The reverend gave him a quizzical look. “Well, I don’t know anything for a fact. Andy never confided in me . . . It is possible, I suppose. Is there a will?”
“Not one Lord Marsden and I could find. We searched everywhere. However, she says she has a letter stating that The Garland is hers.”
The Reverend Summerall shrugged his shoulders. “Then she might. I considered Andy a friend. However, I was not privy to all the details of his life.”
“Damn.” Ned pivoted away.
“Is something the matter?”
“Is something the matter?” Ned couldn’t help but repeat. “She wishes to destroy The Garland.”
“Destroy it?”
“Yes.” With an angry wave of his arm, Ned said, “She has no respect for the traditions of the place.”
“Such as the Logical Men’s Society?” Summerall accurately questioned.
“Exactly. She says she is going to change it into a tea garden—and include women as patrons—and then, she is going to set up shop as a dealer of potions and spells and nonsense.”
“Spells—?”
“Why are women the way they are?” Ned demanded. The whole lot frustrated him. He could have had Mrs. Estep on her way if not for the interference of Mrs. Warbler and Clarissa.
Yes, Clarissa, whom he’d wager was behind everyone in the village knowing of his agreeing to marry her in two months—which was difficult to swallow because he hadn’t had a second to process what he’d agreed to. Or, in truth, to determine a way to postpone the marriage ceremony.
He wasn’t ready to be a husband.
“In what way are women the way they are?” Summerall asked.
“Foolish, wrongheaded, willing to believe in the stars or incantations or the power of grass and leaves.”
“Thurlowe, are you feeling all right?”
Ned answered him with a frown. He’d believed The Garland would remain in the control of the Logical Men’s Society, that his plans for his lecture series could continue unabated.
She was going to ruin his plans, and in a way he wasn’t certain he understood. His reaction to her was too strong. She threatened his sense of peace. He both wanted her gone . . . and wanted her.
Lust was an uncomfortable emotion for Ned. Men, such as his father, made fools of themselves over women. He prided himself on his temperate nature. He had no desire to be the rake or the scoundrel. Education and hard work had been his lifeline. Yes, he was accepted, and yet, there was always in the back of people’s minds that he was the bastard of an infamous courtesan. Even Summerall had brought the topic up once.
And yet, having met Mrs. Estep, Ned discovered he felt a stronger resistance to marrying Clarissa than he had before.
What the devil was going on with him? Drinking, lusting, acting like every man with a hard dick . . .
“I’m fine, Summerall. It’s just that I’m not going to let her walk off with something as important to this community as The Garland.”
Summerall responded as if he spoke gibberish. “It is a tavern, Ned. I mean, it is a fine meeting space. However, a tea garden does sound interesting. We can all meet there, including the ladies—”
Ned wanted to roar his frustration. “Are you a man?”
“I believe so,” Summerall answered, looking as if needing verification. “Why do you ask?”
“Ah, forget it. My apologies. It is not my intention to take this out on you.”
“Well, thank you. I think.”
“I’m just very concerned about the village. I’ve worked to bring the very best medicine to Maidenshop.”
“And you have succeeded, sir. We count ourselves fortunate to have such a talented doctor in our midst.”
“It is just that—she is going to change things if we let her stay.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know her type.”
“Which is?”
How could Ned explain to the earnest cleric what he wasn’t certain he understood himself? “She’s too—” he started and then stopped. Too what?
Too beautiful? Too bold? Too unsettling?
And those qualities drew him to her in a way he’d not experienced before.
Illogically, he sensed she could prove his undoing because he wasn’t one to look at a woman’s lips and wonder how they tasted. Or recognize that her hips fit his. Or think of sirens—
“Too . . . ?” Summerall prompted.
Ned ran a frustrated hand over his face. “Everything. Too everything.” That was evasive enough to put off questions, especially from a man who was anxious to officiate his wedding. “She says she is a healer. I know the type. She has no formal medical training. She can do great damage.”
Alarmed, Summerall said, “Such as?”
“Offering patients false hope, and doing it just for money. London is crawling with charlatans who make dubious claims.”
“Yet, without hope, what do we have?” the minister asked.
“Facts. Truth. Reality. It is all that matters.”
“I have seen how hope, especially when offered in the deepest, most devout prayer, can be of service.”
“As a panacea for fear, yes,” Ned agreed. Actually, he’d never given any credit to prayer. Oh, when he was a lad under his father’s roof, he’d had a heavy-handed nurse who had urged him to pray. Dutifully. On his knees. Telling him to pray that his “wicked mother’s sins” would not be on his little soul.
Now he was a man and he’d realized long ago that prayer had been a way to keep him under control. To keep him humble and not wish for things beyond his station.
Well, he was no longer so browbeaten. “Do you truly believe Old Andy wanted her to do this to The Garland?”
The reverend’s brow furrowed in worry. “I fear this is my fault. I’m the one who wrote to her of her uncle’s death. I—” His voice broke off in indecision.
Ned was far from undecided. “I know this is not what Old Andy would have wanted. Not once did he invite the women of the village to The Garland. It is a man’s place. It is not for the gentler sex.” Although the lot of them in the Society should have taken more care of the building. The place had looked like a pigsty this morning.
“Except,” Summerall suggested wistfully, “it would be lovely to have a tea garden in the village. Deirdre and I would enjoy it.”
“You can drink tea at home,” Ned answered. It didn’t help his attitude that Deirdre Summerall was one of the matrons who had bullied Ned into offering for Clarissa. Right now he was sour on the whole lot of them.
He also realized he was on his own. At least when it came to the married men. Their wives had too much power over them. Even Balfour deferred to his wife. However, Ned liked Kate. She was a sensible woman. And not a matron. At least, not yet.
On the other hand, Mrs. Estep was bringing something to the village that he knew he did not want. She was a danger. “I’m going for the magistrate,” he announced, and without waiting for a response walked over to Hippocrates, who had been idly eating his way through clover. Ned mounted and set off toward Belvoir, the Earl of Marsden’s estate. The road took him right through the village.
He had not gone far when he realized there was more than the customary activity going on. Women walked the road in twos and threes, their hands carrying brooms and rags. A few had buckets.