Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
At long last, West had secured a meeting with Williams to discuss the estate matters, the plans moving forward, and any other recommendations for the fields, the farms, the tenants, or the fishing.
He wanted to know everything, anything, and share concerns and ideas together.
This man was clearly a visionary and was able to break that vision down into actionable steps and practical movements.
He had saved the Fenmore lands from complete disaster and turned the tide of ruin.
Talking to him was going to be like talking with another version of himself.
It was going to be brilliant.
Elena had been fairly subdued when she’d told him about the meeting she’d arranged, and mentioned she would be there to make the introduction, but would be certain to get out of his way.
“This is your estate now, not mine,” she’d said in the softest voice he had ever heard. “It should be your meeting.”
“Elena, you know more than enough to be in the room with us,” he had argued gently. “Your input would be helpful.”
But Elena had only shaken her head. “I will make the introduction and answer early questions, if they exist. Then I will leave. Williams knows my thoughts already. I do not need to voice them myself. And besides, my thoughts are not important anymore.”
West hadn’t liked that reaction or those words one bit, but she had left without giving him the time to answer. She had been actively avoiding him since that day in the fields with the stone wall, and to be fair, he had been staying away himself.
He just did not know how to behave around her.
She was a mystery to him, one he felt no closer to unraveling.
Her defenses were strong and sharp, but he caught glimpses of this warm, generous, sweet creature within.
She had a temper, but he saw a strength and endurance that spoke of infinite patience.
She was as hardy as wildflowers, but he wondered if that was her way by nature or by force.
Had life turned her into the creature he could not comprehend? Or had she always been this way?
None of those answers were going to come straightaway.
All he could control was the efforts he put into the estate, and he had spent the last day or two working on stone walls with the others.
Elena had helped one of those days, saying nothing to him beyond the necessary, but she had been absent the other.
He hadn’t minded that as much. He could breathe more easily when she wasn’t around, and it allowed him to talk more freely with the farmers and ask them questions about their experiences.
Based on the amount of backslapping he had received from the men in the fields the day before, West was fairly confident that he was earning their respect. It was small, and he knew he had a great distance to go, but it was a start, which was more than he’d had before.
Fields and crops had always made more sense to him than people. Especially women.
But that was something he could think about another time.
Now he had to go in and meet Williams.
“You look particularly pleased with yourself,” Fred remarked as he entered West’s bedchamber, eyeing how West fidgeted with his cravat in the mirror. “Exciting day ahead?”
West grinned, not bothering to hide the excitement he felt. “Finally got a meeting with the elusive Mr. Williams, my estate manager.”
Fred leaned against the wall, frowning as he folded his arms. “Ever think that an estate manager shouldn’t be elusive?”
“It doesn’t concern me, so long as he is available when I need him.” West shrugged and tugged his cravat firmly into place. “I’d prefer a man with an obsessive dedication to his work and a lack of social skills to an overly social man with a passing interest in his work.”
“That’s because you are a man with an obsessive dedication to his work and a lack of social skills.”
“Exactly.” West met Fred’s eyes in the mirror and quirked his brows teasingly.
It was best not to give Fred fodder for his methods of provocation, and accepting that there was always a kernel of truth in what was said was easier than denying the whole.
Besides, he hadn’t said anything incorrect.
“Elena has set up a meeting for us today,” West told his cousin. “An introduction and quick summary, I think, before Williams and I can get into his plans, his thoughts, and so on. I am hoping I am not too far behind in my understanding of the soil and crops here, but we will see.”
“I can’t imagine you’d be behind,” Fred commented with a snort. “You are literally an estate manager without a position, a head farmer without a plow, an ecological aficionado without scholarship.”
West paused as he started to fuss with his cuffs, looking at Fred in surprise. “Those are some large words for you. Done some reading recently, or did someone help you?”
Fred gave him a flat look. “Amusing.”
“I try.”
“And Ellie is going to be in the meeting, too, I trust?” Fred asked, turning only a little more serious. “Not just for introduction?”
West schooled his features, not wanting to reveal too much to his cousin before he had to. “You think she ought to be?”
“You don’t?” came the pointed response.
He shrugged and lowered his eyes to the simple cuffs of his shirt, not bothering with cuff links, as this was an informal meeting and he had no need to pretend at finery. Also he had no valet, and cuff links without assistance were too difficult for his patience.
“That,” Fred scolded softly, “is not an answer, Cousin.” He pushed off of the wall and started over to him.
“You know as well as I do that Ellie knows this land as well as anyone. She has taken an active role in the estate affairs, not just those of the house, and is so invested that she wears men’s clothing to help in the fields and does not complain even once. This is not your standard woman, West.”
“Don’t you think I bloody know that?” West snapped.
He turned away from the mirror and strode across his room to pick up his coat.
“I know exactly how different she is, and I invited her to be in the room with us for the meeting, because, if nothing else, this agricultural aspect of the estate is of interest to her. But she was determined to remove herself, and insisted her interests and goals are no longer relevant.” He shrugged into his coat, then sighed heavily, meeting Fred’s gaze.
“It was as if she was giving up on Fenmore, Fred, and it frightened me more than anything I can recall. I hate that I was frightened, but there it is.”
