Ten Ways to Be Adored When Landing a Lord by Sarah MacLean Page B

naught. He was no trouble at all.
    In fact, since he and Mr. Durukhan had arrived that morning and she had closeted them in the statuary and delivered careful instructions that they were not to be disturbed, Isabel had effectively avoided the pair.
    Hidden from the pair, more like.
    Nonsense. Isabel shook the thought away. So she was on the roof once more. The roof was still leaking. And, if the clouds careening toward them from the east were any indication, the repairs were going to be particularly welcome that evening.
    So she was in breeches and shirtsleeves with Jane, and they were on their knees carefully applying a wicked-smelling paste to the underside of the clay tiles that seemed to have come loose all across the roof. It had been seven years since the first of the Townsend Park servants had left, including the skilled men—those who were most marketable to other large estates across the county. With them had gone any knowledge of the craft of roof repair, stone and woodworking, and several other skills that came in particularly handy on a country estate.
    Isabel sighed at the memory. She supposed they had been lucky to have gone so many years without needing to take on major structural repairs of the house. Thank goodness for the manor’s library, and its collection of titles on architecture and building practices. She smiled wryly. Roof repair was not the preferred reading of most young ladies, but it would do if she could remove the chamber pot currently perched on the end of her bed to capture the rain that seeped regularly through the poorly tarred roof.
    “Would you like to tell me what happened yesterday to send you into hiding from Lord Nicholas? ”
    Jane had never been one to beat about the bush.
    Isabel dipped a brush into the bucket of vile roof tar and said,
    “Nothing happened.”
    “Nothing whatsoever.” Nothing I’d like to revisit.
    “No. He agreed to identify and value the collection. I thought I would let him get on with it. If all goes well, Minerva House shall have a new home within the month.” She tried to keep her voice light. Confident.
    Jane was quiet as she laid several newly repaired tiles back down upon the roof. “And Lord Nicholas? ”
    “What about him?”
    “Precisely.”
    “I would prefer that he were not necessary to the endeavor,” Isabel said, deliberately misunderstanding Jane’s question. A strong gust of wind blew then, sending Isabel’s shirtsleeves flapping like sails in a storm. She braced herself against the cool breeze, choosing her next words carefully. “But I think that we do not have much of an alternative.”
    “You have alternatives, Isabel.”
    “None that I can see.”
    Jane placed several more tiles in the silence that stretched between them before turning back to Isabel. “You have cared for us for a long time. You have made Minerva House a thing of legend for girls across London. The ones who come to us now … they can barely credit our existence. All that is because of you.” Isabel stopped tarring her tiles, meeting Jane’s cool green gaze. “But you cannot allow the legend to overtake you.”
    “It is not a legend for me, Jane. It is real.”
    “But you could have more. You are the daughter of an earl.”
    “An earl with morals best described as questionable.”
    “The sister to a new earl, then,” Jane rephrased. “You could marry. Live the life you were meant to live.”
    The life she was meant to live. The words seemed so simple—as though it were clearly mapped out—and perhaps it was. Other wellborn girls seemed to have no trouble following the well-worn path.
    Other girls had not had her father. Her mother.
    She shook her head. “No. This is the life I was meant to have. No smart marriage, no amount of tea with the ladies of the ton, no London seasons would have changed my course. And look at where my course has taken me. Look at the difference I have made for you. For the others.”
    “But you should not sacrifice