Good Lord, that makes you—what?—twenty-two? How did that happen?’
‘By the simple process of aging. It affects us all, unfortunately.’
‘Well, the passing years have certainly done you no harm, if you don’t mind my saying so. I hardly recognised you.’
‘Since you have, in all the years I’ve lived here, barely acknowledged me,’ Kate retorted, flustered, ‘that is not really surprising. I’ve not changed so very much in seven years.’
‘You’re quite wrong. But I can see I’ve touched a nerve. I hadn’t thought myself rude, not even as a sulky youth, but clearly I was. Please accept my belated apologies.’
‘You were not rude. It’s not surprising that I barely registered with you, given that you were six years older than me and—’
‘I still am.’
‘The gap is more of a chasm when one is younger.’
‘True, but I apologise for my ill-mannered younger self all the same.’ Daniel Fairfax glanced at the clock. ‘I thought your father was expecting me? Didn’t he receive my note?’
‘He did,’ Kate said, belatedly remembering her carefully rehearsed plan for this meeting. ‘On behalf of my father and myself, Lord Elmswood, may I offer our condolences on your loss?’
‘You’ve already done so—or your father has, in a letter. I understand I have him to thank for organising the funeral too. I’m told it was very well-attended. I’m sorry I wasn’t here, but by the time I had word of my father’s accident he was already dead and buried, and it took me the best part of six weeks to get myself back to England. Is Mr Wilson intending to meet me this morning or not?’
‘I’m afraid he is indisposed, but I believe I can settle all the necessary business on his behalf.’
‘Without wishing to be rude, Miss Wilson, my business is with Elmswood’s estate manager. Perhaps it would be better for me to return when your father is feeling better—tomorrow, perhaps?’
‘Lord Elmswood, when I said my father was indisposed, I’m afraid I did not mean he was afflicted with some minor ailment. Would that it were so! Unfortunately his condition is both long-standing and irreversible. I take it you are unaware that I have been acting in my father’s stead? Clearly you are,’ Kate continued, in response to his blank look. ‘In fact I’ve been helping out for some years now, but in the last eighteen months or so I have been obliged to take on almost all of my father’s duties as his health has failed.’
‘I am deeply sorry to hear that. But, with respect, I am surprised to learn that he delegated the management of the estates to you. No matter how competent you are, you are a female, and that alone, in my father’s book, would make you quite ineligible. Your father must have known that.’
‘The arrangement was of an—an informal nature.’
‘Ah. So my father was blissfully ignorant of the fact that his estate manager’s daughter was running things.’
Kate bristled. ‘I was born and raised here, and have been helping my father ever since I was old enough to ride a horse. With the greatest of respect, and with no offence intended, my lord, I know your estates a great deal better than you do.’
‘That would not be difficult, for even the cows in the fields could claim that.’
‘I love this place, my lord, even if you do not.’
‘There’s no need for those raised hackles. I am not questioning your competency. In this, as in everything else, I have nothing in common with my father, and I have no issue at all with having a female estate manager.’
‘In that case, perhaps you would care to take a look at the summary of accounts.’
Kate pushed the ledger forward, but Daniel Fairfax gave it only a cursory glance. ‘I won’t pretend to have any grasp of the financial ins and outs, but I know from that London lawyer fellow that the lands are in good hands.’
‘Relatively, all things considered. Unfortunately your father was reluctant to invest either his time or his money. Frankly, he seemed uninterested in his estates.’
But once again Daniel Fairfax seemed to have no interest in pursuing the subject of his lands. ‘I really am sorry to hear that your father is so gravely ill. If there is anything I can do…’
‘As a matter of fact, there is.’ Kate wondered fleetingly what he would say if she simply blurted out the outrageous proposition she had for him, and was so amused by the idea that it calmed her. ‘If you would care to take a seat, Lord Elmswood…’
‘I really wish you wouldn’t call me that.’
‘It’s your name now.’
‘No, it’s not. I don’t plan on making use of any of it—the lands, the title, or indeed the house, which my father seems to have allowed to go to rack and ruin.’
‘Yes, that is one of the topics I wish to discuss with you.’
‘Only one? I have a list of my own, you know, and a limited amount of time.’
‘Of that I am perfectly well aware.’ She hadn’t meant to snap, but her nerves were stretched to breaking point. ‘Please, if you will sit down I will explain everything.’
Kate indicated the seat on the opposite side of the desk from her own and to her utter relief he did as she’d asked. The legs of the chair had been shortened by some shrewd previous estate manager, intent on ensuring that he loomed over whoever sat opposite, but Daniel Fairfax was very tall and her own stature so diminutive that when she sat down she was still looking up at him.
She straightened her back. He stretched his long legs out in front of him. His hair was cut very close to his head, as if he had taken a razor to it, showing off a slight widow’s peak. His face was tanned to the point of swarthiness, strong-featured, with sharp cheekbones and jaw, a nose bordering on the assertive. Despite the fullness of his lips it was a very masculine face, and one that bore testament to a life lived in a very different climate. The grooves which ran from his nose to his mouth, the fan of lines at the corners of his slate-grey eyes, spoke of a life lived at a pace that made hers seem positively sedentary.
Those eyes were now focused intently on her. She resisted the impulse to check her hair for any escaped locks.
‘How long had my father been living as a virtual recluse?’ he asked. ‘From what I’ve seen of the house, he seems to have been living in two rooms, with only his manservant and a couple of kitchen staff to look after him.’
‘His withdrawal from society was gradual. It was only in the last two years or so that he became almost completely cut off from the world.’
‘Making it easy for you to take over your father’s duties without his realising?’
‘We did not hoodwink him,’ Kate retorted angrily. ‘Once a month Papa submitted the books to Lord Elmswood, via his valet, and if your father required to consult him on any matter he sent Papa a written note. The authority remains formally invested in my father. To be perfectly frank, I don’t think your father cared who actually did the donkey work and—without wishing to offend you, Lord Elmswood—’
‘You offend me every time you use that title. I wish you’d call me Daniel.’
‘Daniel.’ It felt strange saying his name…intimate. ‘It wasn’t only that he was uninterested in the detail, he seemed indifferent to the fact that only the bare minimum was being done. I’m afraid that you’ve inherited an estate in dire need of modernisation.’
He dug his hand into his coat pocket to retrieve a small, brightly coloured precious stone, which he began compulsively to turn over and over in his hand. ‘I made it perfectly clear the last time that I was home that I wished to relinquish my claim to Elmswood.’
‘Relinquish!