Page 8 of The Baronet’s Bartered Bride

Now he was the 5th Baronet Illingworth, apparently.

He sat and read again, the vellum trembling slightly as shock set in.

After a brief and unpleasant illness, Reuben Illingworth, the 4th Baronet Illingworth of Penwellen, had died, leaving no issue. By terms of the entail, the estate and title should pass to the nearest heirs male. And Joseph, the grandson of the 2d Baronet and nephew to the 3rd, was the legitimate successor.

Assuming his birth would be validated as legitimate by the baptismal registry in the parish of St. Cleer, there would be the small matter of confirming the line through the pedigree chart and family tree held by the Herald’s College, but since all of these documents were in order following Reuben’s recent request to elaborate on the family’s coat of arms, the solicitor felt confident to inform Joseph that he might take possession of the title, the estate, the house, and all other assets appertaining at his earliest convenience.

Joseph could hardly sort out the roil of emotions. How like Reuben to squander good money on attempting to register an Illingworth coat of arms, which no one used or cared about anyway. An obscure, fairly young baronetcy in the corner of Cornwall was nothing to brag about in London, though perhaps in his corner of Cornwall Reuben enjoyed playing lord of the manor.

The next roiling emotion to surface was a wish that Joseph could vindicate himself regarding the Aldthorpe situation. That he might write the solicitor who’d shoved him out the door and say regretfully he must turn down the offer for a position as tutor to the Earl of Aldthorpe’s sons as he had inherited an estate and must take up his title and duties. It would serve as a tart reminder that Joseph was overqualified in truth.

Reuben’s death, on its own, stirred no sense of loss. Joseph wondered at his own hardness. A man’s life had ended, and not well, from the sounds of things. But Reuben had been an unpleasant man, unlikeable, unliked.

How horrifying to think one could leave this life and not be mourned. Joseph resolved at that moment that he must leave someone to mourn him when he shook off this mortal coil.

He set his hand with the letter in his lap and stared across the room at the small shelf with its music box that Inez had just dusted.

His grandmother had doted on music boxes, had a collection of them at Penwellen. He remembered a house with dark walls, heavy-browed ancestors glowering from backdrops of shadow. Under his aunt’s reign, the parlors and sitting rooms had been in a constant state of renovation, and he might not sit on the upholstery or touch anything because he was a boy and likely had dirty hands.

He had not lived at Penwellen under Reuben’s tenure. He’d hied himself off to Oxford as soon as the tuition could be paid. He’d never much cared for Reuben’s fretful, fussy wife, who behaved as if every element and person of the outside world had been specifically placed there as a trial to her nerves.

Penwellen was his now, a stately house with good grounds and extensive lands. Amaranthe had reported that the place was growing rather shabby when she visited there last summer, but a shabby manor was quite a step up from rented premises in George Court, and ever being run down by carters from the Blue Posts.

He would have a house of his own. Properties. Tenants. Servants in his own employ, not another’s.

And he was no longer a mere Mister Illingworth. He would be styled Sir Joseph Illingworth of Penwellen, Bart.

He recalled his earlier vow of change and winced. Everything in his life had changed already, whether Joseph was ready or not.