Falling for a Duke (Timeless Regency Collection Book 8) Page 5

Meetings, as David understood things, were a necessary evil of any man or woman in a position of authority. It was how business was settled and important decisions were made. Progress was gained in such gatherings.

  Dinners in the place of meetings were the lot of those in authority with privilege and a taste for finer things. Connections were made, topics could be approached without tensions, and there was food to settle those who wished to be elsewhere. Still, progress was made.

  This debacle was neither of those things.

  His second day of riding about the region with Ceana had been cut short due to more landowners in the area becoming aware of his presence and inviting him to join them for a midday meal. Desperate for any information to aid him in his efforts, David had accepted and looked forward to discussing his concerns with them.

  His anticipation had been short-lived, to say the least. These were not the same sort of comfortable countrymen that had hosted him at Ravensmere. These were the type of men David knew well and had known all his life, the sort who swirled about London indefinitely and added nothing of value to Society.

  Lord Effingham, his host this evening, was a man in his sixties who considered himself a much younger man and apparently saw his time in Scotland as an extended hunting trip with other men of his mindset. He was paunchy, graying, bleary-eyed, and smelled of pipe smoke, though he swore it was a vile habit for any man to take up.

  Mr. Washburn, seated to his left, was bored with his lot in life and eternally complained about said lot in life. He thought of little else but cards, horses, and women, probably in that order, though it was quite evident he had no skills or taste in any of those areas. He, at least, was a man of forty or so, though he seemed to pout a great deal. His brogue was faint, almost nonexistent, and he seemed quite vexed whenever it appeared.

  Mr. Larson, beside David, was intoxicated. Whether that was a permanent state or a present misfortune remained to be seen, but as the others were not surprised by it, he suspected the man took a journey into his cups with some regularity. He was loud, nearly incoherent, and took no care with his manners at the table. David could only hope that was an effect of the drink and not his way of life.

  The only hope for the group, in David’s mind, was Lord Cowper, a stern-faced earl with the personality of a crow and the expression of one. He drank nothing, ate little, and seemed to be slowly strangling at the exuberant and elaborate hands of his cravat. He had a brogue too, though his was clipped and harsh, which seemed to fit his manner perfectly.

  They’d already been at the table an hour, and David was dreading how long this would go on. It was destined to be the worst evening he had ever spent in company, and that was saying quite a lot.

  Of course, the day had started off well enough with Ceana showing him around the lands again, this time taking him all the way to Aviemore and showing him around the village. Thankfully, they had avoided any human interaction there, as he would have been introduced as the Duke of Ashcombe, and that could get a bit awkward later on if his father ever decided to come up.

  But Ceana had been softer today—not soft, exactly, but certainly less resistant to his prodding and teasing. She had smiled, Lord bless her, and the sight of it turned David’s stomach over time and again. She rode better than any man or woman he had ever ridden against, and her lilting brogue was music to his ears.

  She was everything good and lovely in Scotland and in possession of all its wonderful wildness. She was as fair as her name and twice as lively.

  Being with her was the brightest part of this excursion, but that had been the case even when she had snarled more than anything else. She’d fascinated him then, and now . . .

  Well, he had no idea what she was now, but he knew himself well enough to know that he liked it very much.

  “Lord David,” Lord Effingham said with an arrogant clearing of his throat, talking around a mouthful of beef. “How have you found your time in the Highlands thus far? Pleasant, I trust?”

  David nodded, oddly not at all pleased to be properly identified by his true name. “Rather pleasant, my lord. I’ve found the countryside to be stirring and the company to be friendly. I’ve never spent significant time in Scotland before, but I could be persuaded to do so quite easily in the future.”

  “Excellent!” Effingham boomed as if David could only owe such a statement to his hospitality. “We will have to have you out shooting with us. The lands are overrun with fowls, and it is our duty to thin them out.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Effingham.” Washburn chortled. “The boy was being sarcastic. There’s nothing here for him to find pleasant or remotely enjoyable. There’s nothing here.”

  “Exceptin’ fer our sheep!” Larson announced blearily, raising his glass.

  David looked at him sharply, then back to Washburn. “Allow me to find enjoyment and pleasure where I say I do, Mr. Washburn, and to be sincere when I say so. I am enjoying my time in the Highlands, but I’d enjoy it more if the problems on my estate presented a solution.”

  Lord Cowper grunted, shaking his head. “No hope there, if your lands have farm tenants on them. Larson wasn’t wrong; sheep is all we have here, and it was trouble enough to make that happen.”

  “Trouble?” David repeated with a glance at the older man. “How so?”

  Cowper raised a thin brow. “Clearing the lands. You’d be amazed how difficult it was to get these Highlanders to vacate when the time came.”

  “I had no trouble,” Effingham informed them staunchly. “Give them the right incentive, and they leave without trouble.”

  “You both cleared your lands completely?” David asked them, drumming his fingers on his thigh beneath the table.

  “We all did, my boy.” Washburn speared a potato and shoved it into his already full mouth. “No profit in the farms. Sheep is the future.”

