Read Online The Conquest of Lady Cassandra by Madeline Hunter - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Madeline Hunter
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explanations obscured by too many facts. Something similar happened now, regarding those earrings.
When he finished the piece, he set the violin aside and left the study to do his duty.
The door to his father’s chambers stood ajar. He looked in and saw his father sleeping in a chair set near a window of his sitting room.
His mother sat in another chair nearby. Tall, thin, and white-haired, with sharp features and sharper eyes, she was a formidable woman. Right now her eyes were closed, but her posture remained rigid. The control symbolized her life and her nature. The daughter of a marquess, she had always been even more upright than his father, if that were possible. It had been a good match, if mutual severity could ever make one.
Her eyes opened on his entry. “Surely it can wait, Yates,” she said softly. “He has just fallen asleep.”
“I did not come to see him. I would like to speak with you, if you don’t mind.”
With a sigh she stood. “I expected you to temper his zeal regarding the estate, not encourage it.”
“It is important to him. He only rests because he knows I do it in his stead.”
She walked over and joined him at the door. “I hope that when I see the end coming, I do not waste the time left counting hairpins. That is all this is when you get down to it. Counting and organizing hairpins.”
He could not disagree. The vast majority of the estate had been handed down with precise documentation. Good lands and high rents waited for Yates, just as they had for his father. The stacks up on that desk were indeed the hairpins of Highburton’s legacy, not the jewels. For the most part.
His mother followed him toward the library. They passed through the gallery on the way. Yates stopped midway.
He pointed up at a portrait hung high, near the ceiling, the uppermost in one of the rows of paintings that covered the wall. “I was always told that I look like her.”
His mother tipped her head back and squinted. “It needs to be cleaned. She is barely visible. But your great-grandmother was a handsome woman and, yes, you do look like her.”
“That is probably why I always noticed the painting when we came down here to Elmswood Manor, despite its location and dark varnish. Because people always said that. She is wearing earrings. Blue-and-gold ones. Sapphires, I would guess.”
“Your eyes are much better than mine.”
“Don’t you recognize them? You received the earrings when you married. Just as Grandmother had when she married Grandfather.”
“Perhaps. I received boxes of jewels, most of them too old-fashioned to wear, just as those are.”
“They were in Grandfather’s inventory. Sapphire-and-diamond-and-gold earrings.”
His mother started toward the library again. “If you say so. Now, what is it you need to talk about?”
He waited until they were sitting in the library before he answered. “I want to talk about those earrings. As I said, they were in the inventory taken by Grandfather five years before his death. However, they are no longer in any of those boxes you received.”
“You have gone into my jewels?” Her tone was indignant. Expressing annoyance was unusual for her. She had never been a woman to show her emotions. Not to his father, and not to him. His parents’ union had been an arranged marriage, and his had been an arranged birth. Other than the arguments he had caused with his father, there had been little in the way of temper or love expressed within the family, which only made those rows more dramatic.
“Highburton’s jewels,” he corrected. “Father instructed the solicitor to do another inventory last winter.”
“He wants to count every single hairpin, it appears. Is poor Prebles making lists of the silver service and linens?”
“Yes.”
“Goodness, did Prebles count my stays and corsets too?”
“I expect not, since your personal property is not the concern of this endless endeavor.”
“I did not lose the earrings, if that is
When he finished the piece, he set the violin aside and left the study to do his duty.
The door to his father’s chambers stood ajar. He looked in and saw his father sleeping in a chair set near a window of his sitting room.
His mother sat in another chair nearby. Tall, thin, and white-haired, with sharp features and sharper eyes, she was a formidable woman. Right now her eyes were closed, but her posture remained rigid. The control symbolized her life and her nature. The daughter of a marquess, she had always been even more upright than his father, if that were possible. It had been a good match, if mutual severity could ever make one.
Her eyes opened on his entry. “Surely it can wait, Yates,” she said softly. “He has just fallen asleep.”
“I did not come to see him. I would like to speak with you, if you don’t mind.”
With a sigh she stood. “I expected you to temper his zeal regarding the estate, not encourage it.”
“It is important to him. He only rests because he knows I do it in his stead.”
She walked over and joined him at the door. “I hope that when I see the end coming, I do not waste the time left counting hairpins. That is all this is when you get down to it. Counting and organizing hairpins.”
He could not disagree. The vast majority of the estate had been handed down with precise documentation. Good lands and high rents waited for Yates, just as they had for his father. The stacks up on that desk were indeed the hairpins of Highburton’s legacy, not the jewels. For the most part.
His mother followed him toward the library. They passed through the gallery on the way. Yates stopped midway.
He pointed up at a portrait hung high, near the ceiling, the uppermost in one of the rows of paintings that covered the wall. “I was always told that I look like her.”
His mother tipped her head back and squinted. “It needs to be cleaned. She is barely visible. But your great-grandmother was a handsome woman and, yes, you do look like her.”
“That is probably why I always noticed the painting when we came down here to Elmswood Manor, despite its location and dark varnish. Because people always said that. She is wearing earrings. Blue-and-gold ones. Sapphires, I would guess.”
“Your eyes are much better than mine.”
“Don’t you recognize them? You received the earrings when you married. Just as Grandmother had when she married Grandfather.”
“Perhaps. I received boxes of jewels, most of them too old-fashioned to wear, just as those are.”
“They were in Grandfather’s inventory. Sapphire-and-diamond-and-gold earrings.”
His mother started toward the library again. “If you say so. Now, what is it you need to talk about?”
He waited until they were sitting in the library before he answered. “I want to talk about those earrings. As I said, they were in the inventory taken by Grandfather five years before his death. However, they are no longer in any of those boxes you received.”
“You have gone into my jewels?” Her tone was indignant. Expressing annoyance was unusual for her. She had never been a woman to show her emotions. Not to his father, and not to him. His parents’ union had been an arranged marriage, and his had been an arranged birth. Other than the arguments he had caused with his father, there had been little in the way of temper or love expressed within the family, which only made those rows more dramatic.
“Highburton’s jewels,” he corrected. “Father instructed the solicitor to do another inventory last winter.”
“He wants to count every single hairpin, it appears. Is poor Prebles making lists of the silver service and linens?”
“Yes.”
“Goodness, did Prebles count my stays and corsets too?”
“I expect not, since your personal property is not the concern of this endless endeavor.”
“I did not lose the earrings, if that is
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