Chapter One
An Heir of Possibilities—Excerpt
“I am illegitimate.” Richard Dolforth spoke slowly, lest he have to repeat himself.
“Born out of wedlock. I cannot, therefore, hold any sort of peerage title, unless Prinny, in a fit of daft behavior, issues letters patent bestowing same upon my hapless person. His Royal Highness has spared me that inconvenience. Ergo, I am not this Viscount Swidhelm whom you seek.”
The logic was simple, and yet, Richard’s host, one Leopold St. Didier, looked impatient rather than impressed. St. Didier was dark-haired and dark-eyed, also unsettlingly serious about a ridiculous topic.
“You have labored under a misapprehension your entire life,” St. Didier said.
“Several misapprehensions, in fact.” He paused on the crushed shell walkway to untangle a pair of glossy green rose canes rife with thorns.
Too early in the season for blossoms out of doors, though the morning was mild and almost summery.
This outlandish conversation was taking place in the walled garden behind St. Didier’s London abode.
The house gave away nothing about its owner, save that he was well fixed and possessed of understated good taste.
The neighborhood fell into the unpretentiously safe category, with enough large trees to offer shade, not so many as to preclude flowering borders and sunny back terraces.
“If I have labored under misapprehensions,” Richard said, “that is no business of yours, St. Didier. I accepted your invitation to call because mutual acquaintances spoke well of you, but you have apparently been intruding into matters that do not concern you.” One must be polite but firm when terminating a negotiation, for that’s what this little chat amounted to.
Somebody needed a viscount; Richard did not need a title. “I will take my leave of you, and wish you a peaceful morning.”
More civility than the presuming fellow deserved.
“You won’t even give me a fair hearing, my lord?”
The my-lording had to be a calculated shot. Much to Richard’s disgust, the blow landed squarely on the tender pride of a man who’d had to scrap for everything from morning porridge to school yard safety to respect among his fellow merchants.
“Dolforth,” Richard snapped. “My name is Dolforth.”
“Because you changed it by deed poll when you turned one-and-twenty. Previously, you were known to all as Richard Wolfinger, your late mother having been a Wolfinger by birth, or so she told you.”
“A gentleman does not snoop. Good day.” Richard strode for what he hoped was a gate leading back out to the leafy street running before St. Didier’s unprepossessing abode.
St. Didier had the facts right—Richard had legally taken his father’s family name upon reaching his majority, and he’d done so with malice aforethought and mischief on his mind.
Lord Jerome Dolforth had been a ducal spare, and while the ducal relations had acknowledged Richard as a connection, their acknowledgement had fallen far short of what an orphaned youth needed or deserved.
“Dolforth,” St. Didier called, “you have a sister. A legal half-sister. If you will cease comporting yourself like Mr. Garrick in high dudgeon, I will give you her particulars.”
Richard rounded on his host, who stood among the rose bushes like some poet posing for a book shop portrait.
“Put the lady’s particulars, if she indeed exists, into a letter, St. Didier.
I have no earthly desire to associate with any title the crown may have bestowed on some distant ancestor.
Prying into my personal business should have warned you of that much.
Tell the lady your listening at keyholes and skulking behind hedges yielded no heir, for I will herd sheep in the Outer Hebrides before I have any parts of the peerage. ”
“I do not listen at keyholes.”
Said with a touch of asperity that suggested Richard’s aim had also found a target.
“You listen at balls, ridottos, and at-homes,” Richard said, stalking along the walkway.
“You call on the elders and inquire gently about scandals back in the day. You read church registers so old the ink is barely legible. You’ve learned that such documents are for some reason easier to decipher when you lay them against a dark background, and you aren’t above interviewing a few mid-wives, though they are generally a close-mouthed sorority. ”
“You have researched your own origins,” St. Didier said. “Why?”
“I do not know my natal day.”
St. Didier’s air of faint puzzlement became outright perplexity. “You don’t know the day you arrived in this world?”
