Page 1 of Miss Determined
ChapterOne
“I am a looming scandal.” Trevor, Marquess of Tavistock, had learned in recent years how to decipher the arcane dialect of the solicitor, and yet, he was confounded—and not a little angered—by the figures on the page.
“My lord overstates the situation.” Across the gleaming mahogany table, Giles Purvis tidied a half-dozen documents into a stack. “By the current standards of the peerage, you’re in fine fettle. You own an enviable number of assets, but are plagued by a temporary shortage of revenue, which you are ideally situated to address. Had you tarried in France another few years, one might not be as sanguine.”
How could Purvis be anything but sanguine when his office boasted walls hung in burgundy silk, Aubusson carpets chosen to complement that staid hue, and furniture as well upholstered and substantial as the solicitor himself?
“Let’s have another look at the list of properties,” Trevor said, shifting on a chair built to accommodate shorter frames. “Most are familiar to me, but some of the smaller ones have escaped my notice in recent years.” As had, apparently, the state of their finances.
Purvis sorted through his papers and passed over a single page. “That’s in order of size, though not necessarily in order of value. Larger properties can require more maintenance or have less land under cultivation. The bigger the dwelling, the smaller the market for potential leaseholds, and mortgage terms varied with the fortunes of war.”
Trevor’s finger stopped halfway down a list of about a dozen properties. “Mortgage terms?” He had a healthy dread of mortgages and the people who offered them. If his father had had one redeeming feature—ifbeing the operative word—Papa had at least bequeathed to his heir a solvent marquessate.
“Why, yes, my lord.” Purvis beamed at him patiently. “A mortgage is when a bank or other lender provides money, a sort of loan, and takes a security interest in a real property as a guarantee of repayment. Your father arranged for mortgages on the Yorkshire land and nearly paid them off. We’ve renegotiated the terms since his death. The Tavistock seat and the other entailed assets are not mortgaged, because those would be harder to sell. Your heir would have to agree to break the entail, and in the present circumstance…”
Purvis trailed off delicately and reshuffled his stack.
“I comprehend the concept of a mortgage, Purvis.” And thepresent circumstancesreferred to Trevor’s bachelor status, though a cousin of sorts racketing about on the Continent served as the Tavistock heir presumptive.
“What of this Twidboro Hall?” Trevor asked as a clerk brought in a tea tray. Jones was sandy-haired, soft-spoken, and good with figures. “I can’t think of any reason I’d need to bide in Berkshire when I own a monstrosity in Surrey. Why not sell Twidboro Hall?”
“One could,” Purvis replied, steepling his fingers and tapping his thumbs together, “but Twidboro Hall is a self-sustaining little jewel barely a day’s ride from Town. The DeWitts have been good tenants, insofar as they pay their rent timely and haven’t burned the place down. Twidboro will hold its value and might make a perfect dower property twenty years hence, while some of the others…”
Financial discussions were necessary when one had wealth, but part of the joy of biding in France had been distance from the solicitors, bankers, tenants, and other plagues intent on blighting a fellow’s freedom.
Trevor nonetheless grasped his duty and further grasped that he’d ignored that duty for too long. Step-mama never chided him, but her letters always included passing references to time flying and this or that splendid match getting off to afine start.
He thus endured the item-by-item review of his holdings, something he should have insisted on when he’d made his annual gallops through London. He’d instead contented himself for most of the past decade with glancing at reports and tossing them into a drawer.
The clerk—Jones—returned to remove the tea tray after some hour and a half of manor houses, mangel-wurzels, and hay meadows, by which time Trevor’s head spun and his belly roiled. No wonder Papa had had such a sour nature, if regular lectures from the solicitors had figured prominently on his schedule.
Though they likely had not. Papa had indulged himself liberally with blood stock and blood sport, neither of which interested Trevor in the slightest. Wine and winemaking, by contrast, fascinated him. He was also fond of the ladies, competent at the pianoforte, and something of an amateur artist.
“I’d best go on an inspection tour,” he said. “I’ve never laid eyes on some of these properties. I should look them over before I decide which to sell, which to rent out, and which to keep.”
Or he could—novel thought—actually live on one of the country estates. Grow some grapes, paint a few vistas dotted with sheep and cows. The notion appealed far more strongly than spending the rest of his days in Town to the accompaniment of droning solicitors.
Purvis jerked his chin toward the hearth, and Jones obligingly moved the screen aside and added more coal to the flames.
“My lord must do as he wishes, of course,” Purvis said, “but Town will soon be filing up, and your return has been much remarked. The hostesses would be disappointed if inspecting hog wallows in Berkshire held more appeal for you than turning down the ballrooms with the young ladies.”
Purvis wiggled his bushy eyebrows while Jones found it expedient to sweep the spotless hearthstones.
“The ladies have other bachelors to stand up with them,” Trevor said, setting the list of properties aside. “The marquessate has only me. Please send along a copy of this list with the names and directions of the relevant stewards and tenants. I’ll start with the holdings closest to London and work my way north as the weather moderates. You are not to alert anybody to my plans, Purvis, and I mean that. Not the tenants, not the stewards, and certainly not Mayfair’s hostesses.”
Step-mama would know of Trevor’s plans because he would tell her himself. If he tried to keep his intentions from dear Jeanette, she’d drop a question or three before her husband’s vast and nosy family. Within a sennight, Trevor’s arrangements, right down to what vintage filled his traveling flask, would be common knowledge among the Dornings.
“My lord, if I might speak frankly.” Purvis grasped his lapels like a barrister preparing to harangue a jury. “You have all but absented yourself from London for better than five years. In that short space of time, England has changed. Tens of thousands of former soldiers have come home to drive wages into the dirt. The weather has disobliged us with failed harvests. The destruction of the French blockade and the ceaseless enterprise of everybody from the damned Americans to the Swedes has upended commerce and decimated our trade. Fewer and fewer heiresses come to Town each spring, but this year they will all be setting their caps for you.”
In other words, Trevor was to take his place in the long and miserable line of Vincent menfolk who’d married for money. He’d suspected as much, but to have that suspicion confirmed blighted an already dismal mood.
An answering lecture begged to be delivered:I am no longer sixteen, new to my title, and tolerant of presuming, self-appointed honorary uncles whose fingers always seem to be in my pockets. You have overstepped for the last time.
Papa had excelled at delivering such lectures.
Trevor stood, his back stiff from sitting too long. “One appreciates the benefit of your thinking, Purvis. I will want to see income and expense statements for each of these properties. I also need to know how they were acquired and for how long the Vincent family has held them.”
Purvis rose and came around the end of the table. His coat brushed the stack of papers nearest the edge and sent them cascading to the carpet.
