And that was where Cora inherited her resolve. “She sounds like a wonderful woman.”
“Aye, she was.” His eyes glistened, and he looked away, back toward the turning stone and the flour that had begun to fall away to the bin below. “She worked here in the mill with me until she passed.” He crossed to the central pillar and rubbed his hand over a heart and initials carved into the wood, brushing away the flour dust that had gathered there. “Anyone who sees this place thinks it’s only a grist mill, just like any other up or down this river. But when I see it, I see my wife, and when I work here, it’s as if she’s still with me.” He gestured his hand to indicate the entire building. “This is all I have now, this mill and my daughter. This place is my life and my heart.”
“I understand.” And he did. More than Bradley realized. He understood now why Cora had so fiercely resisted the lock and canal, why she’d refused to sell the little mill even when he’d offered her father twice its value. Because it was priceless.
Just as he realized how much he loved her for it.
“Ah, but time marches on, doesn’t it?” Bradley chuckled at his own sentimentality and precariously stepped onto a short stool to peer into the bin to check the grain level. “Don’t know what will become of this place once I’m gone. My daughter cannot run it by herself.”
“That’s a concern far into the future.”
Sadness darkened his face for only a heartbeat. “Not so far,” he mumbled, then wiped his hands on his apron as he stepped off the stool, his old knees jarring as he landed. He jerked a thumb toward the stairs. “You caught me in the midst of filling the hopper.”
“Then by all means, let me help you.” When Bradley eyed his clothing askance, he warned, “Don’t be fooled by appearances. I cut my teeth on hard labor. I reckon I can still lift a bag of grain of two.”
Bradley laughed and led him up the stairs to the first floor, just as stiffly as he’d come down.
John wrestled the open grain sack over to the chute in the floor that led down to the bin below and poured in the wheat. He hurried to pour in as many bags as he could to fill the hopper so that Bradley wouldn’t have to exert himself.
“My gratitude for the help.” Bradley slapped him on the back when the last of the grain rained down into the bin. “But you didn’t come here to fill my hopper. Nor do you have grain to grind or flour to buy.” He gazed at John critically. “So what can I do for you?”
John leaned back against the wall and folded his arms over his chest, studying the man carefully. “I want to tell you a story. And then I need your help in figuring out how it will end.”
CHAPTER 5
CORA SLID a sideways glance at Monmouth’s profile as he sat next to her on the bench seat of the dog-cart they’d taken out onto his estate. He wasn’t at all the man she’d expected him to be. Which raised the question…what kind of man was he, exactly?
This was the third day in a row that they’d driven out to the far reaches of his property to visit his tenants. Yet this was the first day that he’d sent his groom on ahead, leaving them alone without a chaperone. But she supposed she didn’t need one, not when she wasn’t a fine lady who needed to protect her reputation at all costs. Not when driving with a man was a perfectly normal thing to do in the country. No one who saw them together on the dog-cart would have given them a second thought.
Except for her.
Her eyes narrowed on him. What did he want with her? She’d come along to help him distribute baskets of little whatnots—candles, a small bag of flour, a few eggs, figs, and apples, all tucked into the little box beneath the cart’s seat—and to check in on each family to make certain they all had what they needed before winter arrived. A noble outing, she had to concede, yet she’d only agreed to accompany him because he’d come in person to the mill to ask for her help and give her an opportunity to make him beholden to her.
And because Papa had insisted. Although why her father would agree, she had no idea, but she thought she’d sensed an odd camaraderie between the two men during the past three mornings when the duke arrived with his carriage to start their day.
Grudgingly, she had to admit that she’d enjoyed the time they’d spent together, including their picnic luncheons taken on blankets beneath trees when they’d stopped for an afternoon break. He’d proven to be more witty and sharp than she’d given him credit for, with the intelligence necessary to efficiently run his estate yet with an empathy for the people who lived there. And he certainly possessed a drier, yet far funnier, sense of humor than she’d assumed.
What surprised her most, though, were his keen observations about the land and nature, his detailed descriptions of what he’d learned so far about his new estate that stretched in every direction as far as the eye could see. The man possessed a poet’s eye. While that stood in contradiction to the ruthless businessman she knew him to be, the juxtaposition didn’t make her uneasy. Instead, she was loath to admit, he fascinated her, right down to his well-worn boots that showed he was no stranger to hard work.
No longer bothering to try to hide her uncertainty about him, she turned to face him on the small seat and demanded, “Who are you?”
“You know who I am.” He flicked the ribbons and quickened the pace of the trotting horse. “The Duke of Monmouth.”
“Yes, yes.” She waved a gloved hand, dismissing that too-easy answer. “But who are you? You’re certainly not behaving like any duke I’ve ever heard tell of, going out of your way to take baskets to your tenants yourself when your land agent could easily do it.”
Should have done it, in fact, leaving the duke at the manor where his kind preferred to be, rather than having to interact with people who might not know where the next rent payment would come from or blame him for their tenuous situations. Who had every reason to dislike the new lord and tell him so. Right to his face.
Instead, what she’d heard at every farmhouse and cottage they’d stopped at was how kind he was as a landowner. Bringing them baskets and checking on them personally was simply proof of that in their eyes. More, they gushed with excitement about the potential opportunities they credited him with for creating jobs for them and their extended families at the factories to the northeast. Thanks to his canal, the one that her father’s mill was currently stopping.
Comments like those gnawed at her. She would have suspected he’d somehow bribed or forced the farmers and their families to say such things in front of her, except that she knew several of the tenants personally and knew he’d never be able to coerce them like that. No, their sentiments toward the man were genuine, drat him.
“I’m a new duke who only received this title and land due to a fluke of birth,” he explained with chagrin. “A new duke who doesn’t know what to do with all he’s been given because he’s used to working hard to earn everything he’s ever gotten before in life. That’s who I am.”
The tiny muscles in her belly tightened in empathy. “Your Grace, I had—”
“John, please.” With that correction, he cast her a long, hopeful glance. But he didn’t seem to garner the reaction from her that he’d wanted, and his shoulders sagged. “When we’re out here alone, like this, I would prefer that you call me by my Christian name.”
“All right,” she agreed, a bit reluctantly. He might be a new duke who was unsure of his position, but he was still a duke.
“As for this week’s outings, I’m doing them because I want to get to know my tenants, and I can’t do that through a land agent, no matter how good the man is at his job. I also want to let them know that I’m approachable and always ready to listen to their concerns.”