The Lyon's Share (The Lyon's Den) by Cerise Deland

Author:Cerise Deland [Deland, Cerise]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Historical
Publisher: Dragonblade Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2022-08-30T16:00:00+00:00

Oh, my! What had she asked for?

Laughter. Rides at dawn. Tales of his boyhood. She of hers. The nearness of him. At breakfast, after their ride, when he smelled of his bath and lime cologne. At luncheon when he was jovial with discussion of his survey of the small land holding of three acres here on the Thames. At dinner when they reviewed the day, and he remarked on their ride past her family’s small house a mile away, empty now because her brother, the new earl, had no money for its upkeep.

“I have sympathy for John.” Her words escaped her as the two of them had stopped to view the old house from the trail along the river. The small red brick Elizabethan structure suffered from age and elements, broken glass, shutters hanging, and stones chipped on the window facings. “Papa taught him more about cards than crop rotation. He knows not how to improve his lot.”

“But you know,” Sidney responded with a grin. “You spoke of it at breakfast yesterday morning and when you were young. I remember marveling at your understanding.”

But Paul thought it improper for a girl to know such. She flinched at her first husband’s sharp criticism and covered her reaction by turning her horse more toward the house where she’d grown up.

Sidney did not seem to notice her adverse reaction, which was good.

“How did you learn that?” he asked her.

“You lived like a little witch. Running about, working with the tenants, swimming in the river, your tits showing through your gown.”

Inhaling, she tore herself from the baritone that could plague her. “Listening to our tenants. I was the child who escaped the house and was never missed. I ran free and picked up a hoe or a shovel to plant or dig. I sat in thatched huts and heard how a man turns a calf presented in the womb sideways. I know you leave a wheat field fallow for two years to get a ripe yield in the third. But if you must get a product more quickly, plant a fast-growing vegetable, not grain that second year.”

“I will listen to your advice when we get home.”

She regarded him, generous as he ever was with compliments and acceptance. “Thank you. Few have ever valued what I have to offer.”

“They have missed an education.”

“You are kind, dear sir. However, you should wait to praise me until you see a yield from my advice!”

“If at first you miscalculate, my darling, you have years to adjust your estimates.”

“May they be ever upward.”

Improving his estate’s prosperity was one way to repay his kindness to her.

But another was to share more about who she truly was and what she had become.

That opportunity arrived the next day suddenly when they walked along the Thames and he offered to row the small boat down the river. Reminiscent of the youths they had once been here together, he offered his hand to her to climb in. The winds were calm, the weather sunny and warm for an autumn day.

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