Читать книгу Mrs. Gailey онлайн

57 страница из 78

Iris drew her chiffon scarf more closely around her and gave an exquisite shiver.

"Darling Nick—always so outspoken. You seem to forget that you nearly ate me alive when I suggested selling a bit of Lambpool a few years ago."

"Because you wanted to sell the best eight acres of a farm that's already too small, to a London chap for building a week-end cottage. Masters couldn't have carried on without that meadow. This is quite different. A man who's been a tenant forty years wants to buy his farm, and though on principle I'm against selling off any part of the estate, Birdskitchen is our only farm across the river and just the one I should choose to let go if we had to raise capital."

"But Vine's offering such a wretched price."

"He's offering what it's worth in a fair market. Of course, some rich Londoner might be able to pay more. But think of the mess he'd make of it as a farm."

"Would that matter if it didn't belong to us?"

Anne wished that Iris would not say such things to Nicholas. It was bad for him to be made so angry.