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As they worked their horses out of the field and back onto the country road just outside their village, Amanda sighed happily, “Lud, but I thought the rain would never leave us. ‘Tis good to have the sun smiling, even if it is a bit sultry.”
“Eh, oh, I suppose,” Ned replied absently.
“Aunt Agatha drove me insane the last few days. I wish she would go home and leave us be at Sherborne, I mean after all, it has been well over a year!”
“Lord yes!” Her brother agreed. “Gadzooks, that woman does chatter on forever. Grandpa could never abide her company for long and she was his daughter.” Ned sighed. “At least you had a respite a few months back when she went home to see to her place for a bit. I tell you what, Mandy…think I’ll ask her to leave. I am Lord of Sherborne, I can do that. ‘Tis my right. That would solve all the problems, wouldn’t it? I’m not worried about hurting her feelings, you shouldn’t be either. She has never worried about hurting ours.”
Mandy gave him a rueful look and a low chuckle, “Indeed, yes. But she will need to be booted out if you want her to leave, as she won’t go willingly. I know because I have tried hinting at it often enough and I am loathe to come right out and tell her to go.”
“Aye, but I am weary of her, think I’ll ask her to leave, give her a week or so to get her things together, after all Mandy, she has a home to go to, it isn’t as though we are putting her out in the cold,” Ned said on a groan. “Have you noticed the way she walks about the Halls as though she owns the place? I tell you what—one day soon, no doubt as soon as the beaus of London see you, you will get an offer that suits and off you will go and I will be stuck with her.” This so upset him that he seethed, “I won’t have it, I tell you! I think it best to ask her to leave immediately…while you are about to back me up.”
“Yes, Ned, but we don’t want to be cruel,” Mandy offered on a heavy sigh.
“I’ll think of something,” he answered.
“Will you?” she laughed.
“Bound to, for I tell you roundly, I have made up my mind on the matter. Sending her off. Will do it your way at first and if she doesn’t go, then we’ll do it my way. How is that?”
Mandy beamed at him, well pleased with this, “You are quite right. As to me getting an offer, I don’t look for that happening any time soon.” She shook her head, “I think I might just end up an ‘old maid’, Neddy.”
“Zounds girl, you look like me, you know, and I am very handsome,” he returned with a bright smile and a tease. “We have to do something though, for it is now or never. You’ll be twenty-one, and you are right, people will start thinking of you as a spinster.” He winked at her, his eyes alight with his banter.
“Odious thing,” she answered with half a smile. The thing was she was truly beginning to feel like an old maid. Her friends were for the most part married and those unmarried were engaged and in her immediate circle. They were forever comparing notes about just what to do with a man in bed.
It was at the very least, shocking although she admitted to herself that she was more than curious. Ho
w could she not be? She listened to them always with longing because her body had been telling her for more than a year that it was overdue for a man’s attention. Nature was insisting she take her body on its natural course…morality be damned. This thought made her smile.
“What of Sir Owen?” Ned asked with one brow up. “I have been thinking you have an eye in his direction.”
“Ned!” she objected. “But, you are right. He is rather attractive…yet…?”
“Well, don’t Ned me, I have seen you two together, so where is the rub?”
“I admit he is a charmer, but there is a but in the equation.”
“Why, what does that mean? Why do women forever have to over-think everything and then speak in riddles?”
She eyed him archly, “Over-think? Wherever did you get such a notion?”
He grinned sheepishly, “From m’friends. They are forever saying it and on occasion Mandy, I have found it true.”
“Well, it isn’t true. We women like to get to the heart of the matter and be certain…men skirt over it when it is uncomfortable to deal with. Men don’t like to face their emotions, but women do. That is not over-thinking.” She sighed and added, “Have you never wondered what a rakehell…and make no doubt about it, Sir Owen is a rakehell, is doing in the Dales of Yorkshire?”
“Don’t need to wonder. Know!” her brother returned quite lording it over on her.
She eyed him, “Did I call you odious before? Yes and well, you are. Now tell me at once.”
“He is on a repairing lease. Surprised you didn’t guess. Thought you were up to snuff.”
“Repairing lease? He doesn’t look burnt to the socket—from wine or any other questionable pleasures.”
“Ha!” Ned declared and then chuckled, “You may be a few moments older than I, but you aren’t any more knowing though you try and make yourself out to be. He is hiding out from dun territory. Heard about it whilst I was at Cambridge. Lud! Nearly everyone is these days, what with taxes what they are, and the banks so damn tight-fisted.”
“You mean Sir Owen is in debt?” Mandy asked feeling almost stunned. Sir Owen had been an ardent admirer and now it would appear, it was her inheritance that he had been admiring. She was not a fool.
