Joshua raised his brows. “Perhaps he’ll send an agent.”
With an authority she didn’t truly feel, Caitlin replied, “From all I’ve gathered of Mr. Cynster’s past association with the Hall, especially when his great-aunt was alive, no matter how much of a hedonistic profligate he is, I doubt he would sell the place without at least coming to see what’s here.”And run a calculating eye over the Hall’s assets.
From the moment Timms had told her who would inherit—unfortunately only just before Timms had breathed her last—Caitlin had done all she could to learn more about Mr. Gregory Cynster. Cromwell, Jenkins, and a few of the staff who had been at the Hall for decades remembered him, but sadly, their memories were of him as a child or a youth. Along with everyone else on the estate, they had no insights regarding the Hall’s new owner as an adult.
Consequently, together with everyone else, not just at the Hall but in the local area, Caitlin had been left to extrapolate from what was expected of, as Julia had put it, “that sort of London gentleman.”
As a Cynster, Mr. Gregory Cynster moved in the upper echelons of society. He lived in London—that much, Timms had told her—and was active in the ton. If Caitlin had correctly interpreted the observations Timms had shared over the past three years, Gregory Cynster enjoyed the archetypal lifestyle of the London-born-and-bred gentleman-rake.
He attended balls and soirées in town. He visited friends and relatives in the country and rode magnificent horses in the hunt. He drove superb cattle hitched to an elegant curricle and squired beautiful ladies—usually young matrons—to ton events and, no doubt, alleviated said ladies’ boredom at the drop of their handkerchiefs.
Caitlin’s mind wandered into imagining what that would entail…
“I just hope,” Harry said, his voice, heavy with dire meaning, snapping her back to the present, “that he doesn’t come here wanting to change things.”
Caitlin adopted her most confident expression. “Our best guess is that, when he does arrive, Mr. Cynster will look, first and foremost, at what Bellamy Hall can provide in furthering his current lifestyle. Once he sees and appreciates what a well-run and profitable series of businesses Bellamy Hall comprises, I’m confident he’ll understand that he has no reason to meddle—indeed, that he would be unwise to attempt it—and, instead, can return to his London pursuits and live comfortably on the income the Hall will provide.”
Harry, Nessie, and Julia appeared inclined to accept Caitlin’s prophesy, while Jennifer looked like she was considering surreptitiously crossing herself.
But Joshua frowned uncertainly. “Do you think he will?”
Chin firming, Caitlin truthfully replied, “I can’t see why not.”
Leaving the bays in the stable, in the care of Melton, Jenkins—the head stableman, whom Gregory remembered from long ago—and three suitably reverent stable lads, Gregory walked out of the stable yard and headed for the house, making for the south façade of the house and the side door that the family habitually used.
He’d left Snibbs organizing the luggage they’d brought strapped to the rear of the curricle. The rest of his possessions, and Snibbs’s and Melton’s, had been consigned to a carter and would be delivered in due course.
On reaching the southwest corner of the house, Gregory paused and looked back. With his hands sunk in the pockets of his greatcoat, he surveyed the buildings around the stable.
Clearly, some things had changed since he’d last been there—or at least since he’d last looked out this way. When he’d come for Minnie’s funeral, he hadn’t visited the stable so couldn’t guess how recent the two barns beyond the stable were. The forge and the carriage barn behind the stable had always been there, but both had been repaired, reroofed, and significantly extended.
Eyes narrowing, he studied the stable; built by Minnie’s husband, Sir Humphrey, who’d been a keen rider to hounds, it had always been large. Gregory had assumed that the number of horses would be much reduced by now, yet the stable had seemed busier and more bustling than in his memories. Many of the stalls had been occupied and not solely with carriage horses. While he’d been there, two stable lads had returned from exercising a pair of decent-looking hacks.
What he’d seen had raised several questions, not least being to whom all the horses belonged.
Frowning, he turned and continued along the south façade. He also wanted to know what had occasioned the recent building works; he couldn’t imagine what had necessitated the extensions, let alone two more barns.
He reached the side door, opened it, and stepped through, into the usual prevailing gloom; being long and narrow, the majority of the Hall’s corridors were perpetually dim. After closing the door and losing what little light the opening had afforded, confident in his memories of the house, he walked on, tacking through two connecting corridors to emerge into the rear of the long front hall.
He wasn’t surprised when the sound of his bootheels ringing on the tiles summoned a tall thin man, garbed in severe black and with receding gingery hair and a small yet distinct paunch distending his black waistcoat.
The butler stopped and stared in slack-jawed surprise.
Halting, Gregory smiled. “Cromwell, isn’t it?”
The butler started, then his washed-out-blue eyes flared. “Mr. Cynster, sir! We weren’t expecting you.”
Cromwell stepped forward, then back. He half turned one way, then swung in the opposite direction, then he halted and, wringing his hands, looked at Gregory. “Perhaps I should fetch our chatelaine.” Raising both hands, palms outward, in a placating gesture, Cromwell gabbled, “Yes, that’s what I should do. If you’ll just remain here, sir, I’m sure she won’t be a minute. Permit me…”
With that, Cromwell rushed off along one of the corridors.
Gregory stood in the middle of the hall and stared after the butler. “Obviously, I should have sent word.”
Caitlin was scanning her latest projections, running her pencil down the column of anticipated profits one last time, when the study door burst open, and Cromwell gasped, “He’s here!”
She pondered the total figure. “He who?”
“Mr. Cynster!”
