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“I am hardly that tall!” Elliot laughed, though he caught sight of himself in the vast windows of the ballroom as he said the words, revealing the truth. Hewastall, taller than most men he met, and poor Harrison who was of average height often found himself on the run in such challenges as this.
“I hope I never truly wrong you in any way,” Harrison called as he parried with Elliot, the swords clashing and the metal ringing out in the air around them. “I wouldn’t stand a chance in a real duel.”
“Of course you would.” Elliot thought much of Harrison’s skill. It was simply that as Elliot had been touring the continent for the last three years, he had learned new methods and techniques from masters in Italy and France. Such techniques made him not only an adept fighter, but one that could surprise his opponent.
With this in mind, he pretended to bring his rapier down on his friend’s leg. Harrison jumped out of the way, veering back so far that he opened his arm wide and revealed the target of his chest. Elliot placed the blunted tip of his blade at Harrison’s padded chest, breathing heavily as they both fell still.
“Well, you win again.” Harrison chuckled and brushed the blade away with a gloved hand. “No more, now. I need some rest. A chance to breathe would be nice.”
“As you wish.” Elliot stepped back and placed his sword in the makeshift rack that had been brought through by his steward. “You can breathe easily too now, Mr Jacobson. As you can see, we are both uninjured.” He walked toward the steward, who proffered forward the silver tray carrying the lemonade with a sigh of relief.
“You have me on tenterhooks, Your Grace, with all this fighting. It happens every day at present.” The older man seemed to tremble, quite unused to seeing so much swordplay within these walls.
“My apologies, but I assure you, we are merely having fun. You may return to your papers now if you like. I will call you if we need anything else.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.” With these words, Mr Jacobson left. As the door closed behind him, Harrison’s soft chuckle filled the room.
Elliot turned to look at his friend, noting the blond hair on his head was dampened with sweat and sticking up at odd angles.
“You’re giving that poor man the fright of his life.” Harrison sat in the nearest chair he could find at the end of the room, leaning on his sword for support. “Can’t say I blame him.”
“It is merely that he is not used to seeing such sport in this house,” Elliot explained as he poured out a glass of lemonade and took it to his friend.
“My mother and father didn’t do such things. They occupied their time with throwing balls and hosting dinner parties. Mr Jacobson’s responsibilities as the steward, overseeing our tenants and so forth, quickly changed. They used him like a dog’s body.” He grimaced at the memory of coming back from one of his travels to see Jacobson being ordered around like a boy collecting firewood. “I will not treat him the same.”
“I suppose Jacobson and the rest of your staff have seen many changes since you have returned to take over the dukedom.” Harrison’s eyes darted about the ballroom as if he was surveying those changes. “What do you make of it? Being a duke?”
Elliot bought time before he answered by taking a hefty gulp of lemonade. Once settled, he took a seat beside his friend, thinking carefully before he began.
“I have had to let most of the staff go, Harrison.” His words made his friend sit forward.
“Wait… I know you said the finances were bad, but is it truly so dire as this?”
“It is,” Elliot murmured carefully. He knew he did not have to swear Harrison to secrecy on this matter, he would already keep it to himself. The two of them had met many years ago at Oxford when they attended university and had been the closest of friends since.
No secret had been betrayed between them, and Elliot knew there never would be. “I have given the staff excellent references and wished them well. I wish I could keep them on, but I cannot.”
“Something tells me we should be drinking something stronger than lemonade for this,” Harrison gulped from his glass as he spoke.
“It costs money,” Elliot reminded his friend, and took a sip from his own glass.
“Go on, then. Tell me all, my friend.”
Elliot nodded before continuing on. “The death tax is extortionate. When they had their accident…” Elliot paused, still trying to judge how he felt about his parents’ carriage accident that had taken both of their lives.
They had never been loving parents, nor particularly present, but it was still an awful tragedy that made him sad. He had caught himself wanting to cry on more than one occasion, but then he remembered the lack of love they showed him and the mess they had left behind for him to sort out.
“I thought the estates were safe, but I was wrong. While the death tax may be a heavy levy, the financial situation is worse than I thought.”
“How so?” Harrison encouraged him on with a wave of his hand.
“My mother and father were quite… spectacular spenders. They spent money everywhere, it seems—everything they had and more. They have borrowed from banks, and one specific lender that hardly seems particularly legal.”
He shuddered at the thought of what he’d found in his father’s papers. “In short, they have nearly bankrupted the family. Clearly, they thought they could go on as they were. They had no idea of what danger they were in, nor how close they had come to living on the streets.”
“Now that burden is passed to you and your sister.” Harrison breathed in sharply, so much so that he hissed between his teeth.
“Just so. Things will have to change.” Elliot looked around the ballroom. He didn’t have the heart to say his fears were one of the reasons he invited Harrison over most mornings to practice their fencing. It was the one escape he was afforded, to distract himself from the danger that lurked at the door of the house.
