Patricia Rice (16 page)

There weren’t enough ladies present to stir that
discussion, but Bea made a mental note to investigate it further. She’d
never heard of a cooperative, but as the largest purchaser in the
area—except when the earl and his retinue were present at Landingham—she
thought it a subject she should explore.

She was feeling quite authoritative and important
when Mac stood up to address the group, looking handsome, substantial,
and respectable.

“I’m sure all of you know by now that Miss Cavendish
is enclosing her lower fields and leasing them to Misters Farmingham
and Dubbins. Additional seed, equipment, and labor will be needed to put
them into full production, which will stir the economy to a small
extent. However, the prior tenants will be left adrift unless we
stimulate additional production elsewhere.”

Mac’s casual but decisive attitude as he paced the
front of the room held her attention. What in heaven’s name was he
talking about? Economy? Production? She hadn’t authorized setting any
tenants adrift. In fact, she couldn’t actually remember authorizing the
enclosures. They’d discussed it, but he’d never told her where her other
tenants would pasture their sheep if they enclosed the valley.

The men in the room were nodding agreement as Mac spoke. Did every one of them know more than she did?

Of course they did; they were
men
. Her resentment built.

“Lord Carstairs has brought it to my attention that
Miss Cavendish’s property includes a mill that will require some repair
to bring it into full production. I am not entirely familiar with the
operations here, but Miss Cavendish has suggested that the mill might be
converted to spinning wool for blanket making, thereby bringing in
additional workers, visitors, and income to the area. With a little
help—”

The quiet murmurs produced by Mac’s first words
erupted into excited questions and a loud din of conversation as
everyone talked over and around each other.

No one paid the least attention to Bea, who sat,
stunned, wondering when Mr. Lachlan Warwick MacTavish, kidnapper, had
become her spokesman.

***

“What the devil are you doing out here?” Mac
demanded from the seat of the carriage, keeping even with her as Bea
stalked down the dusty lane toward home. He’d never seen the lady so
irate. He didn’t have a clue as to why she’d gone into a tizzy, though
he could admire the way her chest heaved from the exertion.

“Why ask?” she muttered, lifting her skirt and walking faster. “I’m sure you have an opinion and don’t need mine.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he called
after her as she crossed into the grassy verge. “You got up and walked
out and never said a word. The blanket making was your damned idea.”

He’d thought to please her. After their conversation
earlier, he’d been feeling almighty confident of his place in her
thoughts. Where had he gone wrong?

“Your language, sir!” Furiously, she took a break in the hedgerow to step off the road and cross the low stone fence.

“What the hell has my language got to do with it?”
he yelled in frustration as he watched her escape into the field where
the carriage couldn’t follow.

So much for thinking he’d begun to understand at least one female on this planet.

Beatrice glared at R.J.R., esquire’s, letter to the
editor declaring the education of women and laborers a waste of time and
resources, as women were too frail of mind and body, and educating mine
workers would only give them ideas above their station.

“Balderdash,” she muttered, reaching for her quill
to dash off her opinion to Lady Fenimore. Right now, men were lower than
pig slop on her list of favorite things. “With Mr. R.J.R. as evidence,
I’d say men’s minds are too narrow to squeeze in more than the menu for
their next meal,” she complained, dipping her pen into the inkpot.

“What was that?”

She looked up from her desk and scowled at Mac
standing in the study doorway. “Go away. Go far, far away and leave me
alone. I am not speaking to you.”

“I’m gratified to know that,” he said dryly,
ignoring her warning and entering to search a shelf of books on
agriculture. “I’m not hearing you.”

“This is
my
house,” she reminded him. “
My
study. You have no right—”

“Must be ghosts,” he muttered, pulling a book from
the shelf and shaking his head. “I could swear I heard someone speaking
to me.”

As he strode out with his book, Beatrice flung her
quill at the closing door. She didn’t need one more demanding,
impossible man in her life. He had no authority here. She would not
submit to male tyranny ever again.

***

Patience, Mac told himself. Patience, caution, and
methodical planning would serve him better than shaking Miss Beatrice
Cavendish until her curls rattled.

