Page 80 of Miss Determined
“Let’s hope, for the sake of all concerned, that you are correct, Miss DeWitt. Good day.”
She cantered off as Mama’s laughter floated across the lush grass, and Lissa’s breakfast threatened to rebel.
The years away from home had taught Trevor a few skills he’d never have picked up slouching from one London club to the next or idling away his evenings at the Coventry. On the Continent, he’d donebusiness. Competed, collaborated, bargained, and bluffed his way into agreements that he’d hoped were beneficial for all parties.
As plain Monsieur Vincent, he’d bought and sold land, equipment, grapes, barrels, expertise, and even donkeys for the sheer joy of doing work his father would never have disdained to handle himself.
Thank God for that spate of mercantile rebellion, because Giles Purvis was likely more wily and unscrupulous than any competitor or foe Trevor had faced in his travels.
“I’ll take your hat, my lord,” the sandy-haired clerk, Jones, said. “Fine weather we’re having, isn’t it?”
Trevor passed over his high-crowned beaver. “Lovely. Jones, you will please leave Purvis and me our privacy, no matter what your employer demands of you. He and I will be having a conversation today that nobody should overhear.”
Jones hung Trevor’s walking stick on a hook and draped the hat over it. “Old Purvis is a great one for having witnesses about, sir. Says it keeps everybody honest.”
“He’s aspiring to honesty now, is he?”
Jones colored up about the cheeks and ears. “I take the man’s coin, sir. That obligates me to not speak ill of him.”
“The pittance you call your wages does not obligate you to go to Newgate for Purvis’s sake, Jones. Deliver a message, take the post down the street to the inn. Do not involve yourself, or Young Purvis, or the lowliest apprentice clerk in the exchange between me and my solicitor today. He will accuse the charwoman of wrongdoing if he thinks that will exonerate him.”
Jones looked unconvinced, and Trevor had the unsettling thought that Jones’s concern was for the client rather than the solicitor.
“You called at Lark’s Nest, my lord?”
“I did.” Whatever that had to do with anything. “A lovely little estate.”
“If you’d someday like to meet my granny, sir, she was on staff there years ago. Has a sharp memory, though her eyes aren’t what they used to be.”
Trevor had no earthly idea what Jones was going on about, and he had a lawyer to sack. “Most kind of you, Jones. Now be off. I’ll see myself into Purvis’s office.”
“But, my lord…”
Trevor waved a hand toward the door. “Vite, vite!”
He crossed the room full of clerks all nose-down over their scribbling. A very young lad in the corner appeared to have fallen asleep, head bent, pen in hand, arm curled protectively about his document. The boy could not have been more than nine years old, and he’d been worked to exhaustion.
Trevor opened Purvis’s office door and sailed through, finding his hardworking solicitor fast asleep at his desk, snoring audibly. The blotter was bare, the pen in its tray, the desk devoid of correspondence. A plate holding an empty mug and a half-eaten hot cross bun sat on the corner of the desk.
The temptation to have a look around was compelling, but a gentleman did not snoop when he was intent on evicting squatters.
“Have I come at an inconvenient time?” Trevor affected the sneering drawl he’d heard so often from his father. “I do beg your pardon, but I was under the impression this is the appointed hour for our meeting.”
Purvis’s eyes opened, and for a moment, he looked like a cranky old man clutching at the flailing ends of his wits. The ship of lawyerly dignity righted itself in the next instant. Purvis rose, tugged down his waistcoat, and bowed.
“My lord. You have literally caught me napping. I was up late last night with a flood of correspondence. I’ll see Jones’s pay docked for failing to escort you into my office.”
“Jones was nowhere about, and neither was Young Purvis. Pressing business, apparently.” Trevor took a wing chair by the fire. “It’s you I wanted to see. I have questions, and you had better have answers.”
Purvis took the second wing chair. “Has anybody told you, my lord, that you put one in mind of your late father?”
Too many people had done exactly that. Trevor had Papa’s height, his blond hair, his nose, his title. Surely that list was not the entire measure of a fellow?
“Thank you for the compliment, however unoriginal. Why did you fail to list Lark’s Nest among my unencumbered holdings?”
Purvis was not good enough at his deceptions to hide a small start of surprise. “An oversight, my lord, nothing more. You have seen for yourself that the offices are kept very busy this time of year, and one tends to think of Lark’s Nest and the adjoining property as one estate.”
“Though they’ve been separate tenancies for two hundred years. I see. Was it also an oversight that Twidboro Hall has been paying hundreds of pounds more in rent than you listed on the tally sheet for that property?”
