Emily Greenwood (2 page)

Biting her lip, she experienced a familiar fury at her uncle Jonathan, who had always promised that the Tethering estate would belong to Felicity’s family when he died. Jonathan had never been interested in running the estate and had left that task to his sister Caroline, Felicity’s mother. When Caroline died three years ago, the tasks she and Felicity had been sharing fell solely on Felicity’s shoulders. Felicity had been happy to take them on, even though her uncle’s gambling problems meant that most of the estate’s proceeds disappeared on the gaming tables. She’d become a master at making a household budget of nothing into something by making economies, even selling off small pieces of furniture when necessary. She’d made it work, successfully kept things running—and now Jonathan’s foolish weakness had taken that all away from her.

She turned away from the path to Tethering and walked instead toward the dower house. Blossom Cottage was a pretty stone dwelling that stood among a scattering of fruit trees several minutes’ walk from the drive. She liked the cottage, though like Tethering its roof leaked and its furniture was old. But it would do for now, and more importantly, it belonged to her family, which could not at the moment be said of Tethering.

But she had hope. Already, she had written to a lawyer, although she’d not yet mentioned this to her father. Whoever this gambler was, he was not going to find a warm welcome when he arrived.

Well, James Collington thought as he neared the wrought-iron gates of the Tethering estate, he was a long way from a sun-drenched Spanish vineyard. One week he’d been immersed in the intricacies of the Palomino grape and its profitability, the next he was staking everything he had in a London gaming hell. And now the foreseeable future involved an estate he’d won from someone he barely knew. At least he would have a home for the time being, however temporary.

Tethering was worth about three hundred pounds a year, Jonathan Beresford had said when he staked it. James had seen right away that if he won the estate, he could sell it—and solve his problem.

Raising his eyes, he caught sight of the manor house in the distance, at the top of the hill that gradually sloped up from the gate. Were those
turrets
poking up near its roofline?

He passed through the gate, which was, unhappily, rather rusty. Something to fix. Already James had an interested buyer, and he wanted the property to be irresistible. The carriage with the few provisions he’d bought in the village followed him onto the estate.

He wondered if Beresford’s old family retainers had moved out, as James’s lawyer had suggested they do in the letter he sent, in case they were upset about their master losing the manor.

To the left, not far from the drive, stood a small stone cottage with some washing hanging from a line in the back. Ah, doubtless the new location of the servants. Who would, he hoped, have the key to the manor, and maybe the name of the bewitching young woman he’d just met. He would go there first.

***

Felicity put the watercress in a bowl in the kitchen and discovered a line of ants crawling up one of the legs of the work table. Martha, their lone servant, was at work in the cellar, so Felicity investigated the ant problem herself. A piece of bread had fallen outside the kitchen door, attracting the ants, and she got rid of it.

The kitchen once again secure, at least until the next invasion, she made her way to her father’s study, stopping in the doorway to greet him. Deeply immersed in work on his latest book of poems, he did not at first hear her.

Like Felicity, Mr. Wilcox was wearing clothes from Tethering’s attic. A leaky roof had spoiled much of his more recent attire, and so he was dressed today in a gaudy gold and emerald coat from the Georgian era. She smiled to herself at the picture he presented amid his books and papers. He looked up at her over his spectacles.

“Here you are, my dear,” he said warmly. His tufty white eyebrows, which matched his thick white hair, rose upward as he took in her damp and muddy appearance. “It looks as though you’ve been busy.”

“I was getting some watercress for our lunch and slipped in the stream,” she said, deciding not to mention the stranger.

Just then a sharp rap sounded at the front door, startling them both. As she knew Martha couldn’t have heard it, Felicity went to answer it herself.

She opened the door and before her stood her handsome gentleman from the stream bank.

He blinked at her in evident surprise, then his mouth turned up in that familiar crooked grin.

“Well, hello again,” he said.

“But how did you find me?” she asked in a voice filled with the pleasure she was feeling because he’d come to find her, never mind that she’d been able to enjoy herself with him because he
was
a stranger. Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of a mud spot on her bodice and wished she’d changed already. The stranger looked very smart with his claret coat buttoned neatly, the sunlight gleaming off his tall black boots.

“Ah.” He hesitated. “I did want to see you again, though I’m surprised to find you here.”

She tipped her head quizzically. “But whom did you expect to find?”

“I didn’t think I could be so fortunate,” he said with a merry twinkle in his eyes, “that coincidence would send you my way twice.”

