by Bianca Bloom
I gave a deep sigh. Sick sheep generally died. Mercifully, it was quick, but economically it could be quite devastating.
“The sheep have been hungry this year, then?” asked Lord Bell, and I glared at him.
Mr. Jamieson seemed rather unsure how to respond. “Well, yes,” he said, “That’s why I was hoping that they could have that field, or maybe one even nearer the house.” He then quieted and waited for my response to his proposal.
Mr. Jameison was one of the more responsible tenant farmers, but I did not believe that he was perfectly right in this instance.
“That field will be for ponies,” I said. “We need a space where Toby can ride them.”
There was no answer. I knew that this meant that he did not agree with me, but I waited for him to acquiesce.
“Well,” said Hamilton, rubbing at his chin, “Some solution will need to be found for your sheep, and quickly. We wouldn’t want to see any poor dead lambs, and they will be the first to sicken if the herd is hungry.”
For a moment, I only looked at the man. “Excuse me,” I said, my voice low. “I believe that we may keep the herd healthy where they are now.”
“Or close to that area,” he said. “They seem a hearty stock. I am confidant that with grass the right length, they could do well anywhere.”
Mr. Jamieson’s face relaxed into a great smile. “That they could, sir. They are a good stock.”
My own face tightened. “Well, then, we will see what can be arranged. I will keep you informed, Mr. Jamieson.”
I stood, forcing the men to stand with me. Mr. Jamieson knew that this was his cue to leave, but he dared one more smile at his new laird. “I look forward to working with you, Lord Bell. Welcome.”
And with that, he left, leaving me to seethe at his inconceivable cheek.
Of course, I could hardly level my insults at one of my tenants. It would not be fitting for a serious woman of business.
So I leveled them at my husband instead.
“How dare you,” I told him. “Why did you think that you could intervene? I have managed this estate for ten years, all of them without a man, thank you.”
“I know sheep farming,” he countered, sitting down in the chair that I had just vacated and leaning back, making me sputter with anger.
“I do not give a fig whether you know every type of farming there is,” I told him. “You are to leave the farmers to me.”
My new husband only frowned, cocking his head. “What, are we unmarried still?”
I drew a long breath in. “I do not take your meaning.”
His eyes met me, and I was struck again by how handsome they were, how commanding. And how maddening.
“I will remind you that this marriage was your pet idea,” he told me, raising his chin. “So tell me how it will be believed by anyone in the neighborhood if I sit here like a little lackey, taking orders from a woman who knows less about sheep than I do.”
I coughed. “What know you of sheep?”
This made him grin, though it was a grin of anger. “I farmed them in Australia. Raising them, herding them, shearing them – I could do it all blindfolded.”
For a moment, I only stared at him, the image of the powerful man with a blindfold on him sending a wicked thrill through me. Then, with a toss of my head, I responded to his insult.
“You should be thankful that there is no need for you to do any of it, Lord Bell. Blindfolded or otherwise.”
“Because you are a sheep expert? If this were a real marriage, you would listen to your husband’s wishes, not go against them. Particularly when it concerns sheep that are about to grow suddenly and seriously ill.”
He kept pressing me on sheep, perhaps knowing that I had not grown up with them and hated them more than any other animal. They were awful things, always bleating and getting lost.
“I will inform you that I had a real marriage before, and Lord Gilbert Bell never took the least bit of interest in any of the farmers’ concerns. They knew that they should come to me.”
“And you knew that you should consult an expert when your own knowledge ran out. Fortunately for you, there’s now an expert in your library,” he said, his voice ripe with mockery.
There was no possible response to this except a purposeful retreat.
Hoping that he would not speak to my turned back, I left. Inside that room, there was only a battle, and not a single lesson to be learned.
The hard-won lessons of my previous marriages once again proved useful, because I knew how to recognize a hopeless situation when one came before me.
When I stormed out of the room, I nearly bumped into Esther.
“Ma’am,” she said, “Toby is also coming by. It seems that he wanted to see about having Grace’s help breaking one of the more difficult ponies.”
“Well, nobody seems particularly disposed to consult me,” I grumbled, heading off to answer my letters.
“It seems a great risk,” Esther said, pointedly ignoring my outburst. “So I imagine that’s why he’s coming by. Any messages you want to send off with me, or will it wait?”
“No,” I said, thinking to myself that the only message I wanted to send was a very clear one to Lord Bell: “KEEP OUT.”
But, thinking the better of it, I jotted off a very short missive and handed it to her. “You can see that this gets into the right hands, then? It’s innocent on its face, of course, but still requires great care.”
Esther nodded, taking it from me. “Of course. I’ll be back in to take the other letters as soon as you’ve finished them.”
27
The letter had its intended result. After I’d finished my morning’s business, I dressed and took what must have appeared to be a leisurely lunch. Having secured my absentminded blessing, Grace was out with the ponies, and Lord Bell was out for a walk. So after eating with only Flora and Frances, I headed out into the hills.
