With a tired sigh, she picked up the latest pile of unopened correspondence on her desk and slowly thumbed through it. She could tell which letters were from the most frustrated creditors by the tight way they had been folded and sealed.
At the bottom of the pile she found one specifically addressed to herself. She set the other letters quickly aside. Slipping her letter opener under the seal, she muttered, “Please. Please. Please.” Wister scanned the first paragraph of the letter. “Damn.”
The wording was not exactly the same as all the other rejection letters, but the message was. Yet again, she had been unsuccessful in securing a new position as a lady’s companion.
As had been the case now for over a year, she was still stuck at Kington House, unable to move on with her life.
I am surely cursed to remain here forever. My ghost will haunt the halls of this place.
Rising from her desk, she ignored the rest of the mail. Like death and taxes, they would be here when she came back tomorrow. She stepped out from the dank, cold study and headed downstairs to the kitchen.
“Oh, that’s better,” she said, stepping into the warm and cozy space. A fire blazed in the hearth. Over the crackle of burning wood came the soft steady cadence of snoring. Polly the cook cum housemaid cum gardener was slumped over the kitchen table.
Poor love.
“Polly, I am going to go for a walk in the orchard. I shall keep an eye out for any old weathered apples that may be hiding in the trees. If I find one or two, we might be able to cobble together enough ingredients to make an apple pie,” she said.
She got a tired wave of the hand in response. Overworked Polly had been up long before the dawn and was taking a well-deserved nap.
Wister dropped a friendly kiss on the top of her head. “Why don’t you go and have a kip in one of his lordship’s beds? It’s not as if anyone is going to come and scold you for it.”
Polly shook her head. “No. This place is blighted enough. The last thing I want to do is to go and sleep anywhere that that horrible old codger might have laid his head.”
Wister softly laughed. It was either that or having a bloody good cry. Here she was, twenty-seven years old. No money. No prospects. And she was stuck as the de-facto, unpaid manager of a rundown estate in a far-flung corner of Herefordshire.
She grabbed her coat from a nearby hook and put it on, not bothering to remove her apron. Once outside in the overgrown orchard, she found some solace. At least the clean country air was better than living in smoke-filled London or grimy Manchester, and there was no landlord knocking on her door asking for this week’s rent. She should count her blessings.
Walking between what had once been neat rows of apple, plum, and walnut trees, she stopped every so often to search the treetops for signs of fruit. Wister sighed. There was not a scraggy apple to be seen.
“Oh, for goodness sake, stop being such a misery guts. Your luck has to change soon,” she muttered.
“Wister! Wister!”
She turned at the sound of her name being called and saw young Rupert Weld, the son of the local tavern owner, running toward her. A letter was held high in his hand. “This came with the mail coach this morning. Papa said I had to bring it over straight away.”
I expect George thinks that letter is someone writing to offer me a new position. One which will take me far away from here. Your father is more of an optimist than I am.
Wister took the letter, glanced at the back of it, and was about to tuck it into her apron pocket when she stopped. She rechecked the wax seal. It was a rampant lion on a shield. Under the seal, the name Morgan had been written.
“Oh,” she muttered.
Her mouth went dry. The only thing that could be worse than a rejection letter was a notice of dismissal from the new owner of Kington House before she had managed to secure another position. One that paid.
“Thank you. I shall read it later,” she said.
Rupert waved goodbye and scampered off toward the lane which led back into the nearby village. Wister broke the seal and opened the dreaded missive. Her heart sank as she read Baron Carno’s letter.
“He is coming here for a visit. That is all I need,” she whispered.
How long would it take for this Welsh baron to decide that she was not up to the task of managing the estate and give her formal notice? And then where would she be?
On her own. No money, and with nowhere to go.
Wister stuffed the letter into her pocket. She swallowed deeply, fighting back tears. This day had always been coming. The minute Lord Kington drew his last breath, the clock had begun to tick down.
She toyed with the silver ring on her right hand. The green garnet glistened in the midmorning sunlight. It had been a gift from her late parents, one of the few things she had managed to hold onto over the years, and it was her most precious possession.
But if Baron Carno did have in mind to rid himself of her from Kington House, the ring would be one of the first things Wister would have to sell. Food and a roof over her head had to be more of a priority than keeping a cherished family jewel.
With all thoughts of apple hunting now gone, Wister wandered off down the long walk between the trees and into the nearby wood.
I may as well enjoy the last of my rambles through Kington Wood. Who knows where I will be this time next month?
In a matter of days, the new lord of the manor would be arriving. And no doubt after having taken one look at the financial mess of his estate, she would be given her marching orders.
Chapter Three
Rhys climbed slowly down from the travel coach, hesitant to set foot on the stone drive of Kington House. If the view out the window on the approach from Kington village was anything to go by, he was in for a long day of disappointment.
The fields were devoid of livestock, and apart from a small patch of ground close to the main house, there didn’t appear to be any crops in the ground.
Just what I need—another estate that sucks my purse dry.
Deri climbed down after him, then leaned in close. “Just look for the positive signs, Rhys. The land is well drained and while those fields are now fallow, from the look of them, at some point in the recent enough past they supported crops. And it isn’t raining.”
Thank god he had brought his cousin with him. Deri Hughes could always be relied upon to find the good in any situation. Rhys had a sinking feeling he was going to need every cheerful comment from him to get through the next day or so.
“Let’s stick to the basics. Remember to cover the fundamentals. If the estate has solid feet, I can rebuild,” muttered Rhys.
His father’s old mantra played in his head. The last Baron Carno had been a pragmatic Welshman to his bones.
I miss you every day.
He missed both his parents, and never more than today—the third anniversary of their deaths. Their absence weighed heavily on his shoulders this morning.
Rhys puffed out his cheeks and forced himself to focus on the task at hand. That being Kington House and what he was going to do with it.
The main house appeared to date from the early Georgian period, not particularly old but most certainly badly maintained. From its peeling paint and general dilapidated state, it was clear he was going to have to make some hard decisions—the first of those being what to do with the clearly incompetent estate manager. No respectable servant would have allowed the property to fall into such obvious disrepair.