Page 18 of The Truth About Lord Stoneville
“Then perhaps I should explain it to you.”
“Yes. I wouldn’t want to blunder as your pretend fiancée.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. If this doesn’t have my grandmother changing her demands overnight, nothing will. It’s guaranteed to succeed.”
Chapter Five
After hearing Lord Stoneville explain how his grandmother had dictated that her grandchildren marry within the year, Maria wasn’t sure she agreed with his assessment of the matter. The woman sounded pretty formidable.
“Why are you all so reluctant to accommodate her, anyway?” she asked. “It’s not as if your grandmother is trying to force you to marry any particular person you don’t fancy. And everyone marries eventually.”
“Not everyone.” His voice softened. “Besides, it’s not right that my siblings be forced into anything prematurely. What if they can’t find someone who suits them in a year? Someone for whom they feel genuine affection? Marrying without that is more of a hell than never marrying at all.” He gazed out the window, his eyes suddenly somber.
Had he been married before? Or was he speaking hypothetically? Maria wanted to know more, but shesuspected he wouldn’t tell her. Besides, it wasn’t her concern. If he was bent on getting himself and his siblings out of marrying, so be it. As long as he held up his end of their bargain, she didn’t care.
But it did annoy her that he’d been so cynical about her own prospects. Did he think no one would marry her unless Papa “sweetened the pot”?
All right, so sometimes she did wonder about Nathan’s motives, but he’d always insisted that he would have married her without Papa’s offer. He never spoke of love, but she’d never seen him flirt with other women, so he must have genuine feelings for her even if they weren’t the passionate kind she read about in books.
She frowned. The trouble with Lord Stoneville was that he saw the whole world through a heavy black veil. He had no morals, so he assumed everyone else lacked them, too. No wonder his grandmother despaired of him.
“By Jiminy, will you look at that!” Freddy exclaimed.
Maria followed his gaze out the window to a well-lit group of buildings far back from the road. “What’s the name of that village?” she asked Lord Stoneville.
“It’s not a village,” he bit out as the horse turned onto a long drive leading toward the lights. “That’s Halstead Hall. My estate. ”
Her breath died in her throat. “But how . . . there are so many roofs—”
“Yes.” For a moment, she thought he would say nothing more. Then he went on in an oddly detached voice. “Itwas built at a time when sprawling houses were common for the wealthy. Henry VIII gave it to the first Marquess of Stoneville in thanks for some service he rendered. It’s been in the family ever since.”
He didn’t seem happy about it, which made no sense. How amazing to own such a spectacular house. And for his family to have inherited it from a king, too!
“If you don’t mind my asking,” she ventured, “how many rooms are there?”
“A few hundred or so.”
“Or so?” she squeaked.
“No one’s ever counted beyond three hundred. We take it on faith. By the fifth courtyard and the tenth building, you get a little muddled. It’s fairly large.”
Fairly large?It was a palace! She’d never imagined that anyone other than royalty lived in something so magnificent.
“Must cost you a fortune to keep it up,” Freddy said.
“You have no idea,” Lord Stoneville ground out. “This is the first time since my parents’ death that I’ve seen it so well lit. The candles alone . . .” He frowned. “Now that Gran is visiting, someone is clearly doing it up brown for her, blast it.”
Why on earth would that make him angry? This conversation grew more and more curious. “There’s the answer to your financial woes,” Maria said. “You just sellthat, and your family will have enough to live on for another three centuries.”
“I only wish that were an option,” he said bitterly. “In England we have something called entailment. It meansthe property can’t be sold by any of its heirs, including me. Even the contents are entailed.”
“You could rent it out to a king or something,” Freddy said.
“Only a king could afford it, I’m afraid. No one leases a pile like that unless they’ve got a serious fortune. And it’s not the current fashion for the newly rich—it’s too old, and the furnishings are ancient. Trust me, I’ve tried.”
The way he spoke, as if his estate were nothing but a burden, surprised her. “I’m sure it’s very difficult for you,” she said dryly, “owning a palace and all.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black, Miss Butterfield? If you can be believed, you’re not exactly destitute. Your father owned a ship company, yet here you are without funds.”
