The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy (20 page)

“That was . . .” he finally murmured.

“That was . . .” she echoed.

He smiled. He couldn't help it. “It definitely was.”

Her face broke into an echoing grin, and the sheer joy of the moment was almost too much. “Your hand is still on my head,” he said, feeling his smile turn lopsided and teasing.

She looked up, as if she needed to actually see it to believe it. “Do you think your hat is safe?” she asked.

“We might be able to risk it.”

She took her hand away, and the motion changed her entire position, trebling the space between them. Richard felt almost bereft, which was madness. She sat less than a foot away on the wagon bench, and it felt as if he'd lost something infinitely precious.

“Perhaps you should tie your bonnet more tightly,” he suggested.

She murmured some sort of assent and did so.

He cleared his throat. “We should be on our way.”

“Of course.” She smiled, first hesitantly, then determinedly. “Of course,” she said again. “Who will we be seeing first?”

He was grateful for the question, and the necessity of forming an answer. He needed something to prod his brain back into motion. “Ehrm . . . I think the Burnhams,” he decided. “Theirs is the largest farm, and the closest.”

“Excellent.” Iris twisted in her seat, peering at the pile of gifts in the back of the wagon. “Theirs is the wooden box. Cook packed extra jam. She said young Master Burnham has a sweet tooth.”

“I don't know that he still qualifies as young,” Richard said, giving the reins a flick. “John Burnham must be twenty-two now, maybe twenty-three.”

“That's younger than you are.”

He gave her a wry smile. “True, but like me, he is the head of his family and farm. Youth departs quickly with such responsibility.”

“Was it very difficult?” she asked quietly.

“It was the most difficult thing in the world.” Richard thought back to those days right after his father's death. He'd been so lost, so overwhelmed. And in the middle of it all, while he was supposed to pretend he knew how to run Maycliffe and be a parent to his sisters, he was grieving. He'd loved his father. They may not have always seen eye to eye, but there had been a bond. His father had taught him to ride. He'd taught him to read—not the actual letters and words, but he'd taught him to love reading, to see value in books and knowledge. What he hadn't taught him—what no one had dreamed was yet necessary—was how to run Maycliffe. Bernard Kenworthy had not been an old man when he'd taken ill. There had been every reason to believe that Richard would have years, decades even, before he needed to take the reins.

But truthfully, there wouldn't have been much for his father to teach. Bernard Kenworthy had never bothered to learn it himself. He had not been a good steward of the land. It had never interested him, not deeply, and his decisions—when he bothered to make them—had been poor. It wasn't that he was greedy, it was just that he tended to do whatever was convenient, whatever required the least time and energy on his part. And Maycliffe had suffered for it.

“You were just a boy, really,” Iris said.

Richard let out a short, one-note laugh. “That's the funny part. I thought I was a man. I'd gone to Oxford, I'd—” He caught himself before he said he'd slept with women. Iris was his wife. She did not need to know about the benchmarks by which stupid young men measured their virility.

“I thought I was a man,” he said with a rueful twist of his lips. “But then . . . when I had to go home and
be
one . . .”

She placed her hand on his arm. “I'm so sorry.”

He shrugged, but with his opposite shoulder. He did not want her to remove her hand.

“You've done a remarkable job,” she said. She looked around, as if the verdant trees were evidence of his good stewardship. “By all accounts, Maycliffe is thriving.”

“By all accounts?” he said with a teasing grin. “How many accounts, pray tell, have you heard in your lengthy time in residence?”

She gave a gigglish snort and bumped her shoulder against his. “People talk,” she said archly. “And as you know, I listen.”

“That you do.”

He watched as she smiled. It was a satisfied little turn of her lips, and he loved it.

“Will you tell me more about the Burnhams?” she asked. “All the tenants, actually, but we should begin with the Burnhams, as they are our first visit.”

