Chapter 12
“How many acres is your estate?” Leander asked.
“About eighteen thousand.”
“Oh.”
Julien turned to look at the young man riding next to him. Leander had reined his horse and was surveying the wide green field that lay to the south of the house with a dumbfounded expression.
“I was going to ask why so much land was unused, but I suppose with eighteen thousand, keeping a few hundred acres for pleasure would make little difference.”
Having never considered the land “unused,” Leander’s words gave Julien pause. The acres—it was far more than “a few hundred”—of lawns and patches of woods were there for riding or hunting. Julien had never much concerned himself with the land, other than to make sure his tenants and laborers were content and that his bailiff wasn’t cheating him. He