By the time I arrived at the little shaded part of the hill, I was nearly out of breath from the exertion.
Adam was sitting there, smoking a pipe. “I thought you would never arrive,” he said. “I was unsure how long I could wait for you.”
I sat on the hillside next to him, hoping that he would throw his pipe aside and take me in his arms, but he did nothing.
“I have more responsibilities now,” I said. “Being married means that I have more household duties on my hands, not less.”
“No, of course,” he said. “Married life has made you more domestic. I wonder what use you would have for me, at any rate, with that new husband about. He’s surely a sight more energetic than old Gilbert, that much is certain.”
It was all I could do not to slap the man. “That was crude.”
He leaned toward me, the smoke from his pipe blowing in my face. I’d always found the smell unpleasant, and unattractive. In the past, Adam had not smoked around me – I wondered why now he did.
“Our relations are rather crude, Lady Bell. In case you’d forgotten.”
My anger appeared to be spilling over, and I wondered how I was going to tame myself and lie back for Adam as I usually did. “Do you understand nothing about my marriage, then?” I asked him.
Controlling my temper for an instant, I took a hand and slid it over his fall, feeling with relief that the customary bulge within had apparently not been dampened with disagreement.
He pushed my hand away. “All I understand is that you married quickly, without even consulting me, when I had been saving for our own marriage for years. What I understand is that this marriage is just as legally binding as anything preceded by a large announcement and a long engagement.”
“It is a temporary solution,” I said, vexed to the point of choking, wondering why he did not realize that it was a very expeditious one. “You cannot think that it will hurt our future prospects.”
“Our future prospects, Marion,” he said, still holding the damned pipe. “Our future prospects are nonexistent, with you a married woman.”
<
br /> My eyes were filling with tears, but they were tears of anger, not tears of grief.
Those would come later.
“So you say you do not desire me anymore,” I said, my face tightening as I watched the man sprawled there, smoking. All at once, he seemed like a stranger to me, not a warm breathing soul who had felt my tender arms around him for a matter of years.
He smiled. “Not at all,” he said. “You’ve the fairest face and the most agreeable shape of any woman I’ve seen, Marion.”
With one hand, he began to undo his belt. “You also have the sweetest mouth and the most heavenly tongue. Not to mention the loveliest little pair of white hands. Do you think you could manage to make it quick? I wouldn’t want your new husband to wander up here, and he certainly seems the wandering type.”
Though my sadness was turning to disgust, the sight of Adam’s prick was enough to make me reconsider for a brief moment. I still longed to touch it, kiss it, feel it as I took the man’s body into mine and rode it with the force of fury.
But then I thought of the long-term prospects of such a union, which were anything but rosy. Apparently, the man thought that we would never marry, and he did not seem eager for me to pursue the golden annulment that I had laid out.
Tears in my eyes, I turned and headed down the hill.
Adam only called me back once, and weakly at that. I did not turn to look at him.
28
The vicar plied me with biscuits. He didn’t know of my trouble with Adam. Or, if he did know, he said nothing.
But he smiled slyly as I told him of my trouble with my legally wedded husband.
“He thought he could tell me something about raising sheep,” I said. “It is not enough that he has to talk my daughters’ ears off about theatre and other fool nonsense. He dares to tell me how to raise sheep!”
The vicar rubbed his chin in thought. “If he does enjoy theatre, that must be quite the treat for Frances.”
It was rather too near the mark, and so I attempted to bring the vicar back to the matter at hand – and back to my side of the fray.
“I was always the master of my own business,” I said, “And I cannot tolerate sharing such a title with such a paltry estate manager.”
“One whom you willingly married,” said the vicar, but I couldn’t read his smile. Before I could ask if he were only teasing me, he continued his thought.
“You were always hungry when Sean was your husband,” he said. “To put it plainly, your mother always wished to beg you to come by her home for each meal, as she was worried there wouldn’t be provisions for you in your own home.”
I sat still, and the vicar continued.
“And the first Lord Bell, well, you know how little interest he took in the farm. I believe the only things he ever said to me about it were to see how fine the ponies looked and be sure to watch for snakes when I walked near the fields.”
I slouched in my seat, furious at the man who had known me from girlhood. “Well, what then? Is this supposed to remind me that all of my husbands turn out to be worthless?”
“Only that you often wished that one of them might take an interest in the worldly matter of running an estate, or a household. None of your girls had a father that was interested in such things, but your new husband appears quite adept. Perhaps he is a blessing in disguise.”
Furiously, I sat still in my chair, but inwardly had to admit that Rev. Manley was correct in many of the particulars. I had certainly spent some years wishing for assistance in running the estate and my businesses. And yet, when someone came along who wanted to run help me run them, I was quick to turn him away.
“But he doesn’t know the estate like I do!” I said, staring the vicar down. “He has no authority, and even if he was not a farmer, he has no business ordering me about!”
“There, there,” he said, taking another biscuit. “If you don’t leave soon, my dear, it will be quite late by the time you get home.
