The Inheritance (10 page)

Daisy flushed painfully when she realized she had risen to his bait and given him the game. He watched her struggle to regain her composure. It turned out to be a losing battle.

She rose and threw her napkin onto the table. “I don’t care for company this morning. In fact, I was looking forward to the opportunity of riding by myself.”

“But since we’re both going for a ride, it seems foolish to ride separately, don’t you agree?”

Daisy needed to talk with Priss, but she had vowed yesterday to stay away until Colin was welcome. At least riding with Nicholas would provide the excuse she needed to return to Rockland Park without losing face.

“I … oh, very well. Have it your way,” she said,
her agitation evident. “But I’m leaving. If you’re coming, you’ll have to come now.”

Nicholas looked down at the plateful of food in front of him. His stomach growled again. It wouldn’t be the first time he had gone hungry. “Very well, Daisy. Let’s go.”

He almost laughed again at the crestfallen look on her face. Obviously she had expected him to choose eating breakfast over a ride with her. He could almost feel the sparks radiating off her as he followed her out to the stable.

Their horses were saddled and waiting. She looked surprised to see he had an English saddle on a Thoroughbred mount. “Colin rode a mustang yesterday with a western saddle,” she said.

“I learned to ride on a Thoroughbred. I thought I’d give it another try.” Nicholas held his hands cupped, ready to assist Daisy into her sidesaddle. It was apparent she didn’t want to touch him, not even with her boot, but she finally conceded that he wasn’t going to allow her to ignore him.

Nicholas was amazed at how light she was. She was seated on a large, spirited mount, but was well able to control the animal. “I take it you’ve done a lot of riding.”

“I’ve done my share. Especially over the past year.”

“Yes, you have been a busy little bee, haven’t you?”

“If you mean I’ve done a great deal to make sure Severn Manor was taken care of properly, then yes,
Your Grace
, I have been a busy little bee.”

Nicholas groaned. “I thought we’d gotten beyond titles, Daisy. Nicholas, please.”

Daisy sat staring straight forward and ignored the duke, incensed at the way he had denigrated her efforts over the past year. He had no idea what she had been through. No idea how difficult it had been to make decisions, not knowing if she was doing the right thing.

From the corner of her eye, she noticed that Nicholas mounted the same way as his son, without touching the stirrup. It looked amazingly graceful, but she didn’t want to admire the man. She turned toward Rockland Park and kicked her mount into a trot.

Nicholas quickly caught up to her. “I’m sorry if I insulted you, Daisy.”

She angled her head toward him. “An apology, Your Grace? We are making strides, aren’t we?”

“No need to be sarcastic, Daisy. Especially not when I’m offering an olive branch.”

“Is that what that was?”

Nicholas grinned. Daisy found his smile appallingly seductive. She snapped her head around and faced forward. She wasn’t about to let an American savage charm her into doing his bidding.

“I’d like to hear more about what you’ve done over the past year,” Nicholas said.

“I’m sure the bailiff, Mr. Henderson, can tell you anything you need to know.”

“I want to hear it from you,” Nicholas said.

His request was a hair’s breadth from being an order. Daisy thought about denying him, then realized she was glad to have the opportunity to let him know some of the projects she had started which would need his approval to be continued.

“I put new slate roofs on most of the cottages,
many of which were leaking abominably.” She glanced at him as though daring him to object to the expenditure.

“That sounds reasonable,” he said, denying her the argument she was dying to have with him.

“I opened a school for the tenants’ children and hired a young woman to teach them,” she said defiantly.

“Education is important,” Nicholas said. “We have a number of women teachers in America. I’ve never found them to be less competent than a man.”

“I sold off Tony’s racing stock.”

“Tony raced horses?”

Daisy nodded. “It was a passion with him. But I didn’t see the sense in keeping a stable of blooded animals.”

“I would have liked to see them,” Nicholas murmured.

“Well, you can’t,” Daisy said. “I sold them all!”

