Page 55 of My Own True Duchess
“The hypothesis has merit. Are you in the mood for spirits, tea, or something else?”
The Quimbey estate office overlooked the gardens, an abundance of windows being conducive to accurate calculations. Compared to the tidy geometry of the garden, the office was a mess.
“I’m in the mood for friendly conversation.” Anselm moved a stack of ledgers from the boys’ foundling home to clear off a reading chair. “You’ve been busy.”
The remains of Jonathan’s breakfast tray sat on the blotter. The rest of the room was adorned with piles of correspondence, ledgers, wage books, and agricultural treatises.
“Quimbey is in love.” Jonathan tossed himself into the seat behind the desk. As a boy, that chair had felt like an oversized throne. Now it felt too small for his weight and in need of new cushions. “And even the furniture in this household is ailing.”
“Quimbey’s affliction is relatively recent.” Anselm helped himself to a slice of cold, buttered toast. “This office looks as if somebody has been battling the forces of chaos,”—he munched his toast—“and losing the fight.”
“Quimbey has been relying on the same house steward for fifty years, Anselm. If I see Carruthers tap his forehead one more time and assure me, ‘It’s all up here,’ I will not answer for the consequences. I like ledgers generally, I enjoy math, and make a contribution with my skills where I can, but this…”
“You don’t enjoy math. You delight in it with a passion most men reserve for a new hunter or their first love. What’s changed?” Anselm went after the cold tea next.
“Anselm, I can ring for a fresh tray, though it won’t arrive before Michaelmas.”
“No need for a fresh tray. This one’s only half gone. I suspect the chaos in this room has something to do with a particular widow being complicated.”
That hypothesis also had merit. “I generally find peace in numbers. These numbers reduce me to cursing. Quimbey must be the last peer in England to own unenclosed land, and I don’t fancy the hue and cry when I rectify his oversight.”
“My ducal seat remains unenclosed,” Anselm said. “Enclosure is expensive. It puts a whole village off the land and invariably reduces the circumstances of any who remain. If the village retains an open common, then every family can have a decent garden, a cow or two, some sheep. England is no longer at war, so claims that every acre must be driven to maximum productivity ring false.”
That was not an argument put forth by any other aristocrat of Jonathan’s acquaintance. “But you lose money.”
Anselm added a dollop of milk to his cold tea. “Those people have been loyal to my family for generations, Tresham. I have enough money. Do I really want a larger fortune at the cost of forty-five families’ well-being? No, I do not. Be whatever sort of duke you please, but that is the sort of duke I am and intend to be. My duchess disapproves of greed, and I don’t much respect it myself.”
His Grace brushed imaginary crumbs from his cravat, though his words were either so backward as to be feudal or the stuff of reform.
“Theo disapproves of greed.”
“Theo, is it? Well, then, I suppose you’ll be offering for her.” Anselm’s supposition bore a certain inference, one redolent of pistols at dawn for a man who trifled with impoverished widows.
Which was surely one of the reasons Anselm was worthy of the name friend. “I’ve asked permission to court her. She’s making me earn that privilege.”
“Smart woman.” The duke took a sip of cold tea, managing to look more elegant than Brummell in full evening regalia.
“She feels it necessary to remind me that I have many other options, but that she alone holds the power to accept a marriage proposal from me.”
“Brilliant woman, rather. Has she discussed with you the circumstances of her husband’s demise?”
“Very openly, I think.”
Anselm’s attention was absorbed with choosing a biscuit from the tray, though there were only three on offer. “Tread lightly. The late Mr. Haviland had faults, but he was her husband.”
And now, Anselm, who never trod lightly, was stirring his cold tea.
“Go ahead and dunk your biscuit, Anselm. You know you want to. Dunk it in the milk, and I won’t tell a soul.”
“I am a duke,” he said, dipping his sweet into the little pitcher of milk. “I am allowed my crotchets. What will you do with the club?”
How a man could look imposing while dipping a biscuit into the milk pitcher was a mystery known only to dukes.
“What has the club to do with anything?”
Anselm took a bite of his sweet. “Dukes are well advised to avoid illegal activities.”
“You lent me money to help finance the purchase of the place.”
