He had no answer for that. So he gave her Colonel Clements’s letter. “The colonel is coming to visit.”
She scanned the letter. To her credit, she didn’t turn a hair. “Well, we’d better annihilate some more of the north wing after tea, ought we not?”
Ready?” Fitz asked, as the brougham carrying Colonel and Mrs. Clements pulled into view.
Lady Fitzhugh nodded. She had on her most somber dress, her hair in a chignon again—this time Fitz approved. They were two minors going up against a formidable man and this was no time for her to look her age.
“Are you ready?” she murmured.
“I must confess: I’m rather looking forward to this.”
“I came, I saw, I smashed,” she said drily.
“Precisely.”
The carriage came to a stop before the house. As the drive had been repaved after the building of the north wing to show it off during the approach, the colonel would have already seen its absence.
And indeed, before they could utter a welcome, the colonel barked, “What happened to the manor, Fitz?”
“Colonel,” said Fitz, “Mrs. Clements, so delighted you could join us.”
“What a lovely brooch, Mrs. Clements,” chirped his wife. “Please, come in.”
Colonel Clements was not so easily distracted. “You will answer my question. What happened to the manor?” he bellowed as they entered the manor.
Fitz felt himself perspiring. “We are in the midst of repairs still, sir. Please excuse the state of the house.”
“Repairs? Half of the manor is gone.”
“Sometimes repairs involve unanticipated results.”
“Such results are unacceptable. You will rebuild the north wing.”
“Of course we will put the manor to rights. But that is not what we are about to do tonight,” said Lady Fitzhugh, with a confidence and a skill that belied her years. “Tea, Mrs. Clements?”
Colonel Clements would not let the subject drop. “I cannot believe you countenanced this destruction of your home, Lady Fitzhugh.”
Fitz sucked in a breath. To pretend Colonel Clements was overreacting was one thing, to be subject to his direct ire, quite another. Lady Fitzhugh, however, was not the least bit intimidated. “Countenanced it, sir? No, I encouraged it. It was my idea.”
She didn’t just have audacity. She had enormous balls.
Colonel Clements sputtered. “Explain yourself, young lady.”
“Had the north wing been better built, Lord Fitzhugh and I would have endeavored to rehabilitate it. However, it was ill conceived and badly executed. Even if we restored it today, we still must keep restoring it forevermore, committing infinite outlays of funds so that it does not once again fall into disrepair. And since no one is possessed of infinite funds, we chose to have a more modest house that is within our means of upkeep.
“The other choice is to someday sell my future firstborn son on the marriage mart. And that I absolutely refuse to even contemplate. Lord Fitzhugh had to submit to such a fate; that was enough. It will not happen again, not while I have a breath left.”
Her tone was eminently reasonable and she maintained a friendly smile throughout. But there was no mistaking the underlying vehemence of her words. Colonel Clements was rendered momentarily speechless. And Fitz—it began to dawn on him that he had married no ordinary girl.
Tea was brought in. Lady Fitzhugh poured for everyone.
“This is excellent tea, Lady Fitzhugh,” said Mrs. Clements.
“This is utter heresy.” Colonel Clements found his voice. “The house is entailed. You cannot—”
“Colonel, you will not upset our hosts. Why don’t you have some of this lovely sandwich?” said Mrs. Clements firmly. “Now, Lady Fitzhugh, tell me how you are finding Somerset.”
And that was that.
At the end of tea, with the Clementses shown up to their room to change for dinner, Fitz approached his wife and squeezed her hand. “Well done, old girl.”
She looked at him, surprised by his gesture. Then she smiled—she was a pretty girl after all, with nice, even teeth. “You did very well yourself. Now make sure you are amenable to everything the colonel says for the rest of their visit.”
He nodded, understanding her perfectly. “I will be most abjectly agreeable.”
Not all the north wing was smashed. Much of it was carefully preserved: The glass panes of the conservatory were earmarked for the rebuilding of the greenhouses, the stones of the wall for a later restoration of the kitchen, and the roof tiles for the chicken coop, the dovecote, and the mushroom house.
More curiously, however, Lord Fitzhugh had left a fifteen-foot-long section of wall standing. When Millie asked him why the wall had not been knocked down along with everything else, he’d said lightly, “For those days when we are again in the mood to smash something.”