Unable to escape to the usual male sanctuary of the
study, where an angry Bea buzzed threateningly, he threw off his coat,
grabbed a hammer and nails from the barn, and looked for something to
pound. Dav had finally claimed the hounds, so they didn’t need the pen
any longer. He could use wood from the pen to repair the stable fence.

He had no clue why Bea wasn’t speaking to him. He’d
thought to please her by introducing her idea of the wool mill. True, he
wouldn’t be here to see the project through, but he’d set the idea in
motion. Her rents would increase with the enclosed acreage, and she
might eventually see a tidy profit from the mill. Where was the problem
in that?

He’d thought the mill much more practical than
flowers, and he’d thought Beatrice a woman to appreciate it. Obviously,
he’d been wrong. He slammed a nail into the planking so hard that it
splintered.

Cursing, he ripped off the rotten plank and picked
up another. All right, so maybe he was being hasty. After all, Beatrice
was trying to help him save the children. Another woman would have
condemned him for acting so brashly. His own father would have his hide.
Mac liked it that Bea accepted that he’d done what he’d done.

He grimaced as Bea’s aunt galloped toward him in a
whirlwind of dust and trailing scarves. He had a sneaking suspicion the
busybody was behind Smythe’s questions about doves. Bea had been too
furious later to remember the conversation, but Mac had visions of
wedding bells pounding in his brain, and doves—or pigeons—seemed to fit
in with them. He shot a nail sure and true through the plank as
Constance reined to a halt, waving a piece of stationery and laughing.

“Oh, you will appreciate this, Mr. MacTavish!” She
gaily accepted his proffered hand to leap down and brandished the letter
without releasing it. “Half London believes the viscount has murdered
his children, and they’re calling for an investigation.”

“That must be wearing on his temper,” Mac growled, picking up another plank and fitting it to a post.

“They say he has disappeared from public view.” She
glanced at the letter a little more doubtfully. “Perhaps he drinks only
in private now.”

“Or perhaps he’s sobered up enough to start hunting
for me.” Mac drove a nail into the plank, wishing he could drive out his
guilt so easily.

“I’ve asked a friend to speak with an employment
agency. She said she’d send candidates for nursemaid out on the next
mail coach.” Lady Taubee’s usual good cheer had returned. “Although I’m
quite certain Bea would love to keep the children, if you’d just ask.”

He wasn’t about to explain that Bea had no intention
of keeping him or the children. He latched onto the straw she offered.
“I’d better meet the coach then. If you’ll excuse me.” He picked up the
planks and stalked away, leaving Bea’s aunt to meddle elsewhere.

On her way out the front door to post her letter in
the village, Bea almost turned around and fled when she saw Mac
approaching, waistcoat open, linen shirt soaked with perspiration,
looking determined. Buddy’s tug on her hand reminded her that she was
mistress here, and she had no need to fear a man who couldn’t keep his
neckcloth tied.

Heavy skirts swaying, she sailed down the entrance stairs, pretending to ignore him.

“Your aunt’s watching from the stable yard,” Mac warned as he halted in front of her.

Bea concentrated on the beads of sweat glistening on
his forehead instead of the grim set of his mouth. Chin held high, she
didn’t reply.

“Don’t you think she’ll wonder at a courtship where the couple doesn’t even speak?” he inquired tauntingly.

“Missy says I can have a candy,” Buddy declared without any of the circumlocution adults required.

Caught from two different directions, Bea hesitated.

“We’re courting, remember?” Mac said insistently.

“Don’t you have anyone else to order around?” She headed down the drive.

“When did I order you around?” he demanded, swinging his nephew to his shoulders and falling into step beside her.

“When did you ask my opinion?” Smiling falsely, Bea
waved at her aunt as they passed the stable, until the towering
rhododendrons lining the drive blocked her view.

“When did you have an educated opinion to offer?” He
set Buddy down and let him run ahead. Grabbing her arm, Mac forced her
to a halt. “All you’ve ever done is stick your nose in the air and
pretend I’m beneath your notice.”

