The Perfect Kiss (17 page)

Billy’s head came up? “A proper job?”

“Yes, um . . .” He groped for a suitable-sounding position. “General factotum up at the castle. And um, assistant supervisor of fisheries.” He handed the fish over to Billy’s mother and wiped his hands on a handkerchief. “That position means you are entitled to take—for your own use—fish from any lakes and rivers on the estate.”

Billy’s mother surged forward, weeping again, and Dominic hastily stepped back before she could fling herself at his boots a third time. “Now, you clean that fish for your mother, young Billy, and then take Sheba back to the castle. I want to see her gleaming by the time I get back from Ludlow.” He turned to go.

Billy and his mother followed. “General what?” Billy asked.

“Factotum. It means you’ll do all sorts of different jobs.” He mounted his horse. “Like a footman, only more . . . far ranging.”

A grin split Billy’s face. “Better’an a footman, eh? And will I have a uniform?” His eyes were so excited, so hopeful, Dominic simply didn’t have it in him to crush the wretched brat.

“Yes, there will be a uniform.” So much for not getting involved with the blasted estate.

“And will I—”

“Don’t bother his lordship with questions, Billy,” his mother interrupted the flow of questions, much to Dominic’s gratitude. She clutched his boot—what was it about this woman and boots?—and said, “Thank you, your lordship. I do beg your pardon if I offended you before, m’lord. I should’ve known the Lady would bring us good fortune.” She gave him a beatific smile. “Saw her the other morning, I did. She has the bonniest smile. Like dawn after a dark night, it was. Nothing but good could come o’ a smile like that.” Tears dripped onto his boots.

“Yes, yes, I’m sure,” Dominic muttered and edged his horse away. “I must get going. An appointment in Ludlow.”

He rode off and they both started shouting but he wasn’t going to be stopped to be thanked again. His boots were quite wet enough as it was!

He’d gone a good mile and had slowed to ford a stream when a splashing beside him alerted him to the fact that Sheba had followed him. He swore. That’s what the Finns had been shouting about. Oh well, it was too late to take Sheba home.

“You will have to run all the way,” he told her severely. “For there is no way I am taking a disgustingly wet and muddy creature up on the saddle in front of me!”

Sheba gave him an adoring look. Her tail wagged gently. Her ribs heaved and her tongue lolled.

Dominic sighed and scooped her up in front of him. With any luck the mud would dry before he reached Ludlow and he could brush it off him.

 
 
“I WANT EADES CAUGHT!” DOMINIC FORCED HIMSELF TO SIT calmly in the chair opposite his lawyer’s desk. Sheba dozed in the corner. “I want the finest runners Bow Street can offer. The bastard has got to be punished for what he has done!”

The lawyer, Podmore, nodded his grizzled head. “So it was as you had suspected, then. Tsk, tsk, it’s shocking! Two sets of books—I can hardly credit it. And you say that there was no staff at the castle at all? And yet wages were drawn for them.” He made a note. “Embezzlement on that scale—he’ll surely hang. Transportation at the very least!”

Dominic shook his head. “I have a strong dislike of being robbed, but that’s not the worst of Eades’s crimes. All the time he was creaming off the profits of the estate, he was driving hardworking tenant farmers to ruin—I’ve seen it everywhere. He overcharged on the rent and forced good, solid men off land they had farmed profitably for generations. He pocketed salaries for nonexistent staff and for nonexistent repairs on the tenants’ cottages! And you should see the disgraceful state of some of the cottages—cottages for which I must take the blame.”

Podmore gave him an odd look. “You actually visited cottages?”

One cottage only, but Dominic wasn’t going to admit that. Dominic shot him a look from under his brows. “They’re my cottages,” he said brusquely. “Why shouldn’t I visit them?”

“Why not indeed?” Podmore agreed.

“Do you know what else Eades did?” He fixed Podmore with a freezing glare, “He had a man transported! For poaching
fish
!”

Podmore gave an approving nod. “At least he was not blind to all his responsibilities, then.”

“The poacher was the father of five hungry children, for Christ’s sake! And they’re in even more desperate straits now he’s rotting in a penal colony in New South Wales!”

Podmore’s brow knotted in confusion. “But what else could Eades do? Poaching is a crime, and transportation a common punishment.”