  The future? That might have been true, but surely there was no need to clear all of the lands entirely. If his meeting with Mr. Gordon last night had been any indication, these men each had properties as large as Dovenbard and had some of the more prosperous farms in the area—or used to, apparently.

  “Surely your estate agent told you the same thing,” Effingham said, sitting back against his chair and sipping his wine. “The farms are all failing; the population can’t sustain that sort of output. The only way to make a profit is to clear the farms and tenants, reducing the population, and fill the space with sheep. Cattle, if you like, but the future is in sheep.”

  David gave his host a placating smile. “He may have mentioned something of the sort.” He turned to Cowper with a frown. “Lord Cowper, I thought your farms were quite successful.”

  Cowper raised a brow. “They were. But there were too many tenants to maintain, and the estimations with sheep far outweighed anything else. It was the easiest decision I have ever made in my life.”

  “But what about the tenants?” David inquired. “They would need new situations, funds to get them there . . .”

  Washburn laughed loudly once. “Oh, it’s not nearly so complicated, my boy. You tell them to leave, and they leave.”

  David frowned at that, his food forgotten. “How do you mean?”

  “Exactly that,” Washburn grunted. “Eviction. I had my man evict them all, and the ones who gave him trouble were forced. They had lands waiting for them near Aberdeen, perfect little plots by the sea. They couldn’t see the fair prospect in store for them.”

  “Blind fools,” Larson muttered with a belch.

  “Yes,” David drawled derisively, “because they all had experience living by the sea and fishing and having perfect little plots. What a marvelous experience you’ve given them.”

  Cowper looked at him sharply. “Your father cleared tenants too, Chambers.”

  “Not really,” David admitted without hesitation. “He left the details to our agent, who offered the tenants the option of leaving with an appropriately adequate severance pay.”

  “Preposterous!” Effingham blu
stered. “That agent deserves to be dismissed straightaway. What a ridiculous notion. Tell your father I will lend him mine to see the thing done properly. He turned them all out and razed the houses to ensure they would not return.”

  David stared at him. “He razed them?” he repeated. “In the days following the evictions?”

  Effingham seemed surprised by that. “Not at all, that night. Set fire to them. The tenants would never have left otherwise.”

  “Your agent set fire to the homes as the tenants were leaving, and you approved of his methods?”

  “It got the job done, didn’t it?” Effingham snorted and sipped his wine again. “Never looked back. My shepherd was more than pleased to start so quickly.”

  “None of my tenants had trouble leaving,” Washburn said. “They simply left.”

  “Not what I heard,” Larson grunted, reaching for more wine. “You simply never ask questions of your estate agent and let him run roughshod.”

  Washburn chuckled, as did the others, David excluded. “Well, he came with such recommendations. He used to work with the agent from Sutherland lands, and you know how effective he was.”

  The laughter now was darker, and David hated it. He was not particularly familiar with the Duke of Sutherland, nor the matters of his estate in Scotland, but he would certainly look into it.

  “It makes no difference,” Cowper muttered, his brogue somehow more pronounced than ever. “The lands are cleared, and we are in the thick of progress with our lands. What was it Shakespeare said? ‘All’s well that ends well,’ was it?”

  “Jolly good, Cowper,” Larson said with another loud belch.

  “Well said,” Effingham echoed, while Washburn only nodded his agreement.

  David looked around at them all, wondering if any of them could truly be considered gentlemen. By birth, they certainly were, and no doubt had impeccable pedigrees they were quite proud of. By behavior, they were no better than the corrupt estate agent Washburn had hired.

  They cared nothing for their former tenants—that much was clear. Mr. Gordon had told him that many landowners had cleared their lands of tenants, but never had he expected that this would have been their method. When he met with the young agent again, he would be asking many more questions and insisting on clarification as to what the disbanded tenants of Dovenbard had endured, then and now.

  “It’s the way of things, Chambers, my boy,” Washburn chortled as he tore into a roll. “Nothing to fuss about—unless your London ways have made you too soft for such things.” He laughed as if that were a very good joke, though David found little to laugh about in it.

  And he’d heard enough.

  David pushed back from the table and got to his feet, leaning his hands alongside his plate. “I pray you will excuse me, Lord Effingham, gentlemen, but I find I’ve had enough food and company for one day. I must see to my estate and its affairs, having taken in all that I need to from the present company and taken a fair measure of the sort of men situated therein.”

  Effingham frowned. “Now, see here, Chambers.”

  “Lord David to you, sir,” David snapped, glaring at him. “Son of the Duke of Ashcombe, and if anyone in this room calls me a boy one more time, I will remind that man just what my family name weighs in the world, Highlands or not. And I will further settle a personal score upon him, as I am not so much my father’s son as to be above thrashing anyone.”

  He gave Mr. Washburn a hard look, then shoved off of the table and moved quickly for the front of the house. “I will see myself out, my lord. No need to trouble yourself.”

  David did not wait for a response from the others, and the sound of his fury roaring in his ears would easily drown out anything that might have been said.

  Ceana had been right. It was not an English or Scottish matter. It wasn’t even a matter of class or rank. Mr. Washburn and Mr. Larson had no titles whatsoever, and he was quite positive that even Mr. Bruce was better situated in lands and fortune.

