Page 26 of If You Were the Only Girl in the World
“It’s a crime not to use it,” Katrina said.
“What my mother says my father taught her. And what they have said to me in so many ways since my Paul died alone so far away from me.” Aurore offered a tenuous smile. “Come here to visit when you need to see the world in clearer light. And I will call on you when I come to Paris for my patients. We will dine, shall we?”
Katrina gave a laugh. “Do you know restaurants which still employ decent chefs?”
Aurore lifted her shoulders. “You and I must try all that appeal. We shall rate them, shall we?”
“Two ladies rate dinner! A new column in theParis L’echo!”
CHAPTER8
Nate and she sank into the seats of the train car side-by-side. Returning to Paris at eight-fifteen, this train was sparsely inhabited.
“Tired?” he asked as the engine lumbered slowly forward.
“I am, but the visit was invigorating. It was precisely what I needed and I’m grateful you took me to meet them.”
“They do me good to visit with them too. I have enjoyed them since I was a child.”
“You know them well? You came here often?” She thought it to be true. A large family whose members respected and applauded each other was a blessing. Her own family was small. Her mother and father’s brothers and sisters still living in Germany now had not emigrated with them to America in the eighties. Only her mother’s parents had sailed with them. Only her grandmother still lived.
“We did. My Aunt Lily and Uncle Julian traveled to Paris often for business or the opera or to go to Mister Worth’s studio. They would take all of us. Their two sons, two daughters and me. I was treated like a son by them. And when I was young I often addressed them as mother and father. Still do in times when I do not think before I speak.” He threw her a smile.
“A child is a child. We all need love and attention.”
“My father died when I was young and my mother left me to Uncle Julian. I never recalled the event actually. To be a part of their family always seems natural to me. The other Hannifords took me in easily too. I hope one day you will meet them. All lively and talented and just damned exciting people. A politician, a suffragette, a decorator, a novelist, two millionaires with business interests world wide, and a duke with thousands of acres of land and his duchess who runs her own medical clinic. They know how to set the world on fire.”
“You did not mention yourself. You, who now aid the effort to supply your field hospitals with the means to save thousands of soldiers.”
He inhaled and took a long minute to watch the swiftly passing scenery. “I am better at this than being the Earl of Carbury with tenants to look after and an estate that needs more than I can supply.”
She took his hand and kissed the back. “Tell me how you get on doing both.”
“I didn’t want to plague you with my worries when you looked so down.”
“The best means to deal with problems is to talk about them.” She’d felt the relief of that today with Aurore. “It’s not a crime to have issues we know not how to resolve. It makes them worse if we never share the burdens.”
“My problems are numerous. My estate problems.”
“How so?”
“My father, during his day, did not believe in many of the newer concepts of crop rotation. His yields were not profitable and he took loans. Mortgaging the land was a popular means to keep up his lifestyle. He was not alone in that. Long story short is that he funded a lavish household by taking loans that he ultimately could not repay and so he kept on refinancing the old ones. My mother was no help. Their marital problems exacerbated the matter. And though my uncle Julian took over the management of the Carbury lands while I was underage, he could not pay all the debt nor modernize the farmlands with new machinery to make it more profitable.”
“That has fallen to you.”
“It has. While I have benefitted immensely from advice from Julian and his father-in-law Killian Hanniford, I am not a natural entrepreneur. I am a man of logic and order and some imagination. The usual things an English lord in my position does were things I chose not to do.”
“Such as what?” She wanted to keep him talking. Past conversations with men who had titles and estates had taught her that they did not share details of their failures or their struggles. That was considered a tightly held reference that few must know.
“I sold off land that was not entailed. I did it piece by piece as loans came due whose interest was exorbitant. A lord holds on to his land like the very devil.” He clenched one fist. “But most were fallow or unproductive and I had no means to improve them. So it was best to let them go to another who could work them productively.”
“Wise of you.”
He checked her gaze and gave a rueful laugh. “I thought so. Another thing I did not do was marry money.”
“Not Old What’s-her-name!” She would not reference the one who had become his wife.
“No, thank God. Did you know she’s divorced your Old What’s-his-name who was your intended?”