Dominic stared.

“The fish belong to you, my lord.”

Dominic clenched his fists. “An entire family ruined for the sake of a few bloody
fish
?”

“I know it sounds harsh, but it is the only way to prevent crime. And lawlessness is increasing everywhere.”

Dominic shook his head. “Letting children starve is the crime. The way to prevent increasing lawlessness is to ensure men have jobs so that they can feed and protect their women and children.”

Podmore looked shocked. “My lord, never say you are a radical!”

Dominic shrugged. “I was once a lot like that boy. I know what starvation feels like.”

There was a long silence. The elderly lawyer looked deeply troubled. “Was it truly so bad, my lord?”

Dominic nodded. “There were times when my mother and I didn’t know where the next meal might come from. I did whatever I could to survive—stealing, and worse. And I’d do it again in a heartbeat, if my family was starving. A man is not a man if he does not protect those he loves.” Aware he’d shocked the lawyer with his outburst, he moved to the window and looked out. He noticed nothing. He was back in Naples, a skinny, desperate boy, roaming the back alleys and the docks . . .

After a short silence, the elderly lawyer said in a husky voice, “I can sympathize, my boy. I knew your mother, too, recall. A very sweet and lovely lady . . . What happened was a tragedy.”

“Not a tragedy—
an outrage
!” Dominic said with quiet savagery. The lawyer didn’t know the half of it. He mastered himself and when he turned back, he’d assumed his usual cold expression.

“I want Eades brought to justice.”

Podmore said in a soothing tone, “Bow Street will hunt him down, my lord, never fear.” He gave Dominic a shrewd look. “Do I gather you’ve had a reversal of sentiment about Wolfestone since you came here?”

At the question, Dominic jerked his head up. “A reversal of sentiment? Of course not. I despise the place as much as ever!”

Podmore said in a level lawyerly tone, “Forgive me, of course not. It was merely that you sound a little more . . . involved than before.” He began to set out papers on the table in front of him. “So you don’t intend to repair any of the tenants’ cottages?”

Dominic considered the matter. “I’ll have to,” he said after a moment. “I can’t have people living in such disgraceful conditions for something that while not my fault, is nevertheless my responsibility.”

“Quite so, my lord. Though I take leave to remind you that if you break up the estate and sell it, the new owner might wish to evict the tenants and demolish the cottages anyway. Modern farming techniques require a larger scale of operation, I understand.”

Dominic glanced out of the window, into the busy inn yard. Dammit, he did not want to think about the consequences—he just wanted to be rid of the place. “The new owner might not,” he said eventually. “The repairs must be completed before winter. Some of those damned roofs leak!”

“Very well, my lord.” Podmore made a note. “Is that all you wanted to see me about?”

“No,” said Dominic, continuing to look out of the window. “I wanted to check something about the will. Let us say I break this betrothal to Miss Pettifer and the estate is sold. What is to stop me from simply buying it?”

The lawyer sighed. “I explained it to you in Bristol, my lord. I did fear you were so angry at the time you might not have taken in all the permutations. Your father anticipated this. You cannot buy the property—the will specifies it most particularly. Not you, nor any agent in your employ, nor any blood relative, nor a wife.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “I’m sorry, my lord, but your father was furious when you ran off like that. He was determined to bring you to heel in the end.”

Dominic clenched his jaw. He would not be brought to heel by his father—dead or not! He said, “Sir John has come down here with his daughter to try to force an early marriage. He’s ill. It occurred to me to wonder, what happens if Sir John dies?”

“As long as Miss Pettifer is still unmarried, the will stands.”

“And if she chooses to break the betrothal?”

“If she does, the ten thousand pounds originally paid to Sir John by your father on signing the contract must be repaid to the Wolfestone estate.”

“What if I choose to waive that?”

Podmore shook his head. “You cannot. The money must be repaid by Miss Pettifer or her father—and you know they don’t have it. I’m sorry, my lord, but your father anticipated both Sir John’s spendthrift ways and your own reluctance to wed a bride of his choosing.”

“What if I give her the money from my own funds?”

The lawyer shrugged. “I would know nothing about that. But the fact remains that, according to the will, you must still gain Sir John’s permission to marry—your father, as I said, was determined to bring you to heel—and I was under the impression that Sir John is very much in favor of the match between you and his daughter.”

