A Spinster No More by Rose Pearson
Chapter Fifteen
October 1820, Tulilly, Devon
Devon was lovely.After the hustle and bustle of London, it was bliss to be somewhere quiet and calm. The fields around Tulilly had been full of crops when Anne had arrived, not yet ready for harvest, and animals grazing contentedly. Anne had been able to enjoy long walks and read as much as she liked without fear of being interrupted. Yet the autumn months had soon followed, and now the days were colder, and she was confined to her old home more often. She loved the old manor house, with its heavy beams and wonky floors. Everything about the place was solid and real, cozy and comfortable – unlike the dainty, elegant townhouses being built in the cities. But there were sad memories here, too – and they did not always bring comfort.
As the days grew wetter and she had less to do to occupy herself, Anne couldn’t stop thinking about how distant Mr. Cormick had been in her final few days in the city. Perhaps she had done something to upset him? Perhaps he had thought her too wanton in that moment in the library? It had made enjoying the wedding celebrations so much harder than they should have been. Caroline and Henry had been so happy. They had shared an unexpectedly emotional farewell, and Caroline had made Anne promise to write often.
She was trying to do just that, as she gazed out of the window over the lawn of her father’s manor house. But Anne had little to tell her. Nothing much happened in this part of the county, and if it did, Caroline would not know any of the people Anne might mention – nor much care for them. So, Anne wrote about a new book she had read instead. She would send a copy of it with her letter so that Caroline could read it to. Perhaps she might enjoy it and they could talk about it in their correspondence.
“Anne, would you assist me?” Papa asked, coming into the sunny parlor. His round face was pale, his brow furrowed. He scratched at his balding pate distractedly as he handed her a ledger and pointed to a line written in tiny script. “My eyesight is not what it once was, and my bailiff insists upon fitting everything into one line.”
Anne smiled and took the ledger. She held it up to her face so she could take a closer look at the inky dots. “Three palomino ponies, four bay mares and a chestnut stallion,” she said, squinting a little at it herself. “When did you buy new horses? I did not see them in the paddock, or the stables.”
Her father exhaled forcefully. “I had so hoped that I was wrong,” he said sadly. “I did not buy new horses. We don’t have the stabling, nor the need. I can barely afford to keep my stallion and the carriage horses, much less purchase new ones. I fear that there may be many similar entries.” He sank down onto the sofa beside Anne. She reached out and took his hand in hers. He looked as thought he carried the weight of the world upon his shoulders. She wished there was something she could do to ease his burden.
“How could this have happened?” she asked. “I thought that your bailiff was one of the best in the county?”
“The man was recommended to me, had a character from Lord Wilcox. I took him on trust. I should not have done but, whilst your mother was unwell the other year, I did not pay the attention to our affairs that they required. It has taken me too long to get back on top of them, too. I only have myself to blame.”
Anne knew that trying to reassure him otherwise would be futile. Her father was generally very astute. He would never have permitted such a thing to happen had he been in his right mind, but he had been so fearful of losing Mama when she had been ill and had never really recovered his composure since. Her illness had brought back too many memories of James, her brother’s passing when he was just a boy. Everyone had feared that they would lose Mama too. Papa had aged ten years overnight when the doctor had told them that James had passed. He had aged an additional five when the doctor had told them he feared for Mama’s survival and he seemed to age a year for every day that it took for her fever to break, every minute spent by her side willing her to recover.
“Would you like me to go through them,” she suggested, wanting to be of use in whatever way she could, “to see if there are any further entries where large sums seem to have been paid out with nothing to show for it?”
Her father sighed gratefully. “My darling girl, I cannot tell you how much that would help me.”
Anne smiled at him, squeezed his hand and the pair stood up and took the ledger over to the table by the window. She pulled out paper and pen and began to go through the pages and pages of entries since her mother was ill with influenza a few years previously. Thankfully, Mama had made a full recovery. Anne could only hope that her father’s interests would recover as swiftly, and as completely. Papa paced around her nervously, like a caged big cat. By teatime, she had found a further twenty suspicious entries, and still had a further quarter’s accounts to analyze. Papa had truly been taken for a fool and had lost almost a thousand pounds during each of the years concerned.
