“Hey!” her friend cried out, trying to catch her. “No fair! No fair!”
Florentia laughed herself hoarse as she heard Albina chase her, and more so when she saw the chaperone panic and then try and catch them both. What fun this was. She just hoped the same could be said of her marriage.
CHAPTER FIVE
Hudson jumped from his horse before it had a chance to stop. A natural athlete, and an excellent rider, there was no chance that he would hurt himself, and where he would not usually act in such an aggressive manner, his mood was such that he could hardly sit still.
Waiting outside the manor for him was one of the stable hands, and Hudson tossed the reins for him to catch as he strode down the drive and then up the steps. If he had been the type to do so, he might have danced up them. Why, if he had been the type to do so, he might have sung! Rarely did a mood like this strike Hudson with such intensity and he was positively beside himself with glee.
Could this day get any better? Unlikely, for it has peaked in ways that seemed impossible just a week ago! Perhaps if I was to spring wings so I might fly? With the way things are going, I would not be surprised!
Hudson had just come from a meeting with Mr. Andrews, a broker who he had been forced to fire just one week before on account of his inability to close deals which he had promised he had the power to make. He had since been re-hired and was making up for lost time with a sense of verve that defied belief.
That deal which Hudson had been denied last week—the one concerning the land he wished to purchase—had since been rectified, and offered to Hudson at the original price. What was more, Mr. Andrews was already in the process of sourcing him two more farms, both of which were bigger than the land he’d just bought, and both of which had owners champing at the bit to do business with him.
I should have married years ago! If I had known the effect that it would have!
And he wasn’t even married yet! All it had taken was an engagement. All that was needed was for word to spread that Hudson was a good bet, a normal sort, the type of man one would want to do business with. His plan was working perfectly, even better than he had hoped. Hence the good mood.
A rare smile on his face, Hudson threw open the doors to his manor, certain the day could not get any better. A prediction which was not only correct, but tragically prophetic.
As soon as Hudson stepped inside, he saw who was waiting for him in the foyer, and that good mood which had been carrying him faded in an instant, replaced by a morose cloud of impending doom.
“There he is! I was beginning to worry!”
Hudson came to a sudden stop, not even bothering to hide his annoyance at this most unexpected guest. “Stepmother,” he said. “What a...” His smile was an insincere as one could be. “A pleasant surprise.”
She waved him down. “No need to placate me with words of kindness, Hudson?—”
“Your Grace,” he corrected her sternly.
His stepmother smirked. “Your Grace,” she corrected, albeit with clear sarcasm, because she could never fully commit to the respect she was supposed to show him. “As I was saying, there is no need to pretend that you are excited to see me. I think we are both past that point by now.”
“Oh good, that will save me the strain.”
“Although I do wish that you would return my letters with some manner of promptness. If you did, it would save me having to pop in like this unannounced. Why, I would almost think that you didn’t want to see me at all.”
“Perhaps a letter next time, specifying as such? But that would require me to write to you.”
She tittered as if he had made a joke. “Honestly, dear. I thought you were a businessman. That’s what everyone says of you. Yetyou cannot read a room to save your life. I cannot help but wonder how you managed to get this far, truth be told.”
To that, Hudson curled his lip, deciding that he was not in the mood to be pulled into one of his and his stepmother’s famously icy exchanges. In his experience, it was best to just agree with her, promise whatever she asked for, and then do what he could to scrub the memory of their meeting from his mind the second she was out of sight.
Hudson and his stepmother, the Dowager Duchess of Worthington, had a strained relationship. Although perhaps outrightly hostile was a better way of describing it? At forty-seven years of age, she had been only seven years older than Hudson when she’d married his father, and only a few months after his mother had passed for good measure. It meant that he’d never warmed to the woman like Elias had, sensing from the beginning that she was not one to be trusted.
To be fair, she wasn’t nearly as bad as he had first assumed. But her relationship with his father had been tense from the beginning, certainly with no love involved, a marriage of convenience only... which might not have bothered Hudson, if not for the fact that the convenience was at his stepmother’s discretion. It had been a way to weasel herself into a title that was above her, a strain now on his family that he could not remove no matter how much he wished to.
“What is it that you wish for, Caroline?” Hudson sighed. “I would love to bicker with you today. Truly, nothing would give me morepleasure. But I am quite busy, and I really would prefer that you send word ahead before you visit me like this.”
She scoffed. “Again, we come to the reality that is you ignoring me letters. Just once, if you would write to me, I might not have to.”
“I have been busy.”
“Yes, you have.” She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Or so people are saying—not that I believe everything I hear, mind you. For example, when my good friend, Lady Chester told me that she had heard my own stepson had become engaged just three days past, I was certain that she was being led by the nose for reasons I could only guess at.” She crossed her arms, her eyebrow raising higher on her forehead. “And I told her rightly that where you and I do not always see eye to eye, that even you would not do such a thing without first consulting me. Not His Grace, the Duke of Worthington.”
Hudson frowned, caught by surprise by this most strange reaction. Why on earth would she think that he would waste time seeking advice from her about matters which, to be perfectly honest, had nothing to do with her? And why on earth would she think it a good idea to come to his home and confront him about it? Had she lost her mind?
“Your friend speaks the truth,” he said simply, choosing to cut right to the meat of it. “I am indeed engaged. For once, it seems that gossip was…”