“You like her,” Fred stated, no hint of a question in his voice.
West considered that, oddly without fear.
“Possibly. I don’t know her well enough to commit to that statement, nor to take it further, but she is beautiful and she is vivacious and she is natural, easy, witty, generous .
. . I think I could like her. Very much, even.
I just don’t know what to do about it. Especially if she wants to leave. ”
“We’ve told her she needs to leave,” Fred pointed out. “There is a very great difference there. And rationally speaking, she does, if we wish to avoid scandal. All of this is true. But wanting to leave? I don’t know that she does. And I don’t know that you want her to leave.”
“I don’t,” West allowed himself to admit. “At least . . . not until I understand her better. Until I figure out the mystery, the enigma, that she is. I cannot help but feel that I need to know her before I proceed. But the potential for scandal . . .”
Fred heaved a loud and dramatic sigh. “Fine, fine, you go be agricultural, and I will see about a solution to scandal diversion.”
West looked at him in surprise. “You will? You’re the one who said—”
“I am well aware of what I have said,” Fred interrupted with the pretended patience of a longsuffering guardian.
“I have revised my opinion.” His dramatics softened into genuine affection.
“I like Ellie. I like her friendship, I like her for this estate, and I like her for you.” He smirked back into the mischievous devil he had always been.
“Not that you have her. Or want to have her. But I like what she does to you.”
Laughing, West shook his head. “You like me unsettled and on edge and on the losing side of arguments?”
Fred nodded very slowly and very firmly. “You deserve a little unsettled and on edge and on the losing side of arguments. It’s good for you.” He stepped forward and patted West’s arm with a patronizing wink.
West watched him leave the room, shaking his head.
He liked Elena, too. He liked her fire and her determination and her brilliance.
He just did not know what to do with it. With her. With this curiosity that refused to be sated.
But he could think about Elena another time. Now he had an estate manager to win over.
He left the bedchamber and moved down to the study, where he would shortly meet with Elena and Williams.
He caught sight of Worsley in the corridor outside the study and called out to the butler eagerly.
The man stopped and turned to face the approaching West, smiling slightly.
He might have been older, but he was still sharp in the mind and strict in his expectations.
He was a few years older than West’s father would have been now and he had never been one to let formality get in the way of connection.
“Have you seen Elena and Mr. Williams?” West asked when he reached him.
Worsley gestured to the study. “I have just shown them into the study, sir.”
West nodded, pausing as he recalibrated his thoughts to enter an already occupied room. Then he looked at this trusted butler, this man who had known his father, his half brother, and him for so long. “What do you think of Williams?” he asked without preamble.
Worsley raised a brow, his mouth flat. “Sir?”
Delaying tactic. Interesting.
“Surely you’ve had him here a time or two to meet with Elena,” West suggested.
“I believe they met more often than not in the fields, sir,” Worsley relayed without missing a beat.
West lowered his chin, fighting a smile. “Worsley, this is not the first time he has been in this house.”
“No, sir.”
“Which means you have seen him before.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So what are your thoughts on him?”
“I am not paid enough to have thoughts on agricultural matters, sir,” Worsley told him, his expression remaining perfectly blank.
West did his best not to huff, thinking it might remind this man how he had been as a child. “But the man himself. Not his employment, not the nature of his stewardship, but the man.”
Worsley’s mouth twitched, pursed slightly, then relaxed. “He is a decent man, sir. And he respects Miss Elena.”
That was it. That was all Worsley was going to say on the matter, if the return to a flat mouth was any indication.
“Right,” West muttered, shaking his head as he realized he had expected far too much from this man he had known his entire life.
He was going to be on his own as he entered this study and this meeting.
“Thank you, Worsley,” he told the butler. “That will be all.”
Worsley had no reaction to the dismissal other than his usual bow and departure.
West watched him go, intrigued by the absolute avoidance of a definitive answer in the conversation.
Every word had seemed carefully curated to fit the polite distance a butler usually gave a conversation with his employer, and Worsley had never fit that perfectly in the role.
As West could not imagine Elena enforcing any sort of formality between Worsley, Mrs. Havens, and herself during their time at the house together, and West had not been here long enough to establish anything at all, this had to be something specific.
Something about this meeting.
Which meant something was being hidden, protected, or performed. And West would not know what that was until he was in the meeting.
Likely somewhere in the middle of everything.
Perfect.
He faced the door, exhaled slowly, and entered the study with a brief knock. “I am sorry to have kept you waiting. I was hoping I would be here to greet you.”
Elena and the burly man in simple country gentleman’s attire were already on their feet, smiling politely at him.
“No problem at all, my lord,” the man replied in a low, rough tone.
West stared at him for a long moment, examining his features, his thoughts spinning back into the recesses of his mind.
“Lord Bickham,” Elena said brightly, clasping her hands in front of her clean calico skirts, “may I introduce Mr. Williams?” She beamed at the older man, her fondness evident. “I believe you will find him excellent company and an asset to the development and improvement of the Fenmore estate.”
The man extended his hand to shake West’s, and West took it, gripping hard, before looking at Elena.
“I am sure I shall, but I think you know as well as I do that this is George Tucker, who has farmed this estate for many years, and not Mr. Williams at all. So who, pray tell, is Williams, and where is he?”