"Err... Just how many houses are we talking about," Anthony asked as a round protrusion moved up and down his neck in anxiety.

The girl moved past him, not hearing his question as she surveyed the Banquet room, which to his belief had been filled with a great number of choices for breakfast. His staff had outdone themselves. They had never served this many dishes in his year-long stay.

He had thought of sending them for a repast so that he may steal away to his study and look for the letter from Mr. Collins, but the lady was quite insistent on having breakfast right away. The minute they walked inside the Banquet Room, the companion slid away quietly to the kitchen leaving them quite alone with each other.

Lady Sarah Jane had since stopped beleaguering him of the details of the inheritance when she saw the amount of food that was laid before them.

His mind was reeling from surprise of the news, and most importantly, he hadn't even known of the Rosenbergs or how they were related to the Killsworths but apparently, their relation was of significant matter.

Anthony wanted something more out of the inheritance than a pesky ward who couldn't keep her mouth shut when she got nervous. If he was to inherit properties, these better be lands earning their keep. He had many responsibilities over his shoulder, and a ward who haven't a clue on how to behave in society was the last on his list of priorities.

Ultimately, he knew how society works.

His lips narrowed into a thin grim line as he recalled exactly what society was capable of. This chit wouldn't survive a day in society. He doubted that she had attended a Season, and what of that, she couldn't be more than a day over sixteen. If his guardian duties must prevail him to enter this young girl into a Season, he paid it no matter. He's not going back to London this soon. The chit will have to wait for a few more years.

She would have to wait until she's twenty, or, he thought with a smirk, one-and-twenty.

"I'm a country miss, and yet I haven't seen as much ham as this," the lady said as she helped herself to a plateful of ham and bacon.

Anthony couldn't help but follow her and took two servings of ham and bacon unto his plate too. Damn, he was hungry.

"Tell me about yourself, Lady Sarah." He instantly regretted saying it when her hand, shooting halfway across the platter of eggs dropped the fork. She looked at him pointedly with a mixture of amusement and annoyance.

"You mustn't call me that. Lady Sarah, was the 7th Countess of Rosenberg—my mother when she was unmarried," she explained and picked up the dropped silver.

"So much so, you mustn't call me Lady Rosenberg either as that pertains to my mother as well when she married my father." She smiled and began picking on her food.

"And how are you called?" The viscount was not really sure what to make of it. Really, there were rules to be followed, and she respected none.

"I'm Lady Sarah Jane Riverton, the daughter of Lady Sarah." Her hand animatedly waved the fork in a circular motion towards her before shooting out again to scoop eggs on her plate. "Please call me Sarah Jane, everyone does."

"Sarah Jane,"he said with a light smile. He was being allowed to use her given name, how casual.

If he didn't know that her clothes couldn't be anything less than expensive, he would've called her on her lie. No lady would behave like that, not a single one.

"I am called Killsworth."

"Oh, yes I know. That is your title." She smiled and poked a large piece of bacon and popped it into her mouth.

This lady was ghastly.

"What I mean to say is, my lord, what is your given name? Surely, we can't be friends if—"

Suddenly, she stood, the chair scraping painfully against the floor. She took a scone from across the table, sat back down, and broke the scone in half with her fingers.

"We can't be friends if I do not call you by your first name, Killsworth." She smiled swiftly at him as she waved the butter knife, slapping a thick spread of her special berry jam. "Unless you really intend for me to call you Killsworth."

He hadn't really intended for her to do anything with regard to his person.

She gestured with the knife and pointed at the jam. "You must try the jam. I promise you, you wouldn't be disappointed."

Killsworth was a name most male acquaintances and friends used, but he had allowed some of his female friends to use his given name. What harm would it do?

He hesitated for a split second and then formed his name. "Anthony." He cleared his throat as his own name felt unusual to his lips.

He wondered if she knew how much familiarity belied allowing each other by their given names. He knew some married members of the ton to never even use their given names.

They used many other names, often derogatory if they weren't in good terms, but that was hardly the point.

"Hmm?" Apparently, she didn't hear him and popped the whole, bloody hell, the whole scone into her mouth.

Anthony's gut clenched. Surely, someone from the heavens is mocking him. A savage in the form of a lady was thrust upon his arms, quite literally, to become his responsibility. They must be performing a cruel sort of joke.

"I said, I am Anthony. Anthony Llevy-Dorth is my given name." He poked the ham from his plate. Gingerly, he sliced a bit and let it slide carefully in his mouth. "You may call me as you wish."

"That's very nice. I do feel like we're going to be friends," she said, as she took a gulp of tea, and dabbed the cloth gently on her mouth. "It will be a very welcome change, since most of the old Lord Rosenbergs hadn't been around long enough to become my friends."

The ham got stuck in his throat. Just what did she mean by that?

"Oh!" Finally, the impertinent chit had the decency to blush.

