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“Your thoughts are of no interest to me,” Lady Trestan interrupted. “You are a foolish girl and know nothing about it. That is why you are so unsuited to be a countess.”
“You don’t have to be an aristocrat to be a worthy individual.”
“Oh, do go away. I have important matters to attend to.”
“More important than your husband’s health?”
Lady Trestan turned in her chair and fixed Sarah with a gimlet eye. “My husband is a weak man ill-suited to the responsibilities life gave him. And now he has succumbed to a simple chill.”
“Not quite yet,” Sarah replied quietly.
Kenver’s mother went on as if she hadn’t heard. Sarah thought she probably hadn’t. “Peter was nearly the last straw for Poldene, which has suffered from a long line of poor masters.” She began to tick these off on her fingers. “My husband’s father made a hobby of foolish investments. He had a positive genius for losing propositions and an affinity for swindlers.” The countess shook her head in exasperation. “The man was an idiot.Hisfather was a gambler and a wastrel who wrung every penny from the estate to fund his London debaucheries. Fortunately, he died young as a result of overindulgence. And the earl before that was simply dull-witted, as far as I can judge from the records. None of them had the sense to find capable wives.”
“Like you,” Sarah said.
“Precisely. And if you think I will ever apologize for taking the reins, you are a numbskull.”
Sarah didn’t bother replying. But she did think of Cecelia, who did similar work with a very different spirit. Cecelia would never speak of her husband in such terms. She obviously loved him.
“Thanks to my efforts, Kenver will inherit a healthy property and a more-than-adequate income. As long as he listens to me, we will improve it further.”
“He could do that himself.”
The countess looked pained and made a derisive sound. “Is that the sort of delusion you call love? It proves my point.”
“Have you ever given him a chance?” Sarah asked quietly. She was certain the countess knew nothing of Kenver’s tending of the estate.
“Poldene cannot afford reckless experiments! When I am gone…” Lady Trestan grimaced. “I willnotsee all my work come to nothing. You may be sure of that. Now please go away.” She made an emphatic gesture. “And do not disturb me again without an appointment.”
After this conversation, on top of everything else, Sarah ordered dinner in their suite that evening. She simply couldn’t face another formal, tension-filled meal, and she was ready to battle any staff member who protested. Perhaps due to this combative mood, no one did.
She and Kenver needed privacy to think what to do. Sarah didn’t want to pit Kenver actively against his mother, but she couldn’t stand by and see the earl sink if there was any alternative. She had word about dinner sent to the countess and received silence in response.
Coming in to change after a long ride to see a fractious forester, which he had made reluctantly at his mother’s insistence, Kenver discovered a table set in their sitting room. Sarah came out of the bedchamber and held out a welcoming hand. His leaden spirits lightened a little. Sarah had been heroic in her attendance on his father. She was the kindest person he’d ever known. He took her hand and kissed her as she smiled up at him. “There’s no need for evening dress,” she said. “We can eat as we are here.”
“My father…”
“The same.”
Dying, in other words. He didn’t speak this aloud.
“The doctor says there is hope.”
“Really?” Sarah nodded. He suspected she was just trying to cheer him. “He looks so white and feeble. This morning when I visited, he didn’t know who I was.”
“The fever takes him that way sometimes.”
Servants came in with their meal. When they had set it out, Sarah sent them away. “Just the two of us tonight,” she said. “We don’t need anyone else.”
“A wonderful idea.”
They served themselves and began to eat. Neither of them had good appetites, Kenver noticed, even though he had been out riding all day. He pushed food around his plate. “I don’t know what Poldene will be like without my father,” he said.
Sarah gave him a compassionate glance.
“Mama has the…stronger personality. Papa usually followed…follows her lead.” And yet Papa had been a kind of buffer, it seemed to him now. With him so ill, every conversation Kenver had with his mother was coldly abrasive. She seemed to think she had to lash out at him, as if he was a recalcitrant horse. That had been her grief, he told himself again. But he didn’t quite believe it. “Things are awry with him absent. Out of balance.”
“Fathers are like a bulwark,” Sarah said. “Like the walls guarding a castle.”
