Chapter Five
WILLIAM BLANDFORD, THE earl’s longstanding man of business, accompanied Lando on his daily ride across the estate. On this cool crisp morn, Blandford was unusually quiet. Perhaps he recognised his employer’s reflective mood and adjusted his own accordingly. Prepared for a lengthy hack, he expressed mild surprise when Lando drew Twilight to a standstill at the eastern boundary separating his well-maintained properties and land from his scruffy Gartside neighbour.
“I need the scuttlebutt, Will. Speak freely.” With a critical eye, Lando surveyed the overgrown fields and the ruins of a roofless cottage in the distance. “How fare Gartside’s tenants these days?”
Gentlemen of the earl’s class were sniffy about tittle-tattle, claiming to be above it while fearful of being the subject. Lando, however, was quite partial; that gossip was a double-edged pastime bothered him not. On the contrary, knowing his retreat from society was a topic of clueless, sweet speculation around the ton was one of life’s few pleasures. In his absence, stories of his eccentricity had run riot.
The question, therefore, did not seem to perturb Will. “Badly, my lord. And much worse since his lordship’s father passed and Sir Ambrose took his place. Corn and barley yields have been down these past two years on account of the late rains, yet rents have gone up. I’ll wager at least one tenant farmer will be in the workhouse by Christmas. My wife’s cousins, prudent folk, tell us they fear for the winter too.”
Lando cursed. Gartside had the emotional integrity of an automaton. “I see,” he said, then pointed with his slender riding crop. “That tumbledown cottage yonder. Are there others like it?”
The Rossingley estate boasted 60,000 rich and profitable acres. With a more modest 35,000, Gartside was still home to an entire village, made up of a chapel, an inn, farmland, and umpteen tied cottages.
“I believe there are, my lord. Inglis’s brother has suffered terribly with his chest these past two winters and blames it squarely on damp and dry rot. His father succumbed from the same two months ago. The doctor is in firm agreement and has raised the matter with Sir Ambrose on several occasions, to no avail.”
“Is that so.” Lando grimaced.
“My wife’s cousin says the baronet doesn’t know the first thing about managing farmland. At their family seat on the Scottish borders, his sister’s husband does all the work and with great success, by all accounts.”
“Such a shame Gartside prefers this one,” Lando commented.
“Indeed, my lord. The proximity to London society may have something to do with it.” Blandford cleared his throat. “I hear Sir Ambrose finds the Scottish borders quite dull. And cold.”
“Succeeding in such a harsh environment requires perseverance and intelligence. Ambrose Gartside, I fear, is distinctly lacking in both.”
With a click of his heels, Lando turned from the boundary and back towards his own lush, rolling pastures. Not immune to poor weather, Rossingley crop yields were down, too, the difference being his tenant farmers’ rents had fallen along with it. Lando had made up the shortfall with a wise investment in a Manchester cotton mill. Like his father before him, he had never shied away from plunging forward with new ventures. Not of the moneymaking sort anyhow. Moving on from his grief was another matter entirely. At moments such as this, he yearned for Charles’s sensible advice to guide him.
“I’ll ride alone from here, Blandford.” Lando’s man of business’s broad posterior was much happier behind his walnut desk than precariously balanced on a coarse leather saddle. “But I would be obliged if you could make some enquiries of your wife’s cousins. And Inglis’s brother. Hearsay is all well and good, but I’d like some proof and figures to go along with it. And ensure they are remunerated for their efforts along with anyone else who cares to assist. But not so handsomely questions are asked, you understand.”
“That I do, my lord.”
Dismissing him with a nod, Lando cantered away. Astride Twilight and eating up the hard ground, he filled his lungs with pure Rossingley air. His favourite stallion was hungry to run, and cantering cured most evils, Lando found.
However, no matter how fast he urged the beast onwards now, he couldn’t outride his hammering thoughts. On reaching stonier ground around the lake, Lando slowed to a trot and let them wash over him instead, pondering the conundrums of Mr Angel, his poor sister, and his dastardly neighbour.
Emotions he wasn’t yet ready to examine nagged at the edges of Lando’s conscience. Who would defend the next serving girl and the one after that? Where would Gartside’s tenants go when their roofs caved in? When the crops failed? When every last penny was gone?
Lando’s dislike of Ambrose Gartside stemmed from boyhood; he’d been a nasty sort of child, one who drowned kittens and stamped on spiders. That such an unattractive, unpleasant boy had grown into a contemptible rake, ruining innocent young women for pleasure and ignoring the responsibilities of his land, did not surprise Lando one bit. It vexed him though. Gartside was heaping shame on his hitherto good family name and ignoring his duty as custodian of the estate and the hardworking folk whose lives depended on it. Moreover, as Mr Angel so shrewdly observed, the world offered its condolences while comfortably spectating from the sidelines.
