Cold-Hearted Rake (The Ravenels #1)(22)

“She is well?” he asked, wondering exactly what Kathleen had told Helen.

Helen nodded. “I think so. Although she is a bit weary.”

Of course she was. Come to think of it, so was he.

Devon turned his attention to his brother. “West, I want to speak to you. Come with me to the library, will you?”

West drained the rest of his tea, stood, and bowed to the Ravenel sisters. “Thank you for a delightful afternoon, my dears.” He paused before departing. “Pandora, sweetheart, you’re attempting to cram Portsmouth into Wales, which I assure you will please neither party.”

“I told you,” Cassandra said to Pandora, and the twins began to squabble while Devon and West left the room.

Chapter 5

“Lively as kittens,” West said as he and Devon walked to the library. “They’re quite wasted out here in the country. I’ll confess, I never knew that the company of innocent girls could be so amusing.”

“What if they were to take part in the London season?” Devon asked. It was one of approximately a thousand questions buzzing in his mind. “How would you rate their prospects?”

West looked bemused. “At catching husbands? Nonexistent.”

“Even Lady Helen?”

“Lady Helen is an angel. Lovely, quiet, accomplished… she should have her pick of suitors. But the men who would be appropriate for her will never come up to scratch. Nowadays no one can afford a girl who lacks a dowry.”

“There are men who could afford her,” Devon said absently.

“Who?”

“Some of the fellows we’re acquainted with… Severin, or Winterborne…”

“If they’re friends of ours, I wouldn’t pair Lady Helen with one of them. She was bred to marry a cultivated man of leisure, not a barbarian.”

“I would hardly call a department store owner a barbarian.”

“Rhys Winterborne is vulgar, ruthless, willing to compromise any principle for personal gain… qualities I admire, of course… but he would never do for Lady Helen. They would make each other exceedingly unhappy.”

“Of course they would. It’s marriage.” Devon sat in a musty chair positioned behind a writing desk in one of the deep-set window niches. So far the library was his favorite room in the house, paneled in oak, with walls of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that contained at least three thousand volumes. One bookcase had been fitted with narrow stacked drawers for storing maps and documents. Agreeable hints of tobacco, ink¸ and book dust spiced the air, overlaying the sweetness of vellum and parchment.

Idly Devon reached for a wooden cigar holder on the nearby desk and examined it. The piece was carved in the shape of a beehive, with tiny brass bees scattered on its surface. “What Winterborne needs most is something he can’t purchase.”

“Whatever Winterborne can’t purchase isn’t worth having.”

“What about an aristocrat’s daughter?”

West wandered past the bookshelves, perusing titles. He pulled a volume from a shelf and examined it dispassionately. “Why the devil are we talking about arranging a match for Lady Helen? Her future is none of your concern. After we sell the estate, you’ll likely never see her again.”

Devon traced the pattern of inset bees as he replied, “I’m not going to sell the estate.”

West fumbled with the book, nearly dropping it. “Have you gone mad? Why?”

He didn’t want to have to explain his reasons, when he was still trying to sort through them. “I have no desire to be a landless earl.”

“When has your pride ever mattered?”

“It does now that I’m a peer.”

West gave him a sharply assessing glance. “Eversby Priory is nothing you ever expected to inherit, nor desired, nor prepared for in any way whatsoever. It’s a millstone tied around your neck. I didn’t fully grasp that until the meeting with Totthill and Fogg this morning. You’d be a fool if you do anything other than sell it and keep the title.”

“A title is nothing without an estate.”

“You can’t afford the estate.”

“Then I’ll have to find a way.”

“How? You have no bloody idea how to manage complex finances. As for farming, you’ve never planted so much as a single turnip seed. Whatever you’re qualified for, which isn’t much, it’s certainly not running a place like this.”

Oddly, the more that his brother echoed the doubts that were already in his mind, the more stubborn Devon became. “If Theo was qualified, I’ll be damned if I can’t learn to do it.”

West shook his head incredulously. “Is that where this nonsense is coming from? You’re trying to compete with our dead cousin?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Devon snapped. “Isn’t it obvious there’s far more at stake than that? Look around you, for God’s sake. This estate supports hundreds of people. Without it, many of them won’t survive. Tell me you’d be willing to stand face-to-face with one of the tenants and tell him that he has to move his family to Manchester so they can all work in a filthy factory.”

“How can the factory be any worse than living on a muddy scrap of farmland?”

“Considering urban diseases, crime, slum alleys, and abject poverty,” Devon said acidly, “I’d say it’s considerably worse. And if my tenants and servants all leave, what of the consequences to the village of Eversby itself? What will become of the merchants and businesses once the estate is gone? I have to make a go of this, West.”