“What else did you sell?” Nicholas asked, an edge to his voice.

“Nothing that would interest you.”

“What?”

“I sold a great deal of outmoded farming machinery.” She paused and swallowed before finishing “And bought new.”

Nicholas arched a brow. “How did you know what to buy?”

“I read farm journals. And of course I asked Mr. Henderson’s advice.” She didn’t tell him that Henderson had vehemently objected to her “newfangled ideas.” He would find that out the first time he talked to the bailiff.

“How did the tenants react to the new machinery?” Nicholas asked.

Daisy started. She hadn’t expected Nicholas to be perceptive enough to realize there had been problems with the introduction of modern farming methods. “They were skeptical,” she admitted. “At first. But they soon came to see the advantages to be had from the new machinery.”

“How do you think they’re going to react when I ask them to plant an entirely different crop?”

Daisy wrinkled her nose. “You’re going to have your hands full convincing them to make such a drastic change. Most of them have farmed the same land, the same crop, for generations.”

“What did you say to get them to try the machines?”

Daisy blushed. “I’m afraid I bribed them.”

“Bribed them?”

“I promised to make up from estate funds anything they lost on this year’s crops as a result of trying my suggestions.”

“Wasn’t that a bit risky?” Nicholas asked. “What if the crops had failed?”

There was a long silence.

“The crops did succeed, didn’t they, Daisy?” Nicholas asked in an ominous voice.

“Not exactly.”

“What exactly?”

“We had rain in the middle of the harvest. The machines broke down, a mechanical failure. Because we relied on the machinery, there weren’t enough men to get the harvest in by hand. We lost part of the crop.”

“Damn. Damn.” Nicholas took off his hat—he
missed his Stetson—shoved a hand through his hair, and settled the small-brimmed English hat back on his head. “How much did that shortsighted idea indebt the estate?”

“Not much,” Daisy hedged.

“How much?” Nicholas demanded.

Daisy named a sum that had Nicholas hissing in his breath.

“Good Lord, woman. No wonder I can’t sell this place!”

“The machines were a good idea,” Daisy said heatedly.

“But the bargain you made with the tenants wasn’t.”

“We’ll make it up next year.”

“I won’t be here next year,” Nicholas reminded her.

Daisy bit her lip. She wouldn’t beg him to stay. He could go back to America for all she cared. He was a stupid, ignorant boor. What did he know about running an English estate?

“I can’t believe Phipps suggested I marry you as a way of controlling the tenants. Hell, from the sound of things, a few English pounds would have accomplished the same thing!”

“They didn’t do it for the money,” Daisy said.

“You just got through telling me you promised to make up their losses,” Nicholas argued.

“When I offered them the money, they wouldn’t take it,” Daisy said in a quiet voice.

“What?”

“They said it wasn’t my fault, so Severn shouldn’t have to pay.”

“Are you telling me they turned down the money you owed them.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Daisy retorted. “And now I’ve had as much conversation with you as I can stand.”

She spurred her horse, and it took off at a gallop.

Nicholas watched her go. She was some woman, all right.

He could imagine a female putting new roofs on homes and creating a school. Home and children were a woman’s domain. And he could see her selling the racing stock. Fast horses wouldn’t be of much interest to someone who didn’t bet on them. But her institution of the new farming methods stunned him.

Imagine a woman having the foresight to implement modern farm machinery. Imagine a woman having the savvy to negotiate an agreement with the tenants to use that equipment. Imagine a woman being so beloved that those same tenants didn’t hold her to the foolish, generous deal she had made.

She wasn’t like the women he had known. Of course, he hadn’t spent much time with ladies, either. Nevertheless, he wasn’t at all sure what to make of her. He was certain of one thing, at least. He wanted her in his bed.

That was reason enough to hold to his bargain to marry her.

“I can’t do it!”