Bea’s eyes widened, and she gulped air at his
intimidating stance. At the same time, he set her heart pounding, and
she wanted to stumble out an apology for hurting him.

Before she could open her mouth, Mac rolled his eyes
and smacked the heel of his hand to his forehead. “I apologize. That
was uncalled for. I’m not much good at making polite conversation.” He
fell into step with her again.

“I noticed.” Her jaw snapped shut as she glared
straight ahead, hiding behind the shield of her bonnet as she relented
enough to say, “Neither am I.”

“Fair enough. Let’s not be polite. Tell me what’s
nagging you.” Mac grabbed a stick from the hedgerow and called to his
nephew. “Here, Buddy, knock that stone like this.” He showed the child
how to hit a stone with the thick end of the stick and send it wobbling
down the lane.

Delighted with the new game, Buddy quit crawling into hedgerows.

All the starch wilted out of Bea as she watched
Buddy gambol in the dirt. “I have to live here after you’re gone. I’m
the one who has to make the decisions about enclosures and mills and the
like. How can I learn to do that if you keep doing it all for me
without discussing it first?”

Heaving a sigh of disgruntlement, Mac trudged down
the lane in Buddy’s wake. He was much too aware of the supple curve of
Bea’s waist above her swaying skirt, and the full swell of her bodice
above that. Women were meant to be gentle and compliant. They had no
business asking questions a man couldn’t answer.

“I can’t teach you everything you need to know,” he
complained. “You need a steward and a man of business and a damned
husband. All I can do is show you what needs doing until you find them.”

“I can’t pay a steward or a man of business and I
don’t want a husband,” she protested. “I don’t want to spend the rest of
my life ignorant. I want to
learn
.”

“Then hire a teacher,” he said gruffly. A vivid
image arose of wrapping his arm around her waist, her breasts a hair’s
breadth from his nose, as he taught her lessons from a book. He couldn’t
explain why men should never teach women. “I am obviously not the man
you want,” he yelled over his shoulder, chasing after Buddy.

Bea clutched her reticule and fought back childish
tears. She’d thought they’d come to some understanding, but she should
have known better.

Perhaps she really should find a husband while she still had an estate worth saving. Could one place a notice in the paper?
Giantess spinster with large, mortgaged estate in need of patient husband willing to educate her in fundamental farming.
It might attract some entertaining replies.

Perhaps she should sell the estate and travel with
her aunt. Someone far more competent than she could restore the town to a
thriving economy.

Someone more competent than she would dismiss half
the servants, enclose the fields, and throw out the tenants to take up
sheep breeding and modern agricultural practices. Mac might scorn her
father’s old-fashioned methods, but they’d held the village together for
centuries. Modern methods made money, not communities.

“Missy, Missy, look what I found!”

Smiling fondly at the boy’s eagerness as he bent
over a butterfly, Bea felt another tug at her overworked heart as her
thoughts wandered another step. A husband could give her children. Would
that make up for her lack of knowledge?

No, it would merely present her with a new set of
dilemmas. She knew nothing about raising children either. Or having
them. She had little idea of how marriage brought about babies. The very
idea raised heat in her cheeks.

As she caught up with Mac, she cast a sidelong
glance to his big body and wondered what it would be like to actually
marry. She’d never been kissed, and she had an odd longing for this man
to hold her close. He’d sail away soon enough. What could it hurt? It
would be one more lesson under her belt, so to speak.

Unexpectedly, Mac reached out to tuck a straying
curl into her bonnet. She looked at him questioningly. Surely he
couldn’t read her thoughts.

“I’m a lout and a clod.” He lifted Buddy to his
brawny shoulder as the butterfly flitted away. “I’ll try to teach you
the account books.”

“I’ll try not to ask stupid questions,” she agreed hesitantly, not understanding why he’d changed his mind.

“Any question you have won’t be stupid,” he offered. “It will just mean I’m a lousy teacher. Don’t expect too much of me.”

His warning flew right by her head, along with all her other fears. Utter delight chased them away. He would teach her!