Page 48 of The Tempting of Thomas Carrick
Thomas was fairly certain that was where she’d inherited the knack; if anything, he would have said that her subtle, quiet “steering” was even more effective than Manachan’s often brash and blatant maneuverings. But as her direction aligned with Thomas’s own interest, far from resenting her interference, he was glad of it. She showed him where to look and eased his way in learning all he’d ridden out to find.
At every farmhouse, she was welcomed with genuine smiles and warmth; even the workers they came upon in the fields were transparently glad to see her, and very ready to pause and chat and tell her—and Thomas, too—how their labors were progressing and how each saw their own corner of the estate.
Although they hadn’t seen him for two years, the farmers still knew him and counted him as one of the laird’s family. He’d come to ask their opinions, with Niniver beside him, and so they spoke without restraint. If there was a prickliness, it was directed at Nigel—the “young master” as they termed him—not at Thomas or anyone else. While no one mentioned Nigel’s trips off the estate—that wasn’t their way—all the comments were restricted to what was wrong here, in their world.
The further he and Niniver rode, the more farms and holdings they stopped at, the more the problems mounted. None were major enough to be classed as emergencies; the lack of seed for planting was arguably the most worrying. Many of the gripes were merely minor irritations, but if left unaddressed, would fester and grow.
Most of the farms nearer the manor ran small herds of sheep, while the more southern and western holdings specialized in woodcutting and logging. Two farms ran cattle; three had goatherds. Again and again, Thomas heard the same comments, the same tune sung—that of a lack of interest and support from the manor. Bit by bit, a pattern emerged—one where Nigel was insisting that the farmers got their beasts or produce to market and secured the usual best price for the same, but without the help the manor had provided in the past, often acting as agent and helping to arrange transport.
As one farmer dourly stated, “Hisself wants us to do it all, but still pass the usual cut back to the manor. More, if our prices go down, he still wants the same amount. So now we do all the work, and he gets to sit in state on the manor’s coffers.”
Another explained, “We know as it’s the clan’s money and not just the laird’s, but still…it’s not fair.”
Yet another stated, “This wasn’t how it used to be in the old laird’s time.”
From that point on, Thomas looked even more carefully, and what he observed only increased his concern. Children wearing clothes they’d outgrown. Women in faded and patched gowns. Mothers who looked, to his eyes, too thin—certainly not as buxom as he recalled. Even some of the men showed signs of losing weight.
The Carrick estate had never been wealthy; its farms had never enjoyed the degree of prosperity of those to the south, in the Vale. But the Vale was managed on different principles, as a much tighter, more inclusive whole. That wouldn’t have suited the Carrick clan, where the families were more fiercely and pridefully independent, but they’d always managed. Manachan had always ensured that they did.
But with Manachan ill and no longer able to manage the reins, it was clear things were falling apart.
Although Thomas didn’t hear a single good word about Nigel, not even any neutral comments, the entire clan still held Manachan in high regard, and, to a large extent, that was protecting Nigel from concerted complaints and open opposition.
To the clan families, Manachan was still in ultimate charge with Nigel his temporary and less-able agent; although none precisely stated it, it was clear the families all believed that the current state would, with time, pass, and then Manachan would put right all the things that had gone wrong.
Together with Niniver, Thomas visited the Forresters, and then the Bradshaws. Forrester, who logged the northwestern forests and also cropped several large fields, confirmed all that Thomas had learned from others. The management of the estate was, if not yet in disarray, certainly unraveling.
The Bradshaws were considerably improved. Thomas sat at their dining table and let Bradshaw explain the full implications of the estate’s crop farmers not yet having received any seed stock.
“We’re too late, now, to get more than one crop this year, when usually we’d have two.” Bradshaw paused, then more diffidently said, “And the way the manor’s been talking, it sounds as if they’re going to insist we pay the usual tithe, as if we’d had the two crops and not just one.”
Thomas didn’t need to ask what strain that would place on the farmers. Struggling to mask the degree of his disquiet, he nodded. “I’ll make sure the laird knows.” He couldn’t promise that Manachan would put things right and adjust the levy on the farms, yet neither could he suggest that Manachan wouldn’t. Or, as it might well be, couldn’t.
For all his bluster and belligerence, Manachan had never allowed the clan to be harmed, and most especially not by any action of the manor. That wasn’t how clan and lairdship worked.
After asking to see the Bradshaw children, on the pretext of having promised Lucilla he would bear tidings of them back to her, and confirming that all five were entirely recovered, he took his leave. Niniver said her goodbyes and followed him outside; from the smiles, even from the children, she was clearly a favorite visitor at the isolated farmhouse.
They mounted their horses and headed back to the manor.
Halfway back, there was a rocky shelf of land, a lookout of sorts. Niniver turned onto it and drew rein.
Following in her wake, Thomas pulled up alongside her.
They both sat and looked out over the fields. In the middle distance, the manor squatted like a dark deformed goblin amid its screening trees, its slate roofs looking rather like a hat. Remnants of morning mist still hung over the fields to the west, smudges of soft lavender against the dark green of the forests.
The sun was high overhead. Thomas’s stomach suggested the time was somewhere about noon.
Niniver drew breath. “So.” She glanced at Thomas, her blue gaze sober and direct. “Did yousee?”
He thought better of her for having dropped all pretense that she hadn’t been guiding him throughout the excursion. “Yes.” He looked at the fields. He hadn’t been trained to manage this sort of an estate, but if this had been his inheritance, he would have been seriously concerned.
Hewasseriously concerned, because these people were his clan.
“Papa needs to know.”
He looked at Niniver. “You know. You’ve known all along. Why haven’t you told him?”
Her lips twisted, and she faced forward. Her mount shifted, and she reined the gelding in. “Because I’m his daughter. I’m not his heir.” That was stated without rancor. “And now Nigel is in charge.”
