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Mrs. Booth glanced up, startled. “He mentioned Will?”
“He just said there had been an older brother.”
Mrs. Booth’s looked sorrowful. “Yes, there was. Such a sweet boy. Never as sturdy as Alec, but a bright, beautiful, loving child. We all adored him, but do you know who Will’s favorite person was? Alec. Will was very proud of his little brother and took good care of him.”
“How did he die?”
“A fever.” Mrs. Booth sighed and sat down, hands folding in her lap. “He’d been ill a month before, and the fever returned. Apparently, the first fever created an inflammation in the blood vessels, which damaged his heart. No one knew he already had a weak heart, and the second fever—” She broke off, shook her head. “Our sweet Will didn’t recover.”
Cara exhaled, moved. “So awful.”
“It was a dark, terrible time here. It tore the family apart. I’m surprised Lord Sherbourne mentioned his brother. He’s only spoken to me about him once or twice in all these years.”
“I’d asked about names, and who he’d been named after, and he said his older brother had been named William, which was his father and grandfather’s name—”
Cara was interrupted by Mr. Trimble’s voice calling for Mrs. Booth from above the stairs.
Mrs. Booth went to the staircase. “Yes, Mr. Trimble?”
“Lord Sherbourne is looking for Miss Roberts. Do you know where she is? He’d like to drive her to her cottage now.”
“She’s down here with me. I’ll send her right up.” Mrs. Booth turned to Cara. “I probably won’t see you again before I leave for Christmas, but I’m so glad you’re here and I hope you have a wonderful holiday in Bakewell. Don’t forget to have a Bakewell tart or two while you’re here.”
Cara moved forward to give Mrs. Booth a quick hug. “Thank you for everything. I wish you a merry Christmas.”
Alec was waiting upstairs in the hall between the kitchen and mudroom. Mr. Trimble had already put Cara’s luggage in Alec’s car and so it was just a matter of taking her coat from the coatrack in the mudroom and walking out. She glanced back at the house as she headed to yet another car, this one a sturdy pale-green Land Rover. It wasn’t a new car, but with the thick tires and four-wheel drive, it looked like a perfect vehicle for mud, ice, and dirt roads.
“Are we going far?” she asked, climbing up into the passenger seat. She’d enjoyed the ride in the convertible but this four-by-four was more her style, sporty and no nonsense.
“No, just down the road a bit, but this car hasn’t been driven, either, so trying to get them all running before I leave.”
“When do you leave?” she asked.
“Usually on Boxing Day,” he said, making a swift three-point turn before going left at the stable master’s cottage. A right would take them down the lane to Bakewell, but this time they drove past the stable converted into a garage, and kept going until there was a small fork in the road, and he took the left fork, traveling down another gravel lane. “How far to Bakewell from my new cottage?” she asked, worried about the distance already.
“Just another five or ten minutes. There’s a shortcut, but it’s through the woods, and I’d rather you to stay on the main estate roads.” He shot her a quick look. “You’re not worried about being so isolated are you?”
She opened her mouth, closed it. The thought had crossed her mind, but she didn’t want to be difficult, and she could always call Paul.
“I could loan you a car,” Alec offered. “That way you wouldn’t feel trapped. The days are short this time of year.”
“I didn’t get an international driver’s license, so I think it’s better for me to just use the taxi service. Besides, I’m not sure how well I’d do driving on the opposite side of the road.”
A cottage came into view, and farther down the road, a long low brick building with a fairly large lot for cars.
“This is your cottage,” he said, parking in front of the cottage. “And that down there is the former dairy. It’s recently been converted into commercial use for small weddings and parties. No one is there until New Year’s when we have a group arriving. They’ve booked out the dairy, and your cottage which has four bedrooms, which gives them ten bedrooms total, and the event space.”
“I’m amazed at how you are using your cottages. It’s really smart, especially as most of them aren’t close to the house.”
“Because of the cottage rentals, we’ve been able to put money back into the land. We’re focused on returning farmland into meadows and reforesting the woods.”
Cara stepped out of the car and looked up at the face of the cottage, thinking in summer with roses in bloom and flowerboxes full it would be charming. As it was now, the old two-story cottage with four windows across the top of the second story, and four more windows on the ground floor, appeared a little severe. But then it was winter, and the cottage didn’t have the benefit of Christmas lights or a holiday wreath of the front door. “I noticed that there are no thatched roofs on any of your cottages,” she said.
“Thatched cottages are pretty rare in Derbyshire. If you’d like to see half-timbered cottages with thatched roofs, you shouldvisit the estate village of Osmaston. Not very big, maybe just one hundred and thirty-five people, but worth a look if you have time.”
“How far away would that be from Bakewell?”
“A little over a half hour by the A515.” He took her suitcase from the back of the Land Rover and carried it to the front door. “There are other thatched roof buildings of course, but a village of cottages? Osmaston right now is the only one that comes to mind.”