“Coincidence?”

“Here I am, looking for a key, and I find you again, my enchanting young lady of the stream.”

Unease pricked at her. “A key? To what?”

“To Tethering Hall, of course. You must have guessed by now who I am.”

A sick feeling stole over her. “No,” she whispered.

He bowed. “Mr. James Collington. My lawyer sent a letter about the change in ownership of the estate.”

“You’re Mr. Collington,” she said in a voice dead of emotion.

He gave a rueful shake of his head, unaware of her reaction. “We have started off on something of a wrong foot, but not in a bad way, of course.”

No. It couldn’t be. Her head felt as if it were being squeezed. “Very much in a bad way,” she said.

Her words and tone made his friendly expression disappear.

“Believe me, sir,” she continued, “that I had no idea you were the gambler who has taken my home.”

His face darkened at her words. If he had been dangerously handsome before, now he looked plain dangerous. “You must be greatly deluded, miss, if you consider that you are to be consulted as to the ownership of the manor. But as my being here does concern your work situation, you may want to have a care in how you speak to me.”

“Work! What on earth are you talking about?”

His black eyebrows now drew down over eyes heavy-lidded with displeasure. “If you cannot keep a civil tongue in your head, you may soon find yourself without a place to stay.”

“I certainly shall not! This house belongs to my family.”

“Come, come,” he said with haughty impatience. “The dower house belongs to the estate and therefore now to me.”

“You are wrong.” She met his eyes with her chin up. “Tethering belonged to my uncle Jonathan, but the dower house is the property of the family of Caroline Wilcox, who was my mother.”

His brows shot together. “What the devil? Beresford said there were only two old family retainers in residence. No family.”

She stilled. “So you didn’t know about us. There’s been a mistake.”

“Unfortunately,” he agreed, his expression growing grim.

“More than unfortunate,” she corrected in milder tones. He hadn’t known about the Wilcoxes! Hope stirred. She’d been living on hope ever since that dark day when they’d closed the door to Tethering behind them and walked down the hill to Blossom Cottage.

“Tethering rightly belongs to my family,” she explained. “I’ve—my father and I have run the estate in recent years. We’ve taken care of everything while my uncle has lived in London, and there has always been an understanding among us that the estate would be ours on my uncle’s death. He simply had not yet made the necessary arrangements with his lawyer.” She paused. “So you see, now, that we have moral claim to the estate.”

Mr. Collington sucked his teeth. “Miss…?” he began.

“Wilcox,” she supplied, finding it bizarre to be properly introducing herself to the man with whom she had spent such carefree moments on the stream bank. She could feel a grin spreading over her face, and probably she looked extremely silly, but she didn’t care because the wrong that had been done them was going to be righted. “I know that as a gentleman, you’ll act with honor and revoke your claim to the estate.”

He inhaled abruptly and said nothing for several moments.

Why wasn’t he agreeing with her? He was a man of honor—she was sure of it from their meeting on the stream bank. She reminded herself then that this was all coming as a surprise to him, and probably not a very welcome one. But still, fair was fair.

“Miss Wilcox,” he finally said, “I’m sure you are well aware that the property belonged freehold to your uncle. I saw the deed myself.”

“Yes,” she said. “My uncle has acted reprehensibly in this affair. I am speaking of to whom the estate belongs morally, setting aside such things as wills and deeds. How can the turn of a card be allowed to change the fortunes of an entire family? I know you see what is right, not as a matter of law but as a matter of justice and honor.”

His eyes flashed with a fiery light that startled her, though when he spoke his tone was icy. “I do not care for your insinuations. Your uncle wagered the Tethering estate to me and lost it, Miss Wilcox. The circumstances are regrettable. We have both been misled by your uncle. But the facts are indisputable. The estate now belongs to me. There is nothing else to say on the subject.”

The unyielding quality of his voice shocked her. She’d been so certain that this man who had rescued her by the stream with lighthearted chivalry and even gathered her watercress would agree with her. How could he possibly be meaning to behave in such a heartless, unfair manner?

“Surely you jest.”

“Surely I don’t.”

He was very, very serious.

She couldn’t have been more disappointed in him. She had believed in him so much for a few foolish minutes.

But that was all over now. She straightened her shoulders.

“There certainly is more to say, Mr. Collington. You
know
that very well as a gentleman, regardless of whether the deed was properly emended.” Her gaze flicked over his fine clothes. “Tethering is not even very large. You wouldn’t like it. It won’t be approaching the grandeur to which you are no doubt accustomed.”

