“No,” she whispered. “It’s not enough.”
Chapter 22
It was barely noon, and the day had been bloody awful. Benedict shook his head, trying to clear some of the fog that came from a night without sleep. His eyes hurt, strained by hours of running numbers by candlelight. Numbers that didn’t add up, no matter how he tried.
And now, while his focus should be entirely on how to save the livelihoods of half the village, he couldn’t get four words out of his head.
No. It’s not enough.
He dropped his head into his hands. He’d been a fool for thinking that he could make her happy. If he hadn’t been enough for his mother, who by law of nature was supposed to love him, how could he ever have been enough for a woman who’d detested him from the beginning?
Despite all his efforts not to care, his heart was crumbling like high ash coal.
“You look like shite,” Oliver said from the doorway.
Benedict looked up. “You’re late.”
Oliver shrugged and leaned against the doorway. “Not as late as the others.”
It was true. Benedict had sent a runner for Fiona and John a full half hour ago. They might not typically be at his beck and call, but if he’d sent for them, they should damned well assume it was important.
“What’s got such a bee in your bonnet that you’re sending orders like a bleeding general?”
Benedict shook his head. “We’ll wait for the others.”
He stood and walked to the cabinet—newly dusted and neatened and catalogued like the rest of the office. The brandy sat next to the cognac, which sat next to the gin. It was early in the day, but to hell with it. He opened the cabinet door and grabbed two glasses, offering one to Oliver, who crossed his giant, ex-blacksmith arms over his barrel of a chest.
“No alcohol in the workshop during working hours, lad. Put it away.”
Benedict raised an eyebrow. “I am your boss.”
“And you’re the one that made the bleedin’ safety rules. You can damn well stick by them.”
Devil save him from overly efficient foremen. “You’re fired.”
“Not today, lad. Maybe tomorrow.” He took the bottle from Benedict’s hand and steered him toward the center bench. “Now why don’t you tell me what’s wrong? Whatever it is, there’ll be a solution.”
What’s wrong.
Benedict should start with the bloody upcoming clearances—that was what was important—but it was Amelia on the tip of his tongue. Amelia, who had his insides twisted in convoluted knots and his heart feeling like lead in his chest.
He was on the verge of telling Oliver how much it hurt to be married to a woman he could never truly have. A woman whose heart would always be elsewhere. But before he could say anything, a terse female voice came from the doorway.
“Yes, Ben. Tell me exactly why you dragged me away from home on my day off.”
Fiona stood with her hands on her hips, a particularly annoyed look on her face. John stood beside her, his expression equally perplexed. He raised his eyebrows slightly as he took in Benedict’s ragged appearance but kept quiet.
“Karstark is planning to clear out all farms south of the river.”
“What?” The single word came from three different people, their faces mirrored images of shock.
“How do you kn-kn-know this?”
“Lady Karstark visited Amelia yesterday.”
“Has it been confirmed?” Fiona’s grip on the doorframe tightened, her knuckles white. The news would hit her hardest. Her father’s farm was on Karstark land. South of the river.
“I wrote to Lord Karstark immediately to ask if it was true. He responded this morning.” Benedict tossed a crumpled ball of paper into the middle of the table. Oliver opened it and read the scrawled text aloud.
“It’s not your business, but yes.” He flipped the paper over, and then over again. “The bloody bastard.” He turned to the cabinet and grabbed the bottle of brandy he’d confiscated from Benedict and took a long swig. He held out the bottle to John, who joined them at the bench and then took his own mouthful.
Fiona stalked over to them and snatched the paper. “That’s it? That’s all he said?”
“D-d-did Lady K-k-arstark say when?” Anxiety always made John’s stutter worse.
“All she said was that the area would be ready for deer hunting next autumn.”
“Christ,” said Fiona, sinking to a stool. “They’d need to evict us soon to make that happen.” She took the bottle from John.
“By my count,” Benedict said, “we have three months, maybe four. Then half of Abingdale is without a home.”
