Page 13 of A Duchess of Mystery (The Mismatched Lovers #3)
A fter breakfast was over, Richard went in search of Philip Sanders.
When he’d been a boy here, the land agent had been a Mr. Hamilton, who’d been white haired and bent with arthritis back then.
Little wonder a new one was in residence nowadays.
Despite having had as little to do with old Mr. Hamilton, whom he and Dora had thought intimidating and scary, as possible, Richard had not forgotten the way to the estate office.
Having found his coat and picked off the straw he’d deliberately left in his hair and on his clothes during breakfast, with the rather childish intention of annoying Isabella, he knocked on the stout office door.
A deep voice bade him enter.
Philip Sanders was neither a young man nor an old one, but of the sort of indeterminate age that fits between those two definitions without being a part of either of them.
His fluffy brown hair, thinning a little on top and combed upwards to disguise this, was matched by impressive side-whiskers and bushy eyebrows.
It could have been said that his head hair was in the process of migrating south.
His face when he saw Richard gave away the fact that no one had as yet thought to inform him of the arrival of the new duke.
His eyes widened, his jaw dropped, and one hand went to his heart as if to still its palpitations.
It took him a few moments to find his breath and voice.
“Good heavens, sir. You gave me quite a shock. You look just like our late duke.” The bushy brows met in a puzzled frown as realization began to dawn.
“Oh my goodness. You can be no one but the new duke. How could I not have known.” He sprang to his feet, almost knocking over his chair, and executed a hasty bow.
“Please forgive me, Your Grace. We were not expecting you at all. In fact, I understood that you were presumed dead, and your possible heirs were being searched for abroad right now.”
Richard waved him back into his seat. “I am found, as you can see, and I am very much alive and without heirs of any sort. And I’m here to take up my inheritance.
I’m told you are the man to come to for advice.
So that is what I’m doing.” He smiled. “I must also ask you to forgive me, Mr. Sanders, for having given you such a shock. I know I look all too much like Marcus, and that’s enough to frighten some people.
Or to make them think they’re seeing a ghost.”
Philip Sanders settled back into his seat, his face flushed. “It’s just we had no idea you would be arriving.” He shook his head. “No idea you were even still alive. There seems to have been some confusion about your continued existence.”
“So I gather. However, let that not come between us. What I’d like from you today is some details about my cousin’s man of business.
There will be papers for me to sign as regards the inheritance, and I’d like to get all that over with as quickly as possible.
” He didn’t add that he also needed to get finding a wife and begetting an heir over with as well.
That might well shock the apparently easily shockable Mr. Sanders.
That gentleman nodded. “Of course, of course, Your Grace. I understand. And may I assure you that I am at your service for anything you may need over the coming weeks and months. But the man you need to see first is Mr. Thomas Allsop of Allsop and Crichton. Their offices are at the head of the high street in Newbury. I’m sure you will know the town, as I gather from my conversations with Lady Dora that you once lived here.
” He blushed. “She has told me a lot about you. She was—is—clearly very fond of you.” He smiled a little uncertainly.
“I’m sure she must be delighted at your return from the dead. ”
Richard nodded. “She is, although she seems somewhat changed since I last saw her. Her happiness will be one of my priorities, you can rest assured of that. And now, I must leave you and ride into Newbury. I’m sorry this meeting has been so brief, but I anticipate spending much more time in your company in the weeks to come.
” He held out his hand. “I trust we will rub along together well enough, Sanders.”
They shook, and Richard departed in the direction of the stables.
Well, that was good. If Dora was in love with Sanders, it seemed from the man’s telltale blush that her feelings might well be reciprocated.
Although how far that courtship could have progressed under Marcus’s tyrannical overlordship was another thing entirely.
Probably nowhere at all. He wondered again why Dora was not already married off with a family of her own.
Her injured leg should have been no barrier to marriage.
He’d have to find that out. She must be thirty-four by now, on the old side for marriage, but in theory still young enough to have children of her own.