She judged his uncomfortable expression and smiled sheepishly. "There is no way that I may put this nicely, but I had not killed them. I assure you, I do not go about the country, murdering Earls."

He did not know what to say to that. He covered his lips with a coffee cup.

"They had just been so old. Oh so, so, so old." Her voice rising at the second mention of so.

Clearly, the Earls had been old, of that he had no doubt.

"And one way or another, can you believe it? They had found themselves dead. It was a bloody nuisance actually."

Anthony's lips spread into a wide grin on the tip of the coffee cup. And this lady swears, how nice.

"One by one, they fell like bone sticks. Heavens, I even asked a witch—"

"I beg your pardon?" He interrupted, because really, a man can only take as much.

"She may not be a witch, but she might as well have been. She predicts the future you know, and she has happily proclaimed that I am not cursed. She even swore it on her husband's grave." She smiled. "And do you know, the husband's not even dead yet."

Anthony couldn't really begin to think of any polite response to that.

"So my father was the 7th Earl... I was passed on to the next, and the next, and then the 13th Earl had passed so—"

"14th." He felt necessary to add.

"Yes, yes. That makes you the 15th Earl," she replied with a flourish and then popping another, and rather large, piece of meat in her mouth.

Lady Sarah Jane had a nice mouth. A little bigger than what fashion accepts, but it still was a nice thing to look at, especially when it was in constant motion.

If her father had been the 7th Earl and he, the 15th, then... Anthony quickly made sums in his mind—that means that she had been passed to different Lord Rosenbergs in a total of seven times.

Seven times! Eight, if he were to count her transport to his home.

"... not really terrible. You'll like it, but you will need a bit more funds to..."

He couldn't believe that she had still been speaking. And with all that eating that she was doing, she could still speak so fast. He wondered at the speed and agility of her mouth munching and chowing down food to allow her to manage so many words at the same time.

He wondered if she would choke on her food.

Finally, she noticed that he had not been responding to anything she had said. "Sorry, I babble when I'm nervous."

He nodded and grunted something incoherent.

"It doesn't really matter if we are to be friends." She shrugged and cleaned her plate of scraps of meat. She gulped down her morning tea and looked at him."But we are friends, aren't we?"

He nodded, really what else was there to say?

Her lips spread into a wide smile, flashing all-white teeth, startling him.

"Good!" Then she proceeded to get another scone from across the table. He thought that she was already full, but apparently, she wasn't.

"It would be difficult to manage the houses that you will inherit if we are not friends." She spread the scone with her fingers and proceeded to spread the jam thickly onto the pastry.

With a smile, she took one good look at her work and extended her hand toward him.

"A friendship offering." Her mouth twitched in amusement.

He took it warily. No lady has ever offered him food from her hands. No, not even his mother.

"How many houses are we talking about?"

Eyes on the scone, his hands trembled a little, as an apple bobbed up and down his throat.

"My father had two large estates and a London terrace. All the succeeding Lord Rosenbergs had to have at least one that is to be entailed." She pondered thoughtfully. "As Killsworth, how many do you have?

"Two." He stared at the very thick, and suddenly very heavy, scone on his hand. He was looking at it as if it had grown horns. Three houses from the 7th Earl Rosenberg, and one from each succeeding—

Good lord. Ten?

She nodded at his answer, two properties are hardly something to scoff at, especially since Kinsmen Place seemed to be sprawling in land size. Sarah Jane watched him curiously as he stared at the jam. She wondered if he thought that she would poison him.

"I won't poison you," She urged him tilting her chin as if challenging him to eat it.

"Of course not," he said all too quickly, "but that's exactly what someone who would poison me would say."

She rolled her eyes. "Of course, but what would someone who wouldn't poison you say? That she would? Don't be obtuse."

Anthony proceeded to take a bite of the scone.

"Eat it whole, it's better that way." She encouraged him. It did seem like she was trying to poison him then.

If he the jam was poisoned, Sarah Jane should have already convulsed by now, she ate a lot of it.

"Tomorrow, I will talk to cook and ask her to make the scones a little bit smaller, and then I will teach her how I make my clotted cream."

It was the dumbest thing, to follow the instructions of a young girl on how to properly eat a scone. But Anthony obliged her anyway.

He forced the humungous thing in his mouth and upon closing around it, the flavor had exploded in his mouth.

It was nothing short of wonderful.

Exquisite.

And a little bit annoying.

——-
A/N: I've nothing else to say except I hope you loved this chapter as much as I did!

Thank you for reading my work. It always gives me pleasure to find new readers and meet them or talk to them! I've spent hours dreaming of this story, hours researching so that it would be historically accurate, and hours writing it to the best of my abilities. Comments are highly appreciated so that I can improve further. If you've enjoyed yourself reading this, kindly consider giving it a vote so that it bumps up Wattpad's algorithm :) Thank you!!