The young man had called for revenge, with his strong fists clenched and chin held high. A nourishing emotion, it outlasted most others unless attended to. If Lando’s beloved cavalry officer were still alive, his fighting spirit would have wholeheartedly approved. And despite grabbing Angel by the hair and booting him through the door—twice—his heart was telling him Charles would have expected Lando to assist his nephew in any way he saw fit.
With a sigh, Lando tugged on the reins, patted Twilight’s sleek withers, and turned the beast north.
His destination, the largest of his impeccably maintained tenant farms, sat high on a hill, commanding some of the finest views of the Rossingley estate. If he couldn’t seek Charles’s advice, then the opinion of the occupier of this property was the next best thing.
As Lando slipped from the horse and adjusted the sweep of his full riding coat, his troubled soul stilled. A sense of home and tranquillity stole over him. He could be himself here; he was amongst friends.
No doubt warned of his lordship’s arrival by one of several inquisitive small children, Robert Langford, whose extensive family of Langford’s had farmed Rossingley land since time immemorial, waited to greet him. After Lando handed the reins and thruppence to one of Robert’s eager brood, the two men embraced in the shadow of the sturdy farmhouse. As the two fair heads, resting on similarly angular shoulders, warmly bent to each other, an observer might be forgiven for mistaking them as brothers. And they wouldn’t be far wrong. Lando’s father had a few illegitimate offspring scattered around the estate, though he’d always seen their mothers and their issue well cared for, unlike Lando’s neighbour. Childhood friends, Lando and Robert had played side by side in the nursery and even schooled together until Lando had been sent away.
“I’m only stopping if your dear Mrs Langford has made a batch of her seed cakes with ginger sugar,” Lando announced. “I’m famished, hot, and desperately in need of your sound advice.”
Robert grinned, a grin not far removed from the rare, quick smile returned by the eleventh earl. “I’ve never met a problem yet that a slice of her seed cake couldn’t fix.”
Children scattered as he ushered Lando into his modest parlour. By a minor miracle, Lando was a father himself——and an indulgent one at that. Nevertheless, his lack of enthusiasm for other people’s progeny knew no bounds. A quarter-hour bathed in inconsequential pleasantries passed by until Mrs Langford departed, leaving the men alone save for the seed cake and a fresh pot of tea.
“To what do we owe the honour?” questioned Robert with a twinkle in his eye. “I’d have taken a bath if I’d known you were intending to visit.”
Smiling, Lando nibbled at a moist corner. “I have come with a proposition for you, Robert.” He wiped a crumb from his upper lip and sucked on his finger. Even his own cook failed to make ginger sugar as well as Mrs Langford. “It will involve travelling to town and skulking around. Chatting to some old chums. You may take one of the gigs, of course, and lodge at the town house. Do you think they could soldier on here without you for a few days?”
He posed the question because it was the polite thing to do; he had no expectation of Robert declining. It wouldn’t be the first errand he’d trusted to his loyal tenant and half-brother , and neither would it be the last. Garrulous and venturesome, Robert relished a trip into town and an opportunity to refresh old acquaintances. Privately, Lando believed he’d be much better suited to the earldom than himself.
“Our neighbour, Gartside, has been making several unwise decisions of late.”
“Nothing new there,” observed Robert. “That estate will be ruined if he doesn’t start paying it more attention. I had a look at his Chevalier barley in the north fields over the summer. All the leaf tips were yellow.” He shook his head. “Riddled with aphids. And if he’d planted Spratt like I said, then he wouldn’t now have bollworm running roughshod down to the lake either.”
At this point, Lando returned the full weight of his attentions to his cake. As much as he adored Robert, his brother sorely overestimated Lando’s interest in barley varieties.
“There has been a new development,” he cut in after a sip of tea and a lengthy discourse on maize. “And because of it, I’m wondering if the time has come to take Gartside in hand. I have become privy to a disturbing tale suggestive that Gartside’s poor form extends beyond crop husbandry and neglected thatching.”
Robert nodded at him over his china teacup with an expression Lando interpreted as disappointed but not surprised. It mirrored his own.
“May I ask why you would choose to involve yourself?”
A pertinent question and one which had troubled Lando long after he’d retired to his bedchamber last night.
“Because it is the right thing to do.”
He met Robert’s steady gaze. While Lando’s proclivities were a secret well hidden from the ton, his long-serving loyal staff and half-brother were another matter entirely.
“And because…Charles would have wanted it.”
They ate in peaceful silence until the heavy rock of Lando’s grief settled once more. Robert Langford was the only person alive who comprehended the weight of it.
“So dig around, would you?” said Lando once he was able to speak again. “Starting with the high ton and working your way down. Visit a couple of gambling hells too. Find out which are Gartside’s favourites. Whether he has bills mounting with his tailor and so forth. He has deep pockets, but they won’t be bottomless. Speak to your pals on the door at White’s.”
Robert’s keen eyes lit up at the task—by a similar degree as Lando’s, who, by now, had tossed decorum out of the window, circling his plate with a wet finger and then lapping at the ginger sugar with his tongue as if they were back in the nursery.
