Page 55 of Desperate Proposals
“I beg your pardon?” Evelyn hadn’t supposed this would get his hackles up, and she felt a mild irritation at his lack of sympathy for poor Wright.
He waved his hand. “Never mind. What’s happened, then?”
Evelyn smoothed her skirts, then explained. “I had assumed that removing to here would have solved the problem, but she intends to petition you to hire Wright away from his lordship.”
“Ah. Well, have no fear—Gill predates my ownership of the lodge.” He chuckled, leaning back in his chair. “Would she deprive Mrs. Gill of her husband?”
“No, not here.” Evelyn shook her head gently. “She means for Wright to head your London residence.”
“Well, I bloody well won’t have that.” He sat up sharply, his face hard. When he caught her surprised reaction, he forced a more casual pose and tempered his tone. “That is to say, I’ve already a butler in London. Fennel.”
“Ah,” she said. “Well, I have not told Mrs. Wolfenden of our first meeting, nor would I agree with her wish that Wright should go to London, but I must say, having been your guest, this man you have, he’s not done anywhere near an adequate job. Why—”
Mr. Hartley cut her off. “He was my father’s man, Fennel.”
There it was again, that wistfulness in his voice, the earnestness in his eyes. In the past, she would shy away from discussing such appalling… feelings. But now a strange curiosity itched in her chest, begging for her to press him further, to know more.
To know him.
“Your father?” she ventured, praying the bland statement sounded less insipid to him than it did to her own ears.
“Lewis Hartley.” His gaze slowly returned to her, even as he remained stock-still. “He was a solicitor as well.”
Evelyn recalled Mrs. Hartley’s comments after the wedding, about how she’d rejected several other offers to accept this man, this Lewis Hartley. Her husband’s father. Suddenly a flood of questions filled her mind: What was he like? Did he speak with and love his child, unlike her own father, who treated her andEdmund as nothing more than obligations born out of fealty to the Wolfenden name, training her to assume that was the way of all families?
Strength and steadfastness she may possess, but the ability to hold emotional conversations escaped her. How could she form the words when she could barely allow her husband the privilege of calling her Evelyn?
But a knock at the door saved her from having to figure out how to engage further. For now.
Mr. Hartley called out his assent, the door opened, and a footman entered, apologizing hurriedly and informing him that Mr. Reed had called.
“Mr. Reed?” Evelyn interjected, perplexed. James Robert Reed, of the Knockton town council, of the many children and harried wife?
“One and the same,” Mr. Hartley said, regarding her with an arched brow. He turned back to the servant at the open door. “Send him up; I’ll receive him here.”
The footman thanked him and slipped away.
“Up here?” Evelyn said, baffled. “Why not the front drawing room? It is certainly the finest, with the coral silk walls.”
She cast an appraising glance about the study, recalling Rowland and his appalling collection of impossible bottles. Thankfully, her husband’s tastes ran more toward the written word—the shelves here held only books. Nothing else—no personal objects, nothing that spoke to who he, Marcus Hartley, was as a person. Perfectly acceptable, of course… but just then it struck her, of all people, as odd.
“Because, Evelyn,” he said, lingering upon her name as if it its use gave him great pleasure, “Mr. Reed is not fond of me, and I am not fond of him.”
She frowned. “Is that all? Why, I don’t think many of us truly care for Mr. Reed. He’s awfully dismissive of the idea of thegoat willow’s quadricentennial celebration, in fact. It’s set quite a number of ladies up against him. But that does not mean we forgo all niceties.”
Mr. Hartley blinked. “Goat willow?”
“Oh dear,” she sniffed, standing up. “The large goat willow on Knockton Green is turning four hundred years old next year.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Truly? Well, I must admit, that is rather impressive. But I am curious—how exactly do we know its age, and with such precision?”
“Why, the letter, of course,” Evelyn replied haughtily, in disbelief at her husband’s ignorance.
“The letter?”
“The letter in Mrs. Henham’s family papers. From Edmund Turner to his brother George, dated 1474, in which he writes of planting the willow on the east end of the village green.”
Mr. Hartley looked at her with a wry half-smile.
