Page 103 of The Affairs of Ashmore Castle

She looked up. ‘Would you be there, sir?’

‘That’s my intention,’ he said. ‘Crooks would come with me, of course, and I have staff there – a housekeeper, Mrs May, a maid, and an outside man – so you would have company. I thought of going next month, when the summer crowds are gone. The river is lovely in September. Fine walks for you in your time off.’

She thought of the word going round downstairs – that when a gentleman suddenly took an interest in his neglected house, it generally meant there was a bride in the offing. She had ignored the talk because she felt sure he would have mentioned it to her. But if he was making the house ready to receive a woman, she was happy for him.

‘Would you be willing to come?’ he asked again.

‘Of course, sir. I go where I’m sent.’

He gave a little shake of the head. ‘There’s no coercion in the case. I thought you might enjoy the change – and the work does need doing. Needlework is not Mrs May’s forté.’

‘I’ll come, sir, and gladly,’ Dory said. She felt a little sad, because if he married he would go away, and she would miss these times, with her sewing, him playing, and both of them chatting. But mostly she felt happy for him.

The library was full of cigarette smoke by the end of the regular meeting with Markham, when Adeane was ushered in.

‘You sent for me, my lord?’

‘I’ll be off,’ Markham said, beginning to gather up his papers.

‘No, stay,’ Giles said. ‘I want to put an idea to both of you.’

Richard pushed his chair back and stretched out his legs. ‘Deal gently with him,’ he advised the two men. ‘It’s an affair of the heart.’

Giles frowned at him. ‘Must you always be so frivolous?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid I must. Much as I sympathise with your tender feelings, I reserve my romantic inclinations for human females.’

Adeane was looking bewildered, and Markham gave a slight smile at Richard’s whimsy. Giles explained about Lord Shacklock’s bull at the Canons Ashmore Fair, and his thought about improving the stock of all his tenants.

Adeane immediately shook his head. ‘Couldn’t be done, my lord, not with one bull. He’d drop dead of exhaustion, having to go round all the farms and service everyone’s cows.’

‘In any case,’ Markham said, ‘the improvement would be desperately slow, just with one bull, given the poor stock you’d be starting with. It would be a decade at least before you’d see any results.’

‘But wouldn’t any improvement be a good thing?’ Giles asked.

‘Yes, but not at any price. It would be a terrible waste of a prize bull’s – er – potential. If you really wanted to do something like that, you would need to start with half a dozen prize heifers as well, and start your own herd from scratch. Take one of the farms back in hand, say, and do the thing properly.’

‘How would one take a farm back in hand?’

‘Nothing easier,’ Adeane growled. ‘Just put the rent up, and chuck ’em out when they can’t pay.’

Giles winced. ‘That sounds a bit brutal.’

‘Most of ’em are in arrears as it is,’ Adeane said. ‘Anyroad,’ he went on disapprovingly, ‘this estate’s always been arable. Can’t change it over to stock just like that.’

‘Arable’s finished,’ Richard said. ‘You know that. The price of wheat . . .’

Giles gave him an amused look. To think of his frivolous brother knowing the price of wheat!

‘But beef prices are no better,’ Markham said. ‘With all that dead meat imported from America and Canada and Argentina, you’d never get a return on the investment.’

‘What if it wasn’t beef?’ Giles said slowly. ‘What about dairy cattle?’

Richard grinned. ‘I told you it was love. That was a dairy shorthorn he saw at the show. You can’t argue with the human heart.’

‘I don’t see any market for milk,’ Markham said.

‘So where do local people get their milk from?’ Giles asked.