Page 15 of Her Wily Duke

She was brought back to the present by her father’s voice.

“I see. That must be disappointing. So, what exactly are you worried about?”

“The Duke won’t leave me alone,” said Emme. “He keeps thinking of excuses to make me stay longer. Yesterday he found what he thought was a fly at the bottom of his teacup and sent me on a quest through the library to find out what kind of fly it was. I’m certain it was only a tea leaf.”

“There’s a simple solution to this, of course,” said Mr. Mowatt. “If you think the Duke's attention is becoming a burden, enlist the aid of Adam Villiers. Simply tell Lord Whitewell that you feel uncomfortable with the attention his brother is giving you. You do not want to return this affection, yet you do not want to endanger your position. Ask him - what should you do?”

It was certainly a tempting proposition. She could draw nearer to one brother, under the guise of warding off the other.

“How did you think of such a Machiavellian scheme, Father?” Emme asked.

“Like I said before,” he replied. “I’ve been young like you. And I’ve been in love like you. And I know that nothing wins a man’s affections faster than the prospect that a girl might be stolen from under his nose by another man.”

Chapter Six

Adam had been studying the comings and goings from Foxridge Park, the patterns of the things which happened in the village, and in Trenton, and the activities of the nobility and landed gentry who had estates nearby. Most things seemed to go on much as they had when his father was alive, with a few exceptions. The only thing that people feared more than bad crops and starvation, was highwaymen, and all of the old stories and rumours still went around regularly. Local legend still spoke of a highwayman called ‘The Wily Black Fox’, who had never been caught. The tales amused Adam, yet they might be useful.

He considered everything, in the process of putting his desperate plan into place. He was almost ready to act, all he needed to do now was test a few key things, and he would begin. The whole idea was madness, yet he could see no other way. His fool of a brother was forcing his hand, by the simple expedient of his mulish stubbornness.

But nothing mattered more than making sure that the tenants and villagers survived the winter, and all the months through to summer, when the next harvest might, if they were careful, bring abundance again.

*****

On a bright afternoon in November Emme and Lady Caroline were walking together down a local road in the direction of Trenton – a road which took a more direct path to the town than the one via Foxridge Village, but which, by reason of its rough state, was less used. They had no particular aim in mind - Lady Caroline had felt like walking, but not being permitted to roam about by herself unattended, she had asked her young teacher to accompany her.

They had been walking for about an hour without reaching anything in the way of a church, house, or village. The road went on for mile after mile, and Emme began to wonder how anyone could dare make their way to Foxridge Park from Trenton, as she knew some did, without the aid of a horse and carriage. The path she took to arrive at the estate was far shorter, running through the back gardens of Foxridge Park and then crossing the Foxrill stream on a tiny footbridge to reach the edge of Foxridge village and her father's home.

Presently the oaks formed a tunnel on either side of them, colossal and imposing. It put Emme in mind of an illustration of the parting of the Red Sea that she had once seen in a children’s Bible. The trees with their dying leaves were like waves that might crash over and engulf the two women at any moment. Emme was not frightened at the thought, but she walked on steadily and silently with Lady Caroline beside her. Even the younger girl seemed hard-pressed to put into words what she was feeling.

“Adam tells me that this whole area has changed a lot, even since he was a boy,” said Lady Caroline, breaking a silence which had threatened to go on forever.

“What changes does your brother speak of?” asked Emme in a soft voice.

“He says that once there were no fences, and you couldn’t tell where one man’s estate ended, and another began. But now everything is enclosed, because it has to be. He says the hedges and fences used to not be here, but now they’re going up all over.”

“He has a sharp eye,” said Emme, winking back a bright burst of sunlight that had suddenly peeked through a hole in the trees.

“He does,” said Lady Caroline. “And he says that he had never seen a turnpike road before I was born, and sometimes he wishes he had never seen one after that.”

“I can understand that, but I’m afraid there’s not much we can do about it.”

“Why, though?” Lady Caroline asked in a plaintive voice. “Why do things have to change? Why can’t the world go on looking the way it always has, full of beauty and with the goodness of creation shining in everything?”

Emme thought about it for a moment and realised that she didn’t have a good answer.

“I suppose it’s the cost of progress,” she said finally. “Farming is changing because industry is changing. We have machines now that can do, in a few days, what used to take us weeks. But everything has its price.”

“Frederick doesn’t like it,” said Lady Caroline. “I try not to take sides, but sometimes I think I agree with him.”

“Sides?” said Emme. “What argument are your brothers having?”

Lady Caroline sighed.

“The same argument they’ve been having at least twice-weekly since Adam came home. Adam wants to introduce the new farming machines to Foxridge Park. Frederick won’t have it. He says what was good enough for his father is good enough for him, which is true enough. Though I think Adam has a point, with respect to that.”

“What does Lord Whitewell say?” Emme asked, smiling in spite of herself.

“He says that Frederick is just being stubborn, and would have accepted the idea had anyone but Adam proposed it. He once confided to me in secret, after one of their arguments, that he sometimes wishes he had pretended to be against the new methods from the very beginning, if it would change Frederick’s mind.”