The next day, Ian arrived at his sister’s estate, Dunville Park.

As he had requested by telegram, a carriage was waiting at the train station. He rode the carriage to Fairfax Manor. He immediately entered the mansion and asked a servant for his sister. The lady of the house was said to be in her private drawing room.

He went straight up to the second floor and opened the drawing room door without knocking. Lady Fairfax was sitting near the fireplace, cradling little Ian, who was not yet a year old, on her lap.

And beside Lady Fairfax sat her pretty thirteen-year-old blonde daughter, Olivia Fairfax. She was shaking a toy for baby Ian.

It was a picturesque scene symbolizing domestic peace, but he had no qualms about shattering the picture. He strode right into the room.

“Oh my, dear. Without knocking!”

Lady Fairfax exclaimed in surprise at seeing her younger brother. Olivia Fairfax, sitting next to her, looked at her uncle with wide eyes.

Ian asked as he took off his hat.

“How’s your health?”

“I’m fine. But you don’t look well? Did you catch consumption in London? Why do you look like that? You’re nothing to look at except your face.”

“Mom, don’t say that. Uncle is still handsome.”

Olivia quickly defended her uncle’s appearance. In fact, to Olivia’s eyes, her uncle was still dashing. Ian Dalton was the epitome of the prince she always dreamed of.

“Olivia, have you been well?”

“Oh, Uncle. I told you not to do that!”

Ian bowed his head respectfully, removing his hat as Olivia always insisted. Then, with an expression like that of a queen of society, he took his niece’s outstretched hand and kissed the back of it.

“How have you been, my lady?”

“Heh, very well. Uncle, oh, no. Sir.”

He released Olivia’s hand and turned his gaze back to Lady Fairfax.

“I’ve found a tutor for Daniel and George.”

Lady Fairfax looked bewildered.

“When did I ask you to find a tutor?”

“You didn’t.”

“So you found a tutor for your nephews without even telling their mother?”

“If they’re to enter public school, we should start with a tutor soon.”

“That may be true, but I’m not sure. My husband and I agree that if we send them to school, we’d feel sorry for the teachers who have to deal with them.”

“You two are probably the only parents in the country who joke about their children’s education like this.”

“That’s the secret to our marital health.”

He asked Olivia to excuse herself for a moment. Following the request of her admired uncle, she rose from the sofa, curtsied slightly, and left the room.

“Sister.”

“Looks like you want to talk about something serious. Should I ask little Ian in my arms to excuse himself too?”

“Miss Pendleton will be coming soon.”

Her hand, which had been cradling the baby, stopped.

“She’s the new tutor.”

“…But she’s a noble lady. How did she…”

Ian put his hat down on a nearby stool and sat next to his sister. Then he told her everything about Laura.

That her mother and father were born from a love elopement, and thus her position in the family was not good. To make matters worse, her father was American, and when her grandmother who had been protecting her passed away, she was thrown out with no fortune.

“Miss Pendleton must have gone through a lot of hardship.”

Lady Fairfax sighed with a sympathetic expression. The lack of prejudice about bloodlines was a characteristic shared by the siblings.

“She’ll be coming to this area within a week. I called for her. I’ll have her teach Daniel and George for five hours a day.”

“You’re going to give such a trial to the woman you love?”

“That’s why I came to make this request. Before she arrives, we need to fix the boys’ manners. Let me take charge of the kids for a while.”

“Go ahead.”

Lady Fairfax readily handed over her two sons as if she had been asked to lend two pairs of forks on the table.

“But if Miss Pendleton is coming as a tutor, that means you still haven’t won her heart, right? If you think she’s your match, you should grab her quickly, why are you dawdling? When will you get married and have children?”

His expression darkened at the renewed talk of children. There was still a part he hadn’t told his sister. Something that wasn’t a big issue for him, but important to his sister.

“There’s one more thing I need to tell you.”

“What is it?”

“She’s a year younger than me.”

Her mouth, which hadn’t flinched at hearing that Miss Pendleton was an illegitimate child of an American father, fell open.

“Then she’s an old maid!”

I knew this would happen. Ian became sullen.

“If she’s an old maid, what does that make me, who’s older than her?”

“How can you compare men and women? Men can have children at any age as long as their waist is fine. But women have a set time to bear children!”

“The child you gave birth to at forty-two is drooling on your hand right now?”

Lady Fairfax quickly wiped the drool from little Ian’s mouth with a napkin.

