The idea flickered seductively for a moment before he recoiled mentally. Bloody hell, was he really at such a standstill? His mind hung suspended in horror as Julian's words sounded at a great distance.
Then the inner voice spoke once more.
Strickland.
Strickland, the one place in the world that he had ever belonged. He had thought it lost forever, and then his damned honorable cousin had given it back to him. Strickland, where he had been born, and where everyone he loved had died.
It wouldn't be home anymoreâbut by God, now it was his, demons and all.
There was no conscious decision. He simply opened his eyes and broke into Julian's dissertation, saying, “I've changed my mind about going to Bedford for that race. Have to go to Dorset to look over my estate.”
“Your what?” Julian blinked in confusion.
“My estate, Strickland. I've become a man of property.” Reggie stood, not bothering to explain away the bafflement on his friend's face.
He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror above the mantel. He looked much the same as usual, with the casual, damn-your-eyes elegance that was much imitated by the younger bucks. Yet inside, he felt brittle and old.
He wandered to the window, and gazed down into Molton Street. He'd had these rooms on the edge of Mayfair for all the years he'd lived in London. The place was comfortable, entirely suitable for a bachelor. But he had never thought of it as home.
Behind him Julian asked, “When will you come back to town?”
“I have no idea. Maybe I'll stay in Dorset and become a country squire, complete with red face and a pack of hounds.”
Julian laughed, treating the statement as a joke, but Reggie half meant the words. The opinionated Dr. Johnson had said that a man who was tired of London was tired of life. Well, maybe Johnson was right; Reggie was tired of London and life both.
Perhaps there would be something at Strickland that would make life worth living. But he doubted it.
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The rolling pastures and woodlands of Dorset were hauntingly familiar, though Reggie had not seen them since he was eight years old. He remembered the bleak heath of the high downs, too. In contrast to that starkness, Strickland included some of the richest agricultural land in Britain.
After deciding to leave London, he had packed and left while Julian Markham was still asking puzzled questions from the sofa. Mac would follow later with the curricle and enough clothing for an indefinite stay. Reggie preferred to ride, and to ride alone. He slept at Winchester. By early the next afternoon, he was approaching Strickland, his once and future home.
Though he had ridden hard most of the distance, he slowed his horse to a walk on the long drive that led to the house. The road was lined with three hundred sixty-six beech trees, one for every day of the year, including the extra needed for leap year. At one point there was a gap in the row. Next to the blackened fragments of a lightning-struck stump, a brave young sapling grew.
He studied the sapling, wondering who had cared enough for tradition to plant that tree. The exemplary Mr. Weston, perhaps? More likely one of the local people. The Davenports had come and gone, but the tenants who had worked this land for generations remained.
The drive curved at the end, and the house came into view all at once, without warning. He pulled up involuntarily, his eyes hungrily scanning the facade. Strickland was a manor house, midway in size between the humble cottage and the great lordly mansions. Built of the mellow Ham Hill stone that was quarried locally, it was similar to a thousand other seats of the English squirearchy.
When he was a child, the summit of his ambition had been to become master of Strickland. He'd always known that as the eldest son he would someday inherit, and his goal had been to make himself worthy of wearing his father's mantle. He, too, would care for the land, would know every tenant's name, and have a sweet for every child he met. He, too, would be a man greeted everywhere with respect, not fear. And, like his father, he would have a wife who glowed when her husband entered the room.
Then, in a few short, horrifying days, everything had changed. When his uncle's secretary had come to take the orphan to Wargrave Park, Reggie had gone without question, dazed but obedient to adult authority. He'd yearned for the day when he could finally return to Strickland, until his uncle had told him in harsh, unfeeling words that the estate was not his, nor ever would be.
After that he had no longer thought of Strickland as his home. He tried not to think of Strickland at all. During the years when he'd believed he would become the next Earl of Wargrave, he had known that his boyhood home would be a minor part of his inheritance, but he never intended to live there again.
Now, in the end as in the beginning, there was only Strickland. His great expectations had vanished, and he was merely a man of good family and bad reputation, no longer young.
But for the first time in his life, he was a landowner, and in England land was the source of power and consequence. If he ever hoped to find a meaning for his existence, it must be found here. If only he weren't so weary... .
His mouth tightened into a hard line when he realized that his thoughts were dangerously close to self-pity. Urging his horse forward again, he tried to recall what he knew about his mother's family. Her maiden name had been Stanton, but apart from that and his personal memories of her, he could recall nothing.
Strange how children accept their surroundings without question. He had never guessed that the estate belonged to his mother. Her family must have been solid, prosperous country squires, but after the aristocratic Davenports had taken charge of him, he had buried all memory of the Stantons.
Strickland had been built in Tudor times, a sprawling two-story house with gables, mullioned bay windows, and bold octagonal chimneys. It faced south so that the sun fell across it all day long, while the back commanded a view of gardens, lake, and rolling countryside.
The fact that the house was typical didn't mean that it was not beautiful.
The really shocking realization was how little had changed. The grounds were well kept, the house in good repair. Only a faint air of emptiness said that his parents or young brother and sister would not walk through the door and down the front steps.
He shivered, his hand tightening so hard that his horse whickered and tossed its head. Forcing himself to relax, he dismounted and tethered the stallion at the bottom of the stairs. He went up lightly, two steps at a time, driven by an uneasy mixture of anticipation and apprehension.
