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“You needn’t sound so astonished,” Cecelia replied. “I often have quite good ideas.”
“What a crackbrained notion!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“My father’s, not yours.” James shook his head. “You think he drove me nearly to distraction just to fend off change?”
“If he had lived…” she began.
“Oh, that would have been far worse. A never-ending battle of wills.”
“You don’t know that. I was often annoyed with my father when I was younger, but we get along well now.”
“Because he lets you be as scandalous as you please, Cecelia.”
“Oh nonsense.”
James raised one dark brow.
“IwishI could learn to do that,” exclaimed his pretty visitor. “You are said to have the most killing sneer in theton, you know.”
He was not going to tell her that he had spent much of a summer before the mirror when he was sixteen perfecting the gesture.
“And it wasnotscandalous for me to attend one ball without a chaperone. I was surrounded by friends and acquaintances. What could happen to me in such a crowd?” She shook her head. “At any rate, I am quite on the shelf at twenty-two. So it doesn’t matter.”
“Don’t be stupid.” James knew, from the laments of young gentleman acquaintances, that Cecelia had refused several offers. She was anything but “on the shelf.”
“I am never stupid,” she replied coldly.
He was about to make an acid retort when he recalled that Cecelia was a positive glutton for work. She’d also learned a great deal about estate management and business as her father pushed tasks off on her, his only offspring. She’d come to manage much of Vainsmede’s affairs as well as the trust. Indeed, she’d taken to it as James never had. He thought of the challenge confronting him. Could he cajole her into taking some of it on?
She’d gone to open the door at the rear of the entryway. “There is just barely room to edge along the hall here,” she said. “Why would anyone keep all these newspapers? There must be years of them. Do you suppose the whole house is like this?”
“I have a sinking feeling that it may be worse. The sole servant ran off as if she was conscious of her failure.”
“One servant couldn’t care for such a large house even if it hadn’t been…”
“A rubbish collection? I think Uncle Percival must have actually been mad. People called him eccentric, but this is…” James peered down the cluttered hallway. “No wonder he refused all my visits.”
“Did you try to visit him?” Cecelia asked.
“Of course.”
“Huh.”
“Is that so surprising?” asked James.
“Well, yes, because you don’t care for anyone but yourself.”
“Don’t start up this old refrain.”
“It’s the truth.”
“More a matter of opinion and definition,” James replied.
She waved this aside. “You will have to do better now that you are the head of your family.”
“A meaningless label. I shall have to bring some order.” He grimaced at the stacks of newspapers. “But no more than that.”
