Carla Kelly (25 page)

“Where is the big house, you are thinking?” he questioned. “Grandfather resisted adding onto it, and Papa couldn't bear to change anything, either. I think it a little small myself, but Mama would probably be aghast if I changed anything.”

The bailiff met them at the door with a short line of servants, who curtsied and bowed as they entered the hall. Emma looked about her in appreciation and allowed the housekeeper to take her cloak. Lord Ragsdale handed over his hat and overcoat and gestured to the balding man in well-worn leathers.

“Emma, this is Evan Manwaring, my bailiff. Evan, this is …”

The bailiff stepped forward and bowed, to Emma's dismay. “You didn't tell me you had married, my lord,” he said, before Lord Ragsdale could finish his sentence. “May I say that your exertions have certainly borne fruit.”

Emma gasped, and then laughed out loud. “Oh, sir, you do not understand.”

“She is my secretary,” the marquess said hastily, his face red. “Oh, don't look so startled! It's a long story, to be sure, but permit me to promise you that Emma Costello here has a right understanding of my correspondence and financial affairs. Emma, this is Mr. Manwaring.”

They shook hands as the bailiff stammered out his apologies, then had a chuckle on himself. He wiped his hand across his shining baldness and scrutinized Emma. “It's an honest mistake. You seemed so easy-like together.” He stepped closer to the marquess and tried to whisper. “Your secretary?”

“My secretary,” Lord Ragsdale replied firmly. “You will own that she is better to look at than David Breedlow, drat his carcass, and she does not cheat me.”

Emma thought of Fae Moullé, and their inflated millinery shop figures, and had the good grace to blush.
What he doesn't suspect will certainly not hurt him,
she thought even as she owned to a guilty twinge. She shook hands with Mr. Manwaring and resolved not to worry about what he was thinking.

Lord Ragsdale clapped one hand on her shoulder and the other on his bailiff's. “In fact, I suggest that you two adjourn to the book room and you acquaint Emma with the sordid details of my estate neglect. She will truss up your figures and admonitions and present them to me in a more palatable form, I trust.”

“We can do that,” the bailiff replied dubiously.

“Excellent, then! Mr. Manwaring, I will watch for my mother and cousin, who should be arriving soon. I trust you will inform Mrs. Manwaring to provide luncheon for us.”

“I already have, my lord,” the bailiff said. “And do you know, Sir Augustus has invited himself over for dinner.”

Lord Ragsdale smiled. “Well, if he hadn't, I would have talked my way into his house. Excellent, sir, excellent.” He rubbed his hands together and started down the hall to the sitting room, as the bailiff gestured toward the book room.

Mr. Manwaring paused to watch his master go into the sitting room. “Looks better than he did ten years ago when I saw him last,” he murmured, “all wan and white, and looking fit for fish bait. I wouldn't have given him one chance in five of surviving a strong wind.”

“You mean he truly has not been here in all this time?” Emma asked.

The bailiff shook his head. “Not once, miss. Now, Lady Ragsdale comes every now and again to sit on a bench in the mausoleum, but Lord Ragsdale never has. Here, miss, have a seat, and let me get the books.”

Whatever awkwardness there might have been wore off quickly, as Emma knew it would as soon as the bailiff realized that she understood what he was talking about. In the time before the carriage arrived, they sat with their heads together, poring over the estate records from the past ten years. From what a cursory glance told her, the estate was well run, the figures all in order. The bailiff finally sighed and pushed the books away.

“We look good on paper, miss, but the crofters’ cottages are in serious need of repair.”

“All of them?”

“Yes. We've been patching and making do, but it's beyond that now. Cottages wear out fast on this rough coast. It could be a prodigious expense,” he warned, “and not one I was willing to undertake without his express knowledge and approval. In fact, I would advise new cottages from the foundations up. And what could I do, when he avoids the place?”

“He is here now, Mr. Manwaring,” she said, “and he can be brought to do his duty.”

Mr. Manwaring leaned back in his chair. “Then, it will be the first time since I can remember that a Marquess of Ragsdale has been inclined to exert himself for the benefit of others.”

Emma stared at the bailiff. “But his father … he tells me … I mean, didn't the late marquess walk on water?”

“Oh my, no!” The bailiff laughed as he pulled the books toward him again. “I think our young lad has spent ten years putting together a mythology, Emma.” He rubbed his chin, regarding her. “I'm wondering now if that is how he has managed to get through this pesky time. I mean, there were rumors everywhere about how the son had let down the father. I suppose if you hear something long enough, it almost becomes true.”

“He would never believe anything ill of his father, even if you told him,” Emma murmured.

Mr. Manwaring put on his spectacles and gazed at her over the top of them. “I know that. I'm thinking he might believe you, miss.”

