Page 29 of Wild Lily
She stared at him, her body swaying to and fro.
Julian hoped to God she’d sit soon or they’d be here all damn night.
She regained her chair.
Elanna closed her eyes.
Julian let out a breath.
“Now then. Affairs at Broadmore are in turmoil. Wilson has taken to his bed.” Their bailiff for the estate had always been sickly, getting worse each year. “He’s got a bad case of pleurisy.”
“Or nerves,” his mother added under her breath.
His father quelled her with fury in his black gaze. He dug a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wiped his mouth. “Most—Most ungracious of you.”
She rolled her shoulders.
Julian shook his head. She and Wilson had never gotten on.
Broadmore in west Sussex was the original land grant estate from the Crown to the first Duke of Seton two centuries ago. Nearly fifteen-thousand acres of prime land yielded the bulk of the crops that fed the two-hundred plus tenants and the coffers of the ducal family. Until the past few years. With poor weather, little investment in new plows and wagons, the lack of cash to purchase seed, the tenants who faithfully farmed the land were growing poorer. Unable to pay their rents in full. The skills of his father’s bailiff there, Robert Wilson, were of little use. If the land did not yield, the tenants could not sell their grain or fatten their animals. They not only could not pay their rents, they sickened.
“Wilson is the best man in all Sussex. I don’t doubt he’s worn himself to the bone and I don’t begrudge him a rest.” This graciousness, this compliment was a new phenomenon his father had begun to exhibit as the profitability of their estate had diminished.
“He needs no rest, but replacement,” his mother said.
“Absolutely not,” his father disagreed. “Wilson insisted to rise from his bed and rallied to show me the estate books. We tallied the rents to date. Also balanced the sales of the grain against the expense of the seed for this spring.”
Julian folded his hands, knowing what was coming. He’d known each year for the past three. Each spring the estate books had not balanced. Each spring, the Duchy of Seton sank deeper into the mire caused by the combination of abundant, cheap American grain imports and terrible weather. Rain, ice, snow had flooded their fields at Broadmore since last October and to a lesser extent at their smaller estate, his own, of Willowreach in Kent.
“We have enough money to run this house for two months. Pay the servants and the annual taxes. Then we must either sell it or let the house to any rich American who wants a fancy residence for his chicks.”
“No,” his mother said beneath her breath. “This is not so.”
“Not? So?” Quentin George Makefield Ash, the seventh duke, barked in laughter. Then he advanced on his wife of thirty-six years with fire in his eyes. “Who are you, madam, to nay say me? I told you over and over these past few years. Now we are well and truly cooked as a Christmas goose. At Christmas, I told you that you must no longer visit your seamstress. You must do with last year’s hats. I would not pay your marks. And worse…”
She lifted her face to stare at him, her mouth pinched, her skin drained of color.
“I refused to pay any of your chits to cover your debts at cards.”
“They are not much.”
He gave a sharp laugh. “They are not paid, either.”
“But, but… George, you must. I cannot continue—”
“Precisely. I warned you years ago. You went on your merry way. Even if, madam, we had means, your addiction to the tables has ruined us.”
“Only my addiction?” She fixed him with slitted eyes. “What of yours?”
The old man’s nostrils flared wider.
Elanna pressed back into her chair. Julian fought not to do the same.
His father sagged. “My amusements have long since ceased, Charlotte.”
She raised her fan, the snap of the sticks the sign of her outrage. “Do not insult me with lies.”
Elanna pressed her lips together. If she understood the implications of theamusementstheir mother indicated, his sister did not flinch.
