Patricia Rice (7 page)

Wondering if Buddy didn’t need more of his father’s
presence, and if Mr. Warwick’s elderly parents could really be the best
solution for such an active child, she started for the stairs, then
jumped as the front door swung open without a knock.

Mr. Warwick stalked in, carrying the estate account
book he’d insisted she give him. She hadn’t wanted to reveal the extent
of her debt, but her father’s books were so incomprehensible, she
thought she was safe as long as she didn’t give him the bank letter.

As he advanced on her, she noted he’d actually
cleaned up and donned a rather nice coat and another green waistcoat
that brought out the color of his eyes. He’d washed his sweat-soaked
hair, and it gleamed in the sunlight. Somehow he looked a little less
gruff and bearlike with a golden halo on his head, although the
drawn-down eyebrows warned of his less than angelic mood.

He looked as startled as she at this meeting, but
noting Buddy’s fierce grasp on her hair, he hastened to the rescue. “The
brat has a grip like a vise.” More gently than she might have expected
for so large a man, he pried the boy’s fingers loose.

The proximity of all that masculine height and
breadth surprised Beatrice into silence. Her nose practically rubbed his
jaw as he untangled his son from her hair. He smelled faintly of exotic
spices, and she could barely breathe until he stepped away.

She filled her lungs with air and stared somewhere
below his chin. “Thank you. He’s apparently a little more than Mary can
manage.”

“He’s a little more than a lion tamer could manage.”
He shifted the wary child to his wide shoulder as if he were a sack of
turnips. “This book is near worthless without the asset pages. All it’s
showing is a constant drain of cash. Where are the rest of the books?”

Bea picked at an invisible thread on her cuff. “I
don’t think there are any,” she murmured, praying he didn’t explode. Her
father must have kept the rest in his head.

The intimidating man growled and bounced his son on
his shoulder. “I understand your previous steward lives near here. I’m
not entirely familiar with your weather or soil, and I’d like to ask him
a few questions.”

Beatrice tried to keep her breathing even and appear
nonchalant. She simply needed practice in talking with men. Practicing
with this man was akin to learning to shoot by aiming at lions.

“My father and Mr. Overton didn’t see eye-to-eye.”
She sounded breathy even to herself. She closed her eyes, clasped her
hands, and tried to calm her nervousness. “Mr. Overton’s modern methods
are too expensive for a small estate like this, and they would only
upset the villagers by defying tradition.”

Those words came from her father’s mouth, not her own. Still, her father had known what he was doing, and she didn’t.

“Overton can at least advise me as to which crops
are suitable at this time of year and which tenants are best at raising
them,” he argued.

“I didn’t ask you to replace my steward,” she
snapped, retreating to arrogance by reminding herself he needed her as
much as she did him.

She opened her eyes to see Buddy climbing down his
father’s back. Mr. Warwick held him idly by one foot and glared at her
as if she’d turned into a gorgon. She wanted to duck her head and hide,
but she couldn’t deem a man with a squirming child on his back
dangerous. She held her ground and glared back.

“I’m a sight more qualified for the position of
steward than carpenter,” he informed her with arrogant calm. “You have
enough acreage out there to provide a substantial income that could feed
the entire village, but the better part of it is lying fallow.”

“I should imagine the tenants know what to plant and
when,” she said, though he had caught her attention. Enough income for
the whole village? She winced as Buddy grabbed a handful of Mr.
Warwick’s hair to pull himself up. “I don’t know why
you
can’t speak with them about it.”

“I shall as soon as I know what I’m talking about.” He hauled Buddy upright and the boy wiggled to get down.

“Then I will go with you.” Some of his brashness
must be rubbing off on her for her to say such a thing. Perhaps visiting
tenants and fields and other daunting activities would be easier with
this man as a shield.

“Fine,” he agreed irritably. “You can hold this imp while I handle the horses.” He shoved Buddy back at her.

“Maybe you could harness Buddy, and I could handle
the horses,” she said dryly, as the boy instantly scrambled from her
arms to chase the kitten from under the stairs.

