His Lordship's True Lady (True Gentlemen #4)(30)
Wealthy and titled, in other words.
“I’m advantageous,” Hessian said. “Or getting there.”
The mare butted him in the chest. Had she been so inclined, she could have sent him sprawling on his arse in the dirt. Worth too could have dealt a few blows—ridicule, incredulity, dismay—but he was instead looking thoughtful.
“You are in every way an estimable fellow,” Worth said, “and nothing would make me happier than to see you matched with a woman deserving of your esteem, but your first question is about Leggett, and it’s regarding him that I must raise a reservation.”
Hessian scratched the mare beneath her chin, which she also seemed to enjoy. “Miss Ferguson says he runs off the fortune hunters. All I know of the man is that he was a friend of our papa and is quite well fixed.”
“Is he? I have my fingers in financial pots that involve everybody from King George to the seamstresses on Drury Lane, and never once have I crossed paths with Leggett. Now he’s apparently sniffing around at my club, making discreet inquiries about a venture I’m putting together with some Americans. Why?”
“Because you are a genius at making money.”
“Why is Leggett only now coming to need that genius?”
“Perhaps he’s investigated all other possibilities, made a sufficient sum, and hopes by investing with Worth Kettering to make a more than sufficient sum. I have taken every bit of the investment advice you’ve offered, and in a very short time, my finances have come right.”
More than come right. Over the next five years, Hessian would accumulate capital at an astonishing rate, thanks to his brother.
Worth approached the mare, who pinned her ears. “She honestly likes you. You walk in here and command the notice of the most finicky female I know.”
“She recognizes a yeoman at heart when she sees one. I have never thanked you for dispensing that financial advice. I am deeply grateful.”
Worth wandered back to his gelding, who was affecting the horsy version of a wounded look. “You follow my advice. So many ask for it, then ignore it. I owed you after the way I left Grampion Hall in high dudgeon as a young man. You looked after Lannie, you extended the olive branch, you manage the ancestral pile. Had it not been for Jacaranda’s influence, I might still be sticking my figurative tongue out at you and ignoring your letters.”
Hessian had never considered that Worth felt guilty over the rift between them, which had been a case of mutual youthful arrogance more than anything else.
“I’m the earl,” Hessian said, giving the mare a final pat on her nose. “I’m supposed to extend olive branches and all that other. Might we regard the topic of past misunderstandings as adequately addressed and instead return to the issue of Walter Leggett?”
Worth was a jovial fellow, often gratingly so, but for a moment, in the shadows of the stable, he looked very much like their father. The late earl had been dutiful, stern, and nobody’s fool, though kind too. He had loved his children, but he’d lacked a wife at his side as his boys had made the difficult transition to young manhood.
“You have a gift for understatement,” Worth said, “and yes, we can discuss Leggett, except I know very little about his situation. Over the years, everybody’s fortune get an occasional mention in the clubs. This fellow’s stocks took a bad turn on ’Change. That one married his spare to an heiress. Some other man is mad for steam engines—as I am—and yet another just bought vineyards in Spain, of all the dodgy ventures. Leggett’s name doesn’t come up.”
Hessian found a pitchfork and brought the mare a serving of hay from the pile at the end of the aisle. “So he’s discreet. Not a bad quality in a fellow.” The next forkful went to the gelding, and thus every other beast in the barn began nickering and shifting about in its stall like drovers trying to get the attention of the tavern maid.
“Discretion is a fine quality, but I’m nosy,” Worth said. “Will you also sweep the aisle, fill up the water buckets, and muck the stalls for me?”
“I miss Cumberland.”
Worth took up a second pitchfork. “I miss Trysting.”
They worked in companionable silence until all the horses had been given their snacks. The effort, small though it was, resolved a question for Hessian.
“If I’m considering courting Miss Ferguson, learning as much as I can about her situation strikes me as prudent.”
“Stealing a few kisses would be prudent too.” Worth propped both pitchforks beside the barn door. “The wedding night is rather too late to discover that your bride likes your title better than your intimate company.”
“You needn’t instruct me on that point.”
A pause ensued, a trifle righteous on Hessian’s part—only a trifle—and doubtless awkward for Worth.
“Sorry.” Worth stood in the beam of sunshine angling through the barn doors, his gaze on the rain-wet garden. “About Leggett?”
“I’d like to know more where he’s concerned, if you’re comfortable gathering that information. Some of the wealth he’s managing is not his own, but rather, Lily Ferguson’s. What has he done with her money?”
Hessian would rather have lingered in the stables, with the beasts and the good smells and honest labor, but he was promised to a card party come evening—a gathering of earls, of all things, courtesy of his recent acquaintance with Lord Rosecroft—and Daisy might be in need of a nap.