“I'm not sure what you wish to know, but there are six of them. Mrs. Burnham, of course, her son John, who is now head of the family, and then four other children, two boys and two girls.” He thought for a moment. “I can't remember how old they all are, but the youngest, Tommy—he can't be much more than eleven.”

“How long has it been since the father passed?”

“Two years, maybe three. It was not unexpected.”

“No?”

“He drank. A great deal.” Richard frowned. He did not wish to speak ill of the dead, but it was the truth. Mr. Burnham had been too fond of ale, and it had ruined him. He'd grown fat, then yellow, and then he died.

“Is his son the same way?”

It was not a silly question. Sons took their cues from their fathers, as Richard well knew. When he had inherited Maycliffe, he, too, had done what was convenient, and he'd packed his sisters off to live with their aunt while he continued his life in London as if he had no new responsibilities at home. It had taken him several years before he realized how empty he had become. And even now, he was paying the price for his poor judgment.

“I don't know John Burnham well,” he said to Iris, “but I don't think he drinks. At least not more than any man does.”

Iris didn't say anything, so he continued. “He will be a good man, better than his father was.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Richard thought for a moment. He'd never really taken the time to think about John Burnham, other than the fact that he was now the head of Maycliffe's largest tenant farm. He liked what he knew of him, but their paths did not often cross, nor would anyone expect them to.

“He is a serious fellow,” Richard finally replied. “He's done well for himself. Finished school, even, thanks to my father.”

“Your father?” Iris echoed, with some surprise.

“He paid the fees. He took a liking to him. Said he was very intelligent. My father always valued that.”

“It is a good thing to value.”

“Indeed.” It was, after all, one of the many reasons he valued her. But this was not the time to say so, so he added, “John probably could have gone off and read law or something of the sort if he hadn't returned to Mill Farm.”

“From a farmer to a barrister?” Iris asked. “Really?”

Richard gave a shrug. “No reason why it can't be done. Assuming one wanted to.”

Iris was silent for a moment, then asked, “Is Mr. Burnham married?”

He gave her a quizzical look before returning his attention to the road. “Why such interest?”

“I need to know these things,” she reminded him. She shifted a little in her seat. “And I was curious. I'm always curious about people. Perhaps he had to return home to support his family. Perhaps that is why he was not able to study law.”

“I don't know if he did want to study law. I merely said he was intelligent enough to do so. And no, he's not married. But he does have a family to support. He would not turn his back on his mother and siblings.”

Iris laid her hand on his arm. “He is much like you, then.”

Richard swallowed uncomfortably.

“You take such good care of your sisters,” she continued.

“You have yet even to meet them,” he reminded her.

She gave a little shrug. “I can tell that you are a devoted brother. And guardian.”

Richard briefly settled the reins in one hand, relieved that he could point ahead and change the subject. “It's just around the corner.”

“Mill Farm?”

He looked over at her. There had been something in her voice. “Are you nervous?”

“A bit, yes,” she admitted.

“Don't be. You are the mistress of Maycliffe.”

She let out a little snort. “That is precisely why I feel nervous.”

Richard started to say something, then just shook his head. Didn't she realize that the Burnhams were the ones who would be nervous to meet
her
?

“Oh!” Iris exclaimed. “It's much bigger than I expected.”

“I did say it's the largest holding at Maycliffe,” Richard murmured, bringing the wagon to a halt. The Burnhams had been farming the land there for several generations and over time had built quite a nice house, with four bedrooms, a sitting room, and an office. They'd once employed a maid, but she'd been let go when the family had fallen on hard times before the elder Mr. Burnham's death.

“I've never gone visiting with my cousins,” Iris said self-consciously.

Richard hopped down and then offered her his hand. “Why do you sound so unsure all of a sudden?”

“I suppose I'm realizing how little I know.” She motioned to the house. “I had assumed all tenant farmers lived in little cottages.”

“Most do. But some are quite prosperous. One does not need to own the land to do well.”

“But one does need to own the land to be considered a gentleman. Or at least have been born into a landowning family.”

