Edwards seemed rather unhappy in this interview as he answered, obviously trying to word his reply in the manner he felt would be most pleasing to his new master. It was possible he’d been scandalized by being told to sit when he should have been standing. It was just one more way in that Jacob was failing in his duties and he wished more than ever that his man had arrived, that he might advise him away from further missteps.
“I do manage the supplies, yes. In fact, I was in the midst of a heavy inventory today and had only left the storerooms for a moment to relay a question to the cook regarding foodstuffs. I felt that we had used an uncommon amount of mushrooms of late and thought to advise her to not use such a generous hand in doling them out,” Edwards said, his tone rather self-satisfied.
Jacob’s eyebrow raised somewhat. “I have always been excessively fond of mushrooms myself,” he said. “Perhaps the solution might be to order additional mushrooms henceforth.”
Edwards was clearly not happy with that. His face tightened, as though he had just taken a bite out of one the lemons Jacob had carried aboard his ship to guard against scurvy. “As you say, Your Grace.”
“What can you tell me about the staff?” Jacob said, thinking that perhaps it was best to change the subject, lest he alienate the man completely. “I understand you were shorthanded? I was wondering if that happens often.”
Edwards drew himself up, as though offended. “Your Grace, I am unsure what you mean. The house is always fully staffed. One of our weavers recently left, but I am talking to several applicants today for the position, so it will be filled before nightfall. This opening was rather unexpected, as the girl who had held the position fell ill very suddenly. But otherwise, I endeavor to run things in a fastidious and expedient manner.”
Jacob frowned in confusion. “But I was given to understand that Miss Price was filling a position that had been vacant for quite some time.”
Edwards went a little pale. “Miss Price was none of my concern.”
The answer felt evasive. “Edwards, do you mean to say that my brother does not normally make the hiring decisions for this household?”
“He has always approved of my choices, Your Grace,” Edwards replied a touch haughtily.
“Then help me to understand. You mentioned interviewing for the position of the weaver. Did you likewise interview Miss Price from several applicants?”
The man did not answer.
Jacob ground his teeth in frustration. “Edwards, allow me to make myself clear. I am the Duke. This is my home. Whatever you say here is in confidence, for my ears only. I can assure you, that you will not get in trouble for your actions unless I determine that you are acting against me in some way. That said, I demand that you answer the question.”
“In that case, Your Grace, if I might speak freely…” Edwards swallowed hard, his eyes darting around the room as if to ascertain whether they truly were alone. “I did not interview Miss Price. I was instructed to leave the position open. Likewise, I was informed who would fill it. If you wish me to sack Miss Price, then I will do so gladly.”
Owen, then, had taken matters into his own hands. The question was, why?
“No, do not let Miss Price go. I have seen no reason to think her service less than adequate,” he said, as he dismissed the man. Edwards had given him much to think about. The truth was, she wasn’t adequate. She was inexperienced. She didn’t even look strong, though he had to admit she was a quick study. Once she had ascertained what was expected of her at table, she had served well, and diligently.
But the fact that his brother had quite clearly gone out of his way to hire her, bothered him.
She has caught his eye, then? The girl was certainly beautiful. He himself had been drawn in by those eyes, by the quick wit and startling intellect that Miss Price possessed.
He barely looked up as Edwards left, shutting the door quietly behind him. The ledgers in front of him seemed daunting suddenly. There was too much he didn’t understand about this estate. The fact that his brother had misled him once, made him wonder if other secrets lay within those pages.
He opened the first book and began to read. He had barely begun to decipher the crabbed handwriting when a knock came at the door. Thinking the steward had returned with some other detail, he shouted for whoever it was to come in, without looking up.
There came a thud at his elbow. The smell of hot bacon filled the room.
“Your Grace, your mother sent me to bring you this,” Miss Price said, as she set out the tray next to him. “I wasn’t sure what to bring, so took some of everything. If you need something different, you have only to ask.”
He nodded without looking up, trying to decide whether the entry before him was in reference to wool or wood as though it were the most important thing in the world to him. He could not look at her. Not knowing that she had been accorded this role through special means. She meant something to his brother…not to him.
There was a rustle of cloth. A soft breath of hesitation. “Your Grace, if I might be so bold…”
He sighed in exasperation and dragged his eyes from the page. She stood in front of the desk, hands clasped in front of her, pale face earnest beneath the white cap that hid her auburn tresses from his gaze. He had forgotten how beautiful she was and caught his breath. “Yes?”
“I am sure I do not know…I mean…” She blew out a breath, obviously struggling for the words. “I am new here, and do not understand how things work, but I saw your mother this morning near tears. And then the steward rushed from your study as though the very devils of hell were on his heels. If I might be so bold as to ask if there is something troubling you?”