“It is so much worse than I could have imagined,” her father kept saying each time they discovered a new entry that did not tally with an actual purchase, peering over her shoulder as if looking again might make it somehow different. “How could I not have seen this, happening under my very nose?”
There was little Anne could say to reassure him, and she knew that it would be almost impossible to get the money back – even though the man was currently unaware that they knew of his schemes. He would, of course be turned out without a character, and Anne was sure that her father would report him to the magistrate – but even if he was put in jail, that did not help to solve the family’s financial concerns.
The housemaid appeared just as Anne set down her pen. “Yes, Heather, what is it?” Anne asked the young woman.
“A letter for Sir John,” Heather said, handing over a letter to Anne’s father. “From Lord William Cott, himself.”
“Is there, indeed?” Anne mused. “He promised once that he would visit you, Papa and assist in any business matters if he was able to. So much has happened since then, that it had completely slipped my mind. I cannot help but think that if that is his intent, it could not have come at a more opportune moment.”
“And also, a letter for you ma’am,” she said, hurrying forward with the cream-colored parchment, sealed with red wax she held in her hand. “From your Lady Mary.”
“Oh, how wonderful. I have not heard from Lady Mary in so long,” Anne said happily, forgetting her father’s troubles for just a moment. She opened it hastily and read it quickly. “Oh, Papa, Heather, it is wonderful news. They wish me to go and stay with them, and to act as godmother to their second child.”
The girl smiled. “Aw, that’s nice, Miss,” she said. “Quite an honor.” Her father merely nodded and continued reading his own missive.
“It is indeed, when you think of the company they keep,” Anne said clasping the letter to her breast. A trip to Alnerton would be just what she needed to improve her increasingly melancholy mood. But how could she leave when her father needed her so badly? He had too much to contend with alone.
The maid grinned and then disappeared as Anne waited for her father to read his letter and tell her its contents. His facial expressions ranged through smiles and frowns, pensive and considerate to surprised and concerned. “Papa, what does Lord William say?” she prompted him, when he still hadn’t spoken after almost ten minutes.
“He is to drive here to collect you himself,” Papa said, rifling through the pages and going back to the start of the letter. “After you were unable to attend their first’ child’s baptism, they have no intention of permitting you to miss this one.”
“That is kind of him, but I will write to him and tell him it is not necessary. I cannot leave you now.”
“Don’t be silly, of course you must go. I would not let you miss such a thing. What kind of father ever would?”
Anne gave him a sad smile. “And what kind of a daughter would it make me if I did not stay here to help you?”
“Tush,” her father said dismissively. “You will pack your things, because looking at the date your Lord William sent this, it is too late anyway. He will already be on the road. And he also wishes to speak with me. There is a matter he needs assistance with and thinks I may be the man to help him.”
The wait for Lord William’s arrival felt interminably long, even though it was barely a week from receiving his letters until his eventual appearance. Anne greeted his carriage outside the house. Lord William was half leaning out of the carriage window as it rolled up the driveway and beamed as he saw Anne stood waiting. He waved enthusiastically, then bounded out of the carriage, almost before the carriage had come to a complete stop.
She bobbed a curtsey. He raised her up, clasping her hands and kissing her cheeks affectionately. “It is good to see you looking so well,” he told her.
“And how is dear Lady Mary?”
“She is as besotted with baby Kingsley, as she was with young Nathaniel,” Lord William assured her as she escorted him inside. “As are we all.”
“And Lady Charlotte? Captain William? And their little one? They are all well?”
“They are, as are Mr. and Mrs. Watts,” Lord William assured her.
“I am so glad.”
“I know Mary can hardly wait to see you. She wanted me to bring the phaeton, so you would get back to Alnerton more quickly,” he joked.