His hard eyes were unreadable. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “I like it already.”

He regarded her steadily with an expression that told her he would be as moveable as a mountain. “If I might have the key?”

His eyes flicked behind her then, and she heard a shuffling noise, her father coming along the corridor. He came to stand next to her in the doorway.

“Good afternoon,” he said to their visitor with polite interest.

Her father seemed not to notice the tense atmosphere prevailing in the doorway but looked cheerfully untroubled, and unaware, too, of the bizarre look of his clothing. Mr. Collington’s eyes briefly widened at the sight of him.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Wilcox,” their visitor said before Felicity could speak. “I am James Collington. You have received a letter from my lawyer.”

“Ah. Well, then,” her father said with a rueful smile, “we must welcome you to Tethering.”

“Thank you,” Mr. Collington said, ignoring Felicity’s intense look. “Most kind of you, sir. I was just about to have the key from your daughter.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” Mr. Wilcox said, casting a glance at Felicity, who had not moved. He nudged her slightly with his arm. “Felicity, we must not keep Mr. Collington waiting.”

Her face flaming with anger and frustration, she stood there for several tense moments as both men looked at her, waiting. Finally, teeth clenched, she dug in the pocket of her gown for the key that she had kept with her every day like a talisman since leaving Tethering and placed it in Mr. Collington’s outstretched hand.

“Thank you.” He dipped his head in farewell and went over to his white horse. He swung himself deftly onto its back and set off for the manor house, which lay uphill from them, several hundred yards away. His carriage was just arriving, and it followed him up the hill.

Felicity’s father turned toward her with a heavy sigh. “Well, that’s that, my dear. But at least we can be grateful that our new neighbor seems a good sort, considering the kind of people with whom your uncle sometimes consorted.”

“A good sort!”

She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised if her father liked Mr. Collington—she’d liked him at first, too. And she’d been so convinced for a few hope-filled moments that her playful Galahad would undo the injustice of what her uncle had so stupidly done. “Nothing could be further from the truth. He’s a gambler just like Jonathan, and not to be trusted.”

Mr. Wilcox raised one eyebrow skeptically. “Actually, my dear, I suspect our Mr. Collington is not in the least like Jonathan. For one thing, he won. From the looks of him, he is a successful man.”

“But, Father,” she insisted, “it isn’t right! Tethering cannot be lost to us.”

Her father sighed. “Felicity, nothing could seem more true to me than that my brother-in-law, with all his disreputable doings over the years, finally succeeded in losing everything he had to lose.” He turned and went inside.

She watched as the distant figure went up the hill toward the manor house. In that moment she knew that she’d do anything to get Mr. James Collington to go back from whence he came.

***

James muttered dark imprecations as he rode up the sloping, rather weedy gravel path to Tethering Hall. Damn that Beresford! The man had clearly been weak and dishonorable, and now James had no choice but to cling to what he’d won from him, and in so doing put a family out of their home. Two old family retainers, bloody hell.

His mouth pressed in a grim line, he considered the manor house as he drew closer. It looked like a tiny French castle shrunk in size and condensed together. What would have been towers with pointed turrets were set instead against the front of the house like impossibly fancy columns, establishing a trim contrast with the steeply angled roofline. The effect wasn’t fussy but neat, partly due to the boxlike size of the house—it was like a tidy package. Its modest appearance, perched at the top of the hill with the orchard sloping gently away behind it, was handsome and welcoming. He could see why Miss Wilcox wasn’t ready to surrender it. The estate looked to be well worth the risk he’d taken when he’d staked his sherry vineyard against it.

He left his horse with Fulton, his personal servant and factotum, who was unpacking the carriage, which James had borrowed from his cousin Josephine. As he approached the manor, he thought of how the Wilcoxes must have been living in it until a few weeks earlier and cringed. Devil take it, if it hadn’t been for his brother, Charles, he wouldn’t have been in this troubled little corner of Hertfordshire at all.

He should have known better than to have trusted his brother and signed for that debt. It was supposed to have been for a thousand pounds—a grand enough sum as it was. It wasn’t until after Charles was killed that the matter of the missing zero came to light. An acquaintance of James’s had bought up the debt—and bought James some time. But now the man was dead and his heir had given James until the end of August to repay the entire debt, or he would forfeit the collateral: Granton, his ancestral estate.