“True,” he acceded. Even a yeoman farmer would not be considered gentry. One needed larger holdings for that.

“Sir Richard!” came a shout.

Richard grinned as he saw a young boy running toward him. “Tommy!” he called out. He tousled the boy's hair when he bounced into place in front of him. “What has your mother been feeding you? I believe you've grown a foot since our last meeting.”

Tommy Burnham beamed. “John's got me working in the fields. Mum says it's the sunshine. I must be a weed.”

Richard laughed, then introduced Iris, who earned Tommy's everlasting devotion by treating him like an adult and offering her hand for a shake.

“Is John in the house?” Richard asked, reaching into the wagon for the correct box.

“With Mum,” Tommy replied, with a jerk of his head toward the house. “We're taking a break to eat.”

“Is this the one?” Richard murmured to Iris. At her nod, he lifted the box out and motioned for her to begin walking toward the house. “You've other men working with you in the fields, though, don't you?” he asked Tommy.

“Oh, yes.” Tommy looked at him as if he were daft to even consider that they might not. “We couldn't do it ourselves. Don't even need me, really, but John says I've got to do my part.”

“Your brother is a wise man,” Richard said.

Tommy rolled his eyes. “So he says.”

Iris let out a little laugh.

“Watch out for her,” Richard said with a tick of his head toward Iris. “Like you, she's got far too many siblings, and she's learned to be quick.”

“Not quick,” Iris corrected. “Devious.”

“Even worse.”

“He is the oldest,” she told Tommy meaningfully. “What he achieved with brute force, we've had to manage with our wits.”

“She's got you there, Sir Richard,” Tommy chortled.

“She always does.”

“Really?” Iris murmured, her brows high.

Richard just smiled secretively. Let her make of that what she will.

They entered the house, Tommy calling ahead to his mother that Sir Richard was here with the new Lady Kenworthy. Mrs. Burnham bustled out immediately, wiping floury hands on her apron. “Sir Richard,” she said, bobbing a curtsy. “This is indeed an honor.”

“I have come to introduce my wife.”

Iris gave a pretty smile. “We've brought you a gift.”

“Oh, but we should be giving gifts to you,” Mrs. Burnham protested. “For your wedding.”

“Nonsense,” Iris said. “You are welcoming me into your home, onto your land.”

“It is your land now, too,” Richard reminded her, setting the box of treats on a table.

“Yes, but the Burnhams have been here a century longer than I have. I still must earn my place.”

And just like that, Iris won the everlasting loyalty of Mrs. Burnham, and by extension, all the tenants. Society was the same no matter the sphere. Mrs. Burnham was the matron of the largest of the local farms, and this made her the leader of Maycliffe society. Iris's words would have reached the ears of every soul at Maycliffe by nightfall.

“You see why I married her,” Richard said to Mrs. Burnham. The words flowed naturally from his smiling lips, but once said, a little prick of guilt sparked in his gut. It
wasn't
why he'd married her.

He wished it was why he'd married her.

“John,” Mrs. Burnham said, “you must meet the new Lady Kenworthy.”

Richard hadn't realized that John Burnham had entered the small foyer. He was a quiet man, always had been, and he was standing near the door to the kitchen, waiting for the others to notice him.

“My lady,” John said with a little bow. “It is an honor to meet you.”

“And you,” Iris replied.

“How fares the farm?” Richard asked.

“Very well,” John replied, and the two of them spoke for a few minutes about fields and crops and irrigation while Iris made polite conversation with Mrs. Burnham.

“We must be on our way,” Richard finally said. “We've many more stops to make before heading back to Maycliffe.”

“It must be quiet with your sisters gone,” Mrs. Burnham said.

John turned sharply. “Your sisters are gone?”

“Just to visit our aunt. She thought we could do with some time alone.” He gave John a man-to-man sort of smile. “Sisters don't add much to a honeymoon.”

“No,” John said, “I imagine not.”