Regina Scott by An Honorable Gentleman Read Free Book Online

him a little time, he’ll do better.”
    She seemed to take it personally that anything might not be to his liking. “You mistake me,” he assured her. “I find no fault in your father. He came straight to the point, a trait I admire.”
    “Then what?” she begged.
    He could not stop looking at that mountain. It dwarfed the house; it blighted his hopes. “I simply could not like the truth.”
    She angled her head to look up into his eyes. “The truth? That the village is overjoyed you’rehere? That you have a venerable home you can be proud of? That you will make an excellent master for Blackcliff? How can you not like those truths?”
    “They were not truths I expected,” he replied. In the face of her optimism he was beginning to feel like a spoiled child. Yet she could not know how important wealth and consequence were in his world. “There is nothing for me here.”
    Her eyes widened as if in shock, and she drew herself up, once more all righteousness. “Nothing? What nonsense! You, sir, are coming with me.” She strode for the door, and he turned to watch her, surprised by the sudden change.
    “I’ll ask Mrs. Bentley to fetch your coat,” she threw back over her shoulder. “We’re going for a walk, and then, sir, we will see about this nothing!”
    She was out the door before he could argue. But then, he doubted she’d have listened if he’d tried.
     
    Nothing? How could he call Blackcliff nothing? Blackcliff was her home; Blackcliff was her world. More, it was the world of every man, woman and child in the village, and it had been for generations. He should be happy to be welcomed, stranger that he was. He should be overjoyed to learn what he’d been given here.
    “But wasn’t he pleased?” Mrs. Bentley asked, following Gwen back to the library with Sir Trevor’s coat bundled in her arms. Gwen had found her in the butler’s pantry, a small room just off the diningroom that held the china and silver service and served as a place to keep the food warm after it had been carried from the kitchen in the outbuilding. “Does he approve of what we’ve done with the house?”
    “He will,” Gwen promised, pulling on her own green coat and cinching the ribbon under her breast. “Just give me a day.”
    “I’ll be happy to give you all the time you need, dearie,” the little housekeeper replied with a sad smile. “I really have nowhere else to go.”
    Neither did Gwen and her father. She’d lived her entire life in that gatehouse. Her mother had married, given birth and died there. Her father was only now beginning to find himself again after her death. Blackcliff Hall, Blackcliff village, St. Martin’s Church—they were all Gwen had ever known. Leaving was unthinkable. The very idea robbed her of speech, set her stomach to cramping.
    Oh, but Sir Trevor had to be made to see reason! This house was their last chance to keep the village together in the coming years. A great house had hunting parties in the autumn, Christmas parties in the winter and house parties in the spring and summer. Visitors toured the area, ordered food from the George, bought laces and writing paper and gloves from the village shops, left money to thank the servants.
    A great house had gardens that needed tending, horses to care for, carriages to manage. It neededmaids and footmen and cooks, perhaps even a governess and nursemaid if the master’s family was increasing. Blackcliff would keep them all together.
    But only if Sir Trevor was happy enough with the place to make it his home.
    Why had her father emphasized the negative? A shame she couldn’t have stayed while he had made his report. She could have corrected mistakes, shown Blackcliff in a better light. She knew how to manage the estate; she’d followed her father about his duties since she was a child, taking on more of a role each year as her father and Colonel Umbrey aged.
    But even if she had stayed with her father this morning, she knew she had to be