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“I don’t want to interrupt,” Barnabas murmured awkwardly from the doorway. “We are waiting for you.”
At any other time, he would have been amused and ribbed his son a little for his waywardness. However, given the recent death in the house, jocularity was inappropriate, even if his discovery was enlightening.
“What is it?” Myles asked, unable to bring himself to lie to his father by making excuses for his errant behaviour.
“I was going to look for Gerald’s new will, remember?” Barnabas replied. “Isaac is insisting the will is at Gerald’s house. He won’t listen to me when I tell him that I have a copy of the new will Gerald made.”
Myles nodded, but his gaze remained locked on Estelle. Estelle clung to him while she waited for her knees to stop shaking enough to hold her upright again. Eventually, she realised she had to let him go, and slowly uncurled her fingers from their tight hold on the soft material of his shirt.
“I am sorry,” he whispered. “We need to go.”
Estelle nodded, too confused to speak. It was the first time she had ever been kissed, and it had stolen her senses. So much so that she was struggling to remember where they were and what was going on. Her heart thundered so loudly that she could only vaguely hear Myles when he whispered in her ear: “Are you alright?”
Estelle offered him a shaky smile, too choked to speak. How could she explain to him that she was stunned? That in all of her wildest dreams she had never expected that to happen, and with Myles of all men. He was of a different world to hers entirely given that he lived in a huge mansion and she lived in a tiny cottage with her grandma. He had a title; she didn’t. He was wealthy; she didn’t have a penny to her name. The differences between them were endless, but she still couldn’t bring herself to regret what they had shared.
Did that make her wanton? Was she reckless, foolhardy, or just plain wayward? If she was any of those things she couldn’t deny it, because she truly felt as though she had now stepped out of the boundaries of her normal life, into a world of chaotic confusion where her emotions were carried along on a tide not of her making. She had no control over anything anymore; certainly not her treacherous heart, which yearned to be in his arms again even though her mind was screaming at her to run before she lost her heart completely.
Strangely, she couldn’t quite shake off the niggling worry that she had already lost her heart completely. It belonged to Myles now.
Don’t be preposterous. You have only known him a short while. Why, you don’t know anything about the man. He could be a cad for all you know, a dark voice warned her. Even so, she couldn’t change the way she felt being in his arms. Or the way her stomach flipped over whenever he entered the room. Or the way her mind went blank whenever he smiled at her – like he was doing now.
“Shall we go back?” he murmured.
He wondered if he had upset her with his forwardness but made no apology for it. He waited for her to chastise him for taking liberties. When she merely appeared dazed, he ushered her toward the door. He was uncomfortably aware that if they spent any more time alone together in the study he was going to do something foolhardy and scandalous like kiss her again. This time, though, he doubted he would find the strength to stop.
As he wandered across the hallway after her, he considered the possibility of having to marry her, if only to preserve her reputation. It wasn’t as disquieting as he had supposed it would be. Instead, he found the prospect rather intriguing. Tucking that thought to one side to cogitate over later he followed her into the study and took a seat on the chaise as close to her as proprietary allowed.
Barnabas proceeded to break the seal on the will and unroll the parchment.
A deathly silence fell over everybody.
“Who is his estate left to then? He can’t have cut Isaac out entirely,” Myles demanded, then froze when Barnabas looked at him.
“I, Gerald Antony Martin-Howe, being of blah, blah, blah, blah, hereby leave the entirety of my estate to-” he broke off and stared at the parchment in disbelief.
“Who?” Isaac demanded. His voice shot across the room like a lightning bolt. “God damn it, tell me.”
“Myles,” Barnabas whispered, clearly stunned.
Isaac stared at him in stony silence. He didn’t speak. Instead, he stalked across the room and snatched the parchment out of his uncle’s head, then turned his back and read it.
“Good God, the bounder has gone and done it,” he whispered in stunned disbelief. “The bastard has actually gone and cut me out of the will.” He turned cold eyes on his uncle. “Did you have a hand in this?”
Barnabas shook his head. “I did discuss his desire to change his will with him, as I am sure you are aware. I told him, quite wisely, that he should protect the family name and do whatever he needed to do to make sure the estate thrived in his absence. He couldn’t rely on you. You were too busy in London spending money like water in gaming houses and on your mistresses. I think – no – I know, Gerald got tired of funding your lifestyle. A lifestyle you made no attempt to earn.”
“So you persuaded him to leave your son everything,” Isaac snarled. He scrunched the parchment up and threw it across the room.
It landed at Estelle’s feet. She bent down to pick it up and handed it to Myles, who took it off her with a thoughtful frown. He unrolled it and read it for himself before he placed it carefully onto the small table beside him.
“Well, I am not surprised he didn’t leave me anything,” Beatrice sighed. “He hated me. We all knew it. We didn’t like each other.”
“We know,” Myles replied.
Beatrice glared at him. “That doesn’t mean I would kill him. We argued. We never physically fought. I hurled insults at him and he threw them back, it was as simple as that. I didn’t want – that – to happen to him.”
Nobody spoke. Estelle felt more of a spare wheel than ever, and remained in uncomfortable silence, too scared to leave, too aware of Myles to stay with any ease.
“What now?” Beatrice asked when nobody seemed inclined to want to talk. She shifted in her seat as she looked at her elder brother.
