Chapter 3
“HAVE YOU LISTENED to a single word I’ve said?”
Blinking out of thoughts about Miss Faircott, James looked up from the book he had been pretending to read and frowned at the man sitting in the chair opposite him. “Everett? When did you get here?”
Everett snickered, shaking his head. “Remarkable.”
“What is?”
“Here I am, thinking you and I just had a riveting conversation about your former ward, and you apparently weren’t even aware I was in the library.”
Furrowing his brow, James closed the book, stared at the title for a moment as he tried to recall if he’d chosen a book on duck husbandry on purpose, then placed it on the small table beside his chair. “We were talking about Miss Denham?”
“I was talking about Miss Denham,” Everett corrected with a smirk. “You have clearly been lost in the clouds. You greeted me upon my arrival and everything.”
Had he? James rubbed his temple, though he didn’t have a headache. But perhaps rubbing it would clear his thoughts of Hannah Faircott’s smile, which had been plaguing him since leaving the harvest ball last night. “What about Miss Denham?”
Everett settled against the back of his chair and stretched his legs out, looking far more comfortable than James had ever been.
He looked different. Granted, Weston Everett hadn’t been in England in over six years, but living in America had changed him more than James would have expected.
Regardless, he had been too caught up in rescuing Louisa to fully internalize the fact that Everett was in England, and now he grinned as he took in the sight of his oldest friend.
“It’s good to see you, old friend,” Everett said, as if reading James’s thoughts. “As we didn’t get a chance to talk last night thanks to your stubborn Miss Denham, I thought I would come visit this morning. If I had known I would be talking to a ghost, I might have—”
“I’m glad you’re here, Everett.” And he was.
James wrote to Everett often, but he had never found the right words to convey how much he had missed his friend over the last years.
He couldn’t fault Everett for staying away as long as he had—Everett’s father had died back in Boston while James and Everett were studying at Cambridge, leaving Everett responsible for a thriving shipping business.
Folding his arms over his chest, Everett studied James for a long time, and James wondered what he saw. “I was sorry to hear about your father,” Everett said eventually. “And sorry that I couldn’t be here with you when he passed.”
James shifted in his chair, uncomfortable. He couldn’t admit how much he had wanted Everett to cross the Atlantic and help him through his grief, particularly because Everett had a habit of running from his own grief. “Parents often die too young,” James muttered.
Everett’s jaw tightened. “Yes.”
For once, talking about Louisa sounded like a grand idea. James cleared his throat. “Are you going to tell me what happened with Miss Denham last night?”
Louisa had claimed she slipped in the mud and that Everett had unintentionally found her, but James suspected there was more to Louisa’s ruined dress than what she’d told him when he took her home.
Everett scoffed. “I’m not a cad, Jamie.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“That being said, I might have bumped into Miss Denham and gently knocked her to the ground.” Everett flinched as if waiting for James to call him out.
If James were to call out every man Louisa got into accidental scrapes with, he would likely be dead a dozen times over. As much as James loved Louisa like a sister, she had a habit of getting into mischief wherever she went.
Groaning, James ran a hand down his face.
If Louisa hadn’t ruined her dress, he wouldn’t have needed to escort her home.
He would have danced with the lovely Miss Faircott instead of spending the next morning wondering if he would ever see her again.
“I’m not technically Miss Denham’s guardian anymore,” he said, “and she still manages to fill my life with stress.”
“The state of her dress was my fault. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
James grunted.
“What was it that was so thought-consuming while I was talking with you?” Everett asked. “Or at you, I should say.”
“Nothing of consequence,” James mumbled.
“Was that a lie from the mouth of the great James Hartwell?”
Goodness, James had forgotten how frustrating Everett could be at times.
Glaring at his friend, he chose not to respond to Everett’s question and asked his own instead.
“Why are you here, Everett? I’d resigned myself to you never setting foot in England again.
” When Everett grimaced, James sat up straighter.
He knew that look, even after years apart, and it did not bode well.
A guilty Weston Everett only spelled trouble.
“Why were we talking about Miss Denham?”
“Might I remind you that, despite your admittedly vague responses, you were not an active participant in the conversation before I pulled you from your thoughts.”
“Everett.”
“I have to sell Bramblewood.” He flinched again.
This time, James thought Everett had good reason to flinch, and he glared at his friend. “You’re selling your estate? But Louisa is living there.”
“As I discovered this morning.” Everett’s expression hardened. “Why didn’t you tell me that your ward was my tenant?”