ASIER SAID THAN DONE, EMMA THOUGHT AS she allowed Lord Ragsdale to help her into the saddle again following luncheon. It had been a quiet meal, what with Lady Ragsdale and Sally Claridge white-faced and exhausted from a day and a half of travel and capable of managing only a little soup.
Weaklings
, Emma thought as she watched them.
Exertion does not appear to be a strong suit among any of this family
.

She regarded Lord Ragsdale, sitting at the head of the table and tucking away a substantial meal.
Two weeks ago, I would have thought you would be the first to complain
, she reflected as she watched him down his meal with evident gusto.
Yet you have not complained about anything
.

“Well, Emma, are you up to a ride about the estate?” he asked, when his mother and cousin excused themselves and allowed Acton to help them to their rooms. “Let's see how bad the damage is that I have done.”

It will be a thorny issue
, Emma thought as they rode toward the first cluster of dwellings just beyond the back lawn of the manor.
How does one convince a lazy, care-for-nobody peer that he is not the beast he has painted himself to be? And if he discovers that he is a better man than he thought, will he be comfortable with the feeling? Heaven knows it is easier to live, when no one expects anything of you
. She resolved to try.

“My lord, I learned something of real interest from Mr. Manwaring,” she began, feeling like a circus performer on a tight wire.

“I hope you did, Emma,” he replied in a teasing tone of voice. “Heaven knows, that's what I am paying you for.”

She laughed in spite of her discomfort, pleased to see a sense of humor surfacing through all the misery of the last day. “Do be serious, my lord,” she began.

“Must I?” he interrupted.

“Mr. Manwaring showed me the estate records, my lord.” She hesitated, took a deep breath, and plunged in. “No one has made any improvements to the crofters’ cottages since before your grand-father's time.”

He let her words sink in and then rejected them, as she feared he would. “You must be mistaken, Emma,” he said, in a tone that wanted no argument. “My father was the best kind of landlord.”

“I am certain that he had the best of intentions, my lord,” she hedged, wishing she had not tackled the subject at all.

“You don't know what you're talking about,” he said, staring straight ahead. “You never even knew the man. I'll thank you to keep your opinions to yourself about something you know so little.”

She winced at his tone, wondering why she had ever involved herself in the matter.
I shall hold my tongue,
she told herself.
There is no reason why I need to make a career out of blundering into crises.
She glanced at his face, and it was set and hard again. She reined in the mare, and he stopped out of habit.

“John Staples, you have to tell me what is so attractive about thinking the worst of yourself,” she declared. “Just because your father never got around to doing the work you're about to begin doesn't mean he is less of a man. It only means that he was human like the rest of us.”

“Shut up, Emma,” Lord Ragsdale said and put spurs to his horse. In another moment he was gone from sight, and she was left to kick herself in solitude and wonder why on earth she even cared what he thought about himself.

It was a new emotion, one she had not felt in years, this curious anger at the stubbornness of others. She rode slowly along, feeling the raw wind that began to blow in suddenly from the sea, but not regarding it beyond hunching down tighter inside her cloak.
I have not felt this kind of irritation since those days before 1803 with my family,
she finally forced herself to admit.
We fought, we brawled, but we loved each other. I had forgotten that special painful anger, and how it can sting. I want something better for this man, even though there is no real reason why I should.

She looked down the road where Lord Ragsdale had ridden.
Oh, I would like to grab you by the shoulders and shake some sense into you,
she thought.
How dare you go through life thinking you are not a good man?

“I have a few more things to say to you, Lord Ragsdale,” she said out loud. “Now, where are you?”

She rode in the direction she had last seen Lord Ragsdale, but he was long out of sight. “You're not getting away from a piece of my mind that easily,” she said grimly as the wind began to blow harder, twirling in odd circles as it seemed to blow both from the sea and toward it at the same time.

The rain came then, thundering down until she couldn't see the track in front of her. After a few minutes she was soaked to the skin, and she determined to return to the manor house. But where was it? She looked behind her, but she could see nothing, in the pelting rain.
Oh, dear,
she thought as she reined in the mare and squinted into the storm. Somewhere not far were the cliffs overlooking the ocean. She leaned over and patted the mare.

“Well, it wouldn't be any loss to anyone on this miserable island if I rode off the edge of England,” Emma told the horse, “except that I refuse to give Lord Ragsdale that pleasure.”

“What pleasure, you baggage?”

A gloved hand grabbed her reins and then brushed her sodden hair back from her eyes.
Don't show too much relief, Emma
, she told herself when Lord Ragsdale, as soaked as she was, led her horse beside his.

“I just don't want you to think I'm not angry with you still,” she concluded.

“Emma, you would try a saint,” he said, his voice mild. “I wonder the Claridges in Virginia didn't just pay you to leave their indenture, and good riddance.”

She laughed, despite her soggy discomfort. “You know they never had any money. Robert spent it all!”

He chuckled and gathered the reins in closer. “Well, unlike my cousin, I am rich as Croesus. Had I not signed an agreement with you—under duress, I might add—you would be a free woman now, and probably plaguing someone else. Let's find some shelter.”