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“One day soon, I won’t have to tiptoe into your chamber at night.”
“No more slinking away from yours at dawn,” she replied happily, relaxing fully into the blanket now.
While she lay with her eyes closed, James looked across the water at Anterleigh Hall. After days of seeing it through Clara’s eyes, after meeting the loyal help who cared for the estate, he regarded it with newfound understanding.
Alone in the carriage from the train station, he didn’t have to hide his grim reaction to his first sighting of the hall. That first day, all he noticed was the massive embodiment of unearned, aristocratic privilege—and English, at that.
He was here to be with Clara, though, and his excitement about that made it easy to hide his true reaction, and to find genuine compliments to offer about her childhood estate.
“Years of you and David butting heads like rams, probably cursing the Chadbourne name, and here you are,” said Clara quietly.
James looked down to find her observing him. What had she seen on his face as he gazed at the hall?
“Rams?” he mused. “And nay, I never cursed your name, lass.”
“Are you saying that you and David didn’t lock horns?”
He sighed. “I don’t relish the fighting. I didn’t go looking to battle him over Rosemount, you know.”
“I know. And I know that it might feel…strange for you here. Thank you for traveling, for being with me.”
He lifted her hand to his mouth.
“We’re not far from the North Sea here. Imagine! While I was growing up here, you were straight up the coast in Scotland.”
More than distance separated them and their respective childhoods.
While you were growing up in a castle, I was…
He thought of the various locations. The poorhouse when his mum was alive, where he knew a parent’s love and a hungry belly. The orphanage, where he received relief from hunger but not love. The small manse, or clergy house, where he received an education but little affection or approval.
He shook his head. “All those years ago—even one year ago—I couldn’t have imagined visiting here.”
“Just now, you looked across the water at the hall, and it was as if…your appreciation of the view was grudging. No, don’t look concerned. I understand. I can only imagine how you feel about my brother—about earls in general. How you must view a property like this.”
Damn.
He sought his words carefully. “Your brother and I have been at odds since the first time we met. And aye, I haven’t a fondness for the nobles, have I? I can own a mansion in Belgravia, employ droves from London to Scotland—and they look at me like a spot of disgusting sludge on the bottom of their boot.”
He glanced at Clara, and finding her listening intently but not upset, he continued. “But I know this is your family estate. Where you grew up. Where you were happy until your parents died.”
“Where I’ve been happy this week withyou.”
“Where we’vebothbeen happy. And in truth, I’m finding…” James looked back out across the lake at the building he originally found nothing short of gaudy, with its pointed, arched windows, columns, and all manner of fussy details.
His own country properties couldn’t be called simple; he enjoyed the comforts he could afford, but he wasn’t keen on ostentatiousness.
“I understand your brother a bit more after seeing all this,” he admitted. “He inherited this, all this. A bloody castle, acre after acre of land, andpeople.Not just you—the farmers, the help, the farriers… So many and much depended on him. No wonder he’s been so driven.”
Clara sat up, her eyebrows lifted.
He shook his head. “It doesn’t erase everything, mind you. But seeing his burden and not just the advantages, the entitlement…”
“You’re notsodifferent,areyou? Look what you’ve both achieved, James. What difficulties you’ve had to triumph over.”
“In some ways, we’re not so different at all. This business with Rosemount—it’s not just the principle of it, Clara. My employees are depending on me, just as everyone here has depended on your brother.”
She nodded, looking down at the blanket. “I’ve been unfair to you both. Making assumptions about why you oppose each other.”