“Because I thought you knew.”
With a heavy sigh, Everett lowered his elbows to his knees and dropped his face into his hands. “My solicitor never told me the tenant’s name. Regardless of who is living there, I have to sell it. I need the money.”
“You own an entire shipping company!” James was worried enough about Louisa as it was; he did not need to wonder where she would live as soon as her lease of Bramblewood reached the end of its term.
As Everett described a series of unfortunate circumstances that had left his company short on funds, James ran through Louisa’s options.
She could live with him, of course, but she would never come back unless it was her last resort.
The blasted woman was too independent for her own good, and that said nothing for what Society would think of an unmarried woman living with a single man.
Oh, what he wouldn’t give to go back ten minutes to when his thoughts revolved around nothing but Miss Faircott and her bright eyes when she laughed.
“There you are, James!” Mother interrupted James’s spiraling thoughts, gliding into the room with a wide smile that only added to James’s anxiety. “Ah, Mr. Everett, it is lovely to see you. Will you be in Upper Lambourn for long?”
Everett leapt to his feet and bowed slightly. “Lady Hartwell. Unfortunately, no. I am only here on business.”
“A pity. James speaks often about how much he wishes you would come home.”
James ignored Everett’s raised eyebrows and gleeful smile and kept his focus on Mother. “You were looking for me?”
“Yes.” She looked far too excited for his liking. “I am so happy that you are home, because my dear friend is coming to visit today.”
“You know you can host whomever you like, Mother. I don’t need to—”
“She is bringing her daughter, James.”
Everett snorted a poorly concealed laugh, likely because he saw the horror in James’s expression. Thankfully, Everett provided the perfect excuse for James to get as far from the house as he could for the rest of the day.
“I hope you have a lovely time with your friend,” he said, patting Mother’s arm, “but unfortunately, Mr. Everett needs my help with his business, and it is quite time sensitive.” His stomach lurched at the lie, but he needed a reason to be away from the house before Mother’s friend arrived.
Everett frowned. “No, I d—”
“Lead the way, Everett!” James said loudly and gripped Everett’s shoulder to direct him out of the room.
Though Mother protested, James didn’t stop shoving Everett forward until they were outside and halfway to the stables.
That was when the guilt hit him, and he wrapped an arm around his churning stomach as Everett broke into laughter.
“Two fibs in one afternoon! What in the world have the years done to you?”
James groaned and dropped his arm. “She wants me to marry.”
“I gathered as much.” Everett narrowed his eyes. “But why aren’t you in agreement? You’ve always wanted a family and, ethically speaking, that’s hard to get without a wife in the mix.”
Whacking Everett in the gut, James continued toward the stables. If he didn’t mount up and leave, Mother would know it and concoct some way to trap him into meeting his supposed future wife.
“I am not opposed to a wife,” he ground out once he’d directed a man to saddle his horse. “I simply want her to be one of my choosing.”
“I am opposed to a wife.” Everett chuckled when James frowned at him. “But even I know that you won’t find someone you like if you don’t take the time to meet your options.”
He made a good point, but that didn’t stop James from feeling itchy all over any time he thought about his mother throwing women at him.
He didn’t speak until the pair of them were on the road, riding toward Everett’s estate, Bramblewood.
He didn’t want to think about Louisa’s future much more than he wanted to deal with his mother’s schemes, but helping his two friends sounded far better than staying at home.
If he could convince Everett to keep Bramblewood, then Louisa could continue to rent the house until she married—assuming she ever found someone she liked well enough to accept his hand.
Plus, without his estate, Everett would have no reason to come back to Upper Lambourn, and then James would likely never see his friend again.
How was he supposed to even think about marrying when two of the people he loved most needed him?
“Miss Denham’s lease won’t end for two more years,” James said, glad that he sounded calmer than he felt.
Everett glanced at him. “I’m aware.”
“Surely you could wait to sell until then.”
“If I don’t get money moving in the next few months, my father’s company will crumble.”
James furrowed his brow as he studied the worried lines on Everett’s forehead. It was Everett’s company now and had been for six years, since the elder Mr. Everett’s death. Why was he still calling it his father’s? “What if you—Miss Faircott!”
He hadn’t seen the woman until she was nearly right next to him, and James was so startled by her smile that he tugged too hard on the reins. And his horse, who especially hated harsh tugs like that, stopped so quickly that James slid right over the animal’s head and into the dirt with a thud.