“I take it you knew he was marrying in haste, Mr. Cribbage?”
The solicitor stared at him levelly. “I did, Your Grace, and you should also know I cautioned him against it for the exact same reasons as I mentioned before. Miss Regis was half his age. In my vast legal experience, such marriages rarely stand the test of time and fall apart long before the older spouse passes.”
“But let me guess, he was in no mood to consider that sound advice on that particular occasion, either?”
The solicitor acknowledged that with the merest raise of his brow before he returned to rifling through the documents piled before him.
Giles was impressed. Fair play to Cribbage for standing up to the duke. Few did and his sire never took it well. The only opinion the duke ever cared about was his own.
“In view of the suddenness of His Grace’s passing so soon before his wedding day, I think it sensible to show you the marriage settlement in case there are any repercussions. I cannot envisage any, as the dowry had not yet changed hands so there is nothing that needs to be repaid, but you never know and forewarned is forearmed.” He slid another sheet of parchment across the table and waited patiently for Giles to read it.
“But this is only for ten thousand pounds?” Not quite the king’s ransom the gossip columns had led everyone to believe Mr. Regis had invested in Dahlia, and nowhere near enough for a duke when even a decrepit and curmudgeonly one could command a dowry at least double, perhaps even triple this. “Assuming he needed the funds in a hurry, why did he take her for so little?” Unless his speedy engagement to Dahlia had more to do with the need for a contingency heir than the duke had let on.
“I am afraid I have no clue, Your Grace, except to say he really didn’t need the funds at all.” Another sheet of paper was placed on top of the settlement. “As the state of his accounts is testament.”
Giles scanned the meticulous columns of large numbers in astonishment. “He wasn’t on the cusp of bankruptcy, then?” Far from it, in fact, as there seemed to be tens of thousands squirreled here, there, and everywhere. The annual income from the Shropshire estate alone was staggering. Obscenely staggering when one considered the way the duke had systematically bled his poor tenants there dry. It took several seconds for his slack jaw to work; several more for his mouth to be able to formulate a word.
“Unbelievable.” He had come here for answers and was doomed to leave with even more questions.
The solicitor shrugged, perplexed by Giles’s panicked reaction. “He has left you a very wealthy man, Your Grace. A very wealthy man indeed, so there is really nothing to worry about on that score.”
“So I see.” He blinked at the columns again, still not quite believing what was written in black and white. Still none the wiser as to what any of it all meant.
“As I said, all his affairs were in good order.” Mr. Cribbage passed him another sheet, clearly oblivious to the mother of all messes that his former client had left his son alongside the money. “There are also some stocks and shares, and some properties here in town that command a healthy rent, but His Grace was more about saving his money than speculating it.” Or spending it, either, if the paltry outgoings were any gauge. Giles spent more a year on boot polish than the skinflint duke did on pensions. Shock rapidly turned to anger. Outraged fury for all the misery the duke’s greedy behavior had caused so many over the years.
“He was sitting on a bloody fortune!”
“He was indeed.”
“Yet he still allowed the Shropshire estate to decline unforgivably. Refused to modernize. Evicted tenants the moment they hit hard times. Found all manner of unreasonable excuses to avoid paying pensions, or tradesmen or merchants. Scrimped on wages. Heating. Dismissed servant after servant without either just causeor impediment. Ruined countless livelihoods and lives simply to hoard it all in the bank?” The injustice of the duke’s stewardship had always jarred with Giles’s strong sense of what was right and wrong. He had always assumed the man counted the pennies so carefully because there was a finite number of pennies to be counted. But now he knew all this, the injustice of it all left him reeling. “How the blazes did he sleep at night?”
“It always baffled me.” Mr. Cribbage smiled, and in that moment Giles realized he had climbed several notches in this man’s estimation, too. “But a new broom sweeps clean, or so the old proverb says, and there is no legal impediment forcing you to follow in his footsteps if the path he trod veers in a different direction from your own.”
“I am not sure the duke and I were ever on the same path, Mr. Cribbage, so I can guarantee you mine will veer a different way. In fact, if he was headed north, I would prefer to march south.”
The lawyer smiled, impressed. “I always found the north a trifle chilly, Your Grace, so south will make a refreshing change.”
“Then let’s begin with the pensions. All of those that should have been paid need to be paid as soon as possible. I have a list.” A long one. There were so many amends to make for the sins of his father, he had to prioritize the worst travesties first before he forged ahead with the rest of his long-awaited plans. “And I should like them backdated.”
It was foggy by the time Giles arrived in Shropshire a few days later; the chilly twilight mist hung heavy, like the ominous weight of all the lies of the past. The angry sky above mirrored the exact shade of the slate roof of Harpenden Hall and ladled gloom ontohis impending sense of doom, and a real sense of foreboding added to all his confusion.
This was the first time he had set a foot this close to his childhood home in a decade—yet despite his joy at seeing his familiar Tudor-beamed sanctuary again and the small arc of unfamiliar faces who had gathered outside to greet him, he had never felt quite so alone anywhere in his life.
A woman of middle to late years, petite stature, and a substantial bosom dipped into a curtsy. “Welcome to Harpenden Hall, Your Grace. I am Mrs. Townsend, your housekeeper.”
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Townsend.”
“I am only sorry it is under such sad circumstances, Your Grace. And at such short notice. We have barely had time to ready the place. It has been a few years since your esteemed father visited.”
She was being polite because according to Carruthers, the duke hadn’t made the trip to Shropshire at all since the duchess’s funeral. Before that he rarely visited—and when he did, he was always in such an odd and testy mood everyone sighed in blessed relief when he left. This place had always been his income, not his home, which was likely why Giles had always loved it. Always considered it home, even though he had known for years that it really wasn’t.
One by one the housekeeper introduced the tiny band of resident staff. One cook, one maid, a footman, one young groom who looked to be barely out of leading strings, two gardeners, and the gamekeeper. He recognized none of them. “Mr. Bryant, the steward, sends his apologies as he has been unexpectedly detained but will try to be here tomorrow.”
Unfortunately, Mr. Bryant was a name he recognized only toowell. That bully had been the steward of the estate for over a decade and was the man, alongside his hired band of bullies, who had diligently refused Giles entry to the grounds for the last ten years upon his cruel sire’s instruction. He had always loathed him, although probably nowhere near as much as the estate’s tenants did.
“That is a shame, Mrs. Townsend.” But probably just as well. He was too exhausted to pull his punches with the duke’s right-hand man tonight, and in the immediate short term—because that was all that nasty piece of work had left inhisemploy—Bryant might well be a valuable source of answers to all the questions Giles now had. He certainly hoped so. Otherwise, he was well and truly scuppered where to search next, as all he had hit so far were brick walls. A thorough search of the duke’s ordered study and his meeting with the solicitor hadn’t offered him any answers, and he didn’t dare hire a Bow Street Runner to investigate the mystery of his birth.
Until Giles was certain this estate was running as it should, with everyone who worked the land thriving as they should, the fewer people who knew about theDirty Secret, the better. After that… well, frankly, he had no plan. How on earth did one plan for the unknown? All he could do was take things one day at a time and hope for the best while expecting the absolute worst to happen at any given moment.
