Chapter 13
“Get that look off your face, man,” Anthony, Duke of Herridge, said.
Simons stiffened, but his eyebrows leveled, and the pull to his mouth lessened.
Normally, the Duke of Herridge didn’t pay any attention to his servants’ moods, but Simons had the rare effect of irritating him today.
Morna was dead.
He held the black-bordered note from his daughter’s husband in his left hand and a port glass in his right. He couldn’t quite decide if he was toasting his late wife or celebrating her passage.
Thank God she’d finally died. There, the answer to that question.
“Tell the footman that you’ll return with him to Chavensworth,” he said, glancing at Simons again.
“Your Grace?” Simons said, his eyebrows elevating once more. “Will you not be attending Her Grace’s funeral?”
He really should, shouldn’t he?
However, he’d always prided himself on the fact that he wasn’t an out-and-out hypocrite. He’d grown tired of Morna, and bored with her as well. Why should he now play the part of grieving widower?
The tongues would wag if he didn’t attend Morna’s funeral.
Who the hell cared about society gossip? He was the Duke of Herridge. Let them talk. A little spice merely meant that his name was mentioned more, his company sought out, his presence requested more often.
His search for an heiress might even be made easier if people talked about him.
“I think not, Simons,” he said. “You’ll stand in my stead.”
He placed the note on the footstool in front of him, sat back in the high-backed chair, and savored first the color of the port, then its taste. Through it all, Simons stood tall as a tree and twice as proud. He’d often thought Simons had the demeanor to be a duke himself.
He waited a few moments before speaking again.
“While you’re about it,” he said, catching Simons in midbow, “bring back her jewel chest.”
“Your Grace?”
“She had some rubies left, I believe, in that ugly brooch her mother gave her. And a few sapphires here and there. Bring those to me.”
“Your Grace,” Simons said, completing his bow.
As Simons made his way from the room, Anthony called after him. “There’s no need actually to attend the service, man. Just get the damn jewel chest.”
Simons halted but didn’t turn. He’d insulted the old boy, evidently. One of the few enjoyments he got from life.
“Yes, Your Grace,” Simons said, and closed the door firmly behind him.
Anthony smiled and reached for the note from Douglas Eston once more before taking another appreciative sip of his port.
“Tell the steward I’ll meet with him shortly,” Douglas said, consulting his small notebook.
The footman nodded.
“And tell Mrs. Williams that she’s to carry on as she always had. There are no new instructions at the moment.”
Once again, the footman nodded.
“We should have a large post going out this afternoon,” Douglas added, closing his notebook.
“What time would you like me to return for the post, sir?” the footman asked.
“At two,” Douglas said.
The footman clicked his heels together, turned, and walked down the corridor with the stiff bearing of a Chavensworth servant.
Douglas closed the door of the Duke’s Suite and turned to face Hester.
“It’s uncanny, isn’t it, sir? First the mother, now the daughter.” She looked at Sarah asleep in the middle of the bed on the dais.
He stared at the woman, wondering if he’d made a mistake soliciting her help.
But he needed someone to watch over Sarah while he took care of a few details, and Hester had struck him as being exceedingly sensible as well as caring.
But he’d banish her this moment if she coupled Sarah together in her mind with the duchess.
“They’re nothing alike,” he said. “Sarah is not dying. She’s simply grieving.”
Hester didn’t argue with him, but the look she sent him was dispute enough. He had to admit, it was a little worrying. Sarah had slept for a whole day and didn’t look as if she wanted to rouse yet.
“I’ll return in a few hours,” he said, hesitating at the door.
Hester settled into the high-backed chair beside the window. “Go along now with you sir,” she said, pulling out a crochet hook and a bit of thread. “I’ll sit here ’til she wakes, you’ve no worries on that score. Do what needs to be done.”
He closed the door behind him, surprised that the corridor leading to the Duke’s Suite was empty.
In the last day, he’d been assailed by at least six people, all of them intent on reaching Sarah and obtaining permissions, approvals, guidance, and direction for various projects.
His answer to them had been the same, “Handle it yourself.”
Beecher, however, had been insistent, standing outside the Duke’s Suite with a tenacity in direct proportion to his frailty. Douglas had finally convinced the man to retire to his office and that he would follow shortly.
The journey to the steward’s office required walking down three long passages and taking two staircases. At the end of his journey, Douglas could understand why the steward looked so frail.