His hand paused for a moment over the heavy knocker, a brass ring in the mouth of a lion. He had admired it greatly as a child, longing for the day when he would be tall enough to reach it. He buried the memory and rapped sharply. When there was no quick response, he experimentally turned the knob. After all, he owned the place, didn't he? He would begin as he intended to go on, and that was as master of Strickland.
The knob turned under his hand, and the massive door swung inward, admitting him to a large entry hall with carved oak wainscoting. He passed through to the main drawing room, then stopped, the hair on the back of his neck prickling. He had anticipated many things, but not that there would be virtually no changes at all.
Everything was neat, with only a slight suggestion of mustiness. The colors, the hangings, the furniture dimly visible under holland coversâall were unchanged. Faded certainly, and shabbier, but the very same pieces that had defined his world when he was a boy. Ghost memories of his parents sat at the blind-fretted mahogany card table, laughing over a game.
He turned sharply away, stalking across the room to the passage beyond. Wasn't anyone here? There had better be, or someone had better have a damned good explanation for why the front door was open.
He circled around to the right, toward the morning room. There he found a plump woman removing covers from the furniture.
She looked up in surprise as he entered, wiping her hands quickly on her apron and bobbing a curtsy. “Mr. Davenport! You gave me a start. You made good time. We only just heard the news, and there hasn't been time to set everything to rights.”
Reggie wondered how she knew he was coming, then decided it was logical for a new owner to inspect his property. “You have the advantage of me. You are ...?”
She was in her forties, a rosy-cheeked country woman who was polite but hardly obsequious. “I'm Mrs. Herald. You wouldn't remember, but I was a housemaid here when you were a lad. I was May Barlow then.” Looking him up and down, she added with approval, “You've grown tall, like your father.”
His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “One of the tenant farms was worked by a Herald.”
“Aye, I married Robbie Herald. We're at Hill Farm.”
“The house is in excellent condition.” Reggie spoke absently as his eyes scanned the morning room. The proportions were pleasant, and there were large mullioned windows on two walls. His mother had always particularly liked it here.
“Aye. It was leased to a retired naval captain for a good few years. He maintained the place well enough, but never bothered making changes. It's been vacant since about the time the old earl died. I've kept an eye on things, watching for leaks and dry rot so the estate carpenters could make repairs as it was needful.”
“You've done a good job.” Over the years, Reggie had learned the value of an appreciative word, and Mrs. Herald beamed at the compliment.
“I'm glad you think so, sir. We've done our best.” She hesitated a moment, then blurted out, “We're all ever so glad to have a Stanton here again. It's not right, the way Wargrave ignored this place for so many years. The old earl never once set foot here, just took money out and put naught back in.”
She blushed then, remembering that the old earl had been her new master's uncle and guardian, but Reggie only said mildly, “I'm a Davenport, not a Stanton.”
“Your mother was a Stanton, that's what counts in Dorset,” she said with a firm nod. “There have always been Stantons at Strickland.”
Her words reminded Reggie of the way a judge pronounced a sentence. After a moment's reflection he asked, “You'll think this a foolish question, but do I have any Stanton relations?”
“The closest would be Mr. Jeremy Stanton at Fenton Hall. He was your mother's cousin, and he and your father were good friends. He's getting along in years now, but a fine gentleman.” Mrs. Herald shook her head with regret. “Your mother, Miss Anne, was an only child. Pity that her branch of the family had dwindled down to just her. If there had been any nearer relations, they never would have let the earl take you away after ...” She stopped, then decided not to continue that sentence. She finished with, “The Stantons always took care of their own.”
Perhaps that's why they died out, Reggie thought cynically, but he kept the words unsaid in the face of Mrs. Herald's vicarious family pride. Aloud he said, “My man will be along in a day or so with my baggage, but I came by myself.”
“Shall I be putting your things in the master bedchamber?”
A vivid image of the room flashed in front of Reggie. His parents had unfashionably shared it, sleeping together in the carved oak four-poster. It seemed wrong to sleep in their bed. “No, I'll take the room above this one. The blue room it was called, I think.”
“Very well, sir. Would you like something to eat? The house is all at sixes and sevenses, but my sister-in-law Molly Barlow is down in the kitchen, cleaning and stocking the pantry. She could do a cold collation quick enough.”
“Later, perhaps. Now I'd rather see Mr. Weston. Do you know if he's in the estate office, or is he out on the property somewhere?”
Mrs. Herald paused, her normal garrulity temporarily deserting her. “It's hard to say, sir. The steward is very active. Could be most anywhere.”
“I'm told Weston is very good.”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Davenport. There isn't a better steward anywhere,” she said with an odd, guilty expression.
Reggie eyed her curiously, wondering why mentioning Weston had such an effect. Maybe the housekeeper was having an affair with the steward? Or didn't country folk have such vices? If they didn't, Dorset would prove dull indeed.
He left the morning room. As he made his way through the house, he caught sight of two girls polishing wood and scrubbing floors. They stared with open curiosity, giggling bashfully and bobbing their heads when he nodded at them. An odd feeling, being lord of the manor.
The side door led to a wide cobbled yard surrounded by buildings of the same golden-gray stone as the manor house. It was all so familiar. He glanced up, and remembered the day he'd climbed the ladder left by a man repairing the roof. He'd skittered happily around on the slates, having a wonderful time, until his mother appeared and ordered him to come down
right now.
Having no conception of what a fall to the cobbles would do to his life expectancy, he had been surprised by her alarm, but he'd come down readily enough.