“I’m not your heir, and I never can be.” Able addressed his teacup. “I understand that.”
“Though Portia would have it otherwise,” Lord Longstreet concluded. “She has the ambition I found in Muriel but not the integrity.”
Able bristled, because indirectly, it was a harsh judgment of him—and accurate in all its implications. “That’s an unflattering conclusion about a woman you barely know.”
“I’ve thrived in the Lords for half a century, Able, because I am an astute judge of character. Not as astute as Muriel, but she taught me to see what most men miss, and Portia is becoming bitter. She likes being lady of the manor, pretending to be the viscountess, but she’s the steward’s wife. That’s all she’ll ever be, and it tears at her.”
“The bastard’s wife,” Able said. “I was the bastard when she married me, and not even the regent can change that. I do comprehend my station, my lord.”
“And I comprehend your worth, Able.” Lord Longstreet rose slowly, mostly by bracing his knuckles on the table and pushing. “You may assure your wife of this fact and refer her to me should she doubt it. It looks like we’re in for more snow.”
“Snow means it can’t be all that cold,” Able said, rising out of respect. “Would you like to ride out with me today?”
“Ride out? I haven’t ridden the land here for what, three years? Suppose we could bundle up, take a flask or two?”
“Of course.” Able smiled as much at the prospect of escaping the house as at the twinkle in his father’s eye. “And maybe drop in at the Hot Cross Bun for a scone.”
“Haven’t had one of their scones for years.” William smiled in remembrance, and Able knew, he just knew, the last time William had dropped by the local bakery for a treat, Lady Muriel had been the one to jolly him into it.
“Let’s be off, then,” Able said. “Before we’re caught and forced to spend the day with the ledgers—or worse.”
Vivian Longstreet was proving problematic—interesting, but problematic. A month wasn’t going to be long enough to unravel the blend of shyness and determination Darius sensed in her, and a month was going to be too long to have her underfoot.
He glanced at the note from Blanche Cowell complaining of his month-long absence from Town. Because her husband would require her at the family seat for at least two weeks of that month, Darius hardly spared her a thought.
Lucy Templeton was similarly discommoded by Darius’s absence, and her missive promised predictable retribution for his not coming when she snapped her fingers at him.
Darius set her note aside as well, anticipating a game of Spoiled Puppy when he returned to Town. She’d spank him until her hand hurt, and “let” him put his nose in her lap for his reward when he was sufficiently contrite. It was beyond tedious. If Lord Longstreet provided the remuneration he’d promised, Lucy Templeton, Blanche Cowell, and all of their ilk might soon be nothing more than bad—very bad—memories.
“So this is where you hide?”
He glanced up from his desk to see Vivian standing in the door of his study. She was attired in the closest thing he’d seen on her to an attractive dress—a soft brown velvet creation with a raised waistline, suggesting it was years out of date, though it looked comfortable.
“This is where I shovel my way through the reams of correspondence that must occupy a man involved in commerce.”
“Commerce?” She advanced into the room, glancing around. “I thought you were a gentleman farmer.”
“A farmer, in any case.” He tossed his pen down. “I haven’t enough land to raise corn and livestock in any quantity, so I raise those goods that can be easily sold in Town.”
“And those would be?”
“I’m still figuring it out.” He rose and gestured to a pair of reading chairs near the hearth. “I’ve done well with garden vegetables thus far, mostly because I take inordinate care in their transport. I eschew the practice of hauling manure out of London in the same wagons I use to haul the vegetables in. The flavor benefits as a result. Eggs are easy to produce in quantity, chicken manure is valuable, and the feathers can also be sold, to say nothing of having a steady supply of chicken for the table. Eggs are hard to transport, though, and most everybody with an alley can keep a coop themselves in Town. Some keep their chickens on the rooftop, much like an old-fashioned dovecote.”
“William once said something about homing pigeons being a profitable venture.”
“I hadn’t considered them.” Darius took his seat after Vivian had taken hers. “It would require time, because the generations born on my land would always home to me. I’d have to sell breeding pairs, though I assume it can be done.”
“The government is using them more and more,” Vivian said. “They used them to get word of the victory at Waterloo, and it was faster than any horse or packet.”
Darius considered her, seeing not only beauty and grace, but also intelligence—and wondering if William saw any of it. “I didn’t know that. What else does William have to say about British commerce?”
“We need finer wool,” Vivian said. “There are Spanish sheep that produce a much higher grade of wool than our farm breeds, but we stick to what we know, when pretty much every country on earth can grow its own sheep.”
“His Majesty had some of these Spanish sheep, didn’t he?”
“William bought some in the dispersal about ten years ago, and they’ve been producing little sheep at Longchamps all the while. They’re… distinctive, but very soft to pet.”
“Like you.”
She smoothed a pleat in her dress. “And here we were doing so well, Mr. Lindsey.”
For her fortitude, Darius returned to the matter at hand. “So William thinks we need to focus on competing with other nations?”
“Of course. The Americans have more space to grow corn of all kinds than we’ll ever have, the Antipodes can grow sheep, and the shipping is getting faster each year. You think of competing with other vegetable farmers to get your goods to Town, but soon you’ll be competing with the French table grapes, the Spanish citrus, and so forth.”
“You’ve learned a thing or two, being married to Longstreet.”
“And what fascinating stuff it is.” She smiled, though the result was sad around the edges.
“To a man strapped for coin, it is fascinating.”
She apparently took him at his word. “Whatever you have, there’s demand for it on the Continent. The Corsican saw to that.”
“What do you mean?”
“His Majesty’s troops were usually provisioned by design, with quartermasters and contracts and a whole supply line set up by the military as the armies moved from place to place. The Russians and Germans operate similarly. Napoleon relied on what he called foraging, and what we would call pillaging, even in his own territory. Any place the Grand Armee passed through was devastated. Crops, goods, livestock, entire buildings were torn asunder in a night to feed the campfires—they’d even burn the fodder for the livestock in their campfires. You could export lumber, had you a wood. You could export anything, and there’d be a market for it there somewhere.”
Darius frowned at the fire, because this conversation was the furthest thing from flirting—and he was enjoying it. “How to get my goods to that market? And how to retrieve one’s coin?”
“That’s easy.” Vivian rose and went to the window. “You hire one of the half-pay quartermaster’s officers who campaigned from Portugal to Poland, and he’ll be happy to live cheaply on the Continent while taking a little coin to see to your business. Most of them picked up enough of the languages, they still have contacts, and a few have wives of foreign extraction.”
“You’ve thought about this?”
“I listen.” She turned, that slight smile still in place. “Hour after hour after hour, I listen to my husband and his parliamentary associates debating everything from soap taxes to window taxes to reform of every stripe.”
He could see her doing it too, quietly keeping the servants organized, the guests happy, and the conversation