“My mother lied, St. Didier. You have already implied as much. As best I can discern, Mama was afraid her ducal paramour would sweep me from her arms. She thus put it about that I was younger than I truly was. Lord Jerome Dolforth used that ruse against her when she was forced to seek support from him. The testimony of my nursemaid and the fact that I closely resemble the late Lord Jerome and his extant ducal brother resulted in an eventual pittance for my upkeep. Of course, I investigated my origins. You would too if you’d been fed a bowl of falsehoods at your mother’s knee. ”
“The falsehoods were meant to protect you. Might we sit? I can put what I’ve learned in a letter if you like, but I suspect you’d rather not have written evidence of my findings.”
Findings, as if St. Didier were some sort of lepidopterist cataloging a particular species of butterfly.
“You would still have that evidence,” Richard said. “You’ve written it all up, with dates, full names of your sources, and copies of relevant documents. Burning your letter would gratify me immensely, but I’ve outgrown the joy of tantrums, for the most part.”
“How fortunate for me.” St. Didier gestured to the terrace, where a pitcher of lemonade and a tray covered with white linen sat on a small marble table.
The chairs were neither hard, fussy little wrought iron ornaments nor rustic stools.
St. Didier’s choice of terrace furniture was upholstered, comfortable, even a bit worn.
He clearly spent time out here, watching cheerful beds of red and yellow tulips bloom, for which Richard resented him unduly.
The bow-wave of fatigue Richard had been pushing for weeks threatened to swamp what little remained of his manners. Keeping his hand in with the Season’s social whirl mostly to annoy his ducal relations, making the acquaintance of a half-brother about whom the family had also lied…
And always, while appearing to be nothing more than a gentleman of leisure, managing a hectic, exhausting business importing port and madeira for the delectation of the very class to whom Richard would never truly belong.
Anger had made him determined to succeed with that business, and resentment still fueled much of his efforts.
But anger and resentment were poor substitutes for food, rest, and a quiet garden.
“You may have half an hour,” Richard said, flipping open his pocket watch and setting it on the table. “And you will send me the letter documenting your findings within the next week.”
He should not have added that last part, which St. Didier would know for the concession it was. A concession to curiosity, though, not to the interests of whatever titled family St. Didier represented.
St. Didier served Richard a glass of cool, sweet lemonade, and passed him an empty plate. “Help yourself. Cook will take it amiss if a single crumb is left on the tray at the conclusion of our discussion.”
“My thanks.” Richard moved the watch so his host could also see the face, not to be rude, but to hold both parties to the mandated schedule. He selected three sandwiches of cheddar and ham—white flour, crusts in evidence, no rubbishing watercress. “You have twenty-nine minutes.”
St. Didier sipped his lemonade and surveyed his tulips, making a great show of being in no hurry whatsoever. He’d apparently done some negotiating too.
“My family’s title fell into escheat,” he said.
“I knew the last title holder, a jovial if subtly sad old fellow. Alas, I was born on the distaff side of his family. As I watch, the estate where I grew up falls closer and closer to ruin. It’s not as easy you think to simply shrug and walk away from a legacy like that. ”
What was anyone, gentleman, tradesman, or passing stranger, to make of such an admission? “I am sorry. A splendid family legacy is precious.” Richard hoped to leave such a legacy to his heirs, but would settle for solvency and a respectable reputation, assuming he ever had heirs.
St. Didier took most of the next minute choosing from among the remaining sandwiches.
“You have a legacy, Dolforth, and some maternal family, and before you saunter off in a grand display of indifference, I am aware of what will happen to them—what has already begun to happen to them—in the absence of an heir. You do not want their misery on your conscience.”
In that, St. Didier was correct. Richard well knew what unkind fate felt like, and whoever these people were, they had personally done him no harm, unlike the Dolforths. But then, the late viscount’s family was unlikely to be subsisting on cold potatoes, flat beer, and stolen meat pies.
“You have twenty-eight minutes. The mustard on these sandwiches is quite good. French?”
“Of course. You mother was not a Wolfinger, and neither was she from Northumbria. Her family name was Tuffington and she hailed from the West Riding.”
Richard managed to not choke on his sandwich. Lies, and lies, and more lies… Toward the end, Mama had grown confused, occasionally forgetting exactly which untruths she’d mixed among facts and honest memories.
And yet, St. Didier did not strike Richard as mendacious by nature. Just the opposite. Richard took a cautious sip of lemonade, and resigned himself to hearing a tale he would not enjoy, but he’d doubtless believe.