Sons and Daughters by Margaret Dickinson Read Free Book Online Page B

property?’
    Philip shrugged nonchalantly, not quite sure what their host was driving at. ‘I suppose so. But the estate my father’s just bought is hardly vast. Certainly not large enough to divide amongst three sons.’
    ‘Precisely so,’ Osbert murmured, his gaze still on Philip. His glance went next to the middle son, sitting so quietly. He’d hardly spoken the whole evening and then only when directly addressed. He did not attract Osbert’s admiration like his elder brother did.
    Benjamin Thornton was the quiet one of the three. At twelve, he was still a little shy and would have been far happier visiting the stables at Buckthorn Farm and seeing all the animals than sitting in this stranger’s shadowy front room with its heavy, dark furniture.
    ‘And you, my boy?’
    Benjamin started as he realized their host was addressing him directly. ‘What do you hope to do when you leave school?’
    The boy ran his tongue nervously around his lips and glanced at his father. Miles Thornton smiled and came to his son’s rescue. ‘Ben is the one who is most likely to take over the running of the estate. His ambition is to go to a good agricultural college when he leaves school. It’s one of the reasons we’ve come to Lincolnshire. The move doesn’t affect Philip, of course. He’ll still attend the same boarding school and as for Georgie – ’ His smile was indulgent. ‘Well, he’s a little young to worry about what he’ll do when he’s grown.’
    ‘I shall be a soldier,’ the little boy piped up. ‘Like you, Papa.’
    Osbert raised his eyebrows as his gaze now shifted to the man sitting at the opposite end of the table.
    ‘Is that what you were, Mr Thornton?’
    Before his father could reply, Georgie spoke up again. ‘He was a colonel in the war, weren’t you, Papa?’
    For a moment, Miles’s eyes clouded as he remembered the terrible days of the Great War. He did nothing – at present – to discourage the little boy’s dreams, but he fervently hoped that no son of his would ever have to fight in another war.
    ‘Yes,’ he replied heavily, ‘I was. But it’s not a time I care to remember.’
    ‘Quite so,’ Osbert replied stiffly. ‘But now you are the country gentleman? Have you any experience of running a large estate?’
    Miles smiled and his eyes crinkled merrily. Like his sons, he hadn’t quite worked out why the invitation to dine at Buckthorn Farm had been so swiftly forthcoming. He’d suspected – though with her absence from the dinner table perhaps he’d been wrong – that the man had designs on him as suitable marriage material for his spinster daughter. Unless, of course, that was the case and the girl herself had made her excuses out of embarrassment. If so, Charlotte Crawford went up in his estimation.
    Having been devoted to his beautiful and vivacious wife, Miles had no desire to even think of remarrying. Already he’d fended off several designing females and had no wish to be the object of Osbert Crawford’s plans for his daughter.
    Answering the older man’s question, Miles shook his head. ‘I come from a family of soldiers and that’s what was expected of both my brother and me.’ For a moment, his face was suddenly bleak. ‘My brother was killed at Ypres in 1915.’
    There was a moment’s pause before Osbert asked, ‘But you’ve finished with the army now?’
    Now there was a bitter tone to Miles’s voice. ‘Most definitely.’
    ‘So,’ Osbert leaned back and steepled his fingers together as Edward began to serve the pudding, ‘how do you expect to run the Ravensfleet Estate with little – er – training or knowledge?’
    ‘Well, as you will know, most of my land is divided up into four farms, three of which are run by tenants, with only Home Farm attached to the manor and left to my tender mercies.’
    ‘Pah! You can’t trust tenants to farm properly. You should oversee everything they do. Keep your eye on them – all the time. My own foreman – Joe