“You have not mentioned Charles for over a year,” Robert observed in his usual blunt fashion. “May I enquire as to what has changed?”
“His niece has become Gartside’s latest toy.” Lando dabbed at his lips. “And as much as I’d prefer to do nothing, I don’t think I can sit by and let him get away with defiling another innocent girl. God knows our own father had a generous appetite, as did Gartside’s, but at least their conquests were willing spinsters. Or widowed, like your own mother. Not…” Anne Angel’s pale, haunted face flashed before his eyes. “Not naive and ruined.”
Robert chewed as he ruminated. “So it’s not simply about the estate.”
“No, although I’d rather his tenants didn’t suffer any more than they already have. I have an inkling he’s running short of ready blunt, but I need to be sure before I act.”
“You have something in mind, don’t you?” Over the rim of his teacup, Robert’s clear eyes regarded his half-brother.
“Yes. Possibly. But I need to be sure of my facts first. And I need time to think.”
“It will do you good,” ventured Robert. “Having a project. You know, Lando, you can’t spend the rest of your…”
“Yes. Precisely.”
The exact moment that Lando’s profound grief merged with ennui had passed unnoticed. But admitting, even to Robert, that his days smelled of boredom and he craved distraction from it was tantamount to acknowledging that a part of himself buried along with his lover was stirring again. And putting that into words felt like an enormous leap. So, he stayed quiet and took another mouthful of cake whilst pretending he had nothing else to add, and Robert went along with it.
“While you are at it, Robert,” he added carelessly, as if it mattered not, leading Robert to understand it must matter a great deal. “See if you can unearth anything about a young man going by the name of Mr Christopher Angel. He hails from London; he purports to be Charles’s nephew. I don’t trust him.”
“Describe him.”
Hungry. Determined. Roguish .
“Tall.” Lando demonstrated with his hands. “Around this much taller than me, and broad. Muscular even. Perhaps twenty-two or twenty-three. A gentleman, perhaps once upon a time, but down at heel. And of dark complexion, with hair reaching his shoulders. In his left ear, he sports a ridiculous gold earring, like a pirate. Clean shaven, and he has unblemished skin.”
Robert’s lips twitched. “Unblemished skin, eh?”
“And what of it?” Lando glared. “As opposed to pockmarked or scarred.”
An image of his handsome visitor as he squared up to Lando filled his mind. “I had the misfortune to study it at unexpectedly close quarters.”
“And his eyes? I don’t suppose you remembered the colour of those?”
“Hazel. Autumnal.”
Robert chuckled. “Autumnal? How poetic. Autumnal eyes and unblemished skin. Dark, broad. Why, it sounds almost as…”
“You did ask. I’m very observant, as you know.”
A smile replaced the sceptical raised eyebrow. “Just remind me which of my children led Twilight to the stables?”
Gadzooks . “Your young Jack,” hazarded Lando. Didn’t every country family have a Jack amongst its brood?
Robert laughed. “Harriet. But good try. Lando, it’s about time I pointed out to you that admiring a living person is not the same as stamping on precious memories of a dead one.”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
“The man is Charles’s nephew. He…he suggested that he knew him well.” His appetite for cake suddenly diminished, Lando flopped back in the chair. “I…I am nervous of… I have questions for him, Robert. So many questions. He knew Charles well! He saw him during his final illness when I could not. I had to pretend the man was nothing but a moderate friend when he was my…he was my everything.”
Was . Now, Lando’s everything was the seamless running of his estate, meeting his man of business, discussing barley, having tea with Robert. And raking over old memories, shuffling through them like a deck of playing cards, the faces fading with every fresh hand.
“And yet you don’t trust him.”
Pure anguish pierced Lando’s soul. “No. I don’t. I’m fearful he’s going to try to use that knowledge against me if I don’t assist him in bringing down Gartside.”
“You are above reproach, Lando. And if he tries, then he’ll bring down his own name too. And that of his sister.”
“Hers, I fear, is lost already.”
Robert examined the teacup in his rough farmer’s hand. “Of course, you could always join him. Keep thy enemies close and all that. You never know—you might have an adventure along the way.”
“I’m no adventurer. You know that. I’ve barely left the estate these past three years.”
“Then maybe this is just the prompt you need.”
Lando sighed. For several months now, Robert had been coaxing him to take up a new pastime or return to society. Perhaps the hour had come. Perhaps he should pit his time and his money and sharp wits against someone as odious as Gartside.
“You’re still young, Lando. A father too, with the responsibilities that entails. You have a future. Perhaps you could even find love again if you…”
“Please.” Tears, hot and unexpected burned behind Lando’s eyes. “I…I am not ready to say it. But…”
“You think it?” Robert supplied, and Lando turned his face away from his brother and towards the window. “That’s no crime.”
“Perhaps,” he admitted. “I’m…yes. A project may do me good.”
Robert sat back, a tiny, satisfied smile pulling at his lips. “Why don’t I go to London and discover what I can. And you do some digging of your own by further acquainting yourself with the mysterious Mr Angel.”