Page 76 of The Matrimonial Advertisement

Justin refrained from sharing the precise details. There was little point in telling Helena how Sir Oswald had thrashed Archer on their next visit. Or how, on their third, he’d leveled a pistol at Justin in a drunken rage.

“After that, we began to go there purely out of spite. The very sight of us riled Sir Oswald like nothing else. We’d play on his beach and muck about in his outbuildings. We’d dig holes in his gardens, or sneak in through a half-open window and replace his liquor with seawater. Stupid childish pranks.” Justin looked up at Greyfriar’s Abbey looming in the distance. “It escalated from there.”

“My goodness,” Helena said. “He could have had you arrested. Or worse. I can’t imagine why he didn’t.”

“Boothroyd talked him out of it.”

She frowned. “I hadn’t realized Mr. Boothroyd’s tenure as Sir Oswald’s secretary was of such long duration.”

“He’d come to work at Greyfriar’s Abbey a year or two earlier.”

“And now he works for you,” she said. “I find that very strange.”

Justin could see how it might seem so. To anyone who knew the substance of Boothroyd’s character, however, it made perfect sense. “He corresponded with Finchley and me over the years. He advised us on investments and the like. Boothroyd had a conscience, you see. He was a decent man—a loyal servant looking for a worthy master. It hadn’t taken him long to realize what sort of man Sir Oswald was.”

“Yet he remained in his employ.”

“A fact he regrets to this day. You might say that working for me is his penance. God knows it’s a thankless enough job.”

“He is faithful to you,” Helena conceded. “But that hardly excuses his having stood by and done nothing when you were a child.”

“Don’t judge him too harshly. After Neville’s accident, it was Boothroyd who arranged apprenticeships for Finchley, Archer, and me. He knew it was the only way to be rid of us.” Justin paused, adding, “Solving problems is Boothroyd’s particular skill.”

“He seems to have failed in this case. You’re here now, aren’t you? You own the Abbey.”

“True, but it kept us out of trouble for a time. With Finchley gone to London and Neville hurt, it was just Archer and me. And then, one day, Archer was gone. He broke his apprenticeship. Disappeared without so much as a word. I could find no trace of him anywhere.”

“Is that when you joined the army?” Helena asked.

He nodded.

“You must have done very well there.”

“Well enough.” He’d always been willing to put himself in danger. To take extraordinary risks. Some had called him heroic. The truth was, in the beginning, he simply hadn’t cared whether he lived or died. As a result, he’d earned the respect of his superiors—and risen swiftly through the ranks of enlisted men.

“How did you gain your captaincy?”

“A field promotion during the early days of the rebellion.”

“And Sir Oswald?”

Justin hesitated. It wasn’t a pleasant story. “I went to see him one last time before I left for India. It was the only occasion I ever confronted him alone. We stood, facing each other at the top of the drive. He’d been drinking.”

“How well you remember.”

“I could hardly forget. It was the day he admitted that I was his son. He said some foul things about my mother, and then he laughed. He told me that no one wanted me. That I was nothing, not to him or anyone. That I never would be. That’s when I promised him—” Justin broke off.

The memory left a taste in his mouth as bitter as poison. Never before, not even in his darkest days in the orphanage, could he recall having felt so alone. So unwanted. So angry.

“What did you promise?” Helena asked softly.

Justin looked down at her. “That I would come back to Devon one day. And that, when I did, I wouldn’t just take Greyfriar’s Abbey from him. I would take everything.”

Helena’s mind was in turmoil. She spent the rest of the morning on her own. She required time to think. To make sense of everything. She needed to make a decision about her future.

Such serious thinking was no small matter. She was restless with it. Unable to be still. She went to her room and sorted out her clothes. Her underthings would have to be laundered. As for her gowns…

She held up her other gray silk dress to the light, examining the wrinkles in the fabric and the stains on the bodice and skirts. Dirt, merely. A remnant of her tramp out in the rain yesterday and her ill-advised encounter with Justin’s muddy clothes.