The earnest way in which she spoke served only to irritate him. There had been rebuke and even censure in those words, and even spoken prettily, one did not just come into a room and insult a Duke.
“You do understand who I am?” he asked, setting the book back away from him and drawing himself up.
Her cheeks colored in embarrassment. “I understand full well who you are, Your Grace. I am only meaning to help.”
“I am thinking, then, that you forget who you are. This is not your village, Miss Price, where you are free to run your tongue as you please. I am your employer, not your friend.” He drew the book toward him again, dismissing her with the action.
Now it was she who drew her shoulders back, her chin coming up in the way of one doing battle. “And does being a Duke preclude acting with civility? Your mother was quite beside herself, and she still thought to make sure you had a hot meal, which you happen to be ignoring. You have only just arrived and you insult the people around you that you need to make your allies if you expect to thrive here. Or are Dukes above having allies?”
“You make it sound like I have entered into a war,” he scoffed and turned another page in the ledger, though he hadn’t finished reading the page he was on.
“I think you do not have a clear understanding of what it means to be here, at this estate, in Ireland. Nor do you seem to take relationships seriously that you perhaps ought to. You might be a Duke, and might even have been an officer in His Majesty’s Navy, but I suspect you understand ships better than souls. And you will do well to remember that.”
With that she curtseyed prettily. “I hope I have not spoken out of turn, Your Grace. Now if you will excuse me, I have duties to attend to.”
She didn’t leave so much as she fled. Jacob watched her go, unable to shake the feeling that not only had he just been roundly scolded but warned, as well.
Chapter 8
Jacob examined the entries for an hour and was no closer to discovering anything other than what crops and stock they raised, and how much. There were no secrets in the ledgers, and he’d been foolish to think so. Owen could have told him most of this, and in fact, had.
I see conspiracies where there are none, he thought in frustration as he shoved the book back away from him. Next to him the tray rattled as the book knocked into it. He note
d in surprise that at some point he’d eaten his breakfast though he didn’t remember doing so.
The folded paper that he’d dug out from under his desk was still sitting there on the blotter where he’d forgotten it. Almost idly, he picked it up and turned it over in his hands, opening it out so he might garner more of its contents. It appeared to be the first draft of an invitation, written by the Duchess… inviting guests to a ball.
Jacob blinked and read the draft again, going back to note the date, which was marked for four days hence. A ball? Why would Mother be throwing a ball so abruptly? A stone of dread sank in his stomach. It was to be a ball in his honor, he would have staked his life on it.
While he had no quarrel with the ideas of balls in general, the very fact that one was already underway two days since he’d arrived home was something of a surprise. That he hadn’t been consulted, was also a surprise, and an unpleasant one at that. Was he, or was he not, the Duke of Woodworth?
Allies. He needed allies.
Miss Price’s words came back to haunt him now. Maybe if he’d gone to breakfast his mother would have discussed this matter with him, though it was clear she’d already put this in the works for she’d left this upon his desk for him to find. And she clearly hadn’t said anything at any of the meals yesterday.
Frustrated and angry, Jacob was already halfway across the room before he’d even fully formed the idea of where he was going. He flung open the door of his study, startling a maidservant on the other side, who had just raised her hand timidly to knock. She jumped back now with a squeak.
It took him a moment to register that this was not Alicia, but someone else entirely, a girl he remembered vaguely from dinner the night before. “Yes?”
“The tray, Your Grace?” she asked, pointing feebly into the room behind him at the abandoned remains of his breakfast still sitting on his desk.
“Well, get to it,” he answered crossly and pushed past her, stopping only belatedly as he realized he had no idea where he was going. “My mother, The Duchess. Do you know where she is?” he asked, twisting to look at her.
The girl gaped at him, near tears, he realized. Blast and botheration if he wasn’t acting the ass with everyone today. She could barely form the words to tell him that he would find the lady within the parlor on the south side of the house.
“Thank you.” The words seemed suddenly insufficient. Did a Duke apologize to staff? He couldn’t remember his father ever tendering an apology to anyone. Especially to staff. On the other hand, he also couldn’t remember the staff ever speaking to his father the way one rather impertinent girl insisted upon speaking to him.
At something of a loss as to how to remedy the situation, Jacob simply thanked her, then turned and left, knowing that his actions were insufficient and not entirely sure how to change them. With more kindness, he decided. He no longer needed to snap out commands and expect everyone to jump to, the way they did on board ship. Households needed to be run with a softer hand than military vessels. He would try harder.
His mother was working a piece of embroidery in the parlor where he’d been told to expect to find her. She had with her Miss Barrow, a young Englishwoman who acted as his mother’s companion, who vanished when he came in. Well-trained in staying out of the way of family, but someone with which to while away the hours. He was glad now for the woman’s discretion, as he watched the tactful creature escape into the hall.
