Reluctant Bride by Joan Smith

pride. Of course she was a Belmont, and was proffering all the gloom as my story. “It is the lack of a man about the estate that accounts for our woes,” she ran on. “Jeremy is only a young fellow, with no interest in anything but books. We got one bad steward after another. The one her Uncle Weston hired for us last has proven the worst of the lot. He really bankrupted us.”
    “Weston Braden hired the spoiler, you mean?” he asked, one black brow rising in suspicion. “The same Weston who wishes to acquire the diamonds at a reduced price?”
    “Yes, the same, and there is no cause and effect between the two events, if that is what you are thinking, Sir Edmund,” I answered quickly, before Maisie turned inventive and made our case even more melodramatic than it already was. “He is like Jeremy, interested in history and studies, not in farming. He certainly did not send Berrigan to us to relieve us of our money so we would sell him the necklace cheaply. He is not a scoundrel after all, my father’s own brother.”
    “I never liked him, nor his grinning stepson either,” Maisie averred.
    I was happy to see the steaming plates being carried to the table. I hoped the two of them would eat heartily and forget the misfortunes of Lizzie Braden.
    Blount wore a greedy smile as his eyes surveyed five or ten pounds of beef, sitting in a pool of pan gravy. His knife went into it easily, indicating a pleasing tenderness. I could not account for the frown he suddenly put on. He cut deeper, pulled the meat apart with his knife and fork and bellowed for the servant, who was just leaving the room.
    “This meat is burned black!” he said angrily, yet my eyes told me the delicious-looking morsel was pale pink inside, just turning to beige round the edges.
    “It looks perfect,” I told him.
    “I particularly asked for rare meat. Did you tell the waiter I wanted it rare?” he asked me.
    “I didn’t hear you say rare.” I had a memory of some unheard word, just as he was leaving.
    “Take it away. No one could eat this charred stuff. Bring me a rare piece of beef,” he ordered. “Just seared on the outside. I want it to bleed when I cut it.”
    An involuntary shiver went through me. You remember, perhaps, my aversion to blood? The servant took the plate away. “At least we won’t have to wait long for a replacement. How long do you like your beefsteak to be cooked? Two seconds?”
    “Closer to sixty. Thirty on either side—just seared, to hold in the juices. Pray do not wait for me, ladies. There is no need for you to eat cold food because they choose to serve burned leather in this place. Though how anyone can eat dead bird is beyond me,” he added, with a look of distaste at our fowl, which tasted suddenly very like dead bird.
    “You have a lively manner of describing, Sir Edmund,” I complimented, pushing my plate away.
    “I’ll order you a nice beefsteak when the man comes back,” he tempted.
    “No, really, wounded cow is no more appetizing to me than dead bird. I shall have some bread and butter. At least it never crowed or mooed.”
    “The butter did,” he felt called upon to remind me.
    “As I was saying about Weston Braden’s stepson, Sir Edmund,” Maisie went on, undismayed by our host’s atrocious manners, “he is a handsome ne’er-do-well. Weston up and married the lad’s mother, a widow young enough to be his daughter, some seven years ago.”
    “You don’t have to convince Sir Edmund of the folly of marriage, Auntie,” I pointed out.
    They both ignored me. “We all thought she would bury him in jig time and inherit his money, but it was no such a thing,” she continued. “‘T was himself who buried her two years ago, and who will get his fortune? Her lad, Glandower Cummings, that is who, cutting our poor Jeremy out entirely.”
    “It seems Jeremy is unable to handle one estate, let alone two,” Blount said. He was back into his vile mood, due to the lateness of his