A Country Wooing by Joan Smith

must keep it a secret from Aunt Alice,” Robin said to his brother. “He gambled it away. Owed three thousand to the moneylenders, and sold it three days before Alex left. That’s why—”
    “Never mind, Robin,” Alex said sharply. “It’s gone, but it will be the last property to leave this family if I can help it.” He rose with a commanding glare at his brother. “Ladies, we’ll leave you to your mending and cobbling and hope to see you tomorrow at Penholme. Come to tea. The moon is full tonight, so your backhouse boy will have poor foraging in the henhouse.”
    It was agreed, a time set, and an order given by Mrs. Wickfield that they would take their own gig, as day travel in it was pleasant.
    While the gentlemen drove home, the elder burning Robin’s ears for revealing Charlie’s iniquity in selling the hunting box, Mrs. Wickfield turned a knowing eye on her daughter. “That’s why Alex left!”
    “It seems like it.”
    “They had a fight, I wager. There was Alex looking after Penholme, trying to keep the place intact, while that bounder of a Charles was out squandering the family fortune. Selling the Leicester place! I can’t believe it. And mortgaging everything else he could get his hands on. If the main estate weren’t entailed, he’d have sold it up, too.”
    “He put another twenty thousand mortgage on it. What did he do with so much money?”
    “Bought anything he took a fancy to. Gambled, showered it on his women friends, the gudgeon. What was your point in as well as refusing Alex, my lady?”
    “Refusing him? Mama, we were joking. You might as well say I offered for Robin.”
    “Folks have a way of saying what they mean in the form of a joke, to see how it goes down. If he makes that joke again, I suggest you tell him he’s welcome to your five thousand.”
    Anne smiled but was soon frowning again. “I wonder if Robin’s joke about Maggie Anglin’s fortune was said for the same reason.”
    “My dear, he’d never marry that vulgar merchant’s daughter.’’
    “Better he than Alex.”
    “Now, that is what you should have said! Though as I consider it, Anglin would not settle for such a little title as Robin’s. He always buys the best. He’d be angling for the title of countess for his chit, if he should take into his head to look toward the Hall.”
    Anne’s head turned slowly to her mother. She opened her lips, then closed them again. Alex had really not said a word against the Anglins. What he had said was that he could overlook their vulgarity, if the price was right. Did he mean he could overlook it in a sister-in-law? Surely that was his meaning. Of course it was. It was pleasant to see Alex and Robin on such good terms, after a rough settling-in period. With two good men concentrating on the job of bringing order to Penholme, the future looked bright.
     

Chapter Eight
     
    Anne knew as soon as she set foot in the door of Penholme the next afternoon that there was some excitement in the air. She saw it in Mrs. Tannie’s smile as she greeted them at the door of the gold saloon, she heard it in the excited chatter of the rest of the family as they sat in groups talking, and most of all she felt it in the one long, meaningful look Alex cast on her when she entered. He wasn’t quite smiling, but there was a happy excitement in his eyes. He looked as if—she hardly knew what. As if he wanted to take her into his arms and kiss her. He had never done anything of the sort, so how did she know? She just knew, that’s all.
    When she spoke to him, however, she gave no intimation of her powers of telepathy. “Why are you looking like the cat that swallowed the canary?” she asked. “Have you won a fortune at faro, I hope?”
    “No, but I made a small fortune at Winchester.”
    “They liked the snuffboxes!”
    “They were mad for them. Charlie did have good taste, to give him his due.”
    “I trust you mean to disburse your windfall profits with discretion,” she