6

He was going to kiss Sarah Gooding.

The thought thrilled him even as it terrified him.

A single step closed the distance, and he reached out his hand to cup her cheek. Then slowly, he lowered his head toward hers. When their lips finally touched, it wasn’t with the heat he’d expected. Instead it was like sliding into the pond at Bluestone in the middle of summer. It was thick and soft, wrapping around him like a comforting, refreshing blanket. If he weren’t careful, he could drown.

Her hand came up to clasp his wrist, as if she were afraid he’d step away, and she wanted to keep him there just a moment longer.

He had news for her. He wasn’t going anywhere.

Slowly he pulled his head back, relishing the softness of her lips until the last possible moment.

Then he stayed a while longer, staring into her eyes until the dowager woke herself up with a particularly loud snore that sent her into a series of rough coughs.

Sarah let go of his wrist and pushed past him to go to the dowager’s side, plying her with tea and rubbing her lightly on the back.

Randall waited until she’d looked up from her ministrations, then he slowly reached above his head and plucked another berry from the mistletoe plant.

She was grinning as he left.

And so was he.

Sunday morning, Randall waited outside the village church, pacing a bit to keep himself warm. Despite the greatcoat he was wearing, the chill was threatening to seep into his very bones. He could only wonder if his grandmother coming out in such weather was actually a good idea, but his father had sent the carriage to Cloverdale, and Randall refused to go inside the church until it arrived.

He hunched his shoulders and watched the road.

Finally, the carriage appeared around the corner. It pulled up to the church and Randall didn’t wait for the footman to open the door. He opened it himself to find his grandmother looking pale and weak, wrapped in enough blankets to turn her into one of those mummies he’d seen at the Egyptian museum.

Sarah busied herself unwrapping the dowager enough so that she could descend from the carriage. Randall wasted no time hustling his grandmother into the building, half carrying her over the threshold. He’d have liked to stay and help Sarah out of the carriage, but getting his grandmother out of the cold had to come first.

Instead of making the trek up to her box seat at the front of the church, though, Grandmother sank into the free pew at the back of the room. “This is far enough,” she whispered.

So Randall sat with her, ignoring the looks of embarrassed despair from his mother and concern from his father. When Sarah came in, she said nothing, simply slid into the pew and waited for the service to begin.

It was nice, worshiping with Sarah at his side. Everything seemed nice with Sarah at his side.

He wasn’t sure if he was really ready to try and buy his own farm and leave the family holdings behind—those sort of decisions took planning, after all—but maybe, just maybe, there was room to start a family at Bluestone while he made the arrangements to move forward.

Getting his grandmother back into the carriage for the ride home was even more difficult than getting her into the church had been. Randall had to actually lift her into the vehicle, and he really didn’t like how light she’d felt. While Sarah bundled blanket after blanket around her employer, Randall climbed into the carriage and sat in the backward-facing seat.

Her eyes flew to his, wide in her angled face. “What are you doing?”

“You won’t be able to get her into the house by yourself,” he said.

She nodded and then turned back to his grandmother, who was coughing again. This time it was more like puffs of air, as if she didn’t have the strength to actually cough.

At Cloverdale, he didn’t give Grandmother a chance to protest. He climbed out of the carriage and then took her in his arms, blankets and all. While Sarah scurried in front of him to open the door, he gave the coachman instructions to fetch the doctor.

He didn’t care if it was Sunday. His grandmother, the woman he’d run to whenever he needed someone, was now the person in need, and he wasn’t about to let her down.

Sarah stood outside the dowager’s chambers while the doctor examined her. She knew what he was going to say. The same thing he’d said the last five times he’d been to the house.

The dowager countess was old.

Oh, those hadn’t been his exact words, but they were the basic idea. He didn’t know what was wrong with her or even if there was anything wrong with her. Yes, she was weak and didn’t eat much anymore, but that tended to be the way of older people. And everyone did get old eventually.

She had a feeling Randall wasn’t going to accept that simple explanation, though.

Right now he was pacing circles in the front hall, making sure the doctor didn’t find a way to slip out without talking to him.

Sarah wanted to go help him, hold him. He hadn’t been in Lancashire the past month and a half to see the steady decline of Lady Densbury. Even if he had been, Sarah wasn’t sure anyone not living in the house would have noticed.

When the doctor emerged, he simply nodded at Sarah before heading towards the door.

Inside the bedchamber, the dowager was sleeping again. The breathing seemed easy, but fast and shallow. Sarah pulled a chair up to the bed and sat, sliding a hand across the cover until she could wrap the thin, gnarled fingers in her own. Then she prayed.

She didn’t know how much time had passed, but the next thing she knew, she was awoken by a large, warm hand on her shoulder. She lifted her head from the cover and turned to see Randall standing over her. He wasn’t looking at her, though. He was watching his grandmother.

“This is her last Christmas, isn’t it?”

“I . . . yes. Probably. I don’t think she has the strength to get better even if she could.” Sarah blinked and shook her head, not even sure she’d said a sentence.

Randall nodded. “I wanted you to know I’m going back to Helmsfield now. But I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Sarah nodded and watched him leave the room. Then she took off her dress and climbed into bed next to her employer. If Lady Densbury needed anything in the night, Sarah was going to make sure she got it.

Randall was firmly convinced that his brothers were idiots. Well, perhaps not George. The oldest brother’s head was actually screwed on right when it came to most of the business of inheriting an earldom, but he didn’t know the first thing about the actual needs of the estates he was going to inherit.

