Page 48 of So Wild A Heart

Strong gazed back at her blankly. He blinked. Finally he said, “You—you want to talk to me, Miss Upshaw?”

“Yes.” Miranda wondered if the man was a trifle dim. If so, it was no wonder that the estate had gone downhill the last few years. “About the state of Lord Ravenscar’s holdings.”

“But…but…” he sputtered, looking toward Devin for help.

“They are going to fix the place up,” Devin explained. “Didn’t anyone tell you that?”

“Well, yes, your uncle wrote me. I mean, I understood that there would be, uh…” His eyes rolled back toward Miranda, and he paused uncertainly.

“An infusion of cash?” Miranda asked politely. “Yes, there will be. But first we will have to see what needs to be done, won’t we?”

“I—I—but surely Mr. Dalrymple is the one you need to talk to about that. I mean, him being the trustee and all, he’ll be the one handling the money. He’ll be arriving this evening, won’t he?”

Miranda cast a look at Devin, who said, “Yes, he is due in this evening. But the fact is, Strong, Uncle Rupert won’t be the one you will be dealing with anymore. From now on, it will be Miss Upshaw. Or, rather, Lady Ravenscar, as she will be.”

The estate manager’s mouth dropped open, and he stared at Miranda as if she had suddenly grown two heads.

“We shall start off slowly,” Miranda assured the man, thinking that she would probably have to bring in Hiram Baldwin to help Strong, at least temporarily. The man looked as if he might faint. “This afternoon I just want to go over things in general. I won’t need to look at the figures just yet. But I really know nothing about the estate. What sort of land it is, how it’s being used, whether it’s being put to the best use. Later we can get into it in more detail. Then I’ll need maps and records for the past few years. We may have to go back even further than that. And, of course, I’ll want to ride around the estate and see everything firsthand.”

“The whole estate?” He goggled at her.

“Well, not at one time, of course,” Miranda said in what she hoped was a soothing tone. “First, of course, we are going to go over the house and grounds. Devin is going to show us around them now.”

“Lord Ravenscar?” Strong looked almost as doubtful as he had when he had heard that Miranda intended to run the estate.

Miranda smothered a smile as Devin said, “I do remember where everything is, you know.”

“Oh, of course, my lord, I didn’t mean to imply…” Strong began to rub his hands together anxiously. “I am sure you will do an excellent job of it.”

The three of them rose and left the office. Miranda suspected that as soon as the door was closed behind them, Mr. Strong had run to pour himself a stiff drink.

She turned to Devin, saying thoughtfully, “Is Mr. Strong a trifle slow? He seemed to have a deal of trouble understanding what I wanted.”

Devin smothered a smile. “I think you are a bit…shall we say, intimidating…for the ordinary man, Miranda. He is not accustomed to a countess walking in and saying she would like to see the books. I am sure he’ll be fine once he gets used to you. Give him a little time to recover from the shock. Maybe he will be better after he talks to Uncle Rupert.”

They went first around the outside of the house, exploring the neglected grounds and examining the exterior of the mansion. Devin pointed out where the herb garden on the kitchen side of the house had stood, as well as the elegant formal gardens on the terrace behind the house. Flowers still grew there, the roses in a wild tangle, the vines of the arbor running over and dripping down into the doorway. There was a kind of shaggy, careless beauty about the flower gardens, but the unpruned hedges at the bottom of the terrace simply looked like thickets of wild bushes, and the graveled paths were muddy and pocked with holes.

“There’s been only old Mr. Pettigrew and his grandson for a few years now, and they cannot take care of it all. I have even seen Cummings out in the roses a time or two, trying to cut back the weeds so he can still have roses for the vases,” Devin said. “When I was a boy, I can remember there was a maze down on that side of the terrace.” He pointed toward an area that was overgrown with grass now. “It had to be carefully pruned, and over the last generation it had become completely overgrown. Father had them cut it to the ground and uproot it. He was afraid one of us children would manage to crawl into it and become hopelessly trapped.”

“I read that the landscaping was done by Capability Brown,” Joseph said. “Is that true?”

“As far as I know. The alternating elms and beeches as you come up the lane are ones he had planted. And over there—” he pointed in the other direction from the maze, where trees encroached upon the grounds “—those were once a very neat orchard, or so my father told me. Fruit trees all in military rows, planted by his grandfather. In the spring it’s beautiful, a thick blanket of pink and white flowers.”

“I have a landscaper coming next week,” Joseph said with satisfaction. “We’ll soon set it to rights. I don’t suppose you have the original plans?”

Devin shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose they might be in the library or my study. I shall look for them.” He turned and looked back at the house, shading his eyes against the sun. “The exterior stone is in pretty good shape, just nicks and chinks here and there, some stone carvings that have fallen off. The roof needs repair badly, I know that. The west wing is entirely closed off because of the water damage. Most of the chimneys don’t draw properly. There’s woodworm in most of the banisters and railings. Dry rot. Wet rot. There are some floors in the west wing that I am not even sure are safe.”

He looked from Joseph to Miranda and back again. “Still game for repairing the old pile?”

“You must be joking. You’ve only whetted Papa’s appetite,” Miranda said with a chuckle. “Lead on.”

They went inside and walked through the house, taking what Miranda termed a short overview. The original old great hall of the center wing had been turned into the large entry of the house, the centerpiece of which was an elegant staircase that rose to the landing, then curved in both directions up to the second floor. The steps were marble, as was the floor of the entry, and the banisters were made of English oak. Miranda had already noticed on her way downstairs this morning that the railing was pricked with hundreds of tiny holes, indicating the presence of woodworm.

“At least we don’t have deathwatch beetles,” Devin said as they started making their way around the stairs. “Or at least we haven’t heard them knocking.” The larger beetle, which was even more voraciously destructive than the woodworm, was known by the tapping sound it made inside the wood.

“That’s good.”

“Those are the best tapestries.” Devin pointed to the huge, faded hangings that decorated the walls of the large room, along with several enormous portraits of ancestors, many of them darkened with time. “Mother had the best ones taken from all the rooms and moved down here, where they would be seen first.”