Page 20 of To Seduce a Stranger

“My pa was Lord Beckley’s tenant for almost forty years. I worked beside him from a lad. Old Feasby, your predecessor, made over the lease in my name, though it wasn’t strictly legal, I suppose, as I wasn’t yet of age. Now, I work mostly alone. Hire in a lad or two from the village during harvest, when I can.”

Edward scanned the landscape as they passed. To eyes accustomed to sugarcane and the lush greens of the tropics, the alternating strips of field and fallow, both still mostly brown and awaiting the new growth of spring, looked desolate. “How much land have you under cultivation?”

“Not enough.”

“What of the rest of Lord Beckley’s tenants?”

“There’s too few of us, and that’s certain. Some died. Others were driven off when they couldn’t make the rent. And of course, most of them left when everyone else did.”

“When was that?”

“Twenty years ago or so.”

“Oh?” Edward tried to mask his curiosity, though his heart knocked in his chest. “What happened then?”

“Outbreak of smallpox. Lady Beckley died of it.”

In the damp, heavy soil, Edward stumbled and narrowly kept himself from falling. Long ago, he had forced himself to acknowledge that his running away had probably not been enough to save his mother. But a part of him had always held out hope.

Though they were little more than confirmation of what he had long suspected, Markham’s words ripped that fragment of hope right from his chest, leaving something worse than a wound.

Emptiness.

His mother was gone.

“They say his lordship wrecked the house and swore never to return,” Markham continued. “’Course, that’s just rumor. I never saw the inside of Ravenswood Manor, and I don’t know that my pa did either. The servants scurried away like rats from a burning barn, and when folks in the village got word, those who could, left. Naught but a handful of souls there now.”

“And the steward—Feasby, was it?” The name was unfamiliar to Edward. “What of him?”

“Not much to keep him here after that. He spent his time on some other property he managed. Up in Derbyshire, as I heard it. Don’t think he much cared about this one. He always came quarterly to collect the rents, though. Last quarter day, he didn’t bother to do even that.”

It was all too much at once. His mother’s death, his father’s indifference. “To whom did you pay your rent, then?” he asked numbly.

Only after Markham had looked askance at the question did Edward consider he ought to have known the answer if he were who he claimed to be. “An office in London. Leadenhall Street. But I suppose that’s about to change?”

“Of course,” Edward said, masking his uncertainty with firmness. The last thing he needed was to be the cause of this man’s eviction if his rent failed to arrive at the appointed place on the appointed date. But Lady Day was almost a month off. By then, he would have confronted his father and would have matters well in hand here.

As they walked, midmorning sun beat down on their shoulders, but Edward still felt a nip in the air—or perhaps that was just more evidence of his thin blood. He would have called it a late spring, but what did he know anymore? “Between you and me and Garrick, and perhaps some of those lads from the village,” he ventured, “is there time to put more land under cultivation yet this season?”

Markham stopped short. “With what, sir? Have you money to pay for seeds, equipment, labor?”

“I have some resources at my disposal, yes,” Edward reassured him. Unlike Charlotte, he was far from penniless.

“It’s late. Any other year, too late,” he said, with another doubtful glance at Edward. A real English steward would know as much. “But it’s been a cold, wet spring. Folks who moved too quick lost their seed. We might do to put a bit of wheat or barley in the ground yet.”

They were standing now beside the farmer’s house, a small neat building, clapboard rather than stone, but in need of whitewashing. Like everything, it was a stark reminder of the work that had gone undone. Markham made no move to invite him in. “Are you a married man, Mr. Markham?”

The other man gave a humorless laugh. “Haven’t got much to offer a wife, sir. It’s no time to marry, unless you’re a rich man—or a man lucky enough to find himself a rich woman. In any case, there’s no vicar at the church anymore to do the deed. The living was sold years ago, and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen the man who holds it. His curate is meant to fill the gap, but he’s spread mighty thin.”

“It would seem you all are.” Edward held out a hand for a conciliatory shake. “I hope you’ll believe I intend to improve things.”

Markham looked down at the outstretched hand, up at Edward, then reluctantly took Edward’s hand. “I’ll settle for your not making them worse.”

It was hardly a vote of confidence, but Edward was in no position to reject it.

“And what of you, sir?” Markham asked after he had released Edward’s grip. “Is there a Mrs. Cary?”

Before he could catch himself, he began to shake his head, then tried at the last minute to make it seem as if he had merely been trying to ward off a fly. “Yes. There is. My wife and I are . . . recently wed. She came to Gloucestershire with me, but the Rookery is in such poor repair that I have installed her in the manor. With his lordship’s permission, of course.”