He made a grimace of repulsion.
“Baby rabbits,” Gwen replied, trying to hold back the tears that threatened. “Papa was developing a new domestic strain, you’ll remember, and interbreeding them with the darker-colored wild rabbits from the mountains. Parry brought him those as a parting gift.”
“Gift—bah!” Nigel said contemptuously. “That drooling simpleton had no idea the man who’d died was his stepfather—nor any conception of what death means. Although he’s soon to get a lesson in the latter.”
“You’re wrong, cousin Nigel. He knew it was his papa,” she emphasized the word, “and he understands about death.” True, Parry might not have comprehended the threat to his own position implicit in his stepfather’s demise, a threat that—with good reason, it turned out—Gwen had so feared, but he knew the elderly man who’d treated him with love and gentleness had gone away forever.
“Well, I find him offensive, so something shall certainly be done about it. Edgerton wishes to have you settled in at the Hall between the last of the hunting season and the beginning of spring planting, so the wedding is to be at week’s end, here at Southford. Given the groom’s age and the shortness of time to prepare, I see no need for anything elaborate. A simple ceremony with a small reception immediately after should be sufficient.”
Cheese-paring nip-squeeze, Gwen thought, too furious to respond. The will had not even been read yet, and already the new baron was determined to expend as few funds as possible on the former daughter of the house.
“Congratulations on your good fortune, Gwennor. You may go now to begin the preparations.” He waved an imperious hand toward the door—dismissing her from her own library like a lackey.
Too shocked and angry to reply with a remark her cousin would consider suitable for a gentlewoman, in icy silence she pivoted toward the door.
“By the way,” her cousin’s voice halted her before she reached the doorway, “since I expect your bridegroom sometime tomorrow, I intend to have your stepbrother…taken care of before his arrival. Parry shall be confined to the attics, where he can be restrained but kindly treated, at minimal expense. Oh, and should you suffer from some maidenly excess of nerves before the wedding and attempt to call off your nuptials, remember that I have the power to confine you as well, should you take a sudden notion not to acquiesce willingly in my plans.”
He paused, regarding her thoughtfully. She stared back at him, defiantly mute, not caring that he could probably read on her face the intensity of her dislike.
“I shall warn you only once,” he said softly. “Growing up, you had a deplorable tendency to obstinacy and disobedience, traits I doubt your weak-willed papa ever succeeded in rooting out of you. I am not a man who can be manipulated by a shrewish spinster entirely too accustomed to running things her own way. I am master here now, and the servants will obey me.” He nodded. “That is all.” And looked down to peruse a ledger on the desk.
Her head and heart teeming with a volatile mix of grief, anguish, worry over her brother, fury at her cousin’s threats and fear for the future, Gwen picked up her skirts and half ran through the hall, down the servants’ stairs to the deserted stillroom and out the back door.
Shivering in the late-winter cold, she continued on behind the gardens to the barn surrounded by a collection of sheds and pens where her brother carried out his father’s breeding experiments. She spied Parry’s dark head bent over one of the cages and walked in his direction. His sharp ears no doubt picking up the soft pad of her footsteps, he looked up and smiled at her.
As she drew closer, his smile turned to a frown. “You have no shawl! You’ll be cold, Gwen.” Before she could stop him, he shucked his tattered wool jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders.
She reached up to hug him fiercely, tears seeping now from the corners of her eyes. How she loved her gentle, serene brother. Even did she not, as Nigel had alleged, feel responsible for his injuries, Parry was so unspoiled and utterly pure a soul she must love him, as nearly everyone in the county did, for his healing hands and sweet-tempered kindness.
He had a special touch with animals and young people. Both seemed to respond to his straightforward nature and both seemed to sense how competently he could soothe and help them. Not only had Parry directed her papa’s rabbit-breeding operations, he was sought by neighbors from all over to treat their ailing livestock, providing, despite Nigel’s dismissal of his usefulness, a small income to Southford’s coffers.
The whole county knew if Parry Wakefield could not cure an animal’s ills, the owner might as well prepare to bury it.
What was she to do? Gwen wondered as she held her brother close. She might detest Nigel, but she wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating him. If he’d said he would put Parry under restraint, he would do it. And he would have no compunction about locking her up too if she tried to stop him. Nor did she wish to put the servants in the untenable position of opposing their new master.
At last she released Parry. He held her at arm’s length, his guileless face studying hers. “You’re sad, aren’t you, Gwen? Are you missing Papa? I am, too. Look at these babies.” He opened a wicker cage and indicated some tiny balls of fluff. “Misty had them Sunday past—and they are all browns. Just what he wanted. I think he’s happy, looking down at them from heaven.”
“I’m sure he is.” Happier than any of us this side of heaven are likely to be again, she thought bitterly.
Her brother had been wholly content since his physical recovery from his injuries, wandering the estate at Southford, watched over by family and neighbors who cared for him, collecting and succoring the animals he loved.
He would pine away and die without them, locked up in the attics at Southford Manor.
Well on the shelf at five-and-twenty, Gwennor had no illusions about her beauty or her prospects. She’d taken over the management of the household at age fifteen, upon the death of her stepmother—the only mother she remembered, her own having died at her birth. In her concern for her stepbrother and her grieving papa, she’d easily withstood the baron’s half-hearted attempts to send her away for a Season several years later. If Lord Edgerton were prepared to accept Parry, she would give herself to him, if not enthusiastically, at least with resignation.
But would he?
She’d have little time to plead with him, and no leverage to bargain with. Besides, Nigel was probably correct. Most people shied away from anyone with an impairment, which was often looked upon as God’s judgment upon the unhappy individual and his family. Being Nigel’s friend—indictment enough in Gwen’s opinion—as well as a fanatic on the purity of the bloodlines of his horses and dogs, Edgerton would doubtless agree with Nigel’s solution for dispensing with the embarrassment of his bride’s mentally deficient brother. No, she concluded, Parry would find no champion in Edgerton.
And if he would not accept Parry, she had no reason to wed the man, despite Nigel’s threats. She’d not spent the last ten years, as he’d described her, an obstinate spinster growing accustomed to running things her own way, to meekly succumb to her detestable cousin’s plans for either herself or her beloved stepbrother.
“I must feed the others,” Parry said. “Can you help?”
“No, I must get back to the house. Here, take your jacket back before you catch a chill.”
She held it out. With a smile he waved it away. “I’ll get it later. I have these—”
