Page 45 of Hello Goodbye Amore

“That and the plumbing are going too, sir. I don’t like to turn on the lights because….” He shrugged. “And the water is off to the entire manor in case of leaks.”

“So what you’re telling me is that this huge pile of a place needs electrics, plumbing, a roof, as well as….” He raised his eyebrows. “Is there anything that’s in good shape?”

“The walls, sir. They’re thick and strong, and I repaired the windows last year. Took out the bad ones, reglazed them, and then put them back. I do that every other year.”

“What about the kitchen and bathrooms?” When Gene just looked down at the floor, Robert had his answer, and God knew what in the hell he was going to do. “Please show us the rest of the house, and don’t leave anything out,” he told Gene.

His mother moved back into the living room as Gene led Robert out of the library.

Gene showed him room after room of haunting neglect.

Wallpaper peeled from many of the upstairs bedrooms, and the nursery sat frozen in time, like it was waiting for children that had gone and were never coming back.

“The summer is humid and the winter cold. I did me best to care for the place, but I’m just me and—”

“It’s all right, Gene. You have done the best you could, I’m sure. No one is blaming you for this.” He sighed as he looked at the dust and grime covering dinge and neglect.

“Yes, my lord.”

“Don’t call me that, please.” He was never going to get used to that.

“I’m Robert. I may have inherited a title, but I believe that men should earn respect, not be given it because they happen to have been born into the right family.

” Robert turned and wandered through the last rooms, seeing more of the same.

The room above the library was the worst so far.

The plaster was cracked severely, and parts of the ceiling were in need of stabilization.

He didn’t go inside and closed the door after a quick peek.

“Let’s go back down. I think I’ve seen enough.

What other buildings are there on the grounds? ”

“There are the stables, which are empty. There’s the motorshed, which is also empty.

There were greenhouses, but they have fallen down.

There are cottages in the village that are part of the estate.

They have tenants, and part of their rent agreement requires that they maintain them.

I’ve ensured that has happened. Then there is the park, the thousands of acres around the manor. ”

Robert nodded, trying to make sense of all this. Mostly what he’d inherited was a money pit. Yes, it wasn’t mortgaged, and maybe he could do that, but then he needed the place to generate revenue, which wasn’t going to happen with it in this condition.

“Thank you,” he said absently. He’d seen more than enough of the mess his uncle had heaped on him.

He met his mother in the hallway, where she peered under sheets and dustcovers. He caught her eye and nodded, and they made their way to the door.

“I know this is a lot to take in and it’s going to take some time to get the estate settled,” William said as they walked out the front door.

“I know. Not that it’s going to make a great deal of difference.

” Robert needed to figure out what in the hell he was going to do with a place that was so out of step with any sort of modern lifestyle that it threatened to raise a headache the size of London.

“Gene, thank you for everything you’ve done and continue to do.

I appreciate it.” He shook the caretaker’s hand once again and then led his mother to his car.

He got in and lowered his window as William approached.

“I’d like to review the rest of the estate details with you soon. There is the house in London, as well as a few other assets.”

“Please tell me there is some money somewhere to do something with all this.” As overwhelming as all this was, he wasn’t above begging if necessary.

“There is enough in various trusts to continue what your uncle was doing. The principal in the trusts can’t be touched and it provides an income.

I believe that pays for the caretaker and the storage of the books and things.

But other than that, no. What money your uncle had, he left to someone else.

” At that moment, William was as stoic as any good lawyer had to be.

“Okay. I’ll need to catch up. Can we meet on Monday?”

William nodded, stepped back from the car, and went to lock the front door of the house.

Robert slowly pulled away. As he drove through the gate, the weight on his chest lifted slightly, but not very much. “What do I do with it?” Robert asked.

“The rooms are still furnished. Almost all of it is still there,” she said with a sense of awe.

“All of what?”

“That manor has been in our family for ten generations. You are the eleventh, and the things they collected over the years were all added to the manor. I was afraid Harrison would have sold them, but that probably took more energy than he was willing to spend. So it’s all there.”

“Okay.” Robert turned onto the road back to his office.

“So I could sell the furnishings, and break up the land and sell that as well. That would pay the taxes and leave an empty building that could be sold or added to the National Trust if I could get them to take it.” He glanced at his mother, who looked about to cry.

