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Mia sighed but lifted her hair from her shoulders, so it no longer covered the brooch. Again no one missed how Lord Briskbee started. It was almost as if he didn’t think it would be the piece he was here to recover. Again, his eyes surveyed Mia. And while Devin might have expected either anger or sadness what he thought he saw was ahunger.
“Might you remove it from your person?” magistrate Miltonasked.
Mia was quick and emphatic. “No, I willnot.”
“I would have you prove the piece is yours before you require my wife to remove it,” Devin toldthem.
“Of course it’s mine,” Lady Briskbee said, and withdrew a parchment roll from her reticule. “They’ve been in my family for generations.” She handed that to his honor and reached again to pull out a case. Opening it, she turned it to display the matchingbrooch.
“Give me that,” Lord Lovelace said when the magistrate didn’t seem to know what to make of the document he was handed. “It says here there are six of these. The other four, where arethey?”
“My sister was given three and I was given three,” Briskbeesaid.
“And your other one? Where is that?” Lovelacepressed.
“My other son has it. He was given it on his sixteenth birthday, just as that one was given to James.” The woman’s certainty was perhaps unraveling as the questions continued. And Devin couldn’t say how very much having Lovelace, a man fully studied in law and governance, on Mia’s side pleasedhim.
“So the brooch is in fact not yours, but your son’s? This son?” Lovelace asked, pointing to the man who was busy again studyingMia.
“Well, yes,” the woman spluttered. “What difference can itmake?”
“Madam, you have no claim if the brooch belonged to your son and not you,” Lovelace said and handed the paper back to the magistrate who was standing there useless in the face of someone who was studied in legal matters and not simply the poor sod selected to act as if hewas.
“The brooch belongs in my family. I want it back.” The woman stomped her foot and Devin almost fell over. He wouldn’t have thought such things could simply be in one’s blood butperhaps…
“You have no claim,” Lovelace said again, perching himself on the corner of the Admiral’s desk. “The brooch was no longer yours once it was given to yourson.”
“James.” Gerta Briskbee slapped her son’s arm to gain his attention which remained completely focused onMia.
To Devin the man seemed almost in awe that she was even standing before him. Mia for her part paid little attention to James.When she did look his way it was with a disdain Devin didn’t know she could rise too. Even her fine maneuvering against Major Bennet didn’t really carry disdain, contempt wasn’t even there. She simply thought him stupid for trying to intimidate her. Which of course hewas.
“I’m sorry Mother, what?” James said momentarily looking away from his daughter then back again with wonderment in hisexpression.
“Tell them you want the brooch back. That it’s yours and that stupid girl stole it fromyou.”
“If you should like to leave here with your teeth I suggest you have more care about how you speak about my mother,” Mia warned stepping up to the woman. “Because from all I know, it was this man who behavedstupidly, if that’s what you want to call it, when he gifted the brooch to my mother. I call it dishonorable and cowardly, personally,” Mia said making it plain her opinion of the man who’d bedded then abandoned a young naive girl. One who maybe hoped he’d remove her from her father’s unhappyhouse.
Devin also knew Mia was choosing her words carefully. They might have only had two days, but Lovelace prepared Mia wellenough.
“It wasn’t a gift. It was never a gift,” Gertasnapped.
“What might you call it?” Magistrate Milton asked. “Did she take it without permission or was it given toher?”
“I gave it to Miss Molly Cadley,” James admitted. It was clear the man didn’t give a damn about the brooch. “Damn, but you look just like her,” he spoke, barely louder than awhisper.
“It was given as a promise to wed, but when the engagement was broken it should have been returned,” Gerta Briskbee was quick to say. She probably knew at least this much of the laws. “And it’s a family heirloom. I want it back. I demand itback.”
“It’s the common way of things, Mrs. Winthrop. A family heirloom given as a promise to wed is returned to the family if the marriage doesn’t takeplace.”
“But it wasn’t given as a promise to wed,” Mia said. “He might want to call it a gift,” Mia said tossing her hand out at James Briskbee. “And she might want to call it anengagementgift.” She nodded towards her grandmother. “But why not call it what it was,” Mia stepped to the desk and slid the three letters across its surface towards Lovelace who lifted them and waited. “It was given as payment rendered for… services.” Mia turned to again face the woman who by every legal way possible was her grandmother. “Your stupid son used your family heirloom to pay for sex. He forfeited it, as anyone forfeits anything of value when they purchase something. Like I trade gold to buy rum, he traded this brooch to buy my mother’svirginity.”
“Your mother was a whore,” Briskbee said and was almost felled by the slap Mia laid across herface.
“My mother was an innocent young girl your son lied to, seduced, and after he got what he wanted, abandoned,” Mia snarled, and Devin prepared to intervene if either of the Briskbees thought to retaliate. But as Devin deduced at the start, the man was weak. Too weak to even defend his mother. And with little doubt too weak twenty years ago to go against the woman when he did learn Molly carried hischild.
“Mrs. Winthrop, you will contain yourself. You’ll not strike a member of the peerage,” Magistrate Milton remarked, stopping short of saying they were Mia’s betters. They certainly weren’t and that they all but admitted James Briskbee fathered Mia gave Mia a wider deck to plant herfeet.
“Or what? You willfineme?” Mia snarled. “Well you can’t, can you, because my birthright makes me a member same as she, doesn’t it, LordBriskbee?”
