Magic in the Stars (18 page)

“Could we have the panes in the library repaired as well?”
Jacques asked with interest.

“And the leak over the billiard room?” William added.

“Only if you put yourselves in charge. Get bids on the work,
compare references, have Lord Theo approve the expenditures. I know my limits,
and they extend to two rooms only.” Aster studied the floor again, then added
reflectively, “Unless you know where carpets of that size can be found in the
next week.”

The half-brothers studied the large bare spots with frowns.

“Don’t suppose painted canvas would do?” Jacques asked.

“Or we could ask at the re-sale houses in London,” William suggested.
“Carpets take a long time to make, don’t they?”

“Exactly,” Aster said. “It would take me forever to inquire
of all the carpet-makers if they have any ready that might suit. And Turkey
carpets are too expensive for temporary use. It is a very large undertaking.”

“Beans,” Jacques muttered.

“Or Froggy,” William added. “Let’s measure it.”

“Does that mean you know of carpets this large?” she asked
in suspicion, since
beans
and
froggy
sounded more like infantile
torture than a solution.

“Does it matter what color?” Jacques wrinkled his usually
smiling visage into a thoughtful frown.

“I can’t order fabric until I know the color. We don’t have
much time.”

“Give us a day to inquire about color,” Jacques said. “We
should know by then. May take a little longer to haul them down here.”

“I’ll take bids on your window panes while I’m waiting. I’m
counting on you,” she warned. “And have your brother Erran remove this
contraption outside!”

They saluted and loped off like over-grown puppies after a
treat. She hoped they remembered to measure the two sitting areas.

Marrying Lord Theo off to one of her maids might be the
easiest of all possible choices, she decided with a sigh of despair.

***

“Where did you find this string of idiots?” Dunc growled
from his dark corner of the study, pouring himself a tumbler of brandy.
Apparently, even though he’d learned almost nothing else, he’d learned to
hear
how much liquor he poured into a
glass, Theo thought cynically.

The two farmers who had joined them in the steward interviews
earlier had given up in boredom and wandered to find their dinners. To Theo’s
disgust, they hadn’t added much to the conversation when they’d been present.

“A little early to start drinking isn’t it?” Theo muttered
back, sitting at the desk and finishing up the notes he’d taken from the last candidate.

“My head feels like an anvil being pounded by all the demons
of hell, and that racket they’re making next door isn’t helping. If you want me
to continue sitting here, making an utter ass of myself, I need fortification.”

Aster had sent all her maids and footmen to shovel out the
master chambers while Duncan was occupied in the study. Theo hoped to hide on
the roof after his brother tried to find his way around the remains later.

“Not one of the men we’ve interviewed suits your needs?” Theo
asked in exasperation. “At least that stuffy one told us where our last steward
went.”

“Puling coward,” Dunc grumbled. “He could have told me he
received one of those damned Captain Swing notes.”

“I assume his gossip about those threats are the reason
we’re attracting the dregs of the barrel. It’s as if someone
wants
us to fail.” Theo sighed and
shoved his hand through his hair. “If this is the last of them coming up the
stairs now, it’s only half the men I invited.”

The ensuing knock on the office door wasn’t as loud as the
earlier ones. At Theo’s call to enter, Hugh opened the panel.

“Lady Aster says I’m to sit in on this interview,” the boy
said a shade too brightly.

“Lady Aster? You get to call her Lady
Aster
?” Theo had spent these last hours concentrating on taking
meaningless notes rather than wonder what the lady was doing—while this infant
was cozying up to her in his absence. Damn.

“She says that’s her fairy name and only people smart enough
to believe in fairies are allowed to use it.” Without waiting for reply, Hugh
stepped aside for their next prospective steward. “This is Mr. Reuben Browne.”

Theo did his best not to gape as a grizzled, stout old
soldier lumbered into the room wearing a rough military coat, a crumpled cravat
from the last century, and battered leather breeches and boots.

The other stewards he’d interviewed had been younger,
educated gentlemen, born to landed families, capable of wielding authority and
demanding respect.

