Patricia Rice (6 page)

***

So far, Mac had seen precious little sign of anyone
capable of handling two demanding children on an ocean voyage, or one
even willing to relocate. Apparently the British thought America a
barbaric place unfit for civilized habitation.

Mac heaved a sheaf of thatch from the ground, then
viciously hurled it to the barn roof. How the hell would he transport
the children across an ocean without a competent nursemaid and
governess? He’d have to tie them to the mast.

At the sound of soft laughter, he glanced toward the stable yard.

He was slaving away on a damned barn, exchanging his
labor for assistance in thatching Miss Cavendish’s stable, and the lady
wasn’t even paying attention. She was talking to the thatcher’s wife,
showing her the gaudy piece of jewelry she’d been wearing.

The church bell tolled noon, and Mac swiped at the
sweat pouring down his forehead. He contemplated removing his shirt, but
the prim woman enveloped in yards of silk would no doubt faint from
distress at the sight of a half-dressed man.

If he needed to remember why he spent most of his
time in his father’s shipyards where ladies didn’t dare trespass, the
sweat pouring down his soaked shirt served as a reminder. Ladies
expected men to be like them, never perspiring and always smelling of
perfume.

Miss Cavendish ought to be thrilled with her footman.

To his disgust, his “student” chose that moment to trip daintily across the stable yard in his direction.

For the first time since he’d met her, she was
actually smiling. Her bonnet had loosened sufficiently to reveal
rebellious wisps of russet hair curling around her high forehead, and
her beauty caught Mac in the gut. He had the inane urge to shove her
bonnet back, loosen the polished ringlets brushing her chin, and frame
her smile for safekeeping.

She’d shriek bloody terror if he so much as touched her.

“I made a trade!” she whispered in awe. “She admired
my pin, and I offered to teach her to make them in return for her
services. She said she could finish helping her husband with the barn,
and we’d be even.”

Delight danced in her dark eyes, an entrancing smile
played upon her lips, and Mac struggled to repress the inappropriate
desire to swing her into his arms. Remembering his wish to see her
smile, Mac resolved to be more careful what he wished for.

Growling, he wiped his face with his sleeve. “Fine.
Then I’ll check your tenants’ fields next. They ought to be planted by
this time of year.”

Her smile died, and he felt as if he’d kicked a
puppy. As her gaze fell, it apparently struck his sopping shirt, and she
reddened and turned away. Mac bit back a curse and reached for his
coat. He had the rebellious urge to flaunt his state of undress so she
would look his way again.

Why the hell did he want to make her notice him?

“I made that pin,” she said with a note of defiance. “I have some useful talents.”

“You have to know the value of your product before you attempt to market it. Come on. I have work to do.”

He’d rather work out some of his frustration on the
back of a horse, but if he was to teach his dignified hostess, she would
have to sit beside him.

He harnessed the horses himself rather than watch
the stable boy botch the job again. He’d wondered why a stable as
expensive as hers didn’t have a head groom. Some inkling of
comprehension emerged—trading gaudy pins wouldn’t pay the salary of a
good groom.

Could the blamed woman be living the life of Croesus
on no money? Was she waiting for a wealthy man to snatch her up and
save her from penury?

Mac ground his back teeth at the thought, and waited
for her to catch up with him. Her long black skirts trailed in the
grass, hindering her progress.

Grimly, he held out his hand to assist her into the carriage.

Instead of taking his hand, she knotted hers together. “I’d rather walk.”

“I don’t bite,” he snapped. Her refusal to acknowledge his physical presence made him feel like an uncivilized ogre.

Beatrice drew a deep breath and dared a glance at
her irritable boarder. He was big and solid and his wet shirt revealed
entirely too much of—

She didn’t dare think of what lay beneath the wet
linen. Meeting his eyes was somehow worse. Mr. Warwick’s glare managed
to heat her all over, as if he’d assessed her and found her lacking and
was angry at her for it.

She didn’t want to ride beside him in the narrow
chaise. He smelled of manly perspiration, and she could see golden brown
hairs curling against the thin linen. She wished he’d don his coat.

