Page 27 of Reforming Lord Neil

Frederick stopped walking and threw his hands in the air. “I am trying to help you, Teresa. You are as a sister to me—”

She held her hand up. “Stop, Mr. Clapham. We both know that is not true. From the moment Henry died, you made certain I knew exactly how you felt about my presence in the house. You did everything you could to drive me away, and it was a relief to both of us that I inherited this farm. You have no authority over me anymore. If you have only come to lecture me about propriety, you ought to leave. I have no time for this today. I must get my cherries harvested.”

He lifted his chin, glaring at her from beneath the brim of his hat. “You are acting like a child, speaking to me in such a way. I took care of you as best I could, given what Henry did to all of us by gambling away everything not entailed to the estate.”

Teresa turned back to look at the trees, seeing her mother had started back to the house. Mr. Duncan continued to watch her exchange with Frederick, his arms folded over his chest. “I have work to do, Frederick. Tell me what you came here to tell me.”

He spluttered. “I only came to check on you, and then I found out you are ruining the family name.”

“Henry did that for us.” She gave her brother-in-law a hard glare. “My concern is not at all for our name, but for my daughter’s upbringing and my family’s health. The money I earn from those cherries will see us through the winter. Please excuse me from seeing you off my property. Next time you wish to visit, send word first. I am far too busy to entertain callers at present.” She strode away from him, her chest tight with worry even though she kept her nose in the air.

She hadn’t played Society’s games in a very long time, and she was not about to start playing them when her family relied upon her. If Frederick truly worried over the family’s reputation, he would have done more to help her. Or at least not have driven her from the family home with his caustic remarks and complaints about everything from Caroline’s piano playing to Mother’s enjoyment of reading by the fire at night.

He had made certain Teresa knew she burdened him with her existence. There was no inclination, on her part, to bend to his will anymore.

Chapter Twelve

Driving a wagon, Neil discovered, was not so different from a curricle. Though it was not nearly so comfortable, given the lack of spring on the bench where he and Mrs. Clapham sat. She had woken him early, when she came to milk Abigail, and they had hitched his horse to the wagon and been on the road before dawn.

It would take two hours to make it to Southwold, and she wanted a good place to park their wagon and sell her harvest. “Not everyone will have had cherries yet,” she said, in the middle of explaining to him how markets worked. “Though I’m told some varieties are ready in June, others are not until August. I think ours, coming ready right toward the end, will do quite well. People will wish to secure their last taste before the fall, and any they wish to put up.”

They bumped along the road in silence for a time. Neil had turned over in his mind the visit from Mr. Clapham the previous day. At first, he had accepted the man’s dismay over his sister-in-law going to market. What man would wish such a thing on a female relative? Yet all his concern had been for himself. Or so Teresa had said.

It was easier to think of her as Teresa, though it might not be proper. Linking her to the irritating specimen of a man from the day before, even if only through their shared surname, did not sit well with Neil. Teresa was a woman apart, unlike anyone he had met before. She had lost her husband, her station, her fortune, and yet had turned into a woman of strength rather than someone to be pitied.

Not that he wished for such a life. The blister on his left thumb reminded him every time the reins brushed against it that he must purchase gloves while in town. Sturdy working gloves. Something he had never owned in his life.

“Mrs. Clapham,” he said after a stretch of silence passed. “Your brother-in-law. He said he does not have the funds to support your family. Do you believe him?”

She tipped her head to the side, the better to see him from beneath her bonnet’s brim. “I am certain you know how inappropriate that question is, Mr. Duncan.” One corner of her mouth curled upward. “But I suppose it cannot hurt to tell you of it, now that he has made you a part of the situation by speaking so openly before you. You must understand, my husband died unexpectedly. He was thrown from his horse while riding.” She shivered and pulled her light blue shawl tighter around her shoulders.

“He fell into a coma and died. We sent for Frederick right away. He did not live far from us. He was studying to be a solicitor. Frederick took care of everything. He saw everyone who came to settle debts, to pay their respect. I existed in a sort of—a sort of fog.” She shrugged. “I stayed in my rooms with Caroline. My mother lived in Bath at the time. She came to me as soon as she received word of what had happened.”

Neil tried to keep his eyes on the road, though a pang of sympathy made him wish to reach out to her. Yet he doubted she would appreciate any physical gesture from him. Honorable women tended to withdraw if he offered so much as a hand to hold.

“The solicitor came and read the will, then told Frederick and me the state of my husband’s accounts. Everything was gone, he said. Frederick was greatly distressed. Only our family house in the country remained, as it was tied up in an entail. We left Ipswich for the country, where my mother met us, and Frederick shut himself away in my husband’s office to go through the accounts.”

She paused in the telling, and when Neil glanced at Teresa, he saw that she had closed her eyes, lifting her face to the morning sunlight. The soft lighting colored her cheeks a lovely shade of pink and glinted off the tips of her dark eyelashes.

The woman’s natural beauty made him swallow and turn before she could see how he stared. If she caught him admiring her, it would only cause her discomfort. He spoke as normally as possible, ignoring the stirring in his chest. “What did he find in your husband’s books?”

Teresa opened her eyes, looking up at Neil with a pained smile. “Frederick refused to tell me at first. He grew more and more irritable by the day. When I finally came out of my grief enough to ask what had happened—I thought Henry had been swindled, and we might take his robber to court—Frederick told me that Henry had gambled all the money away. Including the ten-thousand pound fortune my father left specifically for my use, for any of my daughters, should I find myself without a husband.”

That explained her reaction to Caroline’s attempts to win a kitten. She would not look upon any sort of gambling with tolerance.

Something about the story did not sit right with him. “You saw no evidence of your husband’s difficulty prior to his death?”

Her gaze fell to her lap, where she laced her fingers together. She wore no gloves. “I saw nothing that would even make me suspect he gambled. Not like that. But some people are good at hiding such things, I suppose.”

As Neil’s family had expertly hidden any number of indiscretions over the years, even from him though he was apparently a product of such a thing, he believed her. And yet. A decade of marriage was a long time to hide such a thing from someone as intelligent as Teresa.

“I try not to think on it,” she said. The wagon went over a bump that made the baskets of cherries clatter, and Teresa shifted to look into the bed of the wagon, her movement bringing her closer to him, her shoulder brushing his. Apparently satisfied, she turned forward again, still near enough her skirt brushed the side of his boot.

Teresa continued the conversation, sounding contemplative. “It is better to remember the good years with Henry rather than the lie. He was a very good husband. I loved him, and Caroline adored him. She does not know about his gambling. I hope she never will.”

“I will not speak of this to anyone,” Neil promised, watching her from the corner of his eye. How could any man betray her trust? The woman had the bearing of a duchess, even if she had never been more than a gentleman’s wife. And this was her figure, her manner, at thirty years of age and after hard toil. As a younger woman, her debut had likely set many a bachelor on the idea of marriage.

“Thank you.” Then she nudged his shoulder with hers, telling him she had known all along how near they sat, and she did not mind it. He almost smiled. “Do you intend to tell me any of your history now, Mr. Duncan?”