When a Duchess Says I Do - Grace Burrowes Page 0,56
and everything to do with how nicely situated Brightwell Manor was for the setting it occupied. That epistle had gone into the dustbin, of course.
He’d considered sending to London for a new pair of boots. Uncle had claimed one could tell a gentleman by his boots. Duncan’s were old and comfortable, or perhaps tending toward disreputable. A suitor should not wear disreputable boots. Colonel Alphonse had doubtless courted Matilda in spotless boots.
“I am losing my mind,” Duncan muttered to the ancestors on the walls.
Or perhaps he was becoming a Wentworth, capable of impetuous behavior, and even self-interested behavior. Capable of considering strategy and objectives beyond travel logistics or philosophical paradoxes.
“There you are, sir.” Oscar Trostle strode through the doorway, hand extended. He was blond, blue-eyed, and moving toward middle age with the bluff good cheer of the Saxon yeoman. His boots looked new to Duncan and far too clean considering the weather.
Mrs. Newbury sent Duncan a fulminating look and drew the door closed.
Duncan turned to study the late duke. “Has the custom of knocking on a closed door gone out of fashion, Trostle?”
From the corner of his eye, Duncan saw Trostle weighing alternatives: Blame the innocent housekeeper for that rudeness or show contrition?
“I do apologize, Mr. Wentworth. With the roads in a state, I feared to be tardy.”
Blame the weather, a safe option. Duncan ambled to the escritoire situated by a full-length window. The gallery had been designed such that portraits on the inside wall hung between the reach of the sunbeams pouring through windows on the outside wall, though the room at midday was flooded with light.
“I see you neglected to bring your reports.” Duncan took a seat behind the desk.
“Beg pardon?”
No chair sat opposite the escritoire, by design. Trostle was left standing, like a menial in the presence of his supervisor. Silly posturing, but preferable to tossing the man through the window.
“You are Brightwell’s steward. I assume you keep reports, ledgers, and wage books showing the exact state of the finances week by week. I am responsible for this property now, and that means you are answerable to me for your recordkeeping.”
“Of course, sir. Of course.” Trostle elected to wander the room rather than ask permission to be seated. “I hadn’t considered you’d want to bother with all that detail. This fellow with the dogs is the old duke, the one who let this place get into such a muddle. I ought not to speak ill of my betters, but I’m told His Grace didn’t have a head for numbers. Not his fault, of course.”
No Oxford-educated chess enthusiast would lack a grasp of mathematics. Duncan took out a nacre-handled penknife and began trimming the quills in the standish one by one.
“The current duke believes his predecessor was victimized by scoundrels and scalawags,” Duncan said, “people who betrayed the old man’s trust at a time when he was most vulnerable.” The shavings piled up on the blotter while Duncan pretended to ignore his steward.
“Never a good thing,” Trostle said, “when a staff lacks leadership. I noticed that right off when I took over here. Everybody, from the tenants, to the neighbors, to the house staff, appreciates knowing who’s in charge.”
Duncan swept the leavings into the dustbin. “I agree, and as I am the person who now fits that description, I’d like your opinion regarding a number of matters.”
He quizzed Trostle on everything from the number of fresh heifers, to the repairs needed on the tenant cottages, to the state of the hedges—badly overgrown, which meant better sport for Trostle, who, as a squire’s son, appropriated for himself the privilege of shooting Duncan’s game.
“We’ll always have a problem with poachers this close to London,” Trostle said, gazing out at the snowy back garden. “If we were so inclined, sir, we could take steps to deter them beyond what our gamekeepers have been able to do thus far. The management of game has been left to us, and that can be a lucrative endeavor.”
We, us, our…The words were intended to make Duncan feel complicit in the illegal and highly profitable business of supplying London establishments with fresh game. He’d heard those words before, suggesting an even more heinous complicity.
Women expect us to behave as God intended, Wentworth. Procreation is part of the divine plan.
Not like the females protest our attentions, Wentworth. Not for very long, anyway.
The memory of Vicar Jameson’s casual excuses still sickened Duncan, and yet, Trostle was merely stealing rabbits, not destroying a young woman’s virtue. All over England,