Cecil, on the other hand, was a fool. He sat and discussed politics and estate management with George and the earl as if he would one day have any say in either. It was going to be a rather rude awakening one day when he opened his eyes and realized he actually wasn’t any better off in this life than Randall.

Of course, Randall wasn’t doing himself any favors. Right now he was doing the work of an estate manager for what essentially amounted to board and a spending allowance. All the money from the crops and rents went to his father. Was that any different than what Cecil was doing? Trying to find a way to be connected to the family business, even though that connection would eventually have to end?

Perhaps all of the brothers were fools.

Perhaps his whole family was. Here they were, discussing business on the day before Christmas. Given the state he’d left Grandmother in the day before and the frivolity of the holiday, one would think they’d have somewhere better to be than in the earl’s study discussing crops while snow blew around outside the window.

“What about Bluestone?”

Randall turned from the window at George’s words. Finally, a conversation he could actually participate in with a measure of confidence and authority.

“It’s producing well,” the earl said, running his finger down a line of numbers in the ledger book open on the desk.

Randall’s chest expanded a bit. He couldn’t help it. This was something he was good at that his father could acknowledge. “We’re rotating the fields a bit differently than we used to and reaping at least ten percent more crops.”

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” George leaned over Father’s shoulder to look at the ledger. “What do we grow there?”

The quill slipped from the earl’s fingers as the man turned to stare at his oldest. Randall smirked but stayed quiet. If he answered, George would be in a maddened state for the rest of the day. He didn’t like it when he didn’t know something and Randall did.

“How is it you don’t know what we grow at Bluestone?”

Randall could have answered that one. The earl had kept his two eldest sons close, making sure they knew everything there was to know about being an earl. Unfortunately, the lessons had never covered much of the actual earldom they oversaw.

Of course, given the way his father was talking, Randall wasn’t sure the earl even knew what they grew at Bluestone.

With a shrug, George reached over and flipped back a page in the ledger. “I don’t think I’ve ever been there. I don’t know much about farming.”

“Don’t know much . . .” The earl shook his head as his words trailed off, then he frowned in thought.

“The best field for growing rhubarb is going to need to rest next year, so you’ll need to plan for that,” Randall said when the silence had stretched on long enough that he thought George wouldn’t be threatened by whatever Randall had to say.

With a few blinks, the earl came out of his thoughts and focused his gaze on Randall. He nodded slowly. “Good, good. So things will be a bit slower over the next year. A little easier to manage.”

Randall nodded and shrugged at the same time. It was part of the nature of farming. He didn’t really see it as making things easier or harder. It was just the way it was.

But then his father smiled.

The kind of smile that meant he’d had an idea.

The smile that terrified Randall because it always meant his brothers were going to get another opportunity that he wasn’t.

“That’s perfect!” The earl pounded one hand on the table and stood up to pace.

Randall’s stomach tensed. Smiling and pacing usually meant not only was George about to get something good, but it was probably going to come at Randall’s expense. He liked to think the extra agitation the idea caused in the earl was because he hated inconveniencing or hurting his youngest son, but Randall had never had the courage to ask.

When the earl didn’t continue, though, Randall ground out, “What’s perfect?”

“George and Harriet will go to Bluestone!” Father clapped his hands. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. They’ll get a home of their own to start a family, and we’ll have a more official presence on the estate—always good for the tenants to see that. George will get some more experience, and Mother can stay happily right where she is.”

The earl was right. It was perfect. Except for one minor detail.

Bluestone was Randall’s home.

It had been for nearly four years. And while he knew it would never actually be his, part of him had hoped, just a little bit, that it might be. After all, it was one of the few properties in the earldom that wasn’t entailed, that the earl was free to will to someone other than George.

And now it was being ripped from him while his father still lived.

Randall cleared his throat. “I live at Bluestone.”

The earl nodded. “Yes, yes, and that all made sense when George and Cecil were looking for wives, but you’re unattached and young. There’s no need to leave you underfoot on some secluded estate while George and Harriet start a family.” He rubbed his hands together and bounced on his toes. “No, no, you’ll come back here. You’ve still got rooms here, after all. Or you could go to London.”

“But I wouldn’t have anything to do here and even less to do in London,” Randall bit out, trying not to be frustrated, trying to remember all the verses he’d studied about God’s timing and guidance and how He worked everything to the good of those who loved Him.

Well, Randall loved God, but he wasn’t feeling a whole lot of love in return at the moment, and it was taking everything in him to remember to cling to the truth of the matter and not how he felt. The despair and anger welling within him was a powerful beast, though, especially since he knew this moment was his own fault, knew he never should have invested in something that would never be his. He should have started a life of his own the day after he finished his studies at Manchester Academy.

“What are you talking about?” the earl asked. “It’s not as if the sun doesn’t rise and set the same here as it does at Bluestone. Your day doesn’t have to change at all. I’ll even tell Richard you can muck about in the fields if you wish to.”

Muck about in the fields? Is that what his father thought he’d been doing at Bluestone? That he’d done little more than rest his head there?

As the earl pushed on with his plans, Randall knew the answer was yes. The earl truly didn’t know what Randall did every day because he didn’t think it mattered to the earldom. Randall could fight for his place at Bluestone, but for what? A chance to pretend he was important?

Randall knew his father and mother didn’t wish he was never born, but it was becoming increasingly clear that the only way they knew how to handle the fact that Randall would be on his own when they died was to not consider his life beyond the occasional family gathering.

Which meant there was no reason for Randall to continue this farce of a father-son gathering. Cecil could pretend all he wanted to.

Randall was finished.