He didn’t wait for her to find an argument. Without
permission, he grabbed her around the waist and set her firmly on the
carriage seat. Before she had time to catch her breath, he climbed up
beside her. She burned through the corset where he’d touched her.

“I’m not a patient man, Miss Cavendish. If there’s
work to be done, I do it, and I see no sense in dillydallying. Where are
your fields?”

“I... Why, I suppose we’d best see the ones nearest
town first.” Seated beside this giant man, she didn’t quite know what to
do with herself.

Briefly, she shut her eyes to recover her wandering
thoughts from her guest’s raw masculinity. “If there’s work to be done,
then we’d best be about it,” she said as formally as she could.

He shot her an aggravated look, but she ignored it as the horses trotted down the broad main road.

“The fields, Miss Cavendish. Why aren’t they
planted?” He gestured toward narrow strips of land, some plowed, some
planted, some still dense with weeds.

“Widow Black has been in ill health and can’t work
her rows. Mr. Williams broke his foot and hasn’t returned to his field
since the plowing. The tenants who worked those other strips left after
Father died, and I didn’t know how to assign them to someone else.”

She could feel the force of his astonishment and refused to meet his gaze.

“You mean each of those damned strips is worked by a different farmer?”

“Your language, Mr. Warwick,” she responded primly. He was supposed to be
teaching
her, not yelling at her.

“Damn my language to hell and back!” he shouted.
“Language has nothing to do with this. You’ll have a whole town of
starving people if this is the way you tend your land. What in hell kind
of system is this?”

“It’s the way things have always been done, and it’s
always worked quite well.” She didn’t dare look at him. She could
remember the furious arguments her father and Mr. Overton had had over a
similar topic.

“Medieval,” he grumbled. “I suppose now you’ll tell me that they each have equal strips of fertile and less fertile land.”

“That seems fair to me. Why should we favor one tenant over another? The widow deserves the same chance as Mr. Farmingham.”

“Don’t tell me.” He lashed the reins to speed the
horses. “Mr. Farmingham is the one whose strips are planted and growing,
isn’t he?”

She glanced sideways and, noting the grim set of his
square jaw with its neatly chiseled chin, glanced away again. “Mr.
Farmingham hasn’t been ill all winter.”

“Mr. Farmingham should be rewarded for not being ill
all winter,” he shouted. “How the devil can you collect rent from
tenants who produce no income?”

“I don’t know,” she said faintly. She really didn’t.
She knew her father’s journals recorded the rents, but she couldn’t
fathom the initials and abbreviations he’d used.

“Give me the estate accounts,” he said wearily “We’ll start there. Where I come from, women know how to handle such things.”

Beatrice turned to him in amazement. “They do?”

He urged the horses faster. “They had to learn or
starve. We’ve come a long way since the land was first settled, but the
attitude hasn’t changed.”

She sat back and marveled at the idea of women
working alongside men. In petticoats and skirts? She narrowed her eyes
in suspicion. “
You
don’t like me working with you.”

He grunted. “
You
are a lady. Ladies are pains in the tail end.”

Well, she thought hotly, so she was a lady. That
wasn’t such a bad thing, not nearly as bad as a plain, ugly spinster. Or
an irascible, ill-tailored gentleman.

She stuck her nose up in the air and didn’t reply. Couldn’t. He’d tied her tongue in knots again.

“There, that is Widow Black’s house.” Bea pointed to
a neat thatched cottage with a thin stream of smoke curling from the
stone chimney. “We must stop and see if her little boy’s croup is
better. Cook makes a wonderful syrup for coughs.”

Reluctantly, Mac reined in the horse. He’d prefer to
examine account books and talk to the men who planted the fields, but
he could think of no polite way of refusing the lady.

A young woman of faded prettiness appeared in the
doorway with two small children clinging to her limp skirts. Recognizing
her guest, she instinctively patted her hair into place and brushed a
cowlick back from her little boy’s forehead. “Miss Cavendish,” she
called welcomingly. “How are you today?”

The woman’s accent was more educated than Mac had expected. He helped his hostess down from the cart.

“I came to ask you the same thing.” Miss Cavendish
hastily withdrew her hand from his and glided toward the widow, as if he
didn’t exist for any purpose but helping her out of carriages. “How is
Robert’s cough?”

