The Marriage Spell by Mary Jo Putney

Author:Mary Jo Putney
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
ISBN: 9780345493569
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2006-06-23T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter XVIII

The duke closed his study door behind them, then opened a handsomely inlaid wooden box. “A cigar?”

“Thank you.” Jack seldom smoked, but he and his brother-in-law had developed this ritual over the years. It gave them time to relax and get used to each other again. God knew they could hardly be more different, but they always got on well.

The duke lit the cigars with a taper, then motioned Jack to sit in one of the deep, leather-upholstered chairs. “Congratulations on your marriage. Your bride looks like a sensible woman.”

“She is.” Jack drew in a mouthful of fragrant smoke, then slowly released it. Piers had the best cigars in London. “She’s a Barton. The family is well respected in the Midlands.”

“Will you be returning to the army?”

“I’m selling my commission. Visiting a broker is on my list of tasks.”

“Good.” The duke regarded the glowing tip of his cigar gravely. “The sooner you take your wife north and reclaim Langdale Hall, the better. Matters there are not good, Jack. I wish you’d given me more authority to deal with the situation.”

Though a solicitor handled routine business affairs for the estate, Piers had kept an eye on both solicitor and estate while Jack was with the army. “The problems are mine to solve. How bad is it?”

“The income is less than half what it should be. There has been disease among the livestock and blight on the crops. Tenants have left and not been replaced, fields are lying fallow, and I hear the remaining tenants look as desolate as plague victims.” He frowned. “I don’t understand why affairs are in such a state. Sir Alfred Scranton is not a stupid man and his own estate does well. There is no evidence that he is looting the property or deliberately mismanaging it. Yet Langdale Hall doesn’t prosper.”

“The estate has been cursed ever since my mother married that man.”

The duke made an expression of distaste. “Surely you don’t believe in curses.”

Reminded of the other man’s traditional views, Jack said, “Not a literal curse. I meant that nothing has gone right since Scranton persuaded my mother to marry him.”

“I’ve never quite understood that match,” the duke mused.

“Whatever his other failings, Scranton adores her,” Jack said grudgingly. And his mother was a woman who needed to feel adored. “The man is a blight, but he’s no thief.”

It would be up to Jack to send Scranton packing, even if that meant throwing his own mother from his house. Which was why he had avoided Yorkshire for so many years. Once it had seemed as if he faced impossible choices. Now that he had married Abby and dismantled Stark’s crippling spell, the choices no longer seemed impossible. Merely very difficult. Not wishing to discuss the matter further, he asked, “How is the world treating you, Piers?”

The duke shrugged. “Well enough.”

Which was a lie, now that Jack looked more closely. His brother-in-law appeared gray and unhappy. Older than his years. The gray was in his face and in the faint glow of energy around him.

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