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Evie’s eyes flashed. “Do not condescend to me.”
“I apologize if it seemed as if that was what I was doing.”
She eyed him suspiciously for several seconds, as if uncertain as to the sincerity of the apology. She finally gave him another glare. “I am here to tell you that I will have no part in your plans for Mr. Harker.”
His brows rose. “You will not?”
“No.”
“Why not?” Hunter had no idea why Evie should be so against his decision when it had been his hope she would wholeheartedly approve of the plan.
Indeed, Hunter suspected it had been partly in the wish of gaining her approval that he had set those plans in motion.
“How can you sit there so calmly and yet behave in such a callous and unfeeling manner?” Her accusing gaze remained fixed on him as she paced in front of his desk.
Hunter sensed some sort of miscommunication in this encounter.
Another one!
He and Evie seemed to have them constantly.
He drew in several controlling breaths before proceeding. “Would you care to explain to me what you find so callous and unfeeling about my having given Paul Harker the position of estate manager here?”
* * *
Evie was rendered speechless by the question.
Something which should have happened long ago, some might say, if she was understanding this conversation correctly.
She shook her head. “Mr. Harker did not look at all jubilant when he left here a few minutes ago.”
“I believe when you saw Mr. Harker, he might still have been in the process of trying to absorb and accept his good fortune,” Hunter answered her dryly.
“You are not about to throw him to the mercy of the local magistrate?”
“No.”
“Nor make his wife a widow and leave his children without a father?”
“No.”
Evie felt decidedly…out of sorts today. Not only because even thinking of the intimacies she had shared yesterday with Hunter was enough to make her blush. No, it was also because she now had a feeling she might havejumped to conclusionsagain yesterday regarding Hunter’s invitation to accompany him to London. That he might, in fact, have been about to say something altogether different. Quite what, she was unsure, but the feelings of unease about that conversation persisted.
She frowned. “What of Ben Watkins?”
“Am I about to throw him to the mercy of the local magistrate and render his wife a widow and his children fatherless?”
Evie glared at Hunter’s mockery. “He has done nothing to deserve having any of those things happen to him. But he is currently your estate manager.”
Hunter nodded. “We discussed that situation earlier this morning and agreed that he and his family would be far happier going to my much larger ducal estate in Gloucestershire, where he will take on the role of assistant to my manager there. The estate is more challenging than this one and so needs a lot of managing. Watkins is still young, and Hadley will no doubt retire sometime in the next five years, at which time Watkins can step into that role. The position has the added bonus that Watkins’s wife’s family is from Hertfordshire, and so she and the children can visit them whenever they wish.”
Evie was left speechless at how seamlessly these arrangements appeared to have been made. Even if she suspected it had taken Hunter some time and thought to come up with a plan which seemed to suit everyone.
Ben Watkins’s pride was maintained by his going to work on the bigger Lincoln ducal estate.
His wife and children would be pleased to return to the south of England to live near her family.
Paul Harker’s knowledge of the area and the people living here would make him a far better estate manager than Ben Watkins had ever been.
