Read Online Loving Rose: The Redemption of Malcolm Sinclair (Casebook of Barnaby Adair) by Stephanie Laurens - Free Book Online
Authors: Stephanie Laurens
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1816, he’d spent any real time was the Blue Anchor, a tavern frequented by miners. Walking the gray past the thatched building, he continued up the rise and turned into the stable yard of the Angel Hotel, a more superior establishment high on the rise and much closer to his goal of the post office.
Leaving Silver in the care of the Angel’s head ostler, Thomas crossed the road and continued to the post office. He posted letters to Drayton and Marwell in London, and also dispatched a missive to Roland. After a congenial chat with the clerk behind the counter, he went into the tobacconist’s next door, where he arranged for copies of the principal London financial news sheets, as well as The Times, to be delivered every day as soon as they arrived from the capital. Given this was Cornwall, that meant he would receive the early morning edition in the late afternoon. The delay wasn’t ideal, but it had been the same at the priory, and he’d learned to work with the limitation.
Over the last years, he’d refashioned Thomas Glendower’s investments into the equivalent of a philanthropic master-fund; despite having set out to seek his fated task, his ultimate penance, he did not see that as an excuse to cease his necessary oversight of that fund. While he waited for Fate to find him, he still had work to do; he did not intend to wait idly.
Aside from all else, idleness in one such as he invariably led to trouble.
His mind never ceased thinking, weighing, speculating: What if he did this, or that? What would be the outcome? Where would lie the gain? And would it be as much as he predicted? It was a persistent activity he’d long ago learned to live with; indeed, for him, such constant mental activity was the norm.
And, as one farsighted old lady had warned him long ago, therein lay the danger. His mind was all too adept at forming schemes for financial gain but, sadly, without due consideration of the law, much less morality. If such schemes remained inside his head, no harm was caused, but, once formed, the temptation to let the schemes out into the world, to give them a chance to play out to see if they worked . . . that was the lure, the constant, insistent temptation he had learned through hard experience he had to hold against.
Keeping his mind busy with legitimate, even desirable, moneymaking ventures was, for him, more necessity than choice.
Halting on the narrow pavement outside the tobacconist’s shop, copies of yesterday’s news sheets tucked under his arm, Thomas pulled out his fob-watch. It was well after twelve o’clock. The impulse to ride straight back to the manor was surprisingly strong, but by the time he reached there, Mrs. Sheridan and the children would almost certainly have finished their luncheon, and his arrival, hungry and wanting to be fed, would put his housekeeper out.
Tucking his watch back in his waistcoat pocket, Thomas straightened, tightened his grip on his cane, and made his way across the street to the Angel Hotel, and its purportedly excellent dining room.
T he following day, Rose was tidying the kitchen after they’d had their morning tea when, through the window over the sink, she saw Glendower walking around the outside of the house.
He wasn’t simply strolling; he held a notebook in one hand and was halting every now and then, eyes narrowing, to study the house itself.
Curious, she watched him. After one such instance of close scrutiny, he pulled a pencil from the pocket of his jacket, raised the notebook, and scribbled something.
He was wearing breeches and riding boots, a plain linen shirt, a neat but simply knotted cravat, with a hacking jacket over all; she had assumed he’d intended to go riding again, but no. As she watched, the light breeze ruffled his hair; the bright gold strands amid the light brown were what had caught her eye and drawn her to the window.
Standing before the sink, cloth in hand, she vacillated. She wanted to know what he was doing, what
Leaving Silver in the care of the Angel’s head ostler, Thomas crossed the road and continued to the post office. He posted letters to Drayton and Marwell in London, and also dispatched a missive to Roland. After a congenial chat with the clerk behind the counter, he went into the tobacconist’s next door, where he arranged for copies of the principal London financial news sheets, as well as The Times, to be delivered every day as soon as they arrived from the capital. Given this was Cornwall, that meant he would receive the early morning edition in the late afternoon. The delay wasn’t ideal, but it had been the same at the priory, and he’d learned to work with the limitation.
Over the last years, he’d refashioned Thomas Glendower’s investments into the equivalent of a philanthropic master-fund; despite having set out to seek his fated task, his ultimate penance, he did not see that as an excuse to cease his necessary oversight of that fund. While he waited for Fate to find him, he still had work to do; he did not intend to wait idly.
Aside from all else, idleness in one such as he invariably led to trouble.
His mind never ceased thinking, weighing, speculating: What if he did this, or that? What would be the outcome? Where would lie the gain? And would it be as much as he predicted? It was a persistent activity he’d long ago learned to live with; indeed, for him, such constant mental activity was the norm.
And, as one farsighted old lady had warned him long ago, therein lay the danger. His mind was all too adept at forming schemes for financial gain but, sadly, without due consideration of the law, much less morality. If such schemes remained inside his head, no harm was caused, but, once formed, the temptation to let the schemes out into the world, to give them a chance to play out to see if they worked . . . that was the lure, the constant, insistent temptation he had learned through hard experience he had to hold against.
Keeping his mind busy with legitimate, even desirable, moneymaking ventures was, for him, more necessity than choice.
Halting on the narrow pavement outside the tobacconist’s shop, copies of yesterday’s news sheets tucked under his arm, Thomas pulled out his fob-watch. It was well after twelve o’clock. The impulse to ride straight back to the manor was surprisingly strong, but by the time he reached there, Mrs. Sheridan and the children would almost certainly have finished their luncheon, and his arrival, hungry and wanting to be fed, would put his housekeeper out.
Tucking his watch back in his waistcoat pocket, Thomas straightened, tightened his grip on his cane, and made his way across the street to the Angel Hotel, and its purportedly excellent dining room.
T he following day, Rose was tidying the kitchen after they’d had their morning tea when, through the window over the sink, she saw Glendower walking around the outside of the house.
He wasn’t simply strolling; he held a notebook in one hand and was halting every now and then, eyes narrowing, to study the house itself.
Curious, she watched him. After one such instance of close scrutiny, he pulled a pencil from the pocket of his jacket, raised the notebook, and scribbled something.
He was wearing breeches and riding boots, a plain linen shirt, a neat but simply knotted cravat, with a hacking jacket over all; she had assumed he’d intended to go riding again, but no. As she watched, the light breeze ruffled his hair; the bright gold strands amid the light brown were what had caught her eye and drawn her to the window.
Standing before the sink, cloth in hand, she vacillated. She wanted to know what he was doing, what
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