He’d already discovered that Chavensworth had six wings in total. Four wings comprised the main, boxlike, structure while the remaining two wings formed an H at the southernmost part of the box and were connected by a portico.
Just how many miles did Sarah walk each day?
He knocked on the door, hearing the shuffling footsteps of Chavensworth’s aged steward. Beecher opened the door a few moments later, standing aside to allow him to enter the room.
Bookcases occupied three walls, each filled with ledgers.
A large mullioned window overlooking the courtyard occupied the fourth wall.
The majority of the space, however, was taken up by a large table, one more often seen in a dining room than a steward’s office. Beecher evidently used it as a desk.
He waved Douglas into a chair on the other side of the table and sat as well.
The morning sun streaming in through the window did not favor the man. With the light behind him, Beecher looked even more frail—his hair appeared so light in color as if to be invisible, and the bones of his face seemed even more prominent.
Just how old was the man?
“You said there are matters that cannot wait, Beecher?” he asked.
“The draining of the upper fields must occur tomorrow, sir, and Lady Sarah always supervises the event as well as the cleaning of the sluices.”
“Why?”
Beecher’s eyebrows drew together. “Why, sir? Because it is Chavensworth.”
“Are you not the steward?”
“I am, but the Dukes of Herridge have always had an intimate knowledge of the estate, all the way back to the first duke.”
“Lady Sarah is not the Duke of Herridge.”
Beecher blinked several times while his mouth worked. Evidently, he was thinking of rejoinders and dismissing them as quickly. Finally, he fixed a lowering frown on Douglas and sighed heavily.
“Lady Sarah has always assumed those responsibilities that needed to be seen to, sir, in regard to Chavensworth.”
“What you mean to say, Beecher, is that her father has abdicated his responsibility, and she has assumed it.”
Once again, the steward seemed at a loss.
Finally, he reached behind him, and, with some effort, lifted a large ledger, one of the biggest books Douglas had ever seen.
He laid it flat on the table between them and opened the cover, using his forearm to help turn the pages.
Reaching a section midway in the book, he turned the volume a little so that Douglas could see.
“These are the plans laid out by her grandfather,” he said, pointing to a map carefully drawn up of Chavensworth’s many fields.
“In addition to lavender, we here at Chavensworth grow a variety of crops. But in the larger farms, we rotate four crops in order to give the land a boost. It was Lady Sarah herself who suggested clover, following the recommendations of some men with whom she corresponded.”
“Did she?”
“Indeed she has,” Beecher said proudly. “She has always supervised the draining of the upper fields. The irrigation sluices must be seen to, and she has always approved the building of new connections.” He looked over at Douglas.
“The sluices themselves accumulate mud, you see, and the wood rots, no matter how much pitch is used.”
“Is this not something you can handle, Beecher?”
The man looked startled. “Indeed no, sir.”
He studied the man for a few minutes before finally saying, “Tell me where to be and what to do, and I shall oversee in Lady Sarah’s stead.”
The man evidently wasn’t satisfied by Douglas’s suggestion. “Lady Sarah has been present for the lambing, for the castrations, for the drilling of two new wells. She has trod every inch of Chavensworth land, sir, in foul weather and fair.”
“And you saw nothing wrong with that?”
The man looked surprised. “I doubt I could have stopped her, sir. Lady Sarah is extraordinarily diligent when it comes to Chavensworth. She could not be more so if she were the Duke of Herridge herself.”
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Beecher,” Douglas said, standing.
“Shall I apply to you in the future, sir? Have you taken on the care of Chavensworth since your marriage to Lady Sarah?”
“Good God, no,” Douglas said. “I have no knowledge in the running of properties.”
“But you shall observe the drainage?”
“I’ll do whatever needs to be done until you can find someone at Chavensworth with the energy and desire to take on the tasks Lady Sarah has assumed.” He leveled a look at Beecher.
Beecher swallowed heavily. “My replacement, sir?”
“Let’s say your apprentice, Beecher. Someone you can train in the running of Chavensworth so you don’t rely on Lady Sarah to the same degree.”
Beecher didn’t speak, only slowly closed the book.
“I am to meet with the housekeeper,” Douglas said, moving to the door. “Is there a shorter way back to the kitchens?”
“I’m afraid not, sir,” Beecher said, his mouth curving in a rusty-looking smile. “Continue down the mirrored corridor, take a left at the main part of Chavensworth, and ask any footman for Mrs. Williams.”