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Authors: Patricia Rice
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instead of a deceitful fribble on her lawn?
“I tried to apologize with the kitten,” he said defensively.
“Children need to know that their fathers can be relied on far more than they need kittens or gifts. One cannot buy love, respect, or security. I trust you managed to buy my thread?”
“I did at that. I left it in the kitchen with the kitten.”
“And how long will you have the able-bodied men of Chalkwick Abbey working on my strawberry field?”
He pinned her with a wary glare, finally grasping that she was on to his ploy to avoid physical labor, even if she didn’t know how he’d accomplished it.
“An hour each,” he said cautiously. “I did not want to be greedy, just useful.”
“You are a very odd man, Mr. Wyckerly. Tell them to come up to the house for breakfast before they leave.”
Uncomfortably aware that he was watching her, Abigail attempted to walk away at a sedate, ladylike pace, but she wouldn’t have been female if she hadn’t added just the slightest extra sway to her hips. Just to keep him looking.
7
After the laborers had completed their task in the fields, Fitz took Penelope for a walk and watched her race around the pond, quacking like the ducks she was chasing. Rather than ponder the intricacies of fatherhood, he wondered how much an acre of land could earn if planted in strawberries. If he estimated his father’s estates at two hundred acres of arable land—he pulled a number out of the hat since he had no idea—earning ten pounds each a year, he could pay off a few hundred thousand in debt at one percent interest a year in . . .
He did the math easily. He’d be old, dead, and moldering in his grave, and his heirs would still be paying their way out of the hole. He really ought to take Bibley’s suggestion, fake his death, claim his stallion, hie off to the Americas, and let his wealthy cousin inherit the mess.
He would need to claim and sell his prize stud if he was to go anywhere. If he told the delectable Miss Merriweather that he was an earl, raising his insect self higher in her all-too-knowing eyes, perhaps he could even borrow fare to Cheltenham, where the stallion was housed. If she didn’t know her own relation was dead, she probably hadn’t heard the sordid tales about the notorious Danecroft earls. She might even think him noble.
He rather fancied the notion of the lovely pocket Venus gazing at him with the respect due an earl—instead of pelting him with apples and disgust. Perhaps she would even be amenable to a stolen kiss or two. Unfortunately, no matter how delicious stolen kisses sounded, they would be an extremely bad idea, since he hadn’t had a woman in longer than he cared to remember. Unslaked lust was probably the reason he was drawn to a bossy little hen who would prefer to cackle and peck his insect carapace. Cancel any notion of kisses.
His daughter ran perilously close to the pond’s edge, and he panicked at realizing that she probably couldn’t swim. Neither could he. Loping in her direction and wondering how he would pull her out if she went under, he shouted, “Penny, get away from the pond!”
Of course, she instantly waded in, muddying her shoes and splashing on the edge, giving him shudders of sheer terror. Would he ever get the hang of this fathering business?
Probably not, he concluded, striding down to the water after her. There wasn’t any profit in being a father. And if he was to keep Penny from starvation, he had to use his mathematical skills to generate profit during his every waking minute. Instead, he was wasting time wondering why his hostess thought he was a useless scoundrel and a jackass—he hadn’t missed the male donkey reference—when every other woman he knew swooned at his feet.
Well, maybe not swooned, and maybe not every woman, but enough to convince him that the ladies thought him pretty and worth keeping around. But not Miss Merry. She thought he ought to have substance.
Squelching through the
“I tried to apologize with the kitten,” he said defensively.
“Children need to know that their fathers can be relied on far more than they need kittens or gifts. One cannot buy love, respect, or security. I trust you managed to buy my thread?”
“I did at that. I left it in the kitchen with the kitten.”
“And how long will you have the able-bodied men of Chalkwick Abbey working on my strawberry field?”
He pinned her with a wary glare, finally grasping that she was on to his ploy to avoid physical labor, even if she didn’t know how he’d accomplished it.
“An hour each,” he said cautiously. “I did not want to be greedy, just useful.”
“You are a very odd man, Mr. Wyckerly. Tell them to come up to the house for breakfast before they leave.”
Uncomfortably aware that he was watching her, Abigail attempted to walk away at a sedate, ladylike pace, but she wouldn’t have been female if she hadn’t added just the slightest extra sway to her hips. Just to keep him looking.
7
After the laborers had completed their task in the fields, Fitz took Penelope for a walk and watched her race around the pond, quacking like the ducks she was chasing. Rather than ponder the intricacies of fatherhood, he wondered how much an acre of land could earn if planted in strawberries. If he estimated his father’s estates at two hundred acres of arable land—he pulled a number out of the hat since he had no idea—earning ten pounds each a year, he could pay off a few hundred thousand in debt at one percent interest a year in . . .
He did the math easily. He’d be old, dead, and moldering in his grave, and his heirs would still be paying their way out of the hole. He really ought to take Bibley’s suggestion, fake his death, claim his stallion, hie off to the Americas, and let his wealthy cousin inherit the mess.
He would need to claim and sell his prize stud if he was to go anywhere. If he told the delectable Miss Merriweather that he was an earl, raising his insect self higher in her all-too-knowing eyes, perhaps he could even borrow fare to Cheltenham, where the stallion was housed. If she didn’t know her own relation was dead, she probably hadn’t heard the sordid tales about the notorious Danecroft earls. She might even think him noble.
He rather fancied the notion of the lovely pocket Venus gazing at him with the respect due an earl—instead of pelting him with apples and disgust. Perhaps she would even be amenable to a stolen kiss or two. Unfortunately, no matter how delicious stolen kisses sounded, they would be an extremely bad idea, since he hadn’t had a woman in longer than he cared to remember. Unslaked lust was probably the reason he was drawn to a bossy little hen who would prefer to cackle and peck his insect carapace. Cancel any notion of kisses.
His daughter ran perilously close to the pond’s edge, and he panicked at realizing that she probably couldn’t swim. Neither could he. Loping in her direction and wondering how he would pull her out if she went under, he shouted, “Penny, get away from the pond!”
Of course, she instantly waded in, muddying her shoes and splashing on the edge, giving him shudders of sheer terror. Would he ever get the hang of this fathering business?
Probably not, he concluded, striding down to the water after her. There wasn’t any profit in being a father. And if he was to keep Penny from starvation, he had to use his mathematical skills to generate profit during his every waking minute. Instead, he was wasting time wondering why his hostess thought he was a useless scoundrel and a jackass—he hadn’t missed the male donkey reference—when every other woman he knew swooned at his feet.
Well, maybe not swooned, and maybe not every woman, but enough to convince him that the ladies thought him pretty and worth keeping around. But not Miss Merry. She thought he ought to have substance.
Squelching through the
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