'Yes, Miss Diana. He said to me, "It was hers all along." And he sent back all the things he had won from others as well. If he knew the owner of something, he bundled it up and shipped it off with the first post. And then, he left with the clothes on his back and a single bag.'
He thought the house was hers? She had wanted a house, of course. A cottage. A small place where she could live in security, answering to no one. But this house? It was nearly a mansion. Far too large for a single person. Even when she was small, she had heard her parents say it was far too much to keep for two people with a single daughter. With all the bedrooms, it was a better space for a much larger family.
A family she would never have. She looked helplessly at the butler. 'I cannot do this, Benton. It is too much. The size of the house. The servants. I cannot afford to keep you. I am little better than a servant myself.'
He patted her hand. 'Do not worry on that account. Mr Wardale set the place up, from the first, so that it very nearly runs itself. The household accounts are so well stocked that we have run for years at a time without the master present. I suspect we can go even longer for you. Your needs are likely to be simpler than his. In any case, do not worry. For now we are all safe and warm, and I have a better knowledge of what it takes to maintain the house and staff than you do. Even without cash in hand, there are things left, from your father's time, that are worth a pretty penny and would have been sold to keep the place afloat, had not the old master gambled them away to Wardale. But they are yours again, to do with as you please. You will find a way. And I will help you.'
She smiled sadly. 'But I cannot keep it, Benton. I simply cannot. It is too much, too soon, and I do not understand Nathan's gift, nor do I wish to take the house back from him. It would be like admitting...' She shook her head, and tried to rise, but it was as though all the stress of the week had hit her; she might as well have been asleep and dreaming, as sitting on a bench in a hall in the middle of the day. 'But for now, I need someone to go back to my old place of employment and fetch my things. I will stay here until it can all be sorted out. It has been a most trying day, and I simply do not have the strength.'
'Ma'am.' He gave a curt nod. 'I will send a footman to get them, and they shall be brought to your old room. You must have some tea, I think. And a light lunch and a nice dinner to celebrate your return. I am sure that Cook still has the menus from when you were a girl. If your tastes have not changed, she knows what you will enjoy.'
'Cook? Still here?' A wave of warmth and comfort swept over her, as her happier childhood memories returned.
'You will find many familiar faces, miss, once you have become used to the place. Mr Wardale was not with us much.' Benton cleared his throat, as though making a final effort to protect his master's secrets. 'Travelling, I think. And even when he was here, he was often away from the house. During that time, the running of the place was left to his man of business, who did not see fit to change the staff any more than was necessary. But now? I shall bring the tea. There is a fire laid in the sitting room.' He moved to open the door for her.
'Benton.' She called him back. 'What was he like?'
'Mr Wardale?' The butler seemed surprised that she would ask.
'Yes. I knew him for such a short time. It was all very confusing. What was he like?'
The older man gave her a thoughtful look as though trying to decide what he owed to a man who no longer employed him. 'He paid regularly. He was courteous to the staff. Although he kept irregular hours, he did not require that we do the same. In food and drink he was temperate, as he was in dress and decorum.'
'That is what he was like as a master. But what kind of man was he?'
'He was--' Benton frowned. 'Not what I expected. I have met men in his line of business before.' He cleared his throat softly. 'When working for your father.'
'My father had other enemies?' She did not remember any. But she had been young, and he had sheltered her from the worst of it.
'Yes, Miss Diana. For he lost more than he won. There were questionable gentlemen who gamed as a diversion, who would come to the house and take a note, or a ring, and then leave him in peace. But the men who took gambling as their sole occupation? They were the sort that would just as soon take a pound of flesh as let a debt go uncollected. Rum 'uns, to the last man. Coarse. Hard. Not fit to come in by the front door of a house such as this, much less to live here. They were men without honour. And I saw them too frequently at the end, for--you will forgive me for saying it, miss--your father was not one to let common sense stand between him and the gaming table.'