She shook her head. But as quickly as she’d introduced the topic, she changed it. “You and Mr. Layton were huddled over the ledgers for a long time this morning.”
“We are slowly formulating a plan, for Sarvol House at least. He agreed with your suggestion of shuttering as much of it as possible. I’ll leave open only my bedchamber and a couple ofguestrooms, along with one public room to serve all the needs of the closed ones.”
“Guest chambers?” She sounded as surprised by that as he had been when Mr. Layton had made the suggestion.
“They’ll be small ones, and other than opening windows to keep them aired and low-burning fires now and then to keep the mustiness at bay, they’ll not be overly attended to. He said it wouldn’t add much to the load of the few servants who will remain and that it will help the house feel less empty and me less alone, which he said would be important for surviving the next few years.”
“He thinks you’ll have to retrench foryears?”
Scott nodded. “Depending on what we can come up with for Thimbleby, it could be quite some time before I’m no longer toeing a very narrow line.”
“What else will you need to do to stay afloat?”
“When I return to Nottinghamshire, I will need to sell my coach and team. He suggested I obtain a single horse or pony and an inexpensive, secondhand cart for traveling about the local area.”
Gillian’s brow pulled, her look one of disheartening worry. He’d not wanted to be a burden on anyone, but there seemed no chance of avoiding it.
“You won’t be able to travel, then,” she said.
“I won’t.”
“When will I see you again?” she asked quietly.
That question weighed on him as well. “I don’t know. I will write, if you don’t think Mrs. Brownlow would be thoroughly scandalized by that.”
She offered a small, somewhat tremulous smile. “She won’t be scandalized. But letters aren’t the same as getting to see you.”
He was causing her pain, which was the last thing he wanted to do. “I wish—” He stopped himself. Wishing things were differentwouldn’t change their circumstances. He would do best to find a means of brightening their reality. “Will you write to me?”
“You would have to pay to receive my letters. I don’t want to be a strain on you.”
“Mr. Layton and I discussed that,” Scott said. “I told him years without correspondence would make me feel far more alone than if every room in the house were closed up, including mine. And he agreed that keeping up my connections with people in Society will help me find my place in thetonone day. We have included in my admittedly strained budget enough so I can receive letters. And I would very much like at least some of those to be from you.”
She seemed somehow both comforted and more sorrowful. “I’m not the prodigious letter writer you are,” she said. “But I will write to you.”
“That will mean more to me than I can possibly say.”
She held fast to his hand as they walked. “Does your mother know how much letters mean to you?”
Scott nodded. “She remarked on my extensive correspondence any number of times while I was still living in America. She knows they are important to me. I suspect the difficulty lies inmenot being important toher.At least, not important enough.”
“You do know that you are important, though, don’t you? That if she does feel that way, it is not an accurate reflection on you?”
He brushed his thumb along the back of her hand, smiling at her from his very heart. “You think me worth the bother?”
“I think you worth a great deal of bother, Scott Sarvol.”
Oh, she was good for him. “Toss has insisted I should invite Sarah to Sarvol House for supper, but we’d be seated in a corner of a poorly furnished drawing room, eating a very scant meal. Do you suppose she will think it worth the bother to spend an evening with her brother?”
A fearsomeness entered her expression. “Do I need to pummel your entire family?”
“Thatismy entire family, so at least it wouldn’t take long.”
She shook her head. “You have more family than that, but I suspect you don’t realize that you do.”
“Are you attempting to convince me that I’m not entirely alone?”
She squeezed his hand. “Not even if you wanted to be. In fact, Artemis said she had ideas for brightening a few of the rooms here with what is on hand, and she will likely take over the entire place. You’ll have not one opportunity to be alone while she is at work. None of us will. I bowed to the inevitable and promised to help.”