Angus was glad he was sitting down. “And your parents spent that much?”
She didn’t try to defend them as she had to Trevelyan.
Angus sat and nodded his head for a while. “So now you’re afeared that if you don’t marry who they want, they will take your—” He swallowed. “Your ten million and spend it and you won’t get any and your little sister will be left poor too.”
Claire started to protest that she wasn’t really afraid of that, but she’d had much too much whisky to lie. “Yes, I’m afraid so. Both my parents love it here. My father has been out shooting something or other every day we’ve been here, and my mother has met two duchesses, four countesses, a viscount, and three marquises. They’ve all told her that after Harry and I are married she can meet the queen or Princess Alexandra.”
“And these things mean a lot to your parents, do they?”
“Yes, they do. My father has never been trained to do anything. I doubt he’s ever done a day’s work in his life. I know that sounds awful but he’s too old to start now. He wouldn’t know how to begin to be a banker or whatever. And my mother—”
Angus sat there and looked at her, waiting for her to continue.
“My mother wants to feel important, that she is somebody. I think that in her early life she was too often told she was nobody.”
“And what do you want, lass?”
“Love,” she said quickly, then smiled. “And maybe something to do. I have difficulty being idle.”
Angus looked at her as she leaned back against the chair. He knew she was about to fall asleep. “If you could change what’s wrong here, what would you do first? Shall we plow the fields? Would you open an American factory and make carriages or some such?”
Claire smiled. “No. First I’d marry Leatrice to James Kincaid.”
Angus gave a derisive snort at that. “And here I thought you were serious. You are wantin’ love and love alone.”
Claire, with her eyes closed, smiled broader. “My grandfather said that the cornerstone of all wealth and power was manpower. I think the cornerstone of the duchess’s power is her children. She rules Leatrice and she somewhat rules Harry. If I could take one of those people from her, it would weaken her foundation. Perhaps if her own daughter could escape her, then others could also. Perhaps it could start to become a house where the inhabitants had as much freedom and control over their own lives as the servants do.”
Angus stood up and looked down at her with new respect. From what he knew of what went on in the big house, what she said made sense. He saw that she was asleep, so he went to a chest along the wall and took out the MacTarvit laird’s plaid and draped it around her. Even when he took the drawings from her lap, she snuggled into the chair and kept sleeping.
He looked at the drawings, gave a grunt of a laugh, tucked the drawings back beside her, then left the cottage and started walking. It would take him a couple of hours to reach the big house.
Chapter Thirteen
When Oman told Trevelyan that the old man was coming up the stairs, Trevelyan dismissed his servant and returned to his writing. When Angus appeared in the doorway, Trevelyan had to admire the man. He wasn’t out of breath, but he’d climbed the stairs two at a time.
Trevelyan didn’t look up from his writing. “What brings you here? I have no cattle to steal.”
Angus went silently to a side table and poured himself a whisky, then sat on the window seat and looked at Trevelyan.
At last Trevelyan put his pen down and stared at the man. His weathered old face was drawn into a frown of concentration. “Out with it,” Trevelyan said.
“The girl has met the old woman.”
“Ah,” Trevelyan said and looked back at his writing. “That shouldn’t bother her. Her love for Harry—”
Angus interrupted him with a snort. “She bears no love for the boy. She thinks he’s…perfect, as she says. Yesterday he took her out to see this place.” He waved his hand to indicate all of the estate. “Young Harry pretended he knew all of the tenants. Pretended he ran the place. As far as I know he has never seen all that you own.”
“That I own?”
Angus just stared at Trevelyan.
Trevelyan threw down his pen and went to stand before the fire. “What is it you expect me to do? Tell her Harry isn’t what she thinks he is? Tell her my little brother is as lazy as the day is long and that his mother rules him?”
“She knows some about the mother.” Angus tried to stifle a smile. “The old hag told her how to feed Harry, told her what food he could eat with carrots and beans, told her how to take care of his delicate health.”
Trevelyan laughed at that. “Harry can eat a
hogshead of anything and he’s healthier than two horses.”