  It was purely a matter of taste and judgment.

  And humanity.

  The men within had none.

  Ceana’s father, for all his eccentricities, cared about his tenants and his family, his lands and his estate. Mr. Bruce was a sound mind and hard worker. Even Hamish Shaw was the sort to do right by those who depended on him.

  They would become his associates and resources for whatever concerns he faced, and he would work side by side with Mr. Gordon while they addressed these problems. He would learn the concerns of every tenant, including the sheep farmers, and find ways to help them prosper. He would find a solution to make the lands flourish, while not neglecting those within his care.

  He would find a way to do it all, not to make his father more profitable or to gain his ever-elusive approval, but because there was some pride in his family name, and he was determined to live up to it. He hadn’t known that he cared so much about it, but standing before those men just now, he had fully traded on his father’s title and his family name, and he had done so without shame or regret.

  He was a member of one of the most influential families in London and bore an impressive lineage. It made no difference at this moment that he was the spare son and not the heir. For the present, he was on errand from his father, the Duke of Ashcombe, and it was an Ashcombe estate he had been tasked with improving.

  This was bigger than David himself, bigger than any of them, but he would be the instrument through which the situation would be resolved.

  His horse was fetched, and he rode away from Effingham’s estate as fast as the horse could take him. The more distance he put between him and them, the better he would feel.

  It was ten miles to Dovenbard, but he wouldn’t be going there. He would take himself directly to Ravensmere and Sir Andrew Shaw. Hopefully he would finally be able to engage the man in some useful conversation about their adjoining estates. This day could not be a complete waste of his energy. Some good had to come of it.

  On and on he rode, his thoughts awhirl. There was so much information to process, and while he had a quick mind, he was not familiar with the intricacies of estate management.

  It was one of the failings of being a second son. He was supposed to fill in for his brother if anything should happen, but he’d had none of the training. Other second sons had taken up an occupation, but that had been frowned upon by the most illustrious duke. His son would not have a profession; he would be a gentleman and nothing less.

  But what was a gentleman without an estate or purpose? He wasn’t a wastrel, despite his father’s opinion, and he wasn’t a scoundrel, despite the gossips’ best attempts. He hadn’t ever been much of anything,

  Now, however, he would be. He would take up the cause of Dovenbard and throw himself into it. Then he would proceed to Yorkshire and throw himself into the work there. And Norfolk. And even Derbyshire.

  Anywhere the duke had an interest, David would go and prove himself his father’s most capable servant, if nothing else.

  One day, perhaps, he would take an estate for himself, when he’d found a woman to share it with. A place to call home and raise a family, and then that place would become his focus and purpose.

  Once he had proven himself—and prove himself he would.

  The land around him suddenly grew familiar, and he smiled, though his anger still roared through him; the miles of Highland wilderness had not done anything to cool that. If anything, it had only given it focus.

  A familiar, fair-haired figure suddenly came into his vision, and he turned toward her, slowing his horse. Ceana looked up at the sound, and he saw her grin before the smile tucked back into something more impish.

  He would have ridden all the way back to Effingham and returned for that grin.

  “Well,” Ceana called when he was close enough, “at least you’ve learned how to properly be aware in the Highlands, Your Grace.”

  “David,” he told her for what had to be the hundredth time. “I’ve had quite enough of inflated tit
les for one day.”

  She winced. “That bad?”

  “Worse.” He lowered the reins. “I never thought men could be so useless, and I always considered myself a bit of a useless man.” He looked down at her. “Why didn’t you tell me about the clearances?”

  She cocked her head. “I didn’t want to be the one to burden you with that. I didn’t know how much you knew or where your opinion would lie.”

  “You thought I would do that to my tenants?” he asked, feeling the sting of accusation in his chest. “That I could turn them out and burn their homes to the ground?”

  Ceana shook her head at once, smiling. “Not for a moment. But not all clearances are handled that way. I did not want to prejudice you. It would do you no good to look at the burned-out remnants of cottages across the Highlands.”

  David looked out over the hills as if he could see them. “I wish you had. I wish anyone had. My imagining of the scenario leaves me horrified and ill, to say nothing of my moral outrage. But I am nothing like them. I intend to take my estate agent as my tutor and have him instruct me in all areas of Dovenbard’s care. I want to know every tenant farm by sight, sound, and smell; I want to know the details of every transaction we make in their behalf. I want to tend the sheep for hours on end with our staff until I know how to manage it. I want to forget all about hierarchy and station, everything about fortune, education, and rank, anything that could separate me from them.”

  “You want to be an estate agent?” Ceana asked him, her voice soft but confused.

  David jerked his head in a swift shake. “No. Well, yes, but not in the same sense.” He sighed. “I want to understand everything my estate agent says before he even says it. I want to be active in the care of the estate and work with the agent instead of leaving everything to him.”

  Ceana stared at him for a long moment, then released a heavy breath. “I’ll say it again, Your Grace. You’re not what I imagined a duke to be.”

  David did his best to hide a wince and turned it into an ironic smile. “I’m not what most people imagine a duke to be, Ceana Shaw.”