“Daisy? What are you doing here at this hour of the morning? I thought you weren’t coming here again until Charles got some sense.” Priss was sitting up in bed in her nightgown with a pot of tea and toast beside her. Daisy slammed Priss’s bedroom door behind her, making the knickknacks that covered every available surface rattle. “Has something gone wrong?” Priss asked.

“Wrong?” Daisy retorted. “I’ve only agreed to marry an uncouth, barbaric savage! What could possibly be wrong?”

Priss clapped her hands in delight. “He agreed? However did you get him to say yes so quickly?”

Daisy stopped her impassioned pacing at the foot of Priss’s bed and glared at her friend. “You talked me into this. You get me out of it!”

“But you don’t want to get out of it, not really, Daisy,” Priss said. “You have the duke exactly where you want him now.”

Daisy’s mouth flattened in disgust. “It feels more like he has me where he wants me! He … he frightens me, Priss.”

Priss’s brown eyes widened in alarm. “Are you suggesting he would use his physical strength against you, Daisy? Because if that’s what you’re saying, then of course we must rescue you from this situation at once! I’ll speak with Charles and—” Priss was already reaching for the bellcord to summon her maid when Daisy took the few steps necessary to grasp her hand and stop her.

“It isn’t the threat of physical harm I fear,” Daisy said.

“Then what is it?”

“I can’t explain exactly.” Daisy knew what it was that bothered her about her relationship with the duke. She just wasn’t sure she wanted to confess her feelings to Priss. Yet Priss wasn’t going to be able to advise her unless she told her friend the truth.

Daisy sighed and seated herself in the upholstered chair beside Priss’s bed. “All right,” she said. “If you must know, he makes me shiver whenever he gets within a foot of me.”

Priss frowned. “That doesn’t sound good.” Her face brightened. “Unless you’re shivering because you’re attracted to him. Is that it, Daisy?”

Daisy eyed Priss warily. “I’m not sure. It might be that.”

“But that’s wonderful! If you like the duke—”

“I never said I
liked
him!” Daisy snapped. She lurched to her feet and began pacing again. “That’s the problem. I don’t
like
him at all.” Her lips pursed in a moue of distaste. “But it appears I … I
respond
to him, to his maleness, whenever he comes near me.”

Priss’s eyes twinkled with humor. “There’s nothing wrong with that, Daisy.”

“Nothing wrong?” Daisy snorted inelegantly. “We’re right back where we started when I marched in here. You have to help me, Priss.”

Priss shrugged. “What is it you expect me to do, Daisy? I can’t rescue Severn. Only the duke can do that. With your help, of course. You knew marriage to Severn would be a sacrifice, yet you agreed to it. I can’t understand your reluctance to marry him now, simply because you’re attracted to him. That would seem to make your predicament more palatable, not less.”

“But I don’t want to be attracted to him,” Daisy said with a groan of frustration.

What she couldn’t tell Priss, what terrified her, was the thought that she might get to like having the duke for a husband. Then where would she be when he took himself off to America, as he had claimed he would? She would be left alone again. Daisy didn’t want to let herself care for someone else who would leave her. She had suffered too much, first at Tony’s abandonment of her bed and then at his death. Going through the same thing again would devastate her. The duke wouldn’t be dead, of course, but he might as well be if the width of an ocean separated them.

She already had an inkling of what his lovemaking would be like. In the years since Tony had left her bed, she had stopped letting herself yearn for a man’s touch. She had stopped dreaming what it would be like to kiss and be kissed. She had stopped hoping to wake and find a man’s hard, sinewy body entangled with her own.

Nicholas brought all those yearnings, all those dreams and hopes back to rash and reckless life.
Only this morning when he had leaned over to whisper in her ear, she had felt her blood rush, felt the liquid heat pool between her thighs. She had trembled at the thought he might kiss her. She had felt his heated breath against her face, and even that brush of moist air had been enough to send a shiver of expectation down her spine. It had taken all the self-control she had to continue eating as though nothing were amiss.