Just a Little Heartache (The Brotherhood #5) - Merry Farmer Page 0,53

hard. The key reason he’d spent so little time at Montague’s house was because of those ghastly cages. Montague had kept a menagerie on his property, but one look at the cages gave any outside observer the feeling that his brother had been keeping a park where he tortured helpless animals. And Blake had had enough of a feeling of being caged and tortured to last a lifetime.

“So no sale, eh?” He fought to present himself as the mild-mannered, unflappable, pleasant-to-be-around man that everyone thought he was.

“Not to those buyers,” Kinesin said with a sigh. “I’ll keep looking, though.”

“Thank you, Kinesin. We need to get that estate off our hands as fast as possible.”

“Agreed.” Kinesin arched one eyebrow. “The taxes levied on the place are truly staggering, and your brother ran everything productive about the land into the ground. If you don’t find someone to take it off your hands by the end of the year, you’ll be bankrupt. What remains of your wife’s money won’t be enough to save you.”

Blake’s heart dropped to his acid-filled gut. Kinesin had the good sense to look sheepish at his mention of Annamarie. Everyone knew she was gone. Everyone knew she’d run off with a lover too.

“We wouldn’t want that,” Blake said hoarsely, standing. “Advertise for the place as far and wide as you can. On the continent and in America too, if necessary. Perhaps some foreigner who hasn’t heard Montague’s story would be willing to take the place off my hands.”

“Yes, your grace.” Kinesin stood. He hesitated, then reached across the desk for Blake’s hand. “Chin up, your grace,” he added with a pitying smile. “Women are fickle creatures. Whatever tiff the two of you had, she’ll come back. They always come back.”

Blake smiled and hummed, but his heart felt blacker than ever. They did not always come back. Twenty days, and Niall hadn’t answered him. He wasn’t coming. Annamarie hadn’t sent so much as a ransom note or a list of demands. She’d simply vanished and taken the children with her. For all he knew, they could have boarded a ship bound for America. If so, he’d never seen them again.

“Your grace?”

Blake sucked in a breath. He was gripping Kinesin’s hand so tightly the man’s skin had gone white.

“Sorry,” he said, letting go. “I’m greatly distressed.”

The look in Kinesin’s eyes said he knew that was an understatement. “It’ll work out, your grace.” Kinesin nodded, then turned to head out of the room.

Blake followed him, which was only polite. Even though he wanted to sink into one of the leather sofas in his office, curl into a ball, and sleep until the terrible nightmare was over. With any luck, he’d wake up on graduation day ten years ago so that he could make the decision he should have made in the first place.

But no, if he’d thrown Annamarie over to run away with Niall he wouldn’t have Greta, Jessie, and Alan.

“Why hasn’t she sent a note?” he hissed aloud once he was in the hall.

He winced, realizing he was talking to himself again. Thank God Kinesin had moved on. Dobson was showing him out at the far end of the hall.

“Sir?” Xavier approached him from the other end of the hall. He had what appeared to be a clean set of clothes draped over one arm.

“Is something the matter?” Blake frowned.

“You have another guest in the conservatory.”

Blake’s heart swelled all over again, nearly making him sick. He couldn’t breathe. His head swam. He pushed a hand through his hair. The stray thought that it had grown too long and was a curling mess flew at him from nowhere.

“I figured you wouldn’t want to speak with her in your current state,” Xavier went on. “So I brought these down for you to change into.”

Once again, Blake’s hopes crashed. Speak with her. It wasn’t Niall.

“Yes, of course. Thank you, Xavier. I suppose you can help me change in here.”

He stepped back into his office, Xavier following him. Xavier shut the door as Blake peeled out of his rumpled clothes. He sniffed himself in disgust, wishing Xavier had brought a washbasin down with him. There was nothing to be done, though. At least the clean clothes hid some of his stench. Xavier helped tie his tie and straighten his cuffs before sending him on his way to the conservatory.

A second wave of disappointment hit him as Lady Inglewood, one of his closest neighbors, turned away from his grand piano, where she was squinting at the