Perhaps a talk to Sanders about that was in order, once he’d found his bearings.
If it would make Dora happy, it would make him happy as well.
In the stableyard, Amos provided him with what he described, a little scornfully it had to be said, as a “reliable mount.” He’d wanted Richard to take one of Marcus’s hunters, a huge bay with a wild eye, but Richard firmly informed him that quiet was what he preferred.
And so he was equipped with a sturdy gray cob with the rather unusual name of Douglas.
Marcus had always been an accomplished horseman, despite his other failings, and although horses with spirit might have suited him, Richard held no illusions about his own lack of riding capabilities.
The offices of Allsop and Crichton were located, as Philip Sanders had described, at the very top of Northbrook Street, the main thoroughfare of the small market town of Newbury.
As Richard could only once remember having been into the town as a boy, and that had been to take the coach to London when he’d gone to join his first regiment, this was very much a journey of exploration.
Philip had informed him that the building he required stood on the left, where Northbrook Street widened to meet the Great Bath Road as it entered on its way westwards towards its namesake city.
Approaching the small town from the south, along a graveled and potholed road, he found none of it looked in the least bit familiar.
When he’d left, he’d been only fifteen, desperate to escape the bullying of his older cousin, excited by the prospect of a career in the army, and careless as only a boy of fifteen can be of those he’d be leaving behind.
Consequently, he’d paid but scant attention to his surroundings.
He’d been concentrating on not missing the London coach, and Newbury and its charms had been lost on him.
As he rode down the hill into the wide river valley, the little town spread out before him, its long arms running out as they did upon the major crossroads it was set on.
To east and west lay the Great Bath Road, to the north and south ran the route from Winchester to Oxford and beyond, on which he was riding.
Beyond the town he could just make out the crumbling ruins of the keep of an ancient, medieval castle, peeking out of the trees that surrounded it, and far beyond that to the north lay the downs of the Vale of the White Horse.
In the center of the town, glimmering in the morning sunshine, lay the River Kennet, currently, according to Philip who seemed very well-informed on local goings on, in the process of being transformed into a much-needed canal link from London to Bristol.
Douglas, the horse Richard was riding, not being the underfed creature he’d arrived on the night before, was still fresh and lively.
He slowed him to a trot and then a walk to negotiate the hill down into the town, where the tall spire of a large church pointed skywards just above the river.
The town possessed an altogether welcoming air, combining bustling business and friendliness as people he passed doffed their hats to him in cheerful greeting.
He soon discovered this was because it was market day, and the square about the rather-dilapidated-looking Guildhall thronged with busy stalls and crowds of people.
He chose the coaching inn from which he remembered catching the London stage, because he knew it had stables, and, having paid an ostler of almost frighteningly early youth to take care of his horse for an hour or two, set off for the north end of the town on foot.
He soon found the offices he was seeking in a building whose lopsidedness indicated its extreme age.
Having pushed open the heavy oak door, he climbed rickety spiral stairs to the rooms above.
On pushing open another door, he discovered a middle-aged, ruddy-cheeked man seated at a huge desk piled with papers, his back to the low, leaded window that gave onto the street below.
Most of the walls of the room were lined with shelves of hefty books, and any spare surface boasted piles of more papers that did not have the comforting appearance of having been well filed and docketed.
Richard forbore from commenting on this, although he formed the immediate, private opinion that Mr. Allsop might not be quite as efficient as Mr. Sanders.
The man looked up at Richard’s entry into the room. He was small and rather rodent-like in appearance, with a long nose on the end of which balanced half-moon spectacles. And he was a lot balder than Mr. Sanders.
Like most people who met Richard and had also known Marcus, he started in surprise.
“Good heavens. You have to be the long-lost cousin. I mean, the new duke. We all thought you were dead.” He rose to his feet and made a rather chaotic bow as bits of paper cascaded to the floor around him.
“Delighted to see you are alive, and to make your acquaintance, Your Grace. Please, do sit down.”