“He is, damn him!” Dominic punched a fist into one hand. The stubborn old fool could not be made to see that Dominic would make a terrible husband for Melly—cruel and neglectful, dammit! He resumed pacing the floor.

Podmore looked coy. “I presume you have some other young lady in mind, my lord.”

Dominic looked at him blankly. “No, whatever gave you that idea?”

Podmore shrugged. “An old man’s fancy, that’s all.” He hesitated, then added, “My lord, why do you not simply refuse this marriage and let the estate be sold? Since that is your intention anyway, and since you do not need the money—”

“No! I need to
own
it. It is my
right
! I will
not
be done out of my rights by my damned father’s will! If the estate is to be broken up, it will be by
my
will, not my father’s, may he rot in Hell!”

Podmore blinked.

Dominic continued, “My mother was sold in marriage for the sake of Wolfestone. She was just seventeen.”

“I remember,” the elderly lawyer said softly. “She was a beautiful bride.”

Dominic nodded. He kept forgetting this old man had known his mother. “My father made her life a misery, so much so that she was forced to flee to the continent in the end. There she lived in poverty for years—and all because of my father and Wolfestone!”

There was a long silence while Dominic battled to swallow the bitterness in his throat. Finally he sat down in the chair opposite Podmore and said, “I promised my mother on her deathbed that I would do whatever it took to ensure Wolfestone came into my possession. She asked me—begged me—to take it back for her sake. And so I will. By whatever means I must.”

Podmore heaved a sigh. “Yes, I see. I wish there was some other way to do it, but your father was very thorough.”

Dominic set his jaw. If he must, he must. Wolfestone would be his. He changed the subject. “Now, on the matter of the estate, it needs some attention—it’s in a shocking state of neglect. I trust I have your permission, as executor, to go ahead with it.”

“Of course.”

“I’ve appointed a local man, Jake Tasker, as temporary estate manager, and I’ve sent for Abdul to come down. He’ll take over Eades’s position.”

Podmore pursed his lips. “Is that wise, my lord? Abdul has no experience in the operation of an English estate.”

Dominic raised his brows. “Abdul is a genius.”

Podmore shifted awkwardly in his seat. “Yes, but . . . but he is so very
foreign
, my lord. The local people might not take to him. English rustics tend to be very parochial. In these parts they refer to folk from Shrewsbury as foreigners, and that’s only twenty-three miles away.”

Dominic shrugged. “I have no interest in what they think of Abdul. He is not there to be liked. He is there to do a job—to get the estate in a condition where it will bring the best price at sale.”

Troubled, Podmore shook his head. “I fear there will be trouble, my lord. Could you not prevail on him to dress a little less . . .
exotically
? And shave, so that he does not look quite so fierce?”

“No, his attire is his own concern. Now, on that matter—what progress have you made on the breaking of the entail?”

Podmore absently touched a sheaf of papers in front of him. “It might be as well if I hired your staff then, rather than Abdul. If the place is as neglected as you say it will need—”

“Don’t bother. There are upward of fifty people scouring the place from top to bottom as we speak,” Dominic informed him. He rose to his feet and resumed his pacing. “And before you start congratulating my initiative, it is a damned nuisance. Miss Pettifer’s paid companion has taken it on herself to assemble an army of local people to scrub, mend, and polish.”

Podmore’s brow wrinkled. “A paid companion has taken on staff?”

Dominic snorted. “Yes, but she’s the most unusual hired companion you’ve ever seen. For a start she has no respect for rank, rides roughshod over my sensibilities, orders her mistress around, and at the same time protects her like a tigress with a cub. She fills my house with local yokels and sets them scrubbing—in
my
house, mind—and when I questioned her, she assured me kindly that if I cannot afford it,
she
will pay their wages!” He snorted again.

“An older woman, I presume?” Podmore inquired delicately.

“Not at all.”

“Ahh.” Podmore steepled his fingers and regarded them earnestly. “And how old might this companion be?”

Dominic waved a careless hand. “I don’t know. Young. The same age as Miss Pettifer, I imagine. Sir John says she’s new to the job, says she’s one of ‘Gussie’s gels’ whatever that may be—”