The Consolation Prize (Brides of Karadok #3) - Alice Coldbreath Page 0,72

to bread and butter out of the pantry and let himself out of the kitchen door, wandering down to the stables. He leaned against Arturo’s stall as he finished his snack, contemplating what to do with himself for the day. He thought he’d take his horse out for a ride over the countryside and stretch his legs.

He was looking over the indifferent nags they had helped themselves to from The Merry Wayfarer, all ensconced in stalls of their own, when Otho entered the stables with a sack of fodder over his shoulder, which he set down in one corner. He gave a start on seeing Armand, then recovered, straightening up and growling something that could have been a greeting.

Armand decided to interpret it as such. “Good morning to you, too,” he responded affably.

“Did you know there are three tenant farmers on your estate?” Otho demanded abruptly.

Armand brushed the crumbs from his tunic. “Three?” he frowned. “I knew there were one or two farms outlying on the edge of the grounds,” he said vaguely.

“There’s three,” Otho corrected him heavily. “And I have seen nothing to indicate they have paid you any dues for the past four years.”

Armand shrugged. “I daresay they haven’t, after all, who would have collected it?”

Otho regarded him thunderously. “You should have appointed a steward in your absence,” he said cuttingly. “That is what a responsible landowner would have done.”

“I daresay,” Armand agreed. “But I didn’t, and I’m not, so that’s neither here nor there at this point.”

Otho stared at him. “What happened to Sir Adrian’s steward?” he asked in exasperation.

“Old Haines? He dropped dead about three months before my godfather. By all accounts, he simply keeled over, face-first into the account books.”

Otho’s expression darkened. “I can well believe someone died between the pages of that book,” he said damningly. “It’s a messy scrawl and barely legible.”

Armand pulled a face. “Well, he was very old,” he muttered.

“We’ll ride over and visit with them later,” Otho said decisively. “You and I.”

“Visit with whom?” Armand asked, still thinking of Haines, who had been an old bachelor and left neither kith nor kin behind him.

“Your tenant farmers,” gritted out Otho, with narrowed eyes. “And you’re not weaseling out of it.”

Armand sighed. His new brother-in-law while useful in his own way, was also something of a despot. “What do you do for pleasure, Otho?” he asked suddenly curious.

“What?”

“Wine, women, or song? Which do you favor?”

Otho glared at him. “None of them. I’ve better things to occupy my time with.”

“Better things?” Armand repeated, but just then, Peter appeared framed in the stable doorway. “Sir Armand, you’ve visitors in the house,” he puffed. “Janet bade me fetch you.”

“Visitors?” His heart quailed. “Not the same ones as last night?” he asked with sudden misgiving.

Peter shook his head. “They’m new ones, Janet said.”

“Oh, very well,” Armand said, straightening up. “Hold that thought, Otho,” he said sternly. “We will revisit that topic again. Oh, and now I come to think of it, make sure you hire that drunken baker. What’s his name?”

“Beverley,” Otho ground out. “But I don’t think—”

“Hire him!” Armand yelled back over his shoulder, as he exited the stable and Otho’s obvious chagrin restored the smile back on his lips. He was whistling “The Maid of Hamblin’s Ruin,” as he made his way back up to the house. Or what was it, Una had said it was called in the North? Something about a wicked archer? He’d have to ask her.

As he opened the door, Janet greeted him with wide eyes. “The mistress is still in her bath,” she blurted. “And Rose is helping her to wash her hair.”

Armand checked on the threshold. “Very good,” he said, at something of a loss as to Janet’s breathless manner. “Where are the visitors?”

“Awaiting you in the great hall, sir. I didn’t like to take them up to the solar without your say so.”

Even before he reached the great hall, Armand recognized the strident female tones emanating out of it.

“Now, Toby, you put that down!” she scolded. “This is your uncle’s house and everything in it belongs to him.” There was a sudden clatter as if Toby had dropped whatever the item was to the ground. “Oh, Toby! Now you have put a dent in it!”

Armand groaned. Now his bloody sister and her offspring had descended on them! He passed into the room and regarded his sister warily. Anne was tall and dark like him and a handsome woman, despite her determined jaw. “Anne,” he said. “Well met.