Chapter Six
Chapter Five
Reuben studied Lady Farrah for a protracted moment as she answered his questions with a frank honesty that clearly irritated her mother.
Quite why Lady Dalton was so keen to keep up appearances when her financial distress was apparent to anyone with eyes in their head was a mystery to him.
Be that as it may, Lady Farrah’s intelligent assessment of the situation impressed him.
She had a lively mind and a quick understanding ? traits that he had not come across in any of the long succession of females who contrived to cross his path at every turn.
She was right to say that her sister was a beauty, but Reuben had absolutely no interest in getting to know Sophia better.
Lady Farrah, on the other hand, fascinated him – perhaps because she was so highly individual and wore her non-conformity like a badge of honour.
‘Tell me what you really think occasioned your father’s absence,’ he said into the silence that had stretched between them since the older ladies had quit the room and which she hadn’t felt any pressing need to fill with mindless chatter.
Lady Farrah spread her hands. ‘It is a total mystery. I cannot make it out at all. Papa is a very private individual. I picked up on the family’s difficulties.
The signs were obvious to anyone who cared to look, but when I asked him about it, he declined to discuss the matter, insisting that the situation was temporary and that he had plans that would see our fortunes flourish. ’
‘What do you suppose he meant by such a cryptic remark?’
She met his gaze. ‘I have absolutely no idea, but presumably whatever it is that he had planned is the reason for his disappearance.’
‘One imagines he did not expect to be absent from his family for so long.’
‘Very likely not, but then he expected us to stay in town for the rest of the season, and we would have remained unaware of his disappearance.’ Lady Farrah sighed. ‘One must conclude, I suppose, that he has run away from pressing debts. I cannot think of any other explanation.’
‘Excuse me for asking, but just how bad are your circumstances?’
‘You must think me very unobservant when I confess to not knowing, but that is because Papa refused to take me into his confidence. He never stopped complaining about the cost of Sophia’s season, but he also insisted that his favourite child had the best of everything.
’ She offered up a rueful smile that lit up her eyes and transformed her entire face.
Her beauty was more subtle than her sister’s, but to Reuben it was infinitely more alluring.
‘I honestly did not know until we came down here that things were so bad on the estate.’ She stood up and paced the length of the room.
One hand supported the opposite elbow as she nibbled absently at her index finger.
‘The signs must have been there last summer …’ She looked up at him and blinked, as though just realising something important.
‘But they were not. Mrs Simpson, our housekeeper, would have told me if that was the case – and anyway, I would have noticed for myself.’
‘Then the downturn in your father’s circumstances must have happened sometime during the past year.’
‘Yes, I suppose so. Or else things unexpectedly came to a head and Papa could no longer keep up appearances.’ She looked shocked.
‘That possibility had not occurred to me, but it undoubtedly should have. Only a few loyal servants remain, and they had not been paid for two quarters. At least I was able to resolve that situation and settle the more pressing accounts from local tradesmen.’
The duke sent her a quizzical look. ‘You were?’
‘Oh, I had a little set aside,’ she replied, looking flustered and for the first time not meeting his gaze.
‘I see.’ Gentlemanly behaviour prevented him from pressing her on the point.
‘There is something else you should know,’ she said, appearing to recover her composure and looking directly at him once again. ‘You observed my visit to our tenants this morning?’
Reuben nodded. ‘I did.’
‘I was shocked by the state of the estate and wanted to discuss the matter with Papa’s steward, the better to understand the reasons for it, but I couldn’t find him.
And so I visited the cottages instead.’ She furled her brow at the memory.
‘I have always got along well with the women but when they greeted me with thinly veiled hostility, I knew something was amiss.’ She stopped pacing and turned to stare directly at him.
‘What I couldn’t possibly have known was that Freeman, our steward, has not only doubled their rents but also restricted their grazing rights. ’
‘What?’
‘My reaction precisely. Freeman told them that he was acting on Papa’s orders.’
‘You do not believe that?’
‘I don’t know what to believe.’ Farrah looked distressed as she spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness.
