Chapter 10
Dear Benedict,
I’m pleased to hear you’ve formed a favorable first impression of Aldercombe Grange. Forgive me if I neglect to pose additional questions on the subject, though, and instead ask: what’s this about a marriage???
Rockliffe
Ben had slept poorly in the nine days since his wedding.
Consequently, his brain was slow to absorb the copious information within his agricultural pamphlets.
He sometimes had to ask Mr. Hayward to repeat himself during their meetings.
And his quill could no longer create the appropriate combination of words to craft a suitable missive.
He crumpled his tenth attempt at a letter to his uncle, letting the quill slip from his ink-stained fingers and slouching back in his leather desk chair.
Ideally, he would send word to London that improvements were underway at Aldercombe and that his precipitous marriage was both satisfactory and harmonious.
But while he could confidently provide a positive report of the estate and Mr. Hayward’s management of it, what truth could he tell of his marriage besides that his wife seemed miserable?
His gaze shifted to the window overlooking the back garden where, every once in a while, Violet appeared in the distance, out for one of her lengthy walks.
However, there was currently nothing beyond the glass but the lush green lawn and trees bursting with new leaves.
She hadn’t yet returned, then. With plenty of daylight hours left, perhaps she was still enjoying the grounds next door.
He glanced back at his desktop, clenching his fingers as a familiar pang stabbed him in the gut.
Right from the beginning, he’d told her he didn’t wish for her to be unhappy, and he meant it.
As his unskilled attempts at cheering her had gone nowhere, he should be glad for her to seek enjoyment where she could find it.
Only, why did that place have to be at Lord Frederick Denham’s house party?
Hadn’t she already suffered enough humiliation and rejection on that account?
Hadn’t George Metcalfe already proven himself a faithless cad?
Nonetheless, she walked in the direction of Watley every day, slipping into the trees near the river and disappearing.
Leaving him to watch from the opposite riverbank where he oversaw repairs to the water meadow.
Did she hope to reconcile with her former suitor, marriage vows be hanged?
The knife in his gut twisted a little deeper.
He could still see the fire in her eyes when she insisted he not take a mistress.
He could also see the moisture in them as her bravado over lemon ices melted into poorly concealed sorrow, and it became impossible not to sit by her side and wipe her tears away.
To fix a problem that needed a solution.
Except there was no solution. Not if the only thing to make her happy would be reacceptance by the so-called friends—and the suitor—who’d abandoned her because of a misunderstanding.
He couldn’t give her that, damn it. And more importantly, he refused to give her that.
Yes, he might be a poor excuse for a husband, but that didn’t mean he could sit by, uncaring, while she did the very thing she’d demanded he not do.
And so, because he couldn’t solve the problem, he did the next best thing: he avoided it.
Held himself at a distance. She still came into his study sometimes to ask what he was reading or writing, and they continued to have dinner together each night—with the soup course notably absent.
However, their conversations never strayed much beyond his farming manuals, or work being done about the estate, or household arrangements she discussed with Mrs. Wheeler.
You could talk to her, for Christ’s sake.
Truly talk to her and determine what in hell you’re both supposed to make of this marriage.
The thought came to him sometimes at night while he lay sleepless atop his mattress, listening to the rustles on the other side of the wall as she prepared for bed.
However, he kept the connecting door between their rooms locked, and by the time morning’s light arrived, the idea always felt a little too exposing, too uncouth, and so it remained behind in the shadows.
Which was why he instead poured himself into the estate, casting aside his trepidation on the subject and learning everything he could about agricultural matters and management. While he failed as a husband, he could still act as a dutiful nephew, at least for the time being.
He reached toward the edge of his desk with a sigh, taking up the pamphlet on crop rotation that rested there.
If nothing else, he could see that Aldercombe—which had fallen on hard times after last year’s abysmal weather, followed by the sudden death of the former land agent—thrived again.
For whoever’s hands into which it fell in the end.
Yet no sooner did he flip to the first page than an incessant string of murmurs wafted in from the front of the house, the voices growing increasingly louder and more heated.
Achilles lifted his head from where he’d been dozing on the rug, cocking it to the side, and Ben found himself doing the same.
