took the lease he had drafted with the help of a lawyer. Tucking it back in his leather satchel on the floor, his mind searched for another argument to make. “I haven’t the first idea how to be a good landowner. That’s why I have a steward.”

“You are talking about Mr. Simmons,” Christine said, adjusting baby Jason in her arms. “He’s a good man, in terms of business sense. That’s why he worked for father. But he’s nearly sixty years old and ought to retire. And do you think he has the tenant’s best interests at heart or your bank account? You need to be more responsible for the people under your care.”

Little Jason started to whimper, and the sound swiftly grew to a wail of discontent.

Christine stood, holding the baby against her chest. “If you will excuse me, Harry. I must tend to the baby. We can discuss this later, with Thomas if you like.” She swept through the room, calling for the other two to come with her to the nursery.

The boys jumped to their feet and followed, their game forgotten on the floor.

Harry sighed, alone in the room, then crouched down on the floor to scoop up the jackstraws and put them back in their little pouch. He gathered his satchel and put it in the Gilbert office. Christine and Thomas used to share the house with Thomas’s father and mother, but the senior Gilbert couple had recently moved in with their daughter five miles away.

No one had seemed to mind them leaving one house behind in favor of another.

After stashing his belongings, and finding his hat and gloves, Harry made his way outside.

What Harry needed was to organize his thoughts. As the day promised to be fine, with blue skies above and no mud in evidence, a walk would be the very thing he needed. His eldest sister, Julia, was fond of comparing a muddled mind to one filled with cobwebs. A brisk walk and the September breeze ought to do a fair job of clearing those away.

Harry went to the lane and, by habit alone, chose to walk in the direction of Whitewood Place, his family’s estate, which abutted the Gilbert property.

With no destination in mind, Harry had little need to focus on more than putting one foot in front of the other.

Christine’s idea is only one opinion. It really isn’t a terrible idea, to lease Whitewood.

Though as he’d spoken to her, he realized his plans for Whitewood were rather short-sighted. And not entirely thought out. Even though he’d had four years to consider what he wished to do with the property, he’d spent most of that time trying not to think about it. He really couldn’t put off a decision any longer. Deciding what to do with the estate, and the rest of his life, must take precedence until both issues were resolved.

The future hung before him like a question mark at the end of a page. He needed to move forward with his life, but how did one do that when one couldn’t decide in which direction to go?

“Stop right there, you horrid beast!”

Harry scuffled to a stop and lifted his head, looking around in shock. Had someone been addressing him?

“You know you’re too old and fat to climb any higher, and I am too old and refined to come climbing up after you,” the voice continued, feminine frustration coloring every word. “Come down this instant.”

The voice came from the other side of a hedge, where a birch grew with branches stretching over the bushes to reach toward the trees lining the road. He went that direction, without much thought, and peered through a narrow break in the leafy shrubbery.

At the base of the tree, half out of sight, he saw a woman in a blue-gray gown. Her head was tilted as she stared up into the tree, and her hands were on her waist.

“I mean it, Jezebel. You come down this instant, or I will leave and you will absolutely starve.”

Glancing up, Harry saw a fat feline perched on a thin branch, perhaps fifteen feet above the ground. The cat was staring balefully down at the woman, tale twitching, as though calling the woman’s bluff.

The woman circled around the tree, out of sight, muttering to herself. He could barely make out the words. “Feline…stubborn…useless….”

The cat remained unimpressed.