29
“Oh, what a wife,” I could hear my neighbors saying in my imagination. “She hasn’t been back from her honeymoon for a week, and already she is not spending a single moment with her husband.”
“She’s an icicle, that one,” someone would say, and others would sip their drinks and nod in agreement.
The very thought nearly infuriated me. So, in order to keep up the modicum of peace I had gained at the vicarage, I decided to walk through the hills. The path could be rather dangerous, but it was still rather light, and if I hurried I knew I would reach the house before dusk.
Indeed, as I climbed through the hills, I thought that I might yet reach a compromise with Lord Hamilton Bell. I would need to spell things out for him, that was all. Perhaps I could give him some latitude in terms of the sheep, provided he kept his nose out of everything else and did not sit in on any of my meetings with the other tenant farmers. In fact, if he could not meet with me for days, that would be ideal. If only Esther would continue having my breakfast sent up, I could eat that in bed and take lunch after everyone else had already eaten. I could skip tea entirely, and perhaps even work out an arrangement in which I slept in a different bedroom, one as far away from my husband as possible. Or would that be rather too brazen? Now my bedroom was to be even lonelier, since Adam apparently wanted nothing more from me but a quick romp every time his prick swelled at the sight of me.
My thoughts so engaged me that I nearly tripped over a couple that appeared to be entwined behind a bush, their feet splayed out over the little brush.
As soon as I arrived, the pair separated, and I drew back. First I was embarrassed, then I was furious, in such dizzying succession that I was quite unable to contain myself.
It took me a moment to recognize the boy. He was part of Adam’s family, but I rarely saw him, and so at first did not know him.
The girl, stumbling upward and putting a hand over her face, was easy to recognize.
She was my daughter.
30
Flora did not quite have the wits of Grace. I always felt that Grace was but a colt, obeying me only when it was convenient for her to do so. Orders would be obeyed or disobeyed depending on the day. She knew that I could not make her do anything.
Flora, on the other hand, could have run off with her boy if she had thought of it. Indeed, the two of them could have fled to the city, eloping before I could so much raise a hand to object.
But the boy had fled, and Flora walked in front of me with her head down, a few tears escaping.
When we reached the house, we went straight to her room. Even in the fever of anger and indignation that had engulfed us both, we were mindful of the impropriety of having certain conversations in front of the household staff. All I did was take a moment to inform Esther, in a low voice, that Flora would be going straight to bed without any supper or any more excursions.
Of course, when we got to her room, she did not go to bed. She stood by the window, and I faced her, my back to the door.
“Flora,” I told her, “You were just on the verge of ruining both yourself and both your sisters.”
My cheeks burned when I thought of the faithless Adam, suddenly turned cold to the woman who had risked everything for him, year after year.
“The Taylors are not worth such sacrifice,” I told her, hardly able to get the words out, praying that she did not know the true source of my anger.
“You don’t understand anything about them!” she choked, and her wailing was so loud I was sure the servants would hear. “We are going to marry.”
My eyebrows shot up, and I was suddenly livid enough to speak clearly, the knot in my throat quite forgotten. “Is that so, daughter? Well, I do wonder when your intended was thinking of asking your mother’s blessing. Because I can give you every assurance that today was the first day I had seen him in as many years.”
Flora sputtered. “We thought you might not approve. But we will marry, mama! There is no scandal.”
“Are you engaged,” I
asked, still ready to hammer out the technicalities of my daughter’s brush with ruin.
She was now crying in earnest, and my heart beat a little harder for her as she sat down on her bed, holding the bedpost for support. I knew what she was feeling, as it was something I had felt myself, just before she and Frances came into being – and even after. With a sickened heart, I realized that I had married Sean over all of my mother’s very reasonable objections, and that my daughter seemed to be intent on the very same course.
She shook her head, still not looking at me. “We will be! If you would only leave us, mama.”
I gathered my frayed nerves together, sitting down next to her and endeavoring to show her that I was only attempting to help her out of danger. “It appears that I cannot leave you, Flora. You are not to leave this room. If your young man chooses to come here and apologize to me, he may.”
Flora muttered something that sounded like “me happy”, and I held out a handkerchief to her. She refused to take it.
“You don’t want anyone else to be happy,” she sputtered. “You can marry, and stare at your new husband as if he’s the king himself. But nobody else should be allowed such a thing.”
This was what finally silenced me. I most certainly did not stare at my new husband as if he were a king. I did not stare at him at all – he was simply providing for my family, and that was the end of it.
“I do want you to be happy,” I said in a low voice. “But if you continue consorting with Taylor idiots, I do not see how that can be.”
I very nearly slammed the door as I walked out. For the first time, I realized that Adam Taylor had never kept a single promise that he had made me. When I gave him money, he promised to repay me directly, but I never asked and I never saw a single coin from my so-called “investments”. The man professed to care for me, but he never asked a word about my daughters. And now I was to learn that his youngest brother, whose actions must be fairly clear to everyone in the family, was taking my daughter along a path to ruin.
