Page 7 of The Baron Without Blame
“Why must you wait until autumn to marry?” Louisa asked. “It’s not as if you need delay for him to inherit his title or get back from a Grand Tour.”
Mama cleared her throat in the way she did when she disliked a subject. “Your stitches are growing sloppy, Louisa.”
Lolly luxuriated in silence for all of a minute before Charlotte looked dreamily out the window. “How wonderful, to love a man so much as to meet him on a dark balcony at a ball. There Louisa and I were, having an absolutely boring time talking to Lord Leighster, and you had an assignation!”
This, at least, she had never lied about and never would. “For heaven’s sake, Charlotte, are you twenty-one or twelve? You know very well I had never even met Lord Preston and it was all a giant, unfortunate misunderstanding!”
Mama’s sharp dark eyes settled on her. Lolly bent over her embroidery hoop, wishing she could take back the outburst. She knew the rebuke that was coming: she mustn’t say such things, she must be grateful, she must forget she ever had any feelings other than love for the great Lord Preston.
Only it wasn’t Mama who spoke next. It was the lord himself, in a voice just as deep and silky and smooth as that night on the balcony. “Forgive me for interrupting. I wondered if Lady Rosalind might accompany me on a walk?”
Lolly shot a glare at Charlotte, who was tittering nervously, then rose, setting her embroidery in its basket. “Thank you, my lord. I would enjoy that.”
They went out a back door, directly into the tidy garden. It was an uncertain day, the sun shining one moment and the next hiding behind wet clouds, and the spring flowers looked a little tired from being cheerful for so long. Like the rest of the house, the garden was neither large nor impressive. Most of it served the kitchen, with a few ornamental plantings towards the back. If she were his wife, she would plant a rose garden and lilac tree and a hedge maze.
Lolly yanked her thoughts away from that train of thought. She would not be his wife, and she had better not start believing her own lies.
“Did you have a pleasant morning?” she asked, since Lord Preston had not started any conversation yet. “You must be glad to be home.”
He looked over his shoulder, then drew her through the garden gate into the park beyond. “I confess I asked you on a walk for a respite. While it is good to be home, Lord Turner has many ideas for how a son-in-law should conduct business.”
That did sound like Papa. He didn’t stand for idleness, nor did he believe in keeping his opinions to himself.
“I am not used to this level of deceit,” Lord Preston added. “At least between the two of us, there is no need for falsehoods.”
“I am as exhausted as you, my lord. My sisters speak of nothing but our marriage.”
“Good, then let’s not even mention it when we are alone.” He led her onto a green path that cut between two fields. The prospect was clear with brown, recently sown fields stretching like patchwork across a gently rolling landscape. On the horizon were larger hills, the huge white horse centering them like a cloud fixated in the sky. Lolly supposed the place was so beautiful she could walk for hours without realizing it.
Lord Preston gestured ahead of them. “Your father would have me enclose these fields from the people of Thatcham, so as to earn a profit.”
His tone was carefully neutral, which snagged Lolly’s attention. “You don’t agree?”
“I’m not sure of my opinion. I am not as confident in my principles as you.” Lord Preston swatted away a small buzzing insect that had started following them.
First, he claimed he would make a poor husband, and now he disparaged his own character. Lolly couldn’t let the subject simply disappear into the chilled air. “Wise men seek counsel before making decisions. I won’t hold it against you if you change your mind.”
They took a few more strides down the path with only the sound of the breeze between them. Then Lord Preston said, “I spent the last five years touring the Empire. I wanted to understand our commerce. The pepper farms, the cotton factors, the tea warehouses. I am not sure what I expected, but I suppose I thought the people we met would fall at our feet in gratitude. After all, we must have brought them great wealth, with all the wealth we have gotten from it, mustn’t we?”
He paused long enough that Lolly thought he wanted an answer. She had never turned her mind to where pepper or cotton or tea came from, so she didn’t have an opinion herself. “I suppose so.”
“A few of them lived in nice houses, I will admit that. But the majority were worse off than our commoners. It is not a true trade. Take cotton, for example. We don’t export wheat to them as an exchange. We tell them that we need them to grow cotton; we loan them the seeds and equipment; then we take the cotton at such a low price they can’t repay their loans. When they default, we give them no forgiveness. When there is a famine, they die, because they have used their fields for cotton, not food crops. When they steal because they are hungry, we punish them as the Company on behalf of the Crown.”
With each sentence, he had increased his pace, as if speed would shake off his anger. Lolly had to hurry to keep up. “That doesn’t sound Christian.”
He barked something that might have been a laugh. “If only God had something to do with it, Lady Rosalind. Although I’m not at all sure He is on our side. After all, He saw fit for the American colonies to defeat us. I wonder if even now He is plotting the same for our other territories.”
Lolly tried to think what to say next, but Lord Preston kept going.
“On my return voyage, we made several stops along the West African coast. In Ouidah, I saw a slaver trade one bolt of pink Indian muslin for two men. I already had reservations before, but it was in that moment that I resolved to have nothing to do with imports from the Indies. As if cotton could be equated with the value of a life.”
Lolly flashed back to the escaped slave who had shown up in her friend Frances’s kitchen in Boston. His eyes had been so full of fear, a fear that didn’t completely disappear even as Frances’s mother cleaned the wounds from his journey.
And in the same moment, her hand fell to her skirts, which were a soft, fine cotton.
“I thought it would be better when I returned to England. Surely, here we treat our kinsmen with kindness. But even at Northfield, your father would have me cut off my neighbors from their firewood and grazing grounds, in the name ofimprovements.” Lord Preston came to a sudden stop. “You must forgive me if I have offended you. I am having trouble readjusting to English society, that is all.”
He was incredibly endearing, staring down at her with anxiety lacing his every feature. A man like him – handsome, rich, powerful – so rarely looked anything other than sure of himself. But now, even his hair in its queue curled uncertainly about his neck. Lolly looped her arm through his, the better to reassure him. “Perhaps you are having trouble adjusting because you have, like me, discovered that English society is worse than no society at all.”