All three stared vacantly ahead of them as the magnitude of the disaster sank in. He gave them a moment. Devil knew he’d needed it when he had heard.
“What do we do?” Fiona asked.
“I’ve been looking at the numbers.” Benedict spread some sheets out over the table. “A third of the affected farms have someone employed with us already. Another fifteen percent have a son who could join us in the next week, and most of the others could join us once they’re evicted.”
“They’d need training. They’re farmhands. They sow and plow and raise sheep, not shape steel into parts,” said Oliver.
“Then we’ll train them. You d-d-did it with the men we’ve g-got.”
It had taken time to get his people trained well enough that the firm ran as smoothly as it did. And it had been done in increments. They’d hired staff as the company had grown. Such a sudden intake of novices would present a challenge they hadn’t faced before. A potentially dangerous one in an environment like theirs.
“So we can provide work for what, ninety percent o’ them?” Fiona asked.
Chains tightened around Benedict’s chest, like they were being pulled by engines traveling in opposite directions. “If we have the work to give them.”
Because while his gut wanted him to support the whole village and promise them a roof and income regardless of the situation, his head knew it wasn’t sustainable. To make this work for the long term, they needed money coming in to support the money going out.
“We need the Americans.” Fiona’s hand was to her mouth. “We’ll never negotiate another contract in time.”
Benedict grimaced. “And we need to convince them to move the timeframe up so that we receive the funds months earlier than planned. The prototype needs to be fully functional in the next fortnight. And we’d need another three ready to ship within a year.”
“Impossible.” Oliver shook his head. “Not with new workers that don’t know what they’re doing. The current workers would need to do double the hours they’re currently working to make up for it.”
“Then that’s what they’re going to have to do.” Benedict’s tone of voice was harsher than intended, but he’d been up all night, and he couldn’t think of another way out of the situation.
“They’re not going to like it.”
“I’m sure their friends will like being homeless less,” Fiona said. Her face was hard as stone, but her eyes were bright with tears.
“We can p-p-provide jobs, but what about h-housing?”
Benedict exhaled sharply. This was what had kept him awake when he’d finally put away the ledgers. Because all the money in the world wasn’t going to keep families warm at night or dry in the rain. Employment was only part of the problem.
“The only suitable land I have for building on was earmarked for extending the firm, which we’re going to bloody well need to expand so quickly. The rest is wooded. It will take months to clear it.”
Oliver polished off the last of the brandy. John was drumming his fingers on his forehead—something he only did when the numbers weren’t what he expected, and he didn’t know why. “Wilde,” he said finally.
“What about him?” Benedict asked, a knot immediately forming in his gut.
“He has all that land north of the g-granary.”
“No.” Fiona and Benedict spo
ke as one. Turning to his wife’s ex-fiancé was not an option he wanted to consider.
Oliver, however, was nodding. “Aye, he may have the country’s largest stick up his arse, but he’s got a soul. He won’t let the village down.”
“It’s worth asking,” John said.
“I don’t want to go begging to Wildeforde for help.” The thought made his stomach roil. “Besides, I stole his bloody fiancée. I can’t imagine he’d be keen to accept an audience with me.”
“He won’t say no to Fi,” Oliver said. “Not when it’s her he’d be saving.”
Fiona paled. “Nae. I cannot.” It was a sign of just how rattled she was that she lapsed into her father’s Scottish accent. “I can’t ask him for this. Not after everything. I cannae go to him for rescue.”
John took her hand and gave it a small squeeze. “You’ve the best shot of saving every tenant south of the river.”
Fiona’s eyes filled with tears, but she gave a curt nod. “Then I guess I’m going to London.” She looked at the empty brandy bottle in front of Oliver and then crossed to the liquor cabinet and grabbed the gin.
Benedict gladly took the bottle when she was done. Wildeforde coming to the bloody rescue. Wildeforde, who would have no doubt “been enough” when Benedict wasn’t. How could it get worse?
