Page 47 of From Unwanted to Duchess
Frances instantly felt bad for making the young girl uncomfortable. She bit her lip. “Pray, how many tenants live on the estate?”
Lizette looked at her strangely, as though she had expected James to tell her all about that. “I am uncertain. Thirty, perhaps?”
“Thirty tenants?”
It was incomprehensible. Frances could barely believe it. So many. Thirty families depended on this estate. On him. On her now too, she supposed.
“I see,” she said. “And I suppose the steward interacts with them daily?”
“Usually, but the steward retired recently. Plus, he was not well-liked among the tenants. Which is in part why His Grace has urged him to retire. Now His Grace does the management himself. At least until the new steward starts. I hear he is coming in two days,” Lizette replied. “Anyhow, His Grace knows them all by name. Always has, ever since he was allowed. His father was not quite as involved, but His Grace and his brother always cared about the tenants a great deal.”
“Did you know him? His Grace’s brother?”
“I did. Not for very long. I was still a child when he died. My mother was a maid here. She lives in Brighton now, where she remarried after my father passed. But I was a child, and we lived in the cottages there, and on occasion, His Grace and his brother—who was the heir back then—would come calling. They always brought me a piece of candied orange peel because they knew I liked it. They were both so very nice. Such a tragedy what happened.”
“It was a duel, I heard.”
“Yes, it was. The poor lad. He truly thought that the woman loved him and that he could win her respect back by engaging in a foolish duel. That woman didn’t know what she had in him. He was handsome and kind, at least from what I remember. But as I said, I was a child. And it has affected His Grace greatly. He has not been the same ever since.”
“Yes, that is what I heard,” Frances said. “They must’ve been very close, he and his brother.”
“Oh, so very close,” Lizette confirmed. “I remember seeing them everywhere together. At least when I was younger. Although I did hear they were not that close when they were younger.”
Frances wanted to ask more questions, but then the footmen arrived with one of her trunks, and Lizette set out to unpack and put everything in its place while she stepped up to the window and looked out.
How odd that this was now her home. The landscape looked very much like Bedfordshire, but it felt nothing like home.
Then again, in a way, even home had never truly felt like home. She had always felt like a stranger, even in her own father’s house.
Perhaps she could find a way to make Ellery Hall a true home. But first, she had to learn more about her new duties.
To that end, she took off her gloves and moved to the writing desk at the far side of the room. Parchment, paper, an inkpot, and a quill were already there, and while Lizette busied herself behind her, she penned a letter to Marianne.
That evening, the dinner bell rang precisely at five to eight.
Frances made her way down the stairs and realized why it had rung five minutes before the meal was supposed to start—it took just that long to make her way to the dining room. And even though she had left the moment the bell rang, she managed to arrive a few minutes late because she had taken a wrong turn along the way.
“There you are,” James said. He was already eating his soup as she was shown to her seat by the footman.
She raised an eyebrow at the seating arrangement. A dining table large enough to seat twenty occupied in the center of the room, and he was sitting at the head. And her place was set at the foot.
How were they meant to have a conversation like this? She would need a bullhorn for him to hear her. Or perhaps she should simply write him notes and have them delivered by footman.
“I took a wrong turn and found myself in a portrait room.”
“The gallery,” he said loudly, his voice echoing off the tall walls.
“Yes,” she said. “I noticed a few paintings were missing. It seems unusual, since everything else is so carefully arranged.”
He looked at her, his eyebrows drawn together as though he had to focus.
This was beyond ridiculous. Utterly absurd. Why could she not sit next to him? Even her stepmother, who was so strict on decorum and acting like a noble—even though she was so far from it—sat next to her father at dinner. Although their dining table did not seat twenty.
“Some of them were taken away to be restored. They will be brought back soon,” James explained. “I hope you enjoy pea soup. You will meet with the housekeeper tomorrow to arrange the menu for the next week or so.”
“I see,” she said.
“What was that?” he called.
