Page 52 of The Viscount and the Vicar’s Daughter

Tristan began to pace the room. “It has no industry. No direct rail access. But the farmers and landowners thereabouts produce an annual yield that far exceeds…”

Valentine listened in silence as Tristan went on to talk of crops, steam mills, and transport. She didn’t fully understand it but was mesmerized by the intensity with which he tackled the subject.

When they had first met in Yorkshire, she had been drawn to him because he was kind and handsome, and because he had seemed lost and a little sad. He had needed her, even if only in some small way. But now, he was fairly brimming with confidence. He was happy. She’d known he would be. He was too inherently good to have kept on down the wrong path. Instead, he’d summoned the strength to make a change. It was one of the reasons she loved him so.

And one of the reasons, she feared she would lose him.

After all, what need did he have of her now? None at all. They were bound together by nothing more than his promise to marry her.

“It was the water mill that gave me the idea,” he said. “In centuries past, it made Harbury Morton a thriving concern. But now, every farmer and landowner in the district is obliged to transport their crops to towns with working mills. If there were a way for Harbury Morton to have a steam mill of its own. And direct rail access to transport its crops, coal, and lime…”

“Is there such a way?” she asked.

“I believe there is,” he said. “I’ve spoken to an industrialist in Newcastle who’s been keen to build a steam mill in Harbury Morton these many years. The gentlemen at the Blyth and Tyne Railway are equally keen. In both cases, all it wants is investment. I already own the land.”

“Perhaps your father—”

“No,” Tristan said. “My father has nothing to do with this. If anything, I expect that my ventures in Northumberland might eventually set me free of him.”

Valentine folded her hands in her lap. She wasn’t sure what to say, so she remained quiet as Tristan’s pacing took him to the small walnut writing desk on which her book of verses sat open. He stopped there, casting an idle glance down at her work.

“It’s all rather ironic,” he said.

“How do you mean?”

“I’ve come to believe that that’s the very reason my father gave me Blackburn Priory. So that I might gain independence from him. He must have known the place was rich with possibility. Had I gone there years ago—had I taken the time—I might have seen it for myself.”

“Everything happens in its season,” she said. “That’s what my father used to say.”

“Very wise of him.” He set his hand on the edge of the desk. “If only that season would have come sooner. Then I would have known…”

“Known what?”

“That my father never wished to see me fail. Quite the opposite. He hoped to see me succeed.”

“Of course he did. Your father loves you very much.”

He gave a short laugh. “Let’s not get carried away.”

“But he does,” she insisted.

“I can’t imagine why,” he said. “I’ve been the greatest trial of his life. Had there not been intervening circumstances, I have no doubt he would have cut off my funds and cast me off into the proverbial wilderness.”

The words she’d overheard outside the billiards room at Fairford House echoed in Valentine’s mind. “By intervening circumstances, you mean your engagement to me.”

Tristan didn’t deny it. “My father wouldn’t allow my future wife and children to live in penury. No matter how much I had disappointed him. A hard fact, but—” He broke off. “What is this?”

“I beg your pardon?”

His attention was fixed on the opening page of her book of verses. “This drawing.”

She flushed. “It’s meant to be a lion.” She rose from her seat and went to his side. Her skirts brushed up against his leg. “I know it looks like a pug dog, but once I have applied the watercolors it should look a bit closer to my mother’s illustration.”

“What illustration?”

“From the front of the original book of verses. It was one of the pages that Felicity Brightwell destroyed. I can’t recreate all of them, but I’m trying to draw some from memory.”

“A stag facing a lion, each on their hind legs,” he said thoughtfully. “And this I suppose is an eagle.”