“There’s something else we need to consider,” Oliver said, his tone darker than it had been. “The village. They’re already fired up. Tucker’s been preaching revolution to them every other night. And when he’s not addressing a crowd, he’s whispering in ears. This news could turn things even worse.”
Benedict blew out a long breath. Bringing Tucker to town was proving to be a mistake. He was a variable they didn’t need.
“I’ll talk to him. Ask him to temper his tone somewhat. Surely, he can be forced to see sense. No one wants violence.”
“And if he won’t see sense?” Fiona asked quietly.
“Then the Karstarks are on their own.”
Acceptance of her undeniable fall from grace was gradual. Amelia had cried in Benedict’s lap that morning, the first time she’d ever been held while crying, and then she’d run a hot bath and cried in there too. It hurt to see her downfall so plainly illustrated—literally in black and white, complete with captions. The printer’s ink smudged, and the paper wrinkled from a combination of steam, tears, and bathwater.
She’d had dinner in her room and cried herself to sleep before Benedict had even returned home.
The next day she’d woken, energized, and fired off two dozen furious letters—to the printer, the publisher, the illustrator, the condescending patronesses of Almack’s, and the whiny snot-nosed debutantes who owed her more loyalty. Hell, she’d even sent one to Prinny to demand an inquiry into publishing standards.
The next day she didn’t leave her bed.
Or the day after that.
Both mornings, Benedict brought her breakfast and flowers. He gave her sweet and gentle encouragement. Both nights he’d held her and talked her through all the progress the team had made toward solving the Karstark situation.
The next morning, he’d stripped her of her quilt and quite literally dumped her on the floor. Get up, get dressed, and get something done, he’d said. Find a damn project. I will not watch another woman waste away in this room.
And he’d stormed out, flinging the door into the wall as he did.
So she got up, got dressed, and found a project.
That was three days ago, and since then, the morning room had become a refuse site. Dozens of the trunks her father had sent were still in the lumber room where they’d been since they were delivered. With no house party to prepare for, Amelia had made the goal of sorting through at least one trunk a day. That should see her occupied until summer.
“Should we finish sorting yesterday’s trunk?” Cassandra asked, gesturing to the piles of hats and gloves and shoes that littered the room.
“No. One trunk a day. That’s what we said.”
“But we still haven’t worked out what to do with this stuff.” Cassandra held up a Russian beaver hat and stroked it against her face. “This is soft.” She put it on her head and did a twirl.
She looked adorable, but Amelia would not be swayed. “It has a tail. Wear that and the village boys will be yanking it every two seconds.”
“We could cut the tail off…” Her face was sweet, hopeful—just as it had been every quarter hour since the project began.
“Cassandra, the point of sorting through all of this is so that I can get rid of my old life, not transfer it to you.”
“I’ll put it in the maybe pile.” Cassandra’s maybe-I’ll-keep-it pile had started on the couch and had now overtaken half the room. She picked up a single white glove from the floor. “Oooh, pretty!”
“Impractical. And it has a tear at the wrist.”
“Tears can be mended.”
“Its partner is probably lost.”
“But it might not be.” The glove got tossed on top of the beaver hat.
Amelia shook her head and turned to today’s trunk. A thin film of dust covered it. Had it been that long since this all began? She’d have to remind the maids that, even if it wasn’t overly attended, they would need to clean the lumber room.
She undid the leather straps. Cassandra skipped over, leaning over her shoulder. This was Christmas to her, hell to Amelia.
The leather edges stuck together for a moment before they pulled apart.
“Ugh.”
“Ugh indeed.” Amelia picked up one of the dozens of embroidered cloths from the pile. It was a kingfisher. Objectively speaking, it was lovely with exceptional detail. Excellent work. It should be—she’d spent a week on it.
“Why would you keep so many?”
“Why did I make them in the first place is a better question.”
