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Of course she wouldn’t—not only because she was a woman, but because she agreed far too much with Lord Brooks’s assessment of her father.
“No, I think not,” Alice said. “I am related to Lady Nightingale on her mother’s side. I hardly knew Mr. Grant at all.”
That seemed to satisfy the men, and one of them called a number and threw the dice.
“I hope your good mood continues,” Lord Robins said to Alice. “Brooks is determined that no one should make a match with Lady Nightingale.”
“Because of whom her father was?” Alice asked. That seemed rather far to go over a longstanding grudge. What was it her father had done to him? That her father had had dealings with a man who’s name she’d never even heard before today wasn’t at all surprising. But she was intensely curious now. Perhaps she’d look through her father’s records after returning home today and see if she could find anything.
“What does it matter whom her father was?” a man at the table asked. “He’s dead now.”
The other men seemed to agree.
Another man lifted his glass of bourbon. “I think the matter is quite clear. Honestly, what woman can manage all those holdings on her own? Lady Nightingale is wise to realize she needs a man.”
Alice narrowed her gaze at the man. Though they’d been introduced when she’d first walked in, her head had been swimming at the time and she could no longer recall his name. Not that it mattered anymore, for she had summarily removed him from her list of possible husbands the moment he’d spoken.
“I disagree,” Lord Brooks said. “Her husband passed over a year ago and, unless you have heard otherwise, I think it safe to assume she has managed fine on her own.”
The man whose name no longer mattered scowled at Lord Brooks. When he spoke, his voice seemed light enough to be all in fun, but there was an underlying hard current; Alice could only assume this man did not like being told he was wrong. “She certainly couldn’t be doing worse than you are, Brooks.”
The gentlemen laughed, and Lord Brooks cast his gaze heavenward. For his part, Brooks took the teasing insult rather well. No self-important huff as Lord Hoskins would have done. No dark scowl and angry rant as her father would have expressed.
“You tell us,” Lord Robins said to her. “Are Lady Nightingale’s affairs in order? Or is she looking for a man to save her?”
Save her?Hardly.
But she couldn’t voice her true feelings here—not on this score, anyways.
“I have only just joined my cousin a few days ago,” she said; it was important to keep up the act, after all. “But all the signs lead me to believe that the countess’s holdings are in better shape now than they’ve ever been.”
And by that she meant that she spoke with her man of business frequently. She read every report thoroughly. In the past year, she’d visited every holding except the one in Carlaby—part of the reason she’d chosen this location to spend winter—and she’d talked to nearly every farmer and individual leasing her many lands.
Though she didn’t have much to thank her late father or husband for, one thing they had given her was a thorough understanding of how to run a large estate and keep it growing in profits.
“That’s all I need to hear,” one of the men at the table said. “I think I’ll call on the pretty lady tomorrow morning.”
“I’d advise against it,” Lord Brooks said.
Was hestillgoing on about how horrid it would be to be paired in a match with her? She truly needed to get home and riffle through her father’s books and learn for herself what he’d done to Lord Brooks. He seemed like quite a nice man, other than his intense hatred of her and her family.
“Far fromneedinga husband to keep her holdings afloat,” Lord Brooks said to them all, “I rather think she’s here expecting to outsmart the lot of us.”
A small tingle ran down Alice’s spine. A warning. Alice leaned back in her chair, facing Lord Brooks more fully, but also half-readying herself to run if necessary.
The gentlemen at the table only scoffed at his words.
Lord Brooks shook his folded paper their direction. “Mark my words. That lady is far more clever than any of you are giving her credit for.”
“What exactly do you expect from her?” Lord Robins asked.
“The devil only knows what tricks of manipulation she will assume while here. I knew her father. I daresay she isn’t much different.”
Not much different from her father?
How dare he?
This man, who knew nothing about her—not what her life had been like or what was in her heart or why she was here—was seeing fit to judge her. To call her manipulative.
She tightened a hand into a fist...
And felt the thick, masculine fabric against her fingers and palm.
An embarrassing chagrin flooded her cheeks. She supposed he was correct on one score. Shewasn’tbeing wholly honest with these men. But she wasn’t malicious in her dishonesty. She wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. She was only doing what was necessary to keep herself and her son safe.
Alice didn’t regret what she was doing. But that someone, a stranger no less, had guessed that she was capable of such duplicity was unnerving in the extreme.
