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“I am sorry about your brother,” Isaac offered, trying to draw out conversation for as long as possible.
“It was good of you to come to the funeral.” It had been blessedly distracting to see him standing beside her brother’s grave and note that he hadn’t taken his eyes off her throughout the entire funeral. His unwavering support, his quiet strength, had been everything she had needed that day. She would never forget it.
“I have grown up with him. Although we didn’t mix much, I have been around here all my life too you know,” Isaac replied. “He was a neighbour too.”
“I didn’t realise that you were that aware of what goes on in the village.”
“It is our duty to know what happens with our neighbours, don’t you think?”
“I suppose that you would consider it a duty, yes,” Tuppence replied with a thoughtful frown. She didn’t doubt that everything had to be done to preserve the Chester family name, even attending the funerals of locals they didn’t really know very much.
“I meant that we have to be good neighbours and do everything we can to help each other, don’t you think? It is our duty as good citizens of this country.” Isaac was determined that she wouldn’t put barriers between them which were created from a social standing he could do little about.
“I suppose so.”
“If you need anything, you know where I am,” Isaac offered gently. “While I can understand your reluctance to turn to farmers like Mr Lewis, I can assure you that I don’t tend to gossip and will not scorn or criticise you if there is a problem.”
Tuppence didn’t doubt it. “But calling upon you to ask for assistance would draw the attention of the gossips anyway. I mean, most of your staff live in the village.”
“But they are under orders not to discuss about what goes on at the estate with anybody,” Isaac said. “Look, you know that Mr Turnbull is my Farm Manager. He has an office at the back of the stables. If you need anything, call upon him if you don’t feel comfortable calling at the main house.”
Tuppence knew that Mr Turnbull ran a very efficient farm on the estate, but she still wouldn’t dream of turning to him for assistance mostly because she didn’t want to involve Isaac in her problems. Rather than be rude enough to decline his offer, though, Tuppence murmured her thanks.
“Might I be impertinent enough to mention that you look tired?” Isaac offered but softened his criticism with a smile.
“I have been up since before dawn,” Tuppence replied seeing no reason why she should make an apology for the way she looked.
“It wasn’t a criticism,” Isaac added when he saw her slight frown.
“You are hinting that you don’t think I am capable of running the farm either,” Tuppence said bluntly feeling more disappointed than she knew she ought. It shouldn’t really matter to her what he thought of her, but it did.
“There is a lot of work to do on the farm, and only one of you to do it,” Isaac replied. “I don’t think it is the work you are incapable of. If that were true, you wouldn’t have the farm as orderly as you have it. I just think that there is a lot to do, and there are only so many hours in the day. So, if you do find yourself having a list of jobs that you cannot get around to completing, go and see Mr Turnbull. If he doesn’t come and sort them out for you himself, he will send one of my labourers over to do them for you. It isn’t that any of us think that you are incapable, Tuppence. It is just that time that is your biggest enemy and you are running a farm. In the winter, there are on
ly so many daylight hours within which to get things done. The list of jobs doesn’t ease just because there is snow on the ground. You know that.”
“Is there snow on the way?” Tuppence looked up at the sky, but unlike many farmers who could read the sky with unerring accuracy, she had never been able to understand what they saw except clouds that could possibly predict what the weather was going to do in several days’ time.
“Mr Turnbull says we are due to have some by the end of the week,” Isaac informed her.
“I had better get some of those chores done then.” Tuppence struggled to take her eyes off him. He seemed so in control of his world, so calm and unflappable, while she felt increasingly addle-brained and incompetent. If that wasn’t enough, in contrast to his highly polished, expensive outfit, she was wearing a dirty dress, stained boots, and a shepherd’s cloak that had a horrible tendency to gape open. Their differences in wealth couldn’t have been more obvious, but that wasn’t what distressed Tuppence the most. The feelings she had for him, which she had never been able to identify or eradicate, began to break through her steely resolve, and threatened to shatter her cast-iron self-control. She tried to shove them back into the darker recesses of her mind, where her childhood fantasies and memories lingered, but the more she tried to ignore them the more they came back to haunt her. She was aware of Isaac’s every move, every breath. Every nuance of his handsome face was etched on her mind; the way small dimples appeared in the corners of his mouth whenever his smile broke free, the way his eyes twinkled merrily, and crows’ feet appeared at the corners of his eyes whenever that wonderful smile turned into an unholy grin.
And I know I will be seeing the mental image of him every time I close my eyes now.
“Thank you for the offer of help but I should be fine. If there is a problem, I shall bear your kind offer in mind, though, thank you.” Eager to get away, Tuppence glanced hopefully at the farm, praying that Isaac would take the hint and not delay her anymore.
“Good. Do that,” Isaac ordered briskly, annoyed with himself for his lingering awkwardness.
“Well, goodbye then.” Tuppence offered him a shy smile.
When Isaac nodded, Tuppence turned and hurried away. This time, he didn’t follow her. Rather than return to Mr Lewis’s farm, though, Isaac remained where he was and waited for Tuppence to reach the crest of the hill and the edge of the yard in her farm. Once he could be sure she had reached safety, he reluctantly meandered away.
He was still mulling over his attraction toward her when he returned home nearly an hour later. But what he found waiting for him was enough to put a dark frown on his face. It forced him to retreat to the safety of the stables to seek distance from his mother’s claustrophobic guests. While Isaac successfully found himself something to occupy him in the stables, what he discovered whilst there was that he really wanted to do nothing more than go and see Tuppence again.
Tuppence dragged the last of the straw out of the stable and leant on her rake for a few moments to catch her breath. She stared at the small square space with a distant gaze. Her mind was miles away, with one certain gentleman who she knew she could never have in her life. Her lost thoughts were the only explanation she had for not realising that she had another visitor.
Great, I can go months without seeing anyone over the summer when the harvesting is in progress. Now that I need to bed the farm down for the winter, people can’t stay away.
Tuppence was less enthusiastic to greet this visitor because she truly didn’t like him. Angus Richmond was a wealthy landowner who had recently moved into the area and, while pleasant enough, he was also brash, arrogant, and a little sinister. Before he had moved into the large but somewhat decrepit mansion on the opposite side of the village, he had purchased three farms in the area, two of which bordered the Aldridge estate, and Tuppence’s own land. Only Mr Lewis stood between her and Richmond, but that didn’t appear to have put the greedy landowner off his desire to add Hilltop Farm to his empire.
