“So what do you think?” he could not resist asking, gesturing with one arm toward the house and about the park. “Do I dare ask?”

“Too late. You just did,” Elizabeth said, laughing. “It must all have been quite breathtakingly magnificent once upon a time, Alex. Even now it has a faded splendor.”

“Ah, but wait until you see the inside,” he warned her.

“Poor Alex. But at least the roof does not appear to have caved in,” their mother said, taking his arm as they went up the steps into the hall.

She stopped inside to glance about, her eyes coming to rest upon the faded and chipped black-and-white tiles underfoot. “It is a good thing I never warmed to Cousin Humphrey, your predecessor. I would have felt sadly deceived by him. He was one of the wealthiest men in England and one of the most selfish. He totally neglected his responsibilities here. Then they landed upon your shoulders with the title while all the money went to Anastasia, whom I am not blaming for a single moment, bless her heart. Humphrey ought to have been shot at the very least. He ought not to have been allowed to die peacefully in his bed. There is no justice.”

“At least the house is fit to be lived in,” Alexander said. “Just. I have never yet found myself being rained upon through the ceiling while I sleep or anything equally dire. Of course, I have never slept in either of the two guest rooms that have been prepared for you.”

Elizabeth laughed again. “But we will spend Easter together,” she said. “We did not relish the thought of celebrating it in London while you felt obliged to remain here a while longer.”

“And it must be admitted, Alex,” their mother said, “that we felt a curiosity to see for ourselves what you are facing here.”

Alexander introduced them to the butler and the housekeeper, and Mrs. Dearing offered to take them to their rooms to freshen up before tea. They followed her up the stairs, looking curiously about them as they went.

“Have you met any of your neighbors yet, Alex?” his mother asked later when they were settled in the drawing room with tea and scones and cakes. “But you surely have. You have been here for a while and they must have been burning with eagerness to meet the new earl and discover if you mean to settle here and marry one of their daughters.”

“I have met a number of them,” he said, “and all have been both amiable and kind. I have been entertained at dinner and tea and cards and music, and I have been kept standing outside church for an hour after service each Sunday and bowed and curtsied to on the street. I have even entertained here. If I waited until the house was more presentable, I might not entertain for the next twenty years. I invited a number of people to a tea party one afternoon and was gratified that everyone came. They were curious, I suppose, to see just how shabby the inside of the house is. And yes, of course, almost everyone has asked about my plans. I have assured them that I intend to make this my home even though my parliamentary duties will take me to London for a few months each spring.”

There was a beat of silence. “You intend to make your home at Brambledean,” his mother said, her cup suspended a few inches from her mouth.

“You will abandon Riddings Park to live here?” Elizabeth asked with more open dismay. “But you love Riddings, Alex. It is home, and you worked so hard and so long to restore it to prosperity. This is … dreary, to say the least. You have hired a new steward you described to us as hardworking and conscientious. Why do you feel the need to be here yourself? Oh, but you need not bother answering. It is because of your infernal sense of duty.” She set her cup down none too gently in the saucer. “I am sorry. How you conduct your life is none of my business. And we came here to cheer you, not to scold you, did we not, Mama? I feel compelled to say, though, that I care for you and about you and long to see you happy.”

“You do not see me unhappy, Lizzie,” he assured her. “But there are some things I need to do here in person, not least of which is giving the people dependent upon me the assurance that I care about them, that I empathize with them, that we are all in this struggle together. I am hoping Bufford and I together can find ways to make the farms more prosperous this year even without the input of too much new money. I want to put some into much-needed repairs to the laborers’ cottages and into an increase in their wages—small, perhaps, but better than nothing. Bufford wants to put money into new crops and equipment and more livestock. Together we complement each other, you see. But enough of that. I have no wish to put you to sleep. Tell me about your journey.”

They did so, and they all laughed a great deal, for Elizabeth in particular had a ready wit and an eye for the absurd. What had probably been a tedious journey, as most were, was made to sound as though it had been vastly entertaining. But his mother had something else on her mind too and got to it before they rose from their tea.

“Do you intend making a serious search for a wife during the Season, Alex?” she asked. “It worries me that you are thirty years old but have never given yourself a chance to enjoy life. Last year you admitted that finally you were looking about you, but then came the wretched family upset and you set aside all thought of your personal happiness again.”

“I shall certainly give myself the pleasure of escorting you and Lizzie to various entertainments when the Season begins, Mama,” he told her.

“Which is no answer at all,” she said.

“Alex.” His sister was hugging her elbows with her hands as though she were cold, and was leaning slightly toward him. “You are not going to be looking for a rich wife, are you?”

“There is something inherently wrong with a rich wife?” he asked, grinning at her. “Wealthy young ladies are to be excluded from consideration upon that fact alone? It seems a little unfair to them.”

She clucked her tongue. “You know exactly what I mean,” she said. “And the very evasiveness of your answer speaks volumes. It would be so very typical of you to do it. You have never ever put your own happiness first. Do not do it. Please. You deserve happiness more than anyone else I know.” There were actually tears brimming in her eyes.

“Money is not an evil, Lizzie,” he said.

“Oh, but it is when it is given precedence over happiness,” she told him. “Please, Alex. Do not do it.”

“You may save your breath, Lizzie,” their mother said, looking sharply from one to the other of them. “You know your brother cannot be shifted once he has decided upon something. It is what is always most annoying and most endearing about him. But I do hope you will not marry just for money, Alex. It would break my heart. No, forget I said that. I would not impose yet one more burden upon you. Whomever you choose—and I hope you choose someone soon, for I am very ready to be a grandmama and drive you to distraction by spoiling your children quite outrageously. Whomever you choose I will welcome with open arms, and I will absolutely insist upon loving her too.”

“And so will Alex, Mama,” Elizabeth said. “He is like that. But will she insist upon loving him? That is the question that concerns me. There will be any number of candidates for the hand of the Earl of Riverdale, but will they see Alex behind the title?”

“I promise not to marry anyone I hate or anyone who hates me,” he said, smiling from one to the other of them. And perhaps he ought to leave it at that for now, he thought. But Sunday afternoon would have to be mentioned and explained soon. Perhaps he ought to have invited several other neighbors too. But that would have been grossly unfair to her. “I have invited one of my more distant neighbors to join us for tea on Sunday afternoon.”