“The syrup and the steam worked just fine.” The
widow patted her son’s blond hair. “We’ll be planting the field before
you know it.”

Mac sauntered up to join the women. Miss Cavendish
glanced at him nervously, then offered a curt introduction. “This is Mr.
Warwick. He’s come to teach me about estate management. Mr. Warwick,
the Widow Black. I showed you her rows earlier.”

The widow regarded him anxiously. “We’ve had illness in the family, but I’ll begin plowing tomorrow.”

“Perhaps your neighbors can help you. Theirs are
done and planted.” Gritting his teeth, knowing how he sounded to the
frail young women, Mac stalked off to examine a loose board in her shed
wall.

Behind him, he heard Miss Cavendish murmur
reassurances. Give him a sailor to order about or a merchant to yell at,
but ladies? Grabbing a hammer and ladder from inside the shed, he
applied himself to pounding nails while the women nattered.

He’d ask for the estate account books again. He
could read mathematical figures with more ease than he could navigate a
conversation with a female.

***

If we are to progress into a
modern age of steamships and railroads and manufactories, we must do so
with the wisdom of the best minds, education, and talent this country
can provide. How can we know what vast natural resources we possess if
we do not educate all our children and not just those of the privileged?

Beatrice sat back and admired her elegant script.
When she had started this exchange of letters with Lady Fenimore at
Nanny’s urging, she had never dreamed the lady’s husband would become a
member of Parliament. In that first letter, she had timidly asked
Nanny’s employer about the prevailing attitude toward female education.
To her immense surprise, the lady had responded intelligently, as Nanny
had predicted.

Since then, Beatrice had broadened her knowledge of
the world through her correspondence. Her father would have been
appalled, had he known, but what he hadn’t known hadn’t hurt him. She
had derived immense satisfaction from knowing that someone of
intelligence respected her opinions.

As she signed her name with a flourish, pounding feet and a cat’s terrified meow erupted in the hall.

“Bad kitty! Nasty-noisy-damheathencwyinhorrors!” a childish voice piped.

Bea winced. Had she translated that garbled singsong correctly?

“Come back here, you little menace! Leave those animals alone.”

James.
With a sigh, Beatrice laid down her pen and rose from her desk. Why was James minding the children?

Opening the study door in time to catch her cousin
flinging a roaring Buddy over his shoulder, she glanced around for some
sign of Mary. As the cat skidded out of sight around a corner, James
caught her look and scowled.

“Tag, you’re it,” he said crossly, shoving Buddy at
her. “Do something with him before someone throttles him. Cook caught
him using her best ladle to dig holes in her herb garden this morning.
It’s a wonder we aren’t having boiled Buddy for dinner.”

Gingerly catching the toddler by the middle,
Beatrice gazed helplessly at the boy’s wide-eyed expression. What did
one do with a four-year-old? Especially one with very odd ideas of
entertainment.

“Where’s Bitsy? And Mary?” she asked in bewilderment.

“Last I saw, the babe had removed her soiled
nappies,” James grumbled, “and Mary went to fetch hot water to clean
her. She asked me to watch the monsters. Never again!”

Buddy puckered up at James’s harsh tone. Terrified
he’d cry, Beatrice bounced him as she’d seen Mary bounce Bitsy. She
winced as Buddy’s hand smacked her nose.

“All right, I’ll see what I can do.” Beatrice tried
to fish the boy’s sticky fingers from her chignon. Apparently entranced
with the hairpins, he pulled harder.

“Find a husband,” James retorted. He flounced off, still muttering.

Find a husband.
That was
helpful. Husbands who could solve all her problems and grant her fondest
desires were as available as genies. Her aunt had sent her a trunkload
of enchanting nightdresses to encourage her foolish dreams, but Beatrice
had outgrown them as she’d outgrown adolescence.

Beatrice grimaced at another tug on her hair. She
couldn’t imagine a husband solving the problem of undisciplined
hooligans. No doubt a husband would expect
her
to handle the children, while he sat in his study puffing cigars and reading the newspaper—as her father had done.