“I am glad you did not. That ride you took us on, scared me half to death,” Anne laughed, remembering the time Lord William had driven her and Lady Mary to the village. It had been a hair-raising experience - one she had no desire to replicate.
“You did go terribly green,” he said with a grin as Papa emerged from his study, forcing a smile.
“Lord Cott, I am honored beyond measure,” Papa said, bowing politely. William stretched out a hand.
“I am grateful for your hospitality, Sir John Knorr,” Lord William said taking it. The two men shook hands, firmly, each taking the other’s measure. “And that you will permit us the pleasure of Anne’s company once more. She has been much missed by us all.”
“You do me great honor, my lord,” Anne said humbly.
“Pish, ‘tis the other way around, I can assure you. Now, my time here is, understandably, limited, so I do hope you will not mind if we talk business immediately, Sir John?” Anne nodded encouragingly at her father, who with a wave of his hand gestured that the two men should retire to his study.
A few hours later, Anne dressed quickly for supper and made her way downstairs at half past seven. Her father and Lord William were already in the parlor, enjoying a glass of sherry. Both were smiling and seemed completely at ease in one another’s company. Anne looked from one man to the other. “So?” she asked expectantly.
“I think we should wait for your Mama,” Papa said. He was obviously very content with the outcome. The ridges in his brow seemed to have unrumpled themselves and his worried frown had been banished from view. Anne was relieved, but impatiently intrigued. Thankfully, her mother appeared at that very moment.
“Mama, I would like to introduce you to Lord William Pierce,” Anne said formally, “Earl of Cott.”
Mama curtseyed gracefully and held out her hand. Lord William kissed it gallantly as he bowed down over it. “It is a pleasure, and I am so glad that your health seems so greatly improved now as well.”
“I must confess, so am I,” Mama said with a smile. “Now, did I hear that there is news that you wish to tell us all?”
“You did,” Papa said, puffing up his chest proudly. In his bright red waistcoat, he rather resembled a robin red breast. “Lord Cott and his father, the duke, have invested in an enterprise no more than ten miles from the village. They wish to hire a man to oversee it, and I am flattered that they immediately thought of me.”
“What type of enterprise, Papa?” Anne asked as her father handed her and her mother a glass of sherry, too.
“It’s a mine, Anne,” Lord William said. “A tin mine, and there is also a dock and a shipbuilding yard. It has been badly run for a time, but I think with the right man at the helm it could be quite profitable for us all.”
Anne was flattered that Lord William and his father had considered hers, but she worried that Papa had little experience with such matters, and that running such a complex enterprise might be beyond him – especially given what they had spent the afternoon unravelling together just a week ago. She forced a smile, but her parents and Lord William obviously all knew her too well. “You do not approve, Anne?” Lord William asked.
“It is not my place,” she said, determined not to embarrass her father in front of Lord William.
“You mean the issues in the ledgers,” Papa said softly, giving her a warm smile. “Don’t worry, I have confessed all to Lord William. I would not wish him to enter into business with a man lying to him from the start. I know all too well how that feels.” His tone was thick with emotion.
“I think we can all be sure that the concerns your father has faced in recent years would be more than enough to distract any man,” Lord William said. “I know a little of the concern around the possibility of losing the one you love to illness myself. I think we can safely say though, that your father is unlikely to ever get caught out by such a thing again. Experience, especially the unpleasant ones, seem to act as the finest teachers.”
“I would never trust matters of such import to another, that is for certain,” Papa insisted.
“You need not convince me, Papa,” Anne assured him. “I know full well you will not. But I did not wish for Lord William or his father to be unaware.”
Lord William nodded appreciatively. “And, dear Anne, you need not fear that I am only involving your father because of the promise I made to you. My father and I have been racking our brains for weeks to think of who might be best. My father’s solicitor, John Watts, has been drawing up lists and lists of candidates and looking into them. Your father came up time and time again, recommended by no less than thirty companies who have dealt with him over the years. He is a local man, understands the local ways, and is honorable to a fault – or so we have been told by everyone who has ever met him or done business with him.”
