Page 4 of The Gentlewoman Author

The muscles in Daniel’s back tightened, and his jaw twitched, while his father was swallowed into the sky, oblivious or merely careless of his son. It was always thus—and the reason Daniel had avoided coming home. Talking with his father was like trying to catch a flea. As a child, he’d loved his father’s eccentric ways, but as he’d grown older, he recognized the manipulation.

“Answer my question, Father. You would disinherit me after all the money I’ve poured into the castle?” He spoke deliberately through clenched teeth, trying to temper his twisting stomach.

“In fourteen years, Venus will pass over the sun, and we will be able to calculate our distance from the sun.”

“Gah! You are impossible,” Daniel yelled into the night.

“It happens only once a century, and Venus is the key to that calculation.”

Daniel took a deep breath, but the growing coils in his gut tightened. “Talk to me!” Father remained attached to his telescope.

Why had he come home? He should have stayed in Nottingham at the bank, where his superiors valued him, and the work was straightforward, where he excelled. He missed the castle more with every breath, but no one deceived him or tried to control him at Smith’s Bank.

He left his father and sped down the spiral stairs, head spinning, fist clenched around his lantern. Before he spoke with his mother, he would need to calm down.

He stomped across the courtyard to the castle’s thick wooden front door and pressed his forehead against it. After three deep breaths, he pushed it open, scraping it across stone flooring as he stepped inside. He inhaled the cool, earthy musk of home. Almery Castle had come to his family in a roundabout way generations ago. According to family tradition, the maternal line passed the castle down from mother to daughter until there was no daughter, only a second son, Daniel’s father. His parents spoke as if Daniel would inherit it upon his father’s death, but no entailment made that a requirement. The women had taken prodigious care that the vast estate remain lucrative and undivided, even while they spent most of their time at their husbands’ homes. A row of portraits shifted in his lantern’s light. His female ancestors glared at the shabby rug and rickety tables.

“Do not fret,” Daniel told them. “I have the means to renovate, but you must haunt my father until he comes to his senses.” Father’s poor maintenance of the property showed in the tattered curtains, crumbling walls, and immense acres of land that struggled to turn a profit. When Daniel first began work at Smith’s Bank, he sent his wages home with his father’s promise to use the funds to repair cottages and invest in the land. When he discovered his father had instead donated the money to scientists investigating the rotation of the moon, Daniel began corresponding with the steward directly. He had done his best to retain value and make repairs, but powers were limited from a twenty-five-mile distance.

His boots clicked over flagstone, and he roughed his fingers against the grooves of the rock-walled entry. He felt a kinship for the decrepit, old castle that would tumble deeper into disrepair should it fall into the hands of Andrew and Emma.

Grandmother’s stare met him from her portrait as he rounded the corner. Though she did not blink or move, Daniel squirmed. Her eyes were as bright and vivacious as they’d been in life. Through still lips, she sent him a clear message. “Don’t be an idiot, Daniel. Do what you must to keep your castle.”

As a boy of maybe six or seven, she had taken him on her knee and pressed her arthritic fingers a little too tightly around his shoulders. “When I am gone, your father will take control of Almery for a time, but never forget it is yours to love and protect. It is your duty to care for it.” She captured him during his peak obsession with knights, when his play consisted of plastering paper into makeshift armor and clamoring around the towers with a wooden sword. “This castle is your future,”Grandmother had said, and his armor tightened around him, solidified into true iron fittings. With those words, she knighted him.

As he’d matured, the castle became a living, breathing entity that defined Daniel. It shared his heartbeat so that each dislodged pebble that crumbled from its majestic façade cracked his soul. It whispered for him not to abandon it. Yet, he had. For ten long years, he’d worked diligently elsewhere, leaving his castle in the hands of his father, the man who foolishly invested his money and lost it all. The family had only learned of their penury when creditors lined up at the front door. It was then that Daniel left to restore the family fortunes. It was time for him to become the knight of the castle and bring back the glory it had once shown.

“There you are.” His mother sat knitting beside the fire, wearing an old linen gown. The lace that used to embellish its cuffs was missing, probably disintegrated from decades of wear. “I have said it again and again, but I’m glad you are home.” She had a childlike, enthusiastic voice.

Daniel sat beside her, soothed after staring down Grandmother. “You aren’t wearing the fabric I sent you.”

“Don’t be angry. I gave it to Emma. Since she became the vicar’s wife, she thinks everyone ogles her at church. But anyhow, I hope you are staying. For you to have been away all these years with barely a visit and only the most tedious of correspondence was an insufferable way to treat your mama.” She rested her hand on his arm.

“Someone has to look after the estate’s finances.”

“You will do it much better from here.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Your father spoke to you about our plans.”

“If by plans you mean that I am to be disinherited in favor of Emma and Andrew, then yes.”

“But did he mention he found you a bride?” She sparkled, as if telling him they’d found a trunk of gold in the cellar.

“I don’t want a bride.”

“You must let go of Miss Jensen.”

He snorted. “I haven’t thought of her in years.”

“She used you ill. Count it a blessing, my dear, for rumor has it she spends her husband’s money with the abandon of a duchess. Not the woman you want. Certainly not worthy of you. But never fear. Your father found you a match.” She giggled, then stopped short. “Oh, darling. I apologize for my hard heart. You are hurt.”

“Mother, please. It was eight years ago. I promised her I’d return in a few months, which turned into a year and then another. It is my fault she was unfaithful.” Despite knowing his culpability, his mother was not entirely wrong. Miss Jensen had wounded him, robbed him of the hope he had clung to that his future would hold warmth and family. It was a long time ago, and he rarely thought of her.

“Unfaithful! That puts it mildly. You forget that she flirted with every man in the parish and was with child on her wedding day. It is no wonder you don’t wish to marry.”

“So, to ease my heartache, you and Father found me a stranger to wed on threat of disinheritance?”

His mother beamed. “She is no stranger. Well, we have never met her, but her name is Louisa Thorpe. Your father is a friend to her father. I hear she is lovely. Her dowry is seven thousand pounds, and she has a little property somewhere.”

“I don’t care about her dowry. How could you go along with this?” He wiped her hand off his arm.