Devon smiled. “I had more than a few doubts. Severin is infinitely more experienced at business. However, I tried to compensate with pure stubbornness.” Gesturing with the wine decanter, he gave her a questioning glance.
“Thank you, but I’ve had enough.” She nodded toward the desk in the corner. “A telegram arrived for you just before dinner. It’s on the silver tray.”
He went to retrieve it, opening the gummed seal. Looking down at the message, he frowned curiously. “It’s from West.”
COME TO THE ESTATE WITHOUT DELAY
W.R.
“He wants me to go to Hampshire immediately,” Devon said, puzzled. “He doesn’t say why.”
Kathleen glanced at him with instant worry. “I hope it’s not bad news.”
“It’s no more than middling-bad, or he would have included an explanation. I’ll have to take the first train in the morning.”
Setting her empty glass aside, Kathleen stood and smoothed her skirts. She looked tired but lovely, a pucker of worry pinching the space between her brows. She spoke without looking at him. “My monthly courses started this morning. There is no baby. I knew you would wish to learn of it as soon as possible.”
Devon contemplated her silently.
Strangely, the relief he would have expected to feel wasn’t there. Only a sort of blank ambivalence. He should be falling to his knees in gratitude.
“Are you relieved?” he asked.
“Of course. I didn’t want the baby any more than you did.”
Something about her calm, reasonable tone rankled.
As Devon stepped toward her, every line of her body tensed in wordless rejection.
“Kathleen,” he began, “I’m weary of this distance between us. Whatever is necessary —”
“Please. Not now. Not tonight.”
The only thing that stopped him from reaching for her and kissing her senseless was the soft, raw note in her voice. He closed his eyes briefly, grappling for patience. When that failed, he lifted his wineglass and finished the drink in three measured gulps.
“When I return,” he said, leveling a steady stare at her, “you and I are going to have a long talk. Alone.”
Her lips tightened at his severe tone. “Am I to have a choice in the matter?”
“Yes. You’ll have the choice of whether we go to bed before the talk, or after.”
Letting out an indignant breath, she left the study, while he stood there gripping his empty glass, his gaze fixed on the vacant doorway.
Chapter 32
T
he instant that Devon stepped off the train at Alton Station, he was confronted by the sight of his brother in a dusty coat and mud-crusted breeches and boots. There was a wild look in West’s eyes.
“West?” Devon asked in startled concern. “What the devil —”
“Did you sign the lease?” West interrupted, reaching out as if to seize his lapels, then appearing to think better of it. He was twitching with impatience, bouncing on his heels like a restless schoolboy. “The London Ironstone lease. Did you sign it?”
“Yesterday.”
West let out a curse that attracted a slew of censorious gazes from the crowd on the platform. “What of the mineral rights?”
“The mineral rights on the land we’re leasing to the railway?” Devon clarified.
“Yes, did you give them to Severin? Any of them?”
“I kept all of them.”
West stared at him without blinking. “You’re absolutely sure?”
“Of course I am. Severin badgered me about the mineral rights for three days. The longer we debated, the more exasperated I became, until I said I’d see him in hell before I let him have so much as a clod of manure from Eversby Priory. I walked out, but just as I reached the street, he shouted from the fifth-floor window that he gave in and I should come back.”
West leaped forward as if he were about embrace him, then checked the movement. He shook Devon’s hand violently and proceeded to thump his back with painful vigor. “By God, I love you, you pigheaded bastard!”
“What the devil is wrong with you?” Devon demanded.
“I’ll show you. Let’s go.”
“I have to wait for Sutton. He’s in one of the back carriages.”
“We don’t need Sutton.”
“He can’t walk to Eversby from Alton,” Devon said, his annoyance fading into laughter. “Damn it, West, you’re jumping about as if someone shoved a hornet’s nest up your —”
“There he is,” West exclaimed, gesturing to the valet, motioning for him to hurry.
At West’s insistence, the carriage proceeded not to the manor, but to the eastern perimeter of Eversby Priory, accessible only by unpaved roads. Devon realized they were heading to the acreage he had just leased to Severin.
Eventually the vehicle stopped by a field bordered with a stream and a stand of beech. The rough fields and hillocks swarmed with activity; at least a dozen men were busy with surveying equipment, shovels, picks, barrows, and a steam-powered engine.
“What are they doing?” Devon asked, mystified. “Are those Severin’s men? They can’t be grading the land yet. The lease was signed only yesterday.”
“No, I hired them.” West pushed the carriage door open before the driver could reach it. He swung to the ground. “Come.”
“My lord,” Sutton protested as Devon made to follow. “You’re not attired for such crude terrain. All that rock and clay… your shoes, your trousers…” He regarded the pristine hems of Devon’s gray angora wool trousers with anguish.
“You can wait in the carriage,” Devon told the valet.
“Yes, my lord.”
A heavily misted breeze blew against Devon’s face as he and West walked to a freshly dug trench marked with flags. The fragrance of earth, wet sedge, and peat wrapped around them, a fresh and familiar Hampshire smell.
As they passed a man with a barrow, he stopped and removed his hat, bowing his head respectfully. “Your lordship.”
Devon responded with a brief smile and nod.
Reaching the edge of the trench, West bent to pick up a small rock and handed it to Devon.
The rock – more of a pebble – was unexpectedly heavy for its size. Devon used his thumb to scrape dirt from it, uncovering a ruddy surface banded with bright red. “Ore?” he guessed, examining the pebble closely.