“That’s your history, my history, and you’d do that without a second thought?” She wiped her eyes, and Robert tried to remember the last time he’d seen his mother cry. He had a hard time doing it. She never cried—stiff upper lip and all that. “You can’t just throw it away offhand.”

“Then what do I do? I can mortgage the place to the hilt and try to do the repairs that need to be made, but how in the hell do I pay the money back? The estate doesn’t have much income, and I can’t just open it to tourists and have them flock to the place like it was Downton Abbey.

A few people might come, but not enough to make it worthwhile.

I could just donate the whole thing to the National Trust and make it their headache, but then everything would be gone.

” And that was going to break his mother’s heart. He could see that.

Robert pulled to a stop at an intersection and waited for a truck loaded with hay to pass before making the turn and continuing on.

“There has to be a way to do something.” She was thinking already, he could tell.

“I’m going to have to see what else I’ve inherited and then try to figure out what can be done.

” Thankfully the estate wasn’t too far away from where he and his mother lived.

He could at least continue to live without having to make commutes halfway across the country.

“I’m not going to make any decisions today or tomorrow.

” Robert grew quiet as he drove the rest of the way back to his office.

“I’ve been thinking,” his mother said with a weird smile that Robert was having trouble reading. “You need money to fix up the estate, and you also have a title.”

“Okay. I have a title that doesn’t help me, other than make me sound like a toff.”

His mother leaned closer. “That title comes with a peerage and it has power. People respect the titles. Good or bad, they do, and the title has value.”

“Okay. So do I sell it?” Robert asked, knowing he was being ridiculous.

“Of course not. Well, maybe in a way. You do what the aristocracy has always done when they needed money. You marry it.”

Robert turned off the engine and blinked in disbelief. “You know I’m gay, Mum. I’m not going to marry a woman.”

“No. But I bet there is a gay man with a lot of money who would marry you for the chance to become a count.” She held up her hand.

“Wives of earls are countesses, so the husband of an earl could be a count. Think about it. All you have to do is find someone who wants a title and marry him. Of course, he’d have to have piles of money, but you’re an earl.

Meeting people with money shouldn’t be a problem. ”

He knew his mother was falling in love with the idea.

The only problem was that she wasn’t the one who was going to have to marry someone for money.

Granted, he hadn’t had much luck in the love-life department, but still he wasn’t particularly interested in selling himself so he could fix up some family estate he hadn’t known existed until a few days ago.

“Mum. That’s crazy.”

“No, it’s not. I’m not saying you need to marry some prig you hate.

But think about it. Earls and dukes have been doing this sort of thing for centuries.

Who knows what you could get out of it? We got bloody Churchill from that kind of relationship.

His mother was an American heiress.” The more she warmed up to the idea, the more Robert wanted to crawl under the car and hide.

“That’s enough. Like I said, I need to see what’s in the estate and what my options are before I throw myself off the arranged marriage cliff.”

“Who says it’s an arranged marriage? There are dating sites and things like that on the Internet.

We’ll simply find you a gay matchmaker or something, like that show on American television.

” Her excitement made him more uncomfortable by the second.

Where had this idea come from and how did he get it out of her head?

“You go ahead and look into the estate. I’m going to go look into some things on my end. ”

“Mum. Just stop this whole thing right now. I’ll come up with a plan to try to figure out what I’m going to do after my trip to the States. I don’t need your help getting myself married off to some rich guy for his money. That isn’t the kind of life that I want. None of this is.”

He could see how his entire way of life was about to change.

Up until then it had been the law firm and trying to help people who couldn’t help themselves.

And now he was supposed to be the Earl of Hantford and all that entailed, including looking after a huge pile of a house because it had been in his family…

the family that had disowned his mother.

This whole thing rubbed him the wrong way, and all he wanted was a way out of this mess.

Selling everything seemed like that way to go.

He could be rid of it and that would be that.

Pay the taxes, put the rest in trust for the next generation, wherever that would come from, and say to hell with it all.

One look at his mother’s set jaw and the gleam in her eyes told him that wasn’t going to happen. Not even close. Lord help him—he was going to need it.