The Rake by Mary Jo Putney Page B

It had been a vain hope that he would overlook her cryptic notes in the account books. The blasted man missed nothing. “Three of the veterans who returned from Wellington’s army wanted to take their families to America, but didn’t have adequate savings to pay their passages and start over.”
    â€œSo you gave them the money?” He slouched casually against the back of the oak settle, relaxed but watchful.
    â€œTheoretically the money was loaned, but it was understood that they might never be able to repay,” Alys admitted.
    â€œAnd the chances of collecting from another country are nil. So you just gave it away,” he mused. “Are you running a business or a charity here?”
    â€œIf you saw the books, you know that less than two hundred pounds were lent,” she said, defensive again. “All of the families had served Strickland with great loyalty. One man’s wife worked on the harvest crew until an hour before her first baby was born.”
    Under his sardonic eye she realized how foolish that must sound to a man of the world. She added more practically, “Helping them leave also reduced the strain on Strickland’s resources—fewer jobs to find and mouths to feed.”
    â€œIf every worker on the estate wanted to emigrate, would you have given money to them all?” he inquired with interest.
    She turned one palm up dismissively. “Few people want to leave their homes for a strange country. Most of the Strickland tenants were born here, and they can imagine no other end than to die here.”
    She thought, with sudden piercing sorrow, of where she herself had been born, the home to which she could never return. Alys had exiled herself as surely as the three families who had gone to America. Then she wondered how much her expression had revealed, for Davenport was watching her keenly.
    â€œSomehow, I doubt that the old earl knew about your odd little charities,” he said, a flicker of amusement in his light eyes.
    Relieved that Davenport was enjoying the thought of his uncle’s ignorance, she assured him, “The old earl never had any idea. His man of business must have known at least some of what I was doing, but he didn’t interfere since the overall profits were up.”
    â€œIn other words, you gave away less than your predecessor stole.”
    She gave a lopsided smile. “I never thought of it that way, but I suppose you’re right.” After hesitating for a moment, curiosity drove her to ask, “Now that you know how Strickland has been run, do you have any comments?”
    Davenport thought for a moment, his hands loosely laced around his tankard. “As you have pointed out, your results are a justification for your methods. Also, everything you described belongs to the past, when I had no say in what went on, so I have no right to criticize your decisions.
    â€œThe future, now ...” He swallowed his remaining ale in one gulp, then clinked the tankard onto the table as he watched her expression narrowly. “That will be a different story. I expect I’ll want to make some changes, but I shan’t rush into them.”
    As an endorsement, it didn’t go as far as Alys would have liked, but it was the best she was likely to get. At least he intended to move slowly.
    She started to rise, but her employer wasn’t finished yet. He lifted his hand to halt her. “I have only one more question at the moment. As an eager reformer, have you had everyone on the estate vaccinated against smallpox?”
    Alys was startled. “No, I’ve encouraged vaccination, but some of the workers are very suspicious about ‘newfangled ideas.’ Only about half the people would agree to it, and I don’t really have the authority to insist on something like that.” In fact, she had railed, begged, and pleaded with the tenants, enraged by their pigheaded stubbornness.
    â€œIn that case, I