“My case is different! You know too. Shortly after I had Henry, he fell off a horse and injured his back, bedridden for a full 5 years. After 3 years of hot spring treatment in Bath, he barely recovered, and since then he’s been trying to prove to me that his back is fine…”

“Stop! I have no interest whatsoever in your and my brother-in-law’s marital relationship. Not even this much!”

Ian cried out in disgust.

“Anyway, you can’t compare me to yourself, Ian. How many children do you think a twenty-nine-year-old woman can have?”

“Somewhere between one and a dozen. Or she might not have any at all. I don’t care about that stuff.”

“You don’t care about children? Is that something the head of the family should say?”

“I’m not trying to buy horses or cattle here. I’m trying to get a wife. If the condition for finding a companion is only about reproduction, how are humans different from animals?”

“Still, twenty-nine is too old.”

“Sister.”

“Facts are facts. Twenty-nine is too old.”

She adjusted her son in her arms.

“It seems love has blinded you to reason, but you need a son. An heir, I mean. If you die without a son like this, Whitefield will pass to some distant relative you’ve never even met. Someone who’s never even properly felt a handful of dirt from Whitefield, let alone been born there. You’re smart, so you know well what situation will unfold. If the recession continues like this, the heir will surely sell Whitefield. And by the grandchildren’s generation, Whitefield will become a land of factories. Is that what you want for our homeland?”

Ian sighed. His feelings hadn’t changed, but he knew all too well what his sister was worried about.

Although Ian and his sister Margaret inherited the Dalton name from their father, they grew up under vastly different conditions. Ian, as the firstborn son, received all the education allowed to men and inherited Whitefield as soon as he graduated from university. The only education allowed to Margaret was bridal training, and she only inherited a dowry suitable for a daughter of the Fairfax family to bring when she married.

But the two shared a common heritage. Their love for Whitefield. Although she had married before turning twenty and now lived in Dunville Park, she still loved Whitefield. As much as Ian who inherited it, and sometimes even more.

This was also the reason why Margaret, Lady Fairfax, obsessively pressed Ian about marriage. She believed that land only holds value beyond mere property for those who were born and raised there. To someone without affection for the land, it was just a part of their assets.

“If I were you, I would have married a sturdy woman as soon as I inherited the family estate and had about a dozen children.”

“Yes, you surely would have. I’ve always thought that Whitefield should have been inherited by you, sister. Because you’re someone who would do anything for Whitefield. That’s the difference between you and me. I’ll do anything necessary for Whitefield as its lord. Except for one thing. I won’t marry to protect the land. Even if the land passes to a distant relative.”

“Ian. Some sacrifice is necessary as the head of the family.”

“It’s a matter I can’t compromise on as a man. I can’t live in the same house with a woman who doesn’t suit my personality. To put it bluntly, I find it unbearably disgusting to think of a woman I don’t love lying in my bed.”

Lady Fairfax was about to say something more but closed her mouth. What more could she say to that stubborn fellow? There was no use wasting energy on an impossible task.

She rested her chin on the warm crown of her son who was squirming in her arms and fell into thought.

Lady Fairfax was still negative about Miss Pendleton. No matter how she thought about it, twenty-nine was too old. Even if she married and had a child right away, she would be thirty when giving birth.

Childbirth was something that should be done in one’s twenties. Having had to bear four children after thirty due to a vigorous and careless husband, she knew all too well how much it should be avoided if possible to have children at an older age.

She loved her children. But the memories of them coming into the world were terrible. It was like a war process full of blood, screams, and pain.

Even after that process ended, it took a full year for the body to recover. But she thought she was lucky. There were still plenty of women who died in childbirth.

That fellow probably wouldn’t understand his sister’s concerns at all. Aren’t men a species that thinks children just fall from the sky?

She thought, humming as she rocked her young Ian. Still, if she could get him married within the year and quickly have a son, wouldn’t that be alright? If he likes her that much. And above all, when had that fellow ever been so hung up on a woman like this?

A month ago, Ian’s sudden return to London was surely because of that young lady. Her brother was a fellow who prioritized estate management, and he had never left the estate for more than a week since inheriting Whitefield.

Seeing him go to London twice in a span of a few months and stay there for over a month each time, one could guess how much affection he felt for Miss Pendleton. He was a fellow who loved his land, Whitefield, the most. And now, he had found someone he loved even more than Whitefield.

For Ian, who was impossibly picky, to fall in love. It was nothing short of a miracle.