the sort of man who could make something. Manage something. He’d had no title to offer her other than a courtesy title; he wasn’t responsible for the running of the dukedom, like his brother would one day be. But he somehow felt that these stables gave him a purpose, and in so doing made him worthy of her. He wanted to be better than whatever feckless, idle, perhaps better titled aristocrat she would have married if she hadn’t met him on that balcony, and that she never understood this had therefore been a constant source of friction.
So why he was disappointed not to have her there, to be spared her disapproving looks and cutting remarks, was a mystery to him.
But the fact remained that he never slept as well at Audley House as he did at their residence in town.
By early evening, they were nearly back to town. The weather was fine, all sunshine and blue skies and puffy white clouds, making the confinement of the carriage all the more intolerable. Outside, James could see the rolling green hills and woods of southern England and, patriotic man that he was, could not help but feel a surge of love for his homeland. One’s marital troubles were undoubtedly distracting, but still: God save the king, et cetera.
It had been dry weather of late, meaning the roads were in good condition and the group was making excellent time. Opposite him in the carriage, Jeremy was slumped in a corner, attempting to nap—no doubt hampered in his efforts by the frequent jostling of the conveyance. Penvale was seated next to James, his nose buried in a dense tome about water management on country estates.
“You haven’t got a country estate,” James pointed out pleasantly. His head was starting to throb again, damn it.
Penvale glanced up and cast him a narrow look. “I will someday.”
“Even if you raise the blunt,” James said frankly, knowing he was pushing Penvale but unable to help himself, “do you think your uncle will really sell?”
“If I make him a good enough offer,” Penvale said shortly, and returned his attention to his reading. James did not needle him further; given his own disinclination to discuss matters of a personal nature with his friends, he could not fault Penvale for turning closemouthed on this particular subject.
Penvale had been merely ten years old when his parents had died and he had inherited his title. The family estate had been in so much debt that there had been no choice but to sell it to cover the death duties, as it was unentailed—and the most eager prospective buyer had been his father’s younger brother, from whom the late Lord Penvale had been estranged his entire adult life, and who had made his fortune with the East India Company. Penvale and his sister had been sent to Hampshire to live with their mother’s sister and her husband—on an estate a mere handful of miles from Violet’s father’s. Diana and Violet had been friends ever since.
Penvale had spent his entire adult life obsessed with reuniting his title with its ancestral land. He had always been eerily lucky at the gaming tables, but instead of spending his winnings on wine and women, he’d hoarded his blunt like a miser, even going so far as to speculate on stocks—thus engaging in an activity abhorrent to all but the most desperate gentlemen—to increase his fortune. He didn’t take kindly to questions about the likelihood of his uncle selling the estate back to him.
James felt the carriage slow and, leaning forward to peer out the window, saw that they were entering the yard of a coaching inn, where they could switch out their team of horses for a fresh set and, more importantly, get out of this blasted carriage for a moment.
The wheels had barely stopped turning when he opened the door and leaped to the ground, startling the footman reaching for the door handle. Glancing over his shoulder, he watched Penvale drop his book onto his recently vacated seat and give Jeremy a none-too-gentle pat on the shoulder to awaken him before he, too, alighted. James took a few steps toward the door of the inn, then stopped in his tracks as he saw a familiar carriage waiting for its passenger to return.
A very familiar carriage.
Unless he was very much mistaken—and James prided himself on rarely being mistaken—the well-sprung carriage that stood so serenely outside the inn was his very own. He and his friends had taken Jeremy’s