Page 30 of When She Loved Me
She did as he commanded, knowing it would be a less difficult ride for her, but it was more easily said than done. Nicole was forced to lean back very hard into Trevor to lift her right leg around the horse and pommel. She felt his hand tighten around her midsection and did manage this feat though he did not then, once she was settled more comfortably astride, loosen his hold.
“I should have let you walk back to the abbey.”
She raised her chin. “I would have gotten around to it, well before dark, I imagine.” But she turned her head to consider the thick mud and muck that his horse did now tread and the tall grass on either side of the lane that would surely swipe about her hips if she’d been forced to accede to the grass to avoid the road. “Or, maybe not,” she allowed.
They rode in silence then for several minutes, until Nicole was sure his anger had abated, even if only minimally. Thenshe dared, “Trevor, why have you come to Lesser House? Why now?” She felt him draw in a deep breath, felt it rise up along her back.
“I’ve come to claim my wife. But why do you and the others refer to it as Lesser House? It’s Hyndman Abbey, or simply the abbey.”
She shrugged. “It is less valued than any other Leven property, less cared for, less administered to, lesser than nothing, fit for only tucking away the unwanted servants and wives.” She felt his response to this as well, a stiffening of his posture. And she decided she didn’t want the complete or clarified answer to her query. There had been a time when the very self-assured and resolute tone he’d used to say,I’ve come to claim my wife, might have exhilarated her. But she’d been young and foolish then and that girl lived no more. “You must know that the manor has been neglected—to the point that it did not even retain a steward after the last one died so that only Franklin was left to receive rents and send them along, so I—we—continued to do just that. I had sent along several messages to you, via your land agent, asking for instruction and on at least one occasion, permission to spend some monies on the abbey and the farms, but it was as if Lesser House were only completely forgotten about. The only response received merely directed that we continue sending all accounts to an address in London.”
“I knew nothing of these messages. But that is all about to change.”
“It has changed,” she said, imbuing both pride and defense into her voice. “Ian and I have a system in place now. We collect the rents each quarter, we visit the tenants and the farms, we administer to the people. It needs no interference now—the onlything we lack is to know to whom we should be reporting. We’ve not ever been asked to send the books or records, and no one has ever come to review...anything, not for many years, according to Franklin.”
“I will have to address this with Leven’s land agent, Mr. Percival. He manages all these matters for all of Leven’s properties.”
“Do you not oversee your own interests?”
“I am decidedly more involved than my father ever was—there was one thing my mother did speak truth about, my father’s abysmal business sense.”
“Is that why you were... in such dire financial straits?” It was a delicate subject, and certainly not meant for a lady’s ear, but Nicole thought she’d earned the right to ask.
“Possibly. Truth be told, the title encompasses so many holdings, so much land, and even more investments, I haven’t learned the half of it yet. I spent six months pouring over a property in Scotland, only to find out it wasn’t entailed by the title, had actually come to the estate via my grandmother, and was worth thirty times the amount of income it saw yearly, so I sold it.”
“That sounds like a good thing.”
“It was—it is. Just wish it hadn’t taken me six months, half of that time traveling back and forth from London to there to discover what the agent could have or should have already known.”
“Is he incompetent?”
Trevor slowed the horse from a trot to a walk as they gained the drive of the abbey. “I think he is more just resistant to change—he’d been used to my father giving him free rein, not questioning anything.”
Trevor dismounted when the horse stopped completely and pulled Nicole to the ground as she was saying, “If it were my titleand my lands, I’d want to know everything. You should request a full accounting.” She remembered that her father had several times a year requested as much from his bailiff. They would meet for an entire week, her father closeted in his study with his bailiff and several of the men in his employ.
“Do they ever open the door?” Trevor wondered as they reached the entrance of the abbey and he pushed the door open and allowed Nicole to pass.
“No, my lord. Unless they know we are expecting visitors,” she said, glancing over at the fine rosewood clock on the table under the mirror, “which, as you may have guessed, is rare.”
“But where is everyone?” He asked, never having recalled entering any of his homes, at any time, and not being greeted by some staff.
“It is tea time,” was all she said to that. “Excuse me, I will freshen up.”
Nicole left her husband standing in the foyer, possibly still waiting for someone, anyone, to come along and collect his hat and coat. He would wait quite a while, she mused, picking up her skirts to take the stairs and find her room.
She changed out of her morning dress and chose a pretty soft cream gown that would do well for tea and then dinner. She tried not to dwell too much upon that ride home with Trevor, nor think too long upon his body being so close to hers, nor how their conversation had come so easily. It was, after all, only business that they’d discussed, as most of their discourses of a personal nature came with a more pronounced difficulty.
Nicole slipped her feet into her silk slippers and returned to the first floor and the library.
“Ah, there she be,” called Franklin from the chair nearest the large fireplace. He made to rise, likely to fetch Nicole’s tea, but she waved him off. Nicole liked when he sat, as he seemed so much straighter. Maybe the support of the back of the chair offered more ease or less pain, but his face now was almost straight and forward, his neck and back being so much less bent.
“Sit, Franklin. I am surely able to pour my own tea.” And she did, from the tray set upon the round table where sat Lorelei. Nicole was quite sure this was the little maid’s favorite time of day. Her posture was always perfect here, and Nicole thought even her speech seemed to improve, and she regularly put forth so many questions to Nicole about proper etiquette and fashions and gossip, which Nicole thought quite endearing.
“Were you caught in the rains, miss?” Lorelei asked, extending her pinkie as she sipped from her cup.
“Thankfully, I was not. I took refuge inside Adler’s. Then the earl happened upon me and brought me home.”
“Happened upon you, did he?” Franklin asked with a knowing grin.