Mr. Warwick’s appreciative grin so startled her, she forgot both kitten and Buddy.
My word.
He had a heart-stopping smile when he chose to use it.

“How about I just put a rope on him and tie him to the fence?”

“Leading strings,” she suggested. “Teach him to walk before he gallops.”

Buddy’s high-pitched cries of delight as he shimmied up the stair rail in pursuit of the kitten sent them running.

***

“The fields must be enclosed,” Mr. Overton insisted
as they tramped the meadow to reach the top of the hill. “Ye canna do
anything with the land all pieced like a crazy quilt.”

Hauling her black skirt and petticoats indecorously
above her half boots, Beatrice scrambled to follow the two men striding
over the furrows. “We’d lose all our tenants,” she called after them.
“Papa would never allow it.”

“Your father is dead,” Mr. Warwick replied rudely, stopping long enough to haul her over a fallen tree trunk.

His rough, strong grip almost distracted her until he opened his mouth again.

“Enclose the best fields and rent them to
Farmingham,” Mr. Warwick continued. “If the others can’t produce enough
profit to pay the rents, then find new tenants.”

“That’s horrible!” She stopped in dismay. “You can’t
throw people out of their livelihoods like that.” She caught Buddy’s
arm to prevent him from toppling off the log.

“The world is changing, and they must change with
it,” Warwick insisted. “We must look to the future if we are to grow and
advance.”

A young man with a face weathered by years of
exposure, Mr. Overton gestured at the fields. “I earned more from these
few acres this past year than your father made from his best tenants.”

“My father had a care for his tenants. They’re like
family
.”
Beatrice had never argued with anyone in her life, but she couldn’t let
people like the Widow Black be put out of their homes.

Still, Mr. Warwick’s visionary outlook hit a chord of truth. If
she
couldn’t live in the past any longer, how could she expect the world around her to remain unchanged?

Beatrice hid her uneasiness by brushing her skirt
down, tilting her chin up, and adopting her best aristocratic manner.
“My father managed it,” she pointed out.

As she and Mr. Warwick stared each other down, Buddy stomped through the fields as if he were as large as his father.

Impatiently, Mr. Warwick turned his back on her and
stepped to the top of a low stone wall. Hands on hips, massive legs
akimbo, he stood like a giant colossus surveying his kingdom. “I’ve seen
children with a more open mind,” he called down to her. “Why the hell
did you want me to teach you if you won’t listen?”

“He’s right, Miss Cavendish,” Mr. Overton said more
gently. “Your father operated on his cash reserves and borrowed at will.
The banks are nae likely to lend to a lady, nor to a landowner whose
profits are dwindling.”

“I can’t turn my back on friends,” she said desperately.

“They’re not your friends, Miss Cavendish. They’re
your tenants, and they know their duty. If they do nae pay the rents,
then they know the consequences.”

“Half of them haven’t paid the winter or spring
quarters,” Warwick growled from his kingly position. “If they can’t pay
you, you can’t pay your creditors.” Restlessly, he leapt down and strode
toward the next field. Buddy ran to follow him.

“Don’t make me do this!” she cried after him. “Don’t make me be the evil villain that destroys their way of life.”

But he wasn’t listening. He was relentlessly forcing her to follow or be left behind.

***

“You could sell the estate, I suppose,” Mr. Warwick
said awkwardly, snapping the carriage reins down the leafy lane between
stone fences decorated in ferns and primroses.

Bea shook her head, clutching Buddy, and hiding her
sniffles. The boy had fallen asleep, cradled in her arms. At least she
had accomplished that much.

“How did Father do it?” she finally asked. “Teach me how to read his books.”

“I’ll show you, but it won’t improve matters. You
may have cash reserves somewhere, but unless you marry wealth, you won’t
have enough to continue as you have.”

There it was again—her biggest failure. Had she
married as expected, her tenants and servants wouldn’t be in such a
predicament. And now this man knew it, too. She was a failure as a
woman, a failure as a mistress of her property.

Her father had believed women were too fragile to
deal with the tribulations of the outside world, and, judging by her own
lack of accomplishment, he might have been right.

