Lady Eve's Indiscretion

“Mostly for her. The Season hasn’t even started, and the proposals have already begun, haven’t they?”

How did she know these things? “Trottenham asked for a private audience last week. I’m hearing noises at the club from some other directions as well.”

“Trottenham.” Her Grace heaved out a sigh that spoke volumes of maternal frustration. “Percy, she’s begun the year riding with the third flight. What if one of them takes advantage? Another mishap would be her undoing.”

The third flight. An apt term referring to the riders at the back of the hunt, the cautious, the unskilled, or—in His Grace’s experience—the ones too drunk and uncaring of the sport to keep up with the real hunting.

As for Her Grace’s reference to Eve’s mishap… It must go unremarked. “Evie has acquired wisdom since her come out, my love. I have faith in her.”

“My faith in her has never wavered. It’s my faith in the company she’s keeping that fails to inspire.”

Trottenham was above reproach, but those other fellows… “I think her sisters will chaperone her more effectively than anyone else. They’re very protective of our Evie and recruit their husbands in the same cause.”

They all were—now, when it mattered a great deal less than it would have seven years ago.

“Maggie told me something.”

He patted her hand. Her Grace and Maggie had become thick as thieves since Maggie had married the Earl of Hazelton—and about damned time.

“Don’t keep me in suspense. Hazelton would never betray the girl’s confidences.” Well, hardly ever. Women apparently thought gentlemen’s clubs were only for cards, beefsteak, and reading the newspapers.

“She said having her own establishment was the only thing that kept her sane in recent years because of the privacy it afforded, the sense of control over her domain. I think Eve needs that too.”

This was Her Grace, easing into one of her radical notions. Her radical notions had a way of working around to occupying spaces near to common sense by the time she was done with them, but still…

“Evie is far too young to have her own establishment, my love. If we allowed that, it would be like, like… giving up. On her. Or casting her aside. You cannot ask that of me.” The idea of Evie, their baby girl, all alone and growing older without family around her—it was enough to provoke something almost as bad as a heart seizure.

Her Grace patted his hand, which was coming to resemble the calloused paw of an old soldier, while hers remained as pretty as the rest of her.

“I agree. It isn’t time, and it may never be time, but I was thinking I might see Lavender Corner put a little more to rights.”

“You are speaking Female on me, Esther. Does this mean you want to double the size of the place or send the servants over to dust?”

“The servants already keep it in good order. I was thinking perhaps I’d make sure the flower gardens were getting proper attention, the linen aired, the sachets kept fresh. A mother sees things a housekeeper cannot.”

He grasped the agenda now. Dense of him not to see it earlier.

“This will require that you jaunt off to Kent posthaste, won’t it?”

“The Season hasn’t started. There’s no time like the present, and I wouldn’t be gone long enough for you to miss me.”

She carried off airy unconcern quite credibly. His Grace wasn’t fooled, but he also wasn’t the only one capable of dissembling in the interests of parental pride.

“I have another idea.” He brought her knuckles to his mouth for a warm kiss. “How about we get a leisurely start tomorrow and break our journey at The Queen’s Harebell?”

He had the satisfaction of seeing her eyes widen and that special smile bloom on her lips.

“Oh, Percy.” She cradled his jaw with her hand and kissed his cheek. “The Queen’s Harebell in spring, the scene of no less an occasion than Chocolate at Midnight. That is a splendid idea.”

Yes, it was, if he did say so himself. Esther rested her head on his shoulder, and the moment became one of a countless number His Grace would hoard up in his heart to treasure at his leisure.

Esther’s smile became a little satisfied—not smug; Her Grace was never smug—and His Grace recognized that once again, she’d achieved her ends without ever having to ask for them.

That she could—and that he almost always spotted it when she did—was just one more thing to adore about her.

* * *

Being an upstart, bogtrotting, climbing cit of a quarry nabob was hard work, which Jonathan Dolan minded not one bit.

He thrived on it, in fact, or he did when hard work meant long hours at the quarries, the building sites, and the supply yards. When it meant longer hours, haggling at the negotiation table, poring over ledgers, and hanging about in smoke-filled card rooms, the prospect was much less appealing.

Much, much less.

“If you can’t get your lazy damned crews to put in a full day’s work, that is not my affair. Damages will be assessed per the clause you negotiated, Sloane.”

Sloane paced the spacious confines of the Dolan offices, running a hand through thinning sandy hair while Dolan watched from behind a desk free of clutter.

“The damages will put me under, Dolan. I told you, it isn’t that the crews won’t move your stone, it’s that they can’t move your stone. The rain in Dorset this spring has been unbelievable. This is not bad faith. It’s commercial impossibility.”

The blather coming out of the idiot’s mouth was not to be borne.

“Is that so? The weather is responsible? So we’ve moved from liquidated damages to the commercial impossibility clause?” Dolan kept his tone thoughtful, though even posturing to that extent was distasteful.

Relief shone in Sloane’s squinty brown eyes. “Yes! An act of God, exactly. Torrential rain and no one able to manage. I knew you’d see reason. Hard but fair, that’s what they say about you.”

“Pleased to hear it. Do they also say I’m able to read and write in English?”

They probably speculated to the contrary, but Dolan took satisfaction in seeing Sloane’s gaze grow wary. “I beg your pardon?”

“I can read, Mr. Sloane. I’m sure you’ll be pleased for my sake to learn I can read in several languages. One of them English, though it’s by no means my favorite. And because I own the quarry in Dorset, I also maintain a subscription to the local paper nearest that quarry. Shall I read the weather reports to you?”

Dolan opened a drawer at the side of his desk and pulled out a single folded broadsheet dated about ten days past. “Plowing, planting, and grazing being of central import to much of the shire, the editor is assiduous in his record keeping and prognostication.”

Sloane had sense enough to stop babbling.

“Mr. Sloane, sit down.” Not an invitation, which also should have been a source of satisfaction, considering the man was English to his gloved, uncallused, manicured fingertips.

He dropped into a chair. “I just need a little more time.”

A little more time, a few more potatoes, a little more daylight… The laments were old and sincere, but useless.

“You are late on the deliveries because you do not pay a wage sufficient to attract men who can be relied upon. Because you skimp on wages, your wagons and teams are not properly maintained, and they break down. Knowing you are under scheduling constraints, the smiths, wainwrights, and jobbers take excessive advantage of you when their services are needed on an emergency basis, and once again, to save money, you turn to the most opportunistic and questionably skilled among them.”

He did not add: you are an idiot. He did not need to.

“I have a family.” This was said with quiet desperation, which was probably the very worst aspect of being a quarry nabob. Watching grown men literally sweat while their dignity was sacrificed to their shortsighted greed.

“You also have a mistress, who is likely more for show than anything else. You have too many hunters that you never ride, and you have daughters to launch upward lest your wife have unending revenge on you for your failures.”

Sloane nodded, and Dolan wondered if this was how the priests felt in the confessional: tired, disgusted,