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"And why is that? You've just spoken highly of the woman, and her father clearly needs your assistance," Ms. Cauthfield insisted.
"I've offended her, and I certainly don't deserve a second chance by speaking with her dying father behind her back. She shall certainly regard me then as up to no good, looking to steal from her her agency and her fortune without regard for who she is," Lord Beckham reasoned. "No. I've failed already in regard to lovely Lady Havenshire."
"Oh, come now," Ms. Cauthfield chastised. "You've earned the interest of her father, and no matter what sort of offense she's taken from you, she'd be foolish not to recognize your merits as a gentleman."
"But I'm not a gentleman, am I?" Lord Beckham protested. "A gentleman doesn't fail his love as I have. A gentleman doesn't estrange his sister, offend women like Lady Havenshire."
"M'lord, I've held back from speaking so cross as I wish about Lady Anna in the past, but if I must I shall be blunt as a blacksmith's hammer," Ms. Cauthfield said, full of fire. "You did not fail Lady Anna. She failed you. You treated her as angels deserv
e, yet she left you suffering on what should have been the finest day in Berrewithe Manor's history. And why? Why, m'lord?"
"I wasn't enough," Lord Beckham insisted, brooding as he watched the sun through the windows.
"She used you, m'lord. She used you for her own selfish ends, and when she had no more a need of you, she abandoned you. You had far more to offer than she was ever worth," Ms. Cauthfield roared. Lord Beckham hesitated. He wouldn't hear it; he wouldn't face that thought.
"Ms. Cauthfield, I'd ask you to mind your place," he said defensively.
"At least listen to the old man. He's dying, m'lord," Ms. Cauthfield pleaded, at the edge of her patience.
"Prepare a carriage," he muttered. "I suppose I shall at least hear him out... if only for the reputation of the manor. Of Berrewithe," he tried to rationalize.
Truly, all he wanted was to her see her face again.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"I don't believe I've ever taken you this far from the manor, have I?" James, the old butler, asked, driving the horses along the roadway. Lord Beckham had requested a simple carriage, and for James to accompany him, expecting the trip would be short; he would speak to the ailing lord, perhaps ask on the matter of inheritance, politely refuse the ailing lord's offer, and board the carriage back to his manor. Instead the trip had been long, dull; James had spent much of it trying, full of hope, to pry from his master the events of the past evening. Lord Beckham knew all of his servants hoped to have a new woman at the manor - and he deftly avoided the subject at every encounter, not wanting to let down his loyal butler by informing him that Lady Havenshire had left rather upset.
"I'm not certain," Lord Beckham said lackadaisically, looking on the moors and thinking.
"I recall taking your sister all the way to London," James laughed, before an uncomfortable feeling settled across the both of them. The duke watched the roadway, troubled, taking deep breaths as he considered his own past. "I do... sometimes quite miss your sister, m'lord. Begging your pardon, of course, her manner of leaving us was..."
"It was perfect justified, James," Lord Beckham rumbled, the self-loathing flaring once more as he recalled the last few days he spent with his sister.
"We... we simply had to follow the law of the land. For the better of the estate, and the memory of your father. None of us wanted to," James recalled, "but... there was little we could do, after the magistrate demanded you inherit, over Leah."
"Does that not trouble you, James?" Lord Beckham asked, confrontational.
"You're quite a capable, intelligent man, and a good master to have, m'lord. Your sister had all those, of course, but she... well, she was a woman," James lamented.
"Does that trouble you? The thought of having a woman as a master? As the woman in charge of Berrewithe? Of the estate?" Lord Beckham challenged.
"Oh, certainly not," James murmured, the horsehooves slowing as the carriage wound through the forested lands at the edge of the Havenshire estate. "I've no trouble listening to Ms. Cauthfield with each waning day!" he laughed. "Though... it's, well... it's simply not how our world works, m'lord."
"Don't you think we ought to pontificate on changing that, James? Isn't a woman worth as much as I am? Perhaps more?"
"I... I hadn't... thought on it, m'lord," James answered slowly.
"Perhaps you should. Perhaps all of England should."
"That's quite curious talk," James said, a little surprised. "I've... I suppose I am an old man. Our ways are our ways. I would not... mind a change, but I haven't quite thought about one."
"If we had thought on one, as a society, perhaps we could change things. Perhaps Leah would not have left in disgust, on seeing this world for what it could truly be. Is it gentlemanly, James, to disregard the value women have in our society?" Lord Beckham challenged.
"I'm not... certain, m'lord. I... I suppose I leave those sorts of thoughts up to men far wiser than I," James chuckled uncomfortably. The duke decided not to press his servant any further, sitting in silence, and instead contemplating the questions on his own. Had he deserved the family fortune over his beloved sister simply because he had been born a man? Was Lady Havenshire right to be offended by a system that allowed such a thing to happen? Did he truly deserve the position he held - or had it simply been gifted to him by the circumstances of his birth?
"We're nearly here, m'lord," James announced, pulling round the front of the manor. Though not quite as impressive as Berrewithe, its wrought-iron gates and gardens impressed Marshall, who found servants waiting at the door to greet him. "I suppose I shall wait?" James asked.
"It shouldn't be long, James," Lord Beckham said, nodding as he exited the simple, wooden carriage. Approaching the door with a stern expression, Lord Beckham met with the welcoming eyes of a portly old man and a stern elderly woman, who quite reminded him of a harsher sort of Ms. Cauthfield.
