She picked up her cup and bestowed a sweet smile on him that he couldn’t be sure she meant. In her position, he wouldn’t have been smiling at all. The late Geoffrey, as far as he could make out, had been a bounder who’d made almost no provision for his wife in his will. And to find the bounder had left three young daughters as well, all of whom would need to be found husbands, was even more shocking. Although they did, at least, seem to have this farmhouse.
Her ladyship took a sip of tea. “On the contrary, it was our duty. We felt we owed it to you and your family to give you the freedom of your new home without any of us intruding.” That she was fishing, was obvious. Her daughters must have told her yesterday that he’d arrived by himself, and no doubt Megs was at this moment informing her sisters and the woman Betsey of all she’d gleaned about him.
“I have no family,” he said, deciding honesty was the best thing here. “Both my parents are long dead. My sisters are all married and have homes and children of their own. There’s just me.” Put that way it made him sound very lonely and abandoned. Which was often how he felt, lately. Even when he’d been with Hester.
She smiled again, that same bland smile, behind which he was now sure she was hiding her true self. “Oh. How sad for you. I see you aremuch as I am. Both my parents are also dead and my brother, to whom I was once close, passed away several years ago now. In a way, I am as alone as you are, although unlike you, I am lucky enough to have three daughters.”
“You are indeed lucky in many ways,” Harry said, meaning every word, and wishing none of them had vacated the empty Hall. “The solicitor fellow, Mr. Pratt, advised me that it would be useful if I was to marry and produce children of my own. An heir for Windrush, he said, as I am the last male Madeley.”
She nodded, a flicker of interest stirring in her blue eyes. “Excellent advice. A house as large as the Hall needs many children running through it.”
Feeling a little awkward at this talk of procreation with a lady, Harry gestured around the cosy parlor. “You seem to have settled in here very well. How lucky you were to have such a house to come to, when driven from your home by an ogre such as me.”
Her brows snapped in a momentary frown. “What has Margaret been saying to you? I can assure you that we do not consider you an ogre, nor that you have driven us from our home. And we are more than comfortable here.” Her response was so quick, Harry was certain these were all things they had indeed been thinking.
But was there something in her voice implying all was not quite as it should be here? He had no intention of enquiring further right now. And in fact, he had no idea how he might discover any secrets by himself as the servants who had once been hers had shown a distinct distrust of him already.
He drank a little more tea and then set the cup on the table, the feeling that he’d intruded on the lovely Lady Madeley’s time arising. “And now I fear I must thank you for your hospitality and return home. There are many things that will require my attention today. But I hope you will feel free to call on me whenever you wish. I should very much like to further our acquaintance.” He rose to his feet,wondering if he’d said too much. “I must bid you good day, Lady Madeley.” And he bowed to her.
She smiled that bland, giving-nothing-away smile once more. “That would give me great pleasure, Sir Henry. It has been most interesting to finally meet you.”
But would it? Did she really want to visit him in the house that had until so recently been hers? But they were to be close neighbors now, so the least he could do was be friendly. The thought that he would quite like to be more than friendly brought color rushing to his cheeks. He turned away from her in a hurry.
Spotting there was a front door, he wisely chose to make his exit that way, rather than run the gauntlet of what would no doubt be deep speculation if he departed through the kitchen.