This old man had only one arm. Theo cast Hugh a questioning
look, but the boy merely grinned and settled into a chair in a corner opposite
his father’s.

“Mr. Browne, welcome,” Theo said uncertainly. Realizing
Duncan couldn’t see what he was seeing, not knowing how to explain, he merely
introduced the stranger to the marquess.

“If you mean to abscond the instant you receive one of those
infamous Swinger notes,” Duncan snarled, “then you may as well turn and leave
right now.”

“If you been casting your tenants outta their homes and
putting them into the poorhouse with your machines,” Mr. Browne retorted, “then
I reckon I’ll just turn around and go.”

Before Duncan could return his injured leg to the floor and
wring the man’s neck, Mr. Browne continued speaking. “But I took a good look
around this past day and you ain’t one of them kind.”

Theo took a breath of relief. “Go on, Mr. Browne.” He was
learning to make meaningless noises that gave Duncan time to recover his temper
and conjure more infuriating questions.

The old soldier crushed his ancient cap in his one good hand.
“I been around long enough to know that there are three things certain in this
world: death, taxes, and change. If a man don’t learn to bend himself to new
things, then he’ll get knocked down and rolled over and left in the mud. You’ve
got them new threshing machines, but you also built drainage culverts to open
more fields. I reckon you put the labor you saved on the machines to repairing
and digging those culverts. Good men ain’t got no right to complain about
making improvements for the good of all with your profits.”

Somewhat pacified, Duncan demanded, “Tell us why you left
your last post.”

Theo crinkled his brow, trying to puzzle out the reason
Duncan wasn’t asking about turnips and fallow fields as he had been.

“’Cause I was let go,” Browne said without an ounce of
defensiveness. “I don’t look or sound like them swells that go to meetings to
find new ways to cheat the working man. And the new master wanted me to lie to
the tenants and consort with other landowners for him. I don’t truck much with talk.
I’m a man who gets out in the fields and does the work what I’m paid to do.”

Uh oh. Theo swallowed and cast a nervous look to Duncan. His
brother
needed
someone to attend
meetings for him, to talk to the tenants and other landowners. There wasn’t any
way Duncan could ride into the village as he once had. But this man didn’t know
Duncan was blind.

When Duncan remained silent, Theo threw out one of the
questions his brother had asked repeatedly about field drainage. The answer
wasn’t any more clear to him than before, but Duncan didn’t argue with it. In
fact, his brother sat there silently while Theo scoured his notes for other
questions. Browne had answers for them all. Whether they were the right
answers, he could only assume by Duncan’s silence.

A cloud of gloom descended on Theo when he’d finished and
Duncan still did not say a word. They needed a steward, dash it all. He’d have
to put all the names in a hat and pull one out if the bloody damned marquess
didn’t speak.

“Thank you, Mr. Browne,” Theo said dismissively. “We’ll be—”

“I need eyes and ears in the field, Browne,” Duncan finally
said. “I want you reporting to
me
,
not to the other landowners. You don’t need to attend meetings. I will. How
good are you at reporting production by field?”

“I ain’t much at writing it all down in neat little
columns,” Browne said warily. “But I can tell you to a farthing how much each
field earns.”

“That’s a start, Mr. Browne. Theo, show him to the steward’s
cottage, see if it’s to his liking. Hugh, go with them, please, and report
back.” Rather than rise from his seat and display his weakness, Duncan sipped
his brandy.

Theo didn’t feel the relief he’d expected. If Browne
couldn’t write the figures down in “neat little columns,” who would? And he was
pretty damned certain there was no way in Hades Duncan would ride into town or
anywhere else for discussions over future community-wide improvements.

It looked like they had just hired a one-armed steward who
couldn’t hoe the fields, keep the books, or wield authority.

The weight of Duncan’s thousand responsibilities would break
Theo’s back. He’d have to give up the stars and study the earth, after all. Or
find a wife who could be farmer, maid, bookkeeper, mother, and general of all
things household.

