Love in the Afternoon (The Hathaways #5)(72)

“If it makes any difference,” Christopher said, “I’m willing to take all of her animals.”

Merripen considered that. “You can have her.”

The discussion at the dinner table was fast-paced and ebullient at first. Eventually, however, the talk turned to Ireland, and the estate Merripen would soon inherit, and the mood became somber.

Approximately ten years earlier Ireland had suffered a prolonged potato blight, leading to a magnitude of disaster the country had still not recovered from. England had offered only minimal assistance in the form of temporary relief measures, assuming that the problem would somehow solve itself through natural means.

Ireland, already impoverished, had fallen into nationwide starvation, followed by a plague of diseases, with the result that entire families had died by the roadside or in their mud huts. And landlords such as Cavan had evicted their penniless tenants, and fought with the ones who remained, resulting in lawsuits and bitterness that would last for generations.

“The Cavan lands and tenants have been neglected for years,” Merripen said. “Grandfather was too preoccupied with his properties in England to make improvements or repairs. The land has no drainage, and no machinery for ploughing. The tenants themselves know only the most primitive methods of farming. They live in cottages made of mud and stone. And most of their animals have been sold off to pay the rents.” Merripen paused, his face grim. “I met with Cavan before we returned to Stony Cross. He refuses to part with a shilling of his fortune to benefit the people who depend on him.”

“How long does he have to live?” Amelia asked.

“Less than a year,” Merripen replied. “I would be surprised if he survives past Christmas.”

“When he does go,” Win interceded, “we’ll be free to invest his fortune back into the Cavan lands.”

“But it will take far more than money,” Merripen said. “We’ll have to replace the mud dwellings with sound cottages. We’ll have to teach the tenants an entirely new way of farming. They need everything. Machinery, fuel, cattle, seed . . .” His voice trailed away, and he gave Cam an unfathomable glance. “Phral, it makes what we accomplished with the Ramsay estates look like child’s play.”

Cam reached up and absently tugged a forelock of his hair. “We’ll have to start preparing now,” he said. “I’ll need all the information we can obtain on Cavan’s finances and holdings. We may sell some of his—your—English properties for capital. You’ll have to make estimates for what is needed, and set the priorities. We won’t be able to do everything at once.”

“It’s overwhelming,” Merripen said flatly.

From the stunned silence at the table, Christopher gathered that Merripen seldom, if ever, declared that something was overwhelming.

“I’ll help, phral,” Cam said, his gaze steady.

“I’m beginning to have the unpleasant feeling,” Leo said, “that I’m going to be handling the Ramsay estates by myself, while the two of you devote yourselves to saving Ireland.”

Beatrix was staring at Christopher, a slight smile on her lips. “It puts our situation in perspective, doesn’t it?” she murmured.

Which was exactly what he had been thinking.

Merripen’s alert gaze went to Christopher’s face. “You’re to inherit Riverton, now that your brother is dead.”

“Yes.” Christopher’s lips twisted in a self-mocking smile. “And while John was thoroughly prepared for the responsibility, the inverse is true for me. I know little more than how to shoot someone or dig trenches.”

“You know how to organize men,” Merripen pointed out. “How to form a plan and carry it out. How to assess risk, and adapt when necessary.” He threw a swift grin in Cam’s direction. “When we started to restore the Ramsay estates, we told ourselves the best thing we could do was make a mistake. It meant we would learn something.”

It was then that Christopher fully grasped how much he had in common with the men in this family, even though they couldn’t have come from more different environments and upbringings. They were all grappling with a rapidly changing world, facing challenges that none of them had been prepared for. All of society was being tumbled and sifted, the old hierarchy crumbling, power shifting to unfamiliar hands. A man could either let himself sink into irrelevance, or step forward to shape the new age that was upon them. The possibilities were both intriguing and exhausting—he saw that in Merripen’s face, and in the faces of the others as well. But none of them would shrink from what had to be done.

Christopher contemplated Beatrix, who was sitting a few places away from him. Those eyes . . . midnight-blue, innocent and wise, alarmingly perceptive. What a curious mixture of qualities she possessed. She was capable of extraordinary composure and yet she was willing to play like a child. She was intellectual, instinctive, droll. Talking with her was like opening a treasure box to sort through unexpected delights.

As a man not yet thirty, Christopher was only six years older than Beatrix, and yet he felt the difference between them as a hundred. He wanted, needed, to be close to her, while at the same time he had to close away the worst of what he had seen and done, so that it would never touch her.

He had not made love to her since that afternoon two weeks earlier, having resolved not to take advantage of her until after they were married. But the erotic memory tantalized him constantly. Beatrix was an experience for which he had no reference point or comparison. The women he had known from the prior time in his life had offered easy and sophisticated pleasures. Nothing remotely similar to Beatrix’s headlong passion.