“No, John, of course not,” Jason assured him, though he hadn’t a clue, since he hadn’t been out to see that grave in over thirty years himself. But he didn’t want the old man worrying about it, so he added, “He’s been doing an excellent job, indeed he has.”

“We’re delighted to have found someone who knows about that grave, Mr. Markus,” Reggie told him, getting to the matter that had brought them there in mass. “It’s been a point of curiosity for all of us, to know who is buried there.”

The old man frowned. “Who is? Well now, I don’t rightly know that.”

The surprised silence that followed that answer was full of disappointment. It was Derek who finally asked, “Then why did you keep care of it all those years?”

“Because she asked me to.”

“She?” Jason inquired.

“Why, your grandma, Lord Jason. Wasn’t anything I wouldn’t have done for that kind lady. Everyone at Haverston felt that way. She was well loved, your grandma was—not like your grandpa. Or at least not as he was regarded when he was young.”

Up went a half dozen brows, but it was Jason who said indignantly, “I beg your pardon?”

The old man chuckled, too old to be intimidated by Jason Malory’s ire. “No disrespect intended, m’lord, but the first marquis, he was a stiff one, though no different from other aristocrats of his day. He was given Haverston by the crown, but he had little care for it or its people. He preferred London, and came only once a year for an accounting by his estate agent, who was an arrogant coxcomb that ruled Haverston like a tyrant when the marquis wasn’t there.”

“A rather harsh testament against a man who can’t defend himself,” Jason said stiffly.

John shrugged thin shoulders before saying, “Merely the truth as I saw it, but that was before the marquis met and married Lady Anna. She changed him, she did, taught him to appreciate the little things in life, softened his edges. Haverston went from being a dismal, bleak place to work, to being a place her people took pride in calling home. A real shame about the rumors, though . . .”

“Rumors?” Reggie frowned. “Oh, you mean about her being a Gypsy?”

“Aye, that one. Just because she looked and sounded foreign, and there happened to have been Gypsies in the area just before her appearance, some folks got that silly notion. But the marquis, he put a stop to that rumor when he married her. After all, a lord like him would never marry so far beneath him, now would he?”

Jason intercepted his son’s grin just before Derek remarked, “Depends on the lord.”

Jason gave him a quelling look. The rest of the family didn’t need to know—yet—that he, too, hoped to put his heart first.

John shook his head. “Back then it just wasn’t done, Lord Derek. Today, maybe, but eighty-some years ago, a scandal like that would ruin a man.”