“You are hosting a ball?” he asked, holding up the paper he still had clutched in his hand.
He had tried to keep his voice even but the words stuck in his throat. He was still angry, regardless of his resolve to be kinder. Judging from the way she stared at him, with a trace of hurt in those green eyes so like his own, he suspected he should have opened with something less of a salvo. Perhaps they should have exchanged pleasantries first.
“The invitations may be from me, but the event is to mark your returning home, at long last. So, it is more that we are having a ball,” she replied, putting the emphasis on the ‘we,’ a gentle reminder that whether or not he wished it, the celebration was to be in his honor.
It was a move well played, and his estimation of her rose a notch, even if his frustration did likewise.
“Am I also right in assuming that there will be several eligible young ladies at this ball?” he asked, remembering the main focus of his conversations with her since he had arrived back at home.
“You will find many suitable English ladies in attendance,” his mother answered firmly. “I have already heard from several families with their intention to be here. Am I right in assuming you will attend and not give this family cause to be embarrassed?”
Jacob only just managed to keep from rolling his eyes. “I am in utmost admiration in how quickly you were able to manage not only the planning of the ball itself but the guest list, as well. I am equally astonished by your ability to find English ladies in Ireland.”
To his surprise, she gave a most unladylike snort in reply. “You will find that there are many such families as ours in Ireland, who took our rightful place among these…people. And why should we not, if only for the sake of solidifying the claim of the British empire upon what rightfully always should have been part of England in the first place?”
“And dare I guess that there will be a lack of Irish ladies upon that selfsame guest list?” he asked, thinking oddly enough of the new maid who had so troubled him only a short time before. He found himself wondering what one such as she would think of this truly English ball.
No doubt she would tell him precisely what she thought as soon as she heard tell of it.
The look that his mother gave him was quite scandalized. “The very idea, as though the Irish peerage is even of a consideration with our own.”
“I should think, if Ireland is truly to be considered a part of Great Britain, then would not that make whatever peerage there is in Ireland, British by definition? Meaning any young lady of suitable family should be ideal for your purposes.” He was goading her, perhaps, but her constant insistence regarding British superiority was beginning to grate upon him.
“Oh, you do not understand anything! Why must you vex me so!” With that, the Duchess threw down her sewing upon the settee and looked crossly in the direction of the door. “Where is Finola? I find one of my sick headaches coming on, and I would like to lie down.”
So pained was his mother’s expression that Jacob sighed and came to sit next to her, taking her hands in his. “I apologize, Mother. I should not tease you so. I am sure whomever you have invited has precisely the qualities needed to make an excellent wife for a Duke. I am surprised you have not successfully married off my brother by now.”
If anything, his words only pained her further. Her lips turned down unhappily. “Owen has refused my every attempt. It is entirely shameful that neither of my boys carry any interest in furthering the family line. It is your duty to marry, and to marry well.”
Jacob squeezed her hand. “Darling mother, I am not opposed to marrying, at all. While I was away at war it was not convenient. When was I home to even consider matrimony? I have every intention of taking to wife someone suitable. I only ask that you keep in mind that I have just gotten here.”
His mother sighed noisily, clearly still not mollified. “As you say. It is true you have only just arrived. But you will…consider…the idea.”
He smiled, though it took some effort. “I look forward to the opportunity to consider whatever ladies you have invited. I have always enjoyed dancing, and promise to look forward to your ball. I ask only that you give me some warning next time. My retinue is only just arriving today, along with the bulk of my belongings. Had you arranged this any sooner, you might have left me unprepared.”
“Your cravat is rather crooked,” she complained and reached to straighten it.
He brushed her hands away, not wanting to be fussed over. “It is tied well enough,” he said and rose to go. “I will trouble you no further, seeing
as how your head pains you. Miss Barrow, I am sure, is just outside. I will send her in that she might tend you properly.” He bent to kiss his mother’s forehead.
“And what will you do?” she asked, and he realized that she still seemed unsure of him, despite his attempts to mollify her in her matchmaking attempts.
“I shall find Owen and ask him to explain how to read the stack of ledgers I found in the study. You, on the other hand, might wish to plan for another type of soiree entirely. Though I might have to put that off. Unless I miss my guess, the carriages I see crossing the bridge will be the rest of my belongings, and a few additional houseguests.”
She turned her head to glance through the window behind her. “Why, there are many officers on horseback…and ladies as well…”
Jacob grimaced. “I suspect I have been a little too broad in the wording of my invitation to my new ‘posting.’ That would be several of the men that had been under my command, and their wives. I might have made known that I would entertain them here. I had no idea they would take me up on the offer so quickly.”
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