Mr. Garrett agreed to discuss the matter with Kedge first; perhaps that way, he would not feel threatened.

Nev was surprised but not too concerned when a servant came to tell him that he was wanted in Mr. Garrett’s office. But when he neared the office and heard raised voices, he started to worry.

“Then you had better tell Lord Bedlow at once,” Percy was saying, “because I will certainly not-”

“You weaselly rascal! Don’t take that high-and-mighty tone with me!”

They both stopped talking when Nev entered the room, but Percy’s white face and the vindictive malice in Kedge’s eyes were impossible to hide.

“Lord Bedlow,” Percy began, “Mr. Kedge has flatly refused to consider your proposal. When I persisted, he tried to blackmail me-”

Kedge interrupted him again. “Your lordship, you cannot be serious about this plan to raise wages so high! Your father would never have asked it of me.”

“My father was an excellent man,” Nev said, “but he would never have asked economy of anyone, least of all himself. That is partly why the district has been brought so low.”

Mr. Kedge drew himself up, all twenty stone of him. “Your father was a great man, and he deserves more respect from you. I deserve more from you. I kept this place going in ’16, I bought up the land and planted the hedgerows when no one else would! I have lived here, boy and man, for nigh on fifty years. And now you’ve a mind to tell me how to run my farm, when you’ve bothered about Loweston for less than two months!”

Perhaps at another time Nev would have felt the justice of that. Now he felt nothing but rage. He opened his mouth to remind Kedge just who was tenant and who was lord.

Percy was before him. “Mr. Kedge, you forget yourself! I asked his lordship to step in so that we might have done with this melodrama, not so that you could insult him. If Lord Bedlow had come into the title years ago, we would not be in this mess now.”

Nev stared at Percy.

Kedge took a step back. “Indeed, my lord, I am sorry. Forgive me my impertinence. I’ve been loyal to the Bedlows for fifty years, and I ain’t fixing to change.”

“That is very good of you,” Nev said without much sincerity. “Perhaps now you can tell me what the devil is going on.”

But Kedge was warming to his theme. “There’s some in this district as think their bread is buttered on the other side. Some as seem to have forgotten their lord and begun looking to Sir Jasper. That rat Snively, for instance, running to Sir Jasper with every bit of gossip he hears. I’m not that type. You know what I mean, don’t you, Mr. Garrett?”

Percy didn’t look at Kedge. His eyes were fixed on Nev. “Nev, I’m so sorry-”

“Mr. Garrett makes a fine show of loyalty. But he isn’t so very loyal when you aren’t watching. Everyone knows Sir Jasper is sweet on Lady Louisa. Well, he’d hardly be so eager to make a match of it if he knew what she’d been up to with the steward, would he?”

“You had better come out and say what you mean,” Percy said.

“If you please. I saw the two of them at your grandfather’s ruin, my lord, kissing and sighing. But I kept my mouth shut, because I’m a Loweston man.”

“Forgive me if I am not more grateful that instead of coming to me, you chose to try to blackmail my steward into working against my interests,” Nev said coldly. His thoughts seemed to come from far away. “Get out. We will resume this discussion at a later date.”

Kedge got up smugly and began moving toward the door.

“And we will resume it.”

“Just remember. As long as I’m a Loweston man, Sir Jasper doesn’t know. If I stop being one…”

“For God’s sake, get out!” Percy said.

When Kedge was gone they stood there, staring at one another. “Is it true?” Nev barely recognized his own voice.

“Yes,” Percy said, and Nev barely recognized his voice either. “I’m sorry, Nev, I am, but I love her-”

“Oh, Christ.” Nev wondered if there had ever been a time when this news would have made him happy. Even in the midst of his horror and disbelief, he was obscurely ashamed to think that there might not have been. “Here I’ve been worrying about you and Penelope, and all the time you’ve been sneaking around with Louisa-”

Percy stared. “Me and Penelope? Nev, Penelope is your wife!”

“Louisa’s my baby sister. You had no problem seducing her.”

“I didn’t seduce her. I wouldn’t have-it was only a few kisses.”

That was a relief, at any rate. Nev did not feel relieved. “One would be enough to ruin her.”

“I know.” Percy looked away. “Christ, I know. I never meant for this to happen, but she was so unhappy. So very unhappy. I thought there could be no harm in spending time with her, and then-I want to marry her, Nev. I will marry her, if you’ll agree to it. I may not be what she deserves, but I’m what she wants, and that’s good enough for me.”

Nev felt a stab of guilt that he had not found time to deal with Louisa’s unhappiness, and then sharp unreasonable anger that Percy had. “It’s not good enough for me, damn it! She’s seventeen, Percy. Seventeen. She hasn’t got the foggiest notion of what she wants or what it will mean to be married to you. She’s just a kid, and if it comes out she’s been meeting with you alone, she’ll be ruined! She doesn’t understand what that means, but you do! What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t thinking. I just knew-she was the one for me. She always has been, I think. I couldn’t say no.”

“Are you suggesting that my sister was the instigator in this?” Nev said in a low, dangerous voice.

Percy almost smiled. “Come off it, Nev, of course she was. Louisa’s been waiting her whole life to plot an assignation.”

Of course she had. Poor irrepressible Louisa. Unlike Penelope, she had never learned not to rebel against things she could not change. Nev had wanted so badly to keep it that way, but now-“And you were right on the spot to take advantage of it, weren’t you? How do you propose to keep her, Percy? I know you never wanted to be a steward. Were you planning to take her to your lodgings and feed her off what you could win at piquet? I daresay Louisa would think it a grand adventure-at first.”

Percy flushed, a sure sign he was about to lose his temper. “Nev, please. Of course not. I never did want to be a steward, but-I’ll be honest. I’m here because when you left, I didn’t get invited so many places. People started to look at me askance. The whole thing was a house of cards, and it fell apart. But I’ve tried stewarding now, and I like it all right. We’re not kids anymore. I’m willing to settle down. I’ve been doing some translations, and that’s bringing in some money. I’d never spend a penny of Louisa’s principal, and the interest would make sure we did all right-”

“You want Louisa to live on two or three hundred a year? Why do you think I fought so hard to save Loweston and her dowry, if not so that she could make a good match and never have to worry about money again?” Nev remembered those few weeks before Penelope agreed to marry him-his grim visions of Louisa in shabby lodgings and a made-over dress, cajoling duns and hoarding tallow candle-ends, all her happy glow and piratical daydreams and enormous cherry-trimmed bonnets brushed away like the bloom on a butterfly’s wing. That was why he had worked so hard to save Loweston, for her and his mother.

And now through his own fault it was all for nothing. He should never have been such friends with Percy; he should never have let Penelope hire him. He should have seen Louisa was unhappy so she wouldn’t seize on this; he should have been paying attention and found out what was going on before Kedge. “That money was to find her a husband who could take care of her, not to go to some damn fortune hunter who-”

But that was the limit of Percy’s forbearance. “How dare you? You canting hypocrite!” he said through clenched teeth. “When a month before your marriage you were gossiping about your bride-to-be’s dowry with your mistress!”