But then, could it be that his protectiveness had
made her the weak creature that she was? If so, in what other ways might
her father have been misguided?

Could Mr. Warwick actually be
right?
she
wondered in horror. He and Mr. Overton had agreed on many things. Her
father’s former steward was prospering while her tenants were not, and
from all evidence, Mr. Warwick thrived too. Could her father have been
wrong?

Maybe. In which case, maybe he’d also been wrong in claiming women were fragile and helpless.

Mac saw his letter to his London agent off on the
evening mail coach, shoved his hands in his pockets, and contemplated
the all-male camaraderie of Digby’s tavern.

Light poured through the ancient mullioned windows,
and loud voices and laughter beckoned. The ex-butler had evidently found
some means of opening the most profitable part of the inn despite the
continuing renovation.

Stopping in for a drink or two was infinitely
preferable to returning to a household of women and screaming children.
Perhaps someone at the inn could help in his search for a nursemaid who
was willing to travel.

He had to do something soon. His London agent had
reported that the children’s father, Viscount Simmons, had come around
asking questions of Mac’s whereabouts. If the sot thought anything of
his children at all, it would be only a matter of time before he set the
authorities after him.

The flames of the tavern fire licked up the chimney
as Mac stepped into the smoky room. Everyone turned to watch him enter,
but he had no problem with that. He was accustomed to the company of
men. They didn’t mind if he spoke gruffly or didn’t speak at all. They
didn’t expect flattery or flowers. He
liked
it that way.

He greeted Digby, ordered an ale, and nodded
congenially at the bespectacled curate. The thatcher stopped by to
discuss further repairs, and another tankard or two later, someone had
introduced him to the brother of some lordling who had stopped in to
check on one of his smaller estates. He seemed a convivial sort, and
they raised another mug to the caprices of weather and crops and settled
into a deep discussion of how railroads and industry were the hope of
the future.

Not until he heard the church bell toll eleven did
Mac realize how late it was. Miss Cavendish would be impatiently
awaiting his return. The children were no doubt turning the house into a
barn. Heaving a self-pitying sigh, he made his excuses and stepped into
the chilly mist, listing only slightly to starboard as he trod the lane
toward the court.

He’d never thought to be burdened with the onerous
responsibility of children. If they weren’t Marilee’s, he’d be off for
the coast in the morning.

Instead, he was stuck here in the mud of the distant
past. He glared at the candlelit windows of the mansion looming at the
end of the drive. No gaslights in this rural outpost. They didn’t even
have running water. No wonder she had a dozen servants. Half of them
must be required for pumping and hauling.

His wayward thoughts leapt to imagining Miss
Beatrice Cavendish of Cavendish Court stepping into a steaming hip bath
scented with lilacs. He could almost see her creamy complexion heating
to a rosy glow in the lapping water. If he imagined those magnificent
breasts bobbing on the surface, he’d cripple himself. She might be
self-centered and ignorant, but Miss C was one fine figure of a woman.

Mac looked up to see that fine figure flying toward
him. He might like to pretend she offered an eager welcome for his
return, but even through the pleasant haze of ale, he recognized the
onset of disaster. Trying not to stagger, he broke into a run, and
promptly tripped on a rut in the road.

“You’re drunk!” Appalled, she halted as they met in the drive. “You stink of ale and smoke.”

“I don’t get drunk,” he growled in protest. “And you smell of lilacs and talcum.”

Momentarily taken aback, she raised a hand to her splendid bosom. “You, sir, are
inebriated
,” she retorted. “And perfectly useless.”

As she started to turn back, he caught her waist and
lifted her feet off the ground. “I, madam, am slightly tipsy but far
more useful than your London fribbles.”

She screeched and grabbed his shoulders for balance as Mac swung her into his arms and placidly carried her up the drive. He
liked
having the physical ability to put her where he wanted her. And he
wanted her somewhere private, preferably supplied with a bed. Her
breasts crushed like feather pillows against his chest. If only he could
rid her of the damnable corset...

“Put me down, you demented monster!” she shouted
loudly enough to shatter his eardrums. “Your daughter needs a physician,
not a drunkard.”