‘Without seeing the extent of the neglect, I would have insisted that it was impossible but now … well now I have to confront two possibly realities. The first is that Papa is so desperate that he was obliged to resort to such extreme measures. And the second is that …’
‘Is that your steward has exceeded his authority in your father’s absence, perhaps because he too has not been paid.’
‘Precisely.’
‘Have you spoken with your steward yet?’
‘No. There has been no time. I only found out about the rents this morning and then we came here.’
Reuben took a moment to reflect. Ezra had reported general discontent amongst the tenants, and he now realised that they had just reason to complain. In fact, he was surprised that they had not staged a rebellion. Even so, no one had mentioned the rent increases in Ezra’s hearing, which seemed odd.
‘May I make a suggestion, Lady Farrah.’
‘I wish someone would,’ she replied with asperity.
‘I have absolutely no idea how to hold back a tidal wave, which is what it feels as though I am attempting to singlehandedly do. I am beyond worrying about the family’s reputation – or Sophia’s marriage prospects for that matter, which will obviously be adversely affected. ’
‘What about your own prospects?’
‘Mine?’ She laughed. ‘I am not the one who is expected to save us all from the poor house.’
Reuben knew she had not expressed herself in the hope of invoking sympathy, so he did not offer any. ‘The responsibility for your family’s situation surely falls to your mother.’
Lady Farrah replied with what could only have been a grunt. ‘You have met her,’ she said. ‘Besides, why discuss the matter with me if that is what you really think?’
Reuben conceded the point with a tilt of his head, unable to decide quite why he had reminded Lady Farrah of her mother’s duty.
He had not been impressed by what’d he seen of her, or of Lady Sophia either.
It was obvious that only Farrah fully appreciated the gravity of the situation and was willing to do something about it, regardless of the embarrassing truth.
She was hiding something, though, and had seemed highly embarrassed to admit that she’d paid her servants out of private funds.
It showed a generosity of spirit, and he wondered why she felt uncomfortable discussing the matter.
‘You have a suggestion to make,’ she reminded him, causing Reuben to recall that he had been regarding her for a minute or more without speaking.
Ye gods, this would not do! The chit’s determination to take on her family’s problems had touched him deeply.
He had never encountered a young lady who thought of anything other than dancing, flirting and the latest fashions.
Her sister was a case in point. She was undeniably beautiful, at least on the outside.
She was also, Reuben was willing to wager, selfish, empty-headed and vain.
The type that he had learned from experience to avoid like the plague.
Farrah, in contrast, possessed a deeper kind of beauty.
One that ran to compassion and put the interests of others ahead of her own.
He didn’t suppose that she had deep pockets, but she had not hesitated to pay her servants and the local tradespeople from her own funds.
He wondered if her mother was aware of the sacrifice she had made to put matters right, and very much doubted it.
Lady Farrah cut a striking figure. She was taller than was fashionable, a good two inches taller than her sister, with a svelte figure and an elegant manner of movement and address.
Her eyes sparkled with a combination of intelligence, anger and frustration and the heightened colour flushing her cheekbones demonstrated her resolve.
It was not, he instinctively sensed, a product of embarrassment because she was alone with him.
That unorthodox situation was of his own making, but he doubted whether the impropriety had crossed her mind, simply because she was not attempting to make any sort of impression upon him.
That was sufficiently unusual to garner his interest, creating a desire to know her better and to help her find her missing father.
He had assured his mother that he would do what he could, but hadn’t intended for the matter to rank high on his list of priorities.
Now that he had met Lady Farrah, his determination to be of service to her had grown exponentially, along with his curiosity to discover what had caused an earl to walk away from his responsibilities in such a secretive and cowardly manner.
‘Tell me, what do you know of your mother’s rift with her sister?’ he asked after a brief hiatus in their conversation.
She blinked in evident surprise. ‘Very little. We have never met, since the ladies cut all ties before my birth. Mama flies into a temper if I ever so much as mention my aunt’s name, so I have learned not to speak of her, or to ask questions about the nature of their dispute.
’ She sent him a sideways glance. ‘Why do you ask?’