again proved himself up to anything. Alec would sacrifice his leather driving gloves to the enterprise. “All right,” he conceded. “Just as long as…”
Lizzy leapt up and flew to hug him. “You are the very best brother in the world!” Anne laughed again, her eyes dancing when he smiled at her. Alec became aware of a painful tightness in the center of his chest—hope. Then Anne’s laugh turned to a hacking cough, and his spirits sank once again.
Though Alec’s university days had been cut short by his father’s death, when all the responsibilities of family and property had devolved upon him, those tasks had not seemed onerous until this winter. He had left Anne and Lizzy to Frances; kept an occasional eye on his brother Richard, currently cutting a carefree swath at Oxford; and managed the estates without undue effort. He was well trained for the role that had always been his future and had found ample time to establish himself in town during the Season and enjoy the many pleasures available to a man of wealth and station. For four years, all had run smoothly; then Anne’s illness descended, upset his routines, and showed him where his real priorities lay. Nothing came before his family.
Anne got her cough under control. “I’m all right,” she insisted, only too aware of her siblings’ worries.
“If that animal makes you worse…”
Lizzy’s deep blue eyes filled with tears. Despair showed in every line of her face and body. “If Callie makes Anne sick, of course she cannot stay.”
“It isn’t the cat,” Anne said, so weary she was angry with them both. “I was coughing long before she arrived.”
Lizzy brightened. “Once she’s clean, she can sit on your bed and keep you company, as I do.”
“Bring her along then.” Alec could see the fatigue. Over the last few months, it had become horribly familiar and frighteningly obdurate. They needed to leave and let Anne rest. He ushered Lizzy out—her arms overflowing with cat. Frances had disappeared, a new habit of hers. As he went ahead to inform Ethan the footman of his fate, the only bright spot he could see was the certainty that, like all cats, this one would undoubtedly object to a bath. With any luck, it would run away. And he would not be hunting it through the London streets, no matter how much Lizzy cajoled.
Cravenly, Alec snatched bread and sausages from the breakfast room and retreated to his study, safely distant from cat bathing mayhem and the reproaches of Frances Cole, or of the housekeeper who had known him since he was three years old. He had every excuse; his desk was piled with pleas from his Derbyshire tenants for reassurance and assistance.
Many had expected the state of the country to improve with the end of the long war against Napoleon, but not those who saw the new textile machinery putting more and more people out of work and watched rising food prices threaten Englishmen—Englishmen!—with starvation. Alec’s jaw tightened. Not on his land. He could not, like some landowners he knew, ignore such distress.
As he took a letter from the top of the pile, Alec had to restrain a sigh. Perhaps he should find someone to help with the cascade of correspondence. Lately, there seemed no end to the tasks that must be done, the decisions that could not wait. There were men—he knew them—who would toss this stack of paper into the fire and go in search of their own amusement without a thought of consequences. Alec opened the first letter and began to read.
He’d gotten through half the pile and begun to think of luncheon when Ethan knocked and entered the room. “There is a person to see you, sir.”
Alec observed a long scratch on the footman’s right cheek. “A person?”
“A matter of business, he says.” Before Alec could respond, he added, “Your gloves… I’m sorry, sir, but…”
Alec held up a hand. “I never expected to see them again, Ethan.”
The young footman looked relieved. “Er, the animal? Well, it’s clean.” He looked dubious. “Seems quite… fond of Miss Elizabeth.”
Alec decided he didn’t really want to know any more about the cat. “All right, bring this person in.”
Ethan returned with a small, elderly man whose stance and somber dress proclaimed solicitor or man of business. For some reason, he wore his hat and greatcoat, as if still in the street. Beside the tall broad-shouldered footman, he looked tiny. “Mr. Seaton,” Ethan announced, and closed the door.