An Infamous Marriage by Susanna Fraser

want that, so she held herself stiffly and maintained a careful and correct distance as he pointed out how the accounting had fallen behind since his mother’s apoplexy. “This will be your first task,” he said. “I hope you’ve a good head for figures.”
    “Good enough,” she said. “I kept the household accounts for my great-uncle for years.” She didn’t want to point out that she was a banker’s daughter and had inherited her father’s mathematical talent lest he wonder if she’d inherited his dishonesty, too.
    He smiled a little. “I won’t worry, then. And, bad as this looks, there shouldn’t be many debts. There haven’t been any letters from creditors, nor have any of the locals appeared on my doorstep in the time I’ve been here. Purvis knows how to manage the horses as well as I do. The place should clear at least a little income each year, and you must do as you like with it while I’m gone. I’ll have my pay, and I’ve enough saved to meet my needs beyond that.”
    “What about sheep?” she asked.
    “Sheep?”
    “I’d wondered why there aren’t sheep grazing the hills behind the western fields. They’re too steep to be plowed or to make good pasture for horses, but I believe sheep aren’t so nice in their tastes.”
    “Sheep. I thought you’d ask me about new dresses, or books, or perhaps a pianoforte.”
    She ducked her head and didn’t return his smile. Couldn’t he see she was trying to show him how practical she was, and reassure him she wouldn’t waste his money? “I’ll get what I need, within our income, except the pianoforte. I fear I’m sadly unmusical. But it seems that land could be put to use. Not that I’m any kind of expert on farming,” she hastened to add. “There may be good reasons why it shouldn’t be attempted.”
    “No, it very well might be worth a try. I think we did have them, in my grandfather’s day. I’m not sure why it was stopped.”
    No, and he wouldn’t have thought to ask. She had married a soldier, not a farmer. He felt responsible for this land because it was his home. Yet when it came to the details of its management, he took—well, he took precisely the same amount of interest that a contented, domestic farmer might take in the command of an army battalion. Elizabeth, however, had never been given the luxury of only taking interest in matters she found inherently intriguing. She had married into a farm, so a farmwife she must become.
    The next day he announced he’d made a new will and showed it to her. It was two pages long, written in the dense prose favored by lawyers, but its purpose was clear: if Jack and his mother both died, Westerby Grange belonged to her.
    “But what about your family?” she asked.
    “What family? As I told you, Mama and I are the last of the Westerbys.”
    “But there are any number of Armstrongs, aren’t there?”
    “Yes, but why should Uncle Richard or one of my cousins have the Grange rather than you? They’re amply provided for, no more Westerbys by blood than you are, and haven’t been living here and caring for the land and my mother. No, if I should die, take the place and be welcome to it.”
    “Thank you,” she said quietly. She wanted to suggest that if he were to lie with her tonight and the next, maybe there would be another generation of Westerbys to live on the land. But he’d made it clear he didn’t want her, and she didn’t need to be told twice. “I hope you come home safe and get the chance to live on it and care for it for many years to come,” she said instead.
    “So do I, but it never hurts to be prepared for any eventuality.”
    “No, it doesn’t.” She sighed, blinking back the tears she had determined to leave unshed until after Jack left. Giles and she had felt so secure in their new marriage, since he had been promised a good living as soon as its aged incumbent died. They had puzzled a little over how to make ends meet until they came into their little