Aster sighed in pleasure and stretched her tired limbs in
the relaxing heat of the enormous Roman tub while watching one of Nessie’s
kittens tackle a hanging towel. The warm water lapped at her breasts and soaked
the tension from her shoulders. Living alone as she had these last years, she
hadn’t realized how difficult it would be to deal with so many people at once—
while keeping her distance. Unlike Lord Theo, she was unfortunately gregarious
by nature.

She sipped from a glass of wine. Candles along the edge of
the tub improved her light, and she’d filled the water with fragrant herbs from
Emilia’s collection. For the first time in a long time, with warm water lapping
around her, she was almost at peace with the world. If no one was near, she
didn’t have to worry how her planets might be affecting them. She breathed
deeply as the heat seeped through her.

A pounding at the locked door jarred her from her sensual
trance. The kitten hid beneath a cabinet and Aster scowled. “What is it?”

“Lord Theo says as you’re to come immediately, my lady,” one
of the untrained maids said nervously.

“Tell Lord Theo I only work a dozen hours a day, and I’m now
off duty,” she retorted.

“Yes, my lady.”

She could almost hear the girl bob a bad curtsy. She really
shouldn’t put the child between her and his selfish lordship, but the wind
would have to blow off the roof before she could be stirred from this rare
pleasure of heated water and fragrance.

Reading one of Lord Theo’s pamphlets and mentally
calculating whether the addition of Saturn’s moons might affect her charts in
any way, she jolted from her contemplation at a loud rap rattling the door.

“I am not leaving this bath until the water cools,” she told
the noisemaker. And she added more hot water to the tub to be certain it did
not cool before she finished reading.

“Will’s prime spaniel and Hartley have gone missing.” His
lordship’s deep male voice penetrated the wood without shouting. “There are
half a dozen dam . . . dashed carpenters prowling the ground
floor. I cannot find the blood . . . blasted receipt books anywhere.
And Will and Jacques are nowhere about to help with anything.”

“At least your priorities are straight,” she said, refusing
to move from her lovely hot suds. “Will told Hartley that his spaniel needed
some kind of training. One assumes that’s what they’re doing. The question
becomes—why are you asking me?”

“Because you’re the one with all the answers!” His
frustration was growing evident. “I need to talk with you.”

“No, you don’t,” she retorted emphatically. She could already
feel her muscles tensing at the thought of his lordship’s handsome presence.
“You are merely looking for someone to share your burdens. You’re not paying me
enough for that. Whatever the problem, it can wait until tomorrow.”

“By which time it could have evolved into a dam . . .
blo . . .
wretched
disaster!”

With alarm, Aster heard the key turning in the lock. She
hastily blew out the candles and grabbed a towel. “Don’t you dare come in!”

She might as well shout at the wind. The door opened, and
Lord Theo backed in, covering his eyes. He closed the door, keeping the steamy
warmth inside.

She flung a wet sponge at him. “Of all the audacious,
obnoxious, irresponsible . . .”

“Yes, yes, and yes,” he said impatiently. “But I don’t
intend to shout my problems through a closed door.” He turned off the gas
sconce, plunging the room into near-darkness. “There, is that better?”

“No, it is not. I was enjoying the peace and quiet. Unless
you’re broken and bleeding in three places, you need to remove yourself
instantly!” Aster didn’t know whether to hunt for her robe or to remain hidden
in the tub. Just his presence in the small room forcibly awakened carnal
sensations she’d prefer to leave slumbering.

His selfish lordship was the one she’d been trying most to
avoid by hiding in here.

In the light from the narrow window, she could see his tall shadow
slide down the wall as he took a seat on the tile floor. Even sitting, he
looked big and broad-shouldered, probably because she was sunk in the tub and
feeling vulnerable. But he exuded an air of sadness.

“I think I
am
broken
in three places,” he said dejectedly, scratching at the kitten’s ears when it emerged
from hiding. “Duncan hired a one-armed steward who can barely read or write. I
need to start another search for a man to do what he cannot. And I don’t fancy
a bookkeeping sort will ride out and deal with these Swingers, much less fight
with the complaining mine owners, or handle magistrate duties, or propose
agricultural bills for parliament. I just had to send a man to Assizes for
beating his wife, and I’m not even entirely certain it’s against the law.”