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Pontcaster was a worthless estate.

Officially. It was practically written in such terms in the documents Benjamin Steele had received upon his ascension to Earl of Hillier, though the wording had been a trifle more refined. Once he had set his eyes on the place, however, he had understood the irony in the choice of words.

Rustic had meant ruins. Natural had meant wild. Vacant had meant abandoned. Solitary had meant …

Well, there wasn’t much more to say than solitary, but what it truly meant was there were no tenants, no neighbors, and no servants.

It was simply Benj and what was left of Pontcaster Park.

Stupid name for a place, but when the Normans had made a camp near a bridge, there really wasn’t a better name for it.

The house had probably looked lovely for the Normans.

Benj shook his head now as he glanced over at his ridiculous new home, or whatever one called the place where one slept.

What was the point of gaining a title and property if nothing lucrative came with it? Some distant cousin of his late father had died without descendants, or funds to retain a caretaker, and it had taken so long for the solicitors to identify Benj as the next in line for the title that the estate had fallen into complete shambles. Every tenant had abandoned their farms after tiring of their complaints going unanswered and no repairs being made. Even the estate agent had departed for greener pastures, though he had been good enough to leave fairly detailed notes for whomever would fill his position in the future.

It made for some rather exhausting reading when Benj struggled to sleep at night, make no mistake.

But he had been raised in a farming community himself, and trained up to work the land no matter the station, so his first task had been to use the funds he did possess to procure a flock of sheep and updated farming equipment, as well as a trio of pigs. He’d managed to persuade a pair of local young men to act as shepherds without pay for the promise of a salary plus pay owed when the estate began to bring in funds.

It had cost him his father’s signet ring for that arrangement, but it was a price worth paying. Benj went out to the fields with them twice a week, feeling the need to act as estate manager until he had an estate worth the requirement of such a position. It was an education at every turn, but at least he was feeling more confident that he could work with the animals without supervision.

Prepare for the worst and hope for the best, his father had always said.

Benj wasn’t sure how his circumstances could get much worse, unless all of the sheep caught bloat and none of the farm equipment worked. Even if both of those things transpired, he could try for a loan from a banker in Chippenham or Swindon. He had no outstanding debts at the present, so his luck there should be decent.

But it was entirely possible he would default on those loans, requiring a mortgage on Pontcaster, which was not worth the effort, and when all of that failed, he would be in debtor’s prison.

He might at least be fed there, so the prospect was not quite so terrifying as it ought to have been.

He was miserable at fending for himself when it came to food, and meals at the Chippenham Inn were becoming part of the routine. It was three miles to the village, but he did have a horse, so it was not so terrible. And besides, everyone in Allington and Chippenham knew full well that the new Earl of Hillier was poor and had no tenants, so baskets of food were brought his way regularly. Clearly, he had earned their pity with his inheritance.

What exactly one did with an excess of baskets, particularly when one had nothing to fill them with, was less evident.

If they could carry water that he might presently empty over his head, he would use them thus.

He was drenched in sweat and splattered with mud, somehow also accumulating dust despite the softened earth beneath his feet, and he was fairly certain he had been bitten by at least three different insects on the back of his left thigh just above his boots. The horses were fine, and seemed to give him pitying looks at every turn they made in the field, which grew in significance the more filthy he became.

It could not be helped, he supposed. After all, he had no tenants, just the two work horses, and this plow, which was hardly the newest innovation, but was widely accepted as the cheapest and best plow to be found anywhere.

There were several farms associated with the estate, though all of them had been left fallow for at least a year, some longer than that, and while Benj was intelligent enough and realistic enough to understand that he could not turn each back into properly treated and planted fields, he was also desperate enough to do more than he should. He had sent word out to the neighboring villages that he had positions for any laborers looking to earn a little to pad their coffers, but the responses thus far had been minimal. Which was why he was out here dragging himself through the least poor of the remaining fields and driving furrows into the ground that would then be followed by seeds of wheat.

Then he would go on to the next field that was among the least poor, and do the same. And the next, and the next, and the next.

Five fields remaining. Surely, that wasn’t so unrealistic.

Unnecessary, perhaps, but he was attempting ambition.

So long as he did not kill himself in his attempts, there was no reason he should be unsuccessful. He could not predict a harvest, of course, but any profit would be an improvement. After the fields were completed, he might turn his attention to the tenant farmhouses and see them cleaned, updated, and renovated into something that might actually persuade people to come to Pontcaster, let alone to live there.

Then he could begin to think about rents as well as farm prosperity.

Then he could consider what he might do with Pontcaster Park for himself.

Then he could think of his inheritance as something worth having.

Then, and only then, could he consider the prospect of eventually passing it on.