When a Girl Loves an Earl (Rescued from Ruin Book 5) Read Free Page B

had first glimpsed his crumbling gray sprawl, he’d noted immediately the deterioration: The widening cracks beneath the first floor. Stone walls discolored red by fire on the second floor.
    The narrow, spidery windows infrequently dotting the façade gave it little elegance. Indeed, the entire structure might as well have been a prison for all its beauty. The house ran in an unimpressive, ungainly U around an overgrown courtyard. All in all, there was little to recommend it apart from size and a certain sturdiness. It had lasted more than two hundred years, after all.
    Hargrave had spent the entire journey to Derbyshire explaining the repairs that must be approved and funded. Ever efficient and helpful, the solicitor had made a list. He had estimated that, with the income from the estate’s farms and rents, the repairs would take a mere ten years. Ten. Years.
    Upon his arrival at Shankwood, James had wanted nothing more than to ball Hargrave’s list into a wad and shove the paper down the solicitor’s narrow throat. Then, he’d wanted to leave the way he’d come—leave England and return to Scotland. To Alison.
    Instead, he had grudgingly agreed to meet the servants who had stayed on after the fifth earl’s death. Most of them were nearly as aged as the hall itself, but they had greeted him as though he were both a long-lost son and their liege lord. It had been a wee bit embarrassing, in truth, but he’d been unable to rebuff their kindness. Afterward, he had reluctantly agreed to tour the village. This had sealed his fate in a way he could not have predicted.
    Shankwood Hall sat squarely—and he did mean squarely —in the midst of a picturesque village known, oddly enough, as Shankwood. Home to fewer than seventy people, the tiny collection of humble stone cottages and shops had instantly reminded him of Netherdunnie.
    He’d first encountered the blacksmith, Jones, whose broad grin and bulging forearms had reminded him of his father. Then, he’d met the Starlings, an ancient, kindly pair of sisters who took in sewing when their fingers did not pain them. “The rain, you know,” they’d whispered confidingly as they had poured him a cup of the finest ale he’d ever tasted. Over the following week, he’d met every villager, down to the new babe born to Mr. and Mrs. Fellowes—their fifth child, a boy they had named James in honor of their new lord.
    All the natural Scots resistance had drained from him like ale from a cracked tankard. In every face, he had seen his mother, his father, McFadden or Nellie or dozens of others he had known for a lifetime. They were familiar, these people. Perhaps they did not speak like him, but as Hargrave incessantly repeated, they needed him.
    No one else was permitted to manage their rents or authorize repairs to their roofs or approve the construction of a new bakehouse. Only he, James Kilbrenner, the sixth Earl of Tannenbrook, could do these things. Without him, every servant and villager would eventually be forced to leave their home.
    And so, he had stayed. Through the summer, he’d become acquainted with Gregory and Lucien, who were fascinated with his accent and his size, his facility with stonework and his rough manner.
    After learning from Hargrave how much of his role as Lord Tannenbrook involved not only governance of his lands but influencing the laws and policies of the entire kingdom, James had realized how poorly prepared a Scottish stonemason was to take a seat in the House of Lords. Fortunately, Gregory and Lucien had been eager to help. They had taken him under their tutelage, sharing their knowledge of proper manners and dress, sharing their tutors and dance instructor and tailor. They had even helped him chip away at his brogue until he could scarcely recognize his own voice.
    All the while, through the summer and autumn and long, cold winter, he’d assured himself that he would visit Netherdunnie again. In another month, when the harvest was completed.