“The toss-it pile,” Cassandra said.
“The burn-it pile.”
The grin on Cassandra’s face lit up so quickly Amelia worried she’d unlocked an inner pyromaniac. But as quickly as it appeared, it vanished. “The fireplace isn’t big enough.”
“Perhaps I could donate them?” They were exceptional embroideries. Worthy of a gallery wall, she’d been told.
Cassandra drew in a swift breath, grasping Amelia by the shoulders and shaking. “The firm!”
Amelia caught the girl’s wrists before her head was shaken off. “I’m not confident a building full of men want walls decorated with peonies and poppies.”
“No, silly.” Cassandra rolled her eyes. “There is a big fireplace at the firm.”
For a split second, stomach-clenching, breath-catching euphoria flared inside her. A lifetime of propriety snuffed it quickly. “Cassandra Asterly, we are not dragging a trunkload of embroidery that I spent years of my life creating down to a factory just so we can watch it burn.”
Except wouldn’t that be amazing? She’d hated every minute spent embroidering those useless, ridiculous cushion covers and wall hangings. But she’d done it because she was a lady of the ton, and that’s what ladies do.
The past week and the obvious lack of response to her house party had made it clear that she was no longer a lady of the ton. That life was done now. She would have to forge another. And what better way than setting fire to this trunk full of wasted dreams?
Cassandra gave her a sly smile, as if she could read every thought Amelia had.
“Fine. Let’s get our coats.”
Cassandra was out of the room before Amelia could even stand. She brushed the grey dust from her hands. “Greenhill?” she called as she entered the hallway. “Could you ask Charlie to bring around the cart?”
She stopped at the sight of her butler talking with a stranger at the front door. He was a long, lanky man in a well-fitting but dull outfit, with a bowler hat pressed to his chest.
“Mr. Asterly is not at home,” Greenhill said with a level of exasperation that suggested it was not for the first time.
The strang
er didn’t budge. “Then I will wait for him,” the man said in a voice as dull as his outfit. “It is of great importance.”
Well, this is interesting.
“Greenhill, can I be of assistance?” she asked, walking toward them.
The butler turned to her. “He’s from London, my lady. He wants to see Mr. Asterly.”
She turned to the stranger, who kept his eyes on his shoes. “I’m Lady Amelia Asterly, his wife.”
The stranger gave a short, perfunctory bow. When he rose, he fixed his gaze just over her shoulder. “Mr. Andrew Coventry, my lady. Of Coventry & Co. I’m a solicitor. I am here on a matter of great urgency.”
The only great urgency Amelia could think of was the Americans and the contract that needed to be signed. A tiny trickle of anxiety crawled down her spine. Either this was good news—the contract was signed—or it was bad. And given they’d yet to visit the firm and see Tessie in action, there was a high chance it was bad.
She fixed a smile on her face. “Greenhill, please send Charlie down to the firm to fetch Mr. Asterly. Mr. Coventry, would you like tea while you wait?”
She guided him toward the sitting room just as Cassandra thundered down the stairs with the grace of a thousand elephants, two coats in her arms. She skidded to a stop when she reached the landing.
Mr. Coventry blanched.
Amelia cringed. She’d been lax on Cassandra’s training in the past few days, and that short loosening of the reins had allowed her to slip back into unladylike behaviors.
“Cassandra. There’s been a change of plans, I’m afraid. Why don’t you go do your lessons, and we’ll go for our walk later?”
“She is an…energetic…creature,” Mr. Coventry said when Cassandra had left.
“Youth has its advantages,” she replied, leading him through the door.
“She might as well enjoy the freedom now. Things are about to change for her.”
It was an offhand comment. He didn’t elaborate. But the trickle of anxiety became a deluge. It soaked under her dress, filled her slippers, and made her shiver to the bone. Maybe it was just her recent foray into novel reading, but for the first time in her life, she felt a sense of impending doom.
How to Survive a Scandal Page 19
