over the running of the estate. He had dismissed the longtime steward, though he had no legal right yet to do so, and more than half the servants, indoor and out, in order to replace them with his own. His son, apparently a vain young man, was lording it about in the neighborhood. All of which facts in themselves would have elicited no more than a shrug from Gabriel. They were welcome, as far as he was concerned.
But . . . Manley had gone a step too far. He had given Mary Beck notice to leave his property by the time he became earl. She was not a member of the Rochford family, he had pointed out to her, and she had no claim whatsoever upon his charity. She was, moreover, a detriment to the neighborhood, where it was generally believed she had used witchcraft to bring the plague of typhus down upon her sister and brother-in-law and nephew, and upon a number of her neighbors too. He must consider the safety of his own family, he had informed her. And he must think of his neighbors, who were afraid to set foot upon Brierley land while Mary lived upon it.
None of which is true except the fact that I am not a Rochford, Gabriel, she had written in a letter to him. I know it is not. The neighbors are not so superstitious or cruel. But I must leave anyway. Please come home.
It was the only time she had ever put any pressure upon him to do anything at all. She might have exerted much further pressure, of course, by divulging her knowledge of where he was to be found in order to protect herself. But Gabriel knew she would not do that. Not Mary.
He had considered bringing her to America, setting her up in a comfortable apartment of her own in his home, giving her a part of his sizable garden, or even all of it if she wished, for her own use. But the journey might well kill her. And he could not imagine her being happy anywhere but in her own little cottage, where she had lived for as long as he had known her. And what would she do with all her strays? It might seem a trivial consideration, but they were Mary’s family, as dear to her as husband and children would be to another woman.
He had considered finding a good agent in London and putting a new steward of his own in at Brierley, someone who would be capable of making sound decisions and exerting his authority while reporting to Gabriel once or twice a year. But doing that would mean revealing that he, Gabriel, was still alive. And if that was revealed, then he would be allowed no more peace in America. He would be expected to return home to England to take up his inheritance and fulfill his duties and responsibilities as a peer of the realm. Even if he held firm and refused to go, the truth would surely be found out in Boston, and everything in his life would change. Probably not for the better. He enjoyed being respected, even courted. He would not enjoy being fawned upon.
That last letter from Mary had turned out to be life altering. He had realized it from the moment he had broken the seal and read it. It had forced him to make the choice between the life he had built in America and the life he had left behind in England. The choice ought to have been ridiculously easy to make.
But there was Mary.
He had reluctantly put the business in the hands of Miles Perrott, his assistant and close friend, whom he would trust with his own life—and with the running of the business. He had made him a partner, leased out his house for two years, made numerous other arrangements, all within a couple of months, and sailed for home with no more than a few months to go before he was officially dead.
A strange choice of word, that—home. His home was in Boston. Once he had established his authority in England and made some sort of arrangements for the smooth running of all he owned there, he could return, he had told himself as he watched America disappear over the horizon, to be replaced by endless expanses of ocean. But making arrangements, he had admitted to himself during the endless days and nights of the voyage, was going to