As it rose in volume, one of the voices distinguished itself as belonging to his butler, Pearce, but why in blazes was the man yelling? And who was the man that shouted back?
Ben was just rising from his chair when a red-faced footman appeared in the doorway, making a hasty bow. “Sir?” The footman drew a few quick breaths, then stepped forward. “Arthur Ruddle is here to see you. Pearce wonders if he should be allowed in.”
Arthur Ruddle. Ben knew the name well, for Ruddle had been one of the more vocal tenant farmers, demanding reparations after an autumn flood destroyed part of his barn.
But while Mr. Hayward had immediately orchestrated the repairs neglected by Mr. Morris, the former land agent, along with promising that improvements to the water meadow would help prevent flooding farther downstream, it would seem Ruddle’s satisfaction with the arrangement had waned.
Ben frowned at the doorway, beyond which Pearce barked something about respecting one’s betters. “I take it he has a grievance to air.”
“It would appear so, sir.”
What else was Ben to do? While technically, there were two solutions to the problem, only one stood out as being correct. “Tell Pearce to send him in.”
He remained standing by his desk as the footman hurried away, one palm resting against the polished mahogany. The palm by his side suddenly grew wet as Achilles came up and shoved his nose into it—his way of demanding ear scratches.
Ben obliged, absently running his fingers through the thick fur. He made his spine tall and shoulders taut, just as his uncle did when looming behind his desk at Rockliffe House in London. The only thing Ben lacked was a signet ring.
Some people found the sight of a hefty bulldog off-putting. However, no sooner did Pearce appear and announce Arthur Ruddle than the farmer stormed into the room and rushed forward, not so much as batting an eye.
Ben regarded him levelly, nodding as the short but robust man ground to a halt on the other side of his desk, nostrils flaring and breaths coming in noisy pants.
“Ruddle.” He didn’t wait for an answering bow or tip of the hat, for it was clear none would be forthcoming. “What seems to be the trouble?”
Ruddle planted his fist on the desktop, his knuckles cracking with the effort. “When I said something needed to be done to stop the river from flooding, I didn’t mean for you to dry it up completely.”
Ben’s eyebrows twitched. Had the man just visited the alehouse? It didn’t smell like it, although his words made no sense. “I’m afraid I don’t comprehend your meaning.”
“The river’s been dammed!” Ruddle stomped his foot, his face turning the shade of a newly sliced beet. “When I saw the state of the riverbed, I followed it all the way over to Watley, where Lord Frederick Denham’s got the water dammed and diverted back through his own woods.”
What? That made no sense, either; it wasn’t possible. Yet Ruddle’s incensed countenance suggested he spoke the truth.
“I assure you, I did not condone it,” Ben snapped, close to shouting himself.
His head spun, his eyes darting to the hefty stack of correspondence on his desk.
He’d been so distracted this week. Was there any chance he’d read something in haste without understanding its significance and unknowingly agreed—
No. Thoughts of his wife may have filled his head, but he was certain he hadn’t done anything so reckless, and he needed to call for Mr. Hayward at once.
Except he couldn’t call for Mr. Hayward. Everything had gone so well with the estate over the past fortnight that he’d granted the man three days off, and Mr. Hayward was using them to ride north to visit his parents. Hell and damnation.
Ben squared his jaw, forcing himself to keep looking at Ruddle and not begin pacing the floor. “When did you first make this discovery?”
“Just now,” Ruddle huffed, “and I didn’t waste a minute before coming here to say that if you fail to change course, I don’t know how you think any of us, yourself included, are to water crops or livestock—”
“I know.” Again, Ben’s words came out terse and overloud, although to his credit, his urge to shout obscenities at the top of his lungs and hurl a vase or two remained clamped deep inside him.
Ruddle clearly saw him for who he was: an impostor.
Not the marquess. But while Ben could fill tomes on the things he had yet to learn about estate management, he’d be damned if he let whatever had happened with the river go unchecked.
“If you’ll excuse me, Ruddle.” He broke the man’s irate gaze, abandoning his desk and marching toward the door with clipped, purposeful strides. “I’m going to fix this.”