Chapter Seventeen #2
The investigators had done their job, finding who was spreading the rumors and tracing them back to Colin.
Bane’s half-brother had not replied to the lawyer’s letter, which warned him that evidence had been filed and a suit for slander laid.
But he had withdrawn to Marpleton and—the investigator must have suborned the postmaster—stopped sending letters to his crony in Sheffield and to his friend Curston.
As for Curston and Marple, they also received letters, and withdrew from London entirely.
The surge of gossip when the accusations were first made had died down to nothing in their absence.
Thanks, in large part, to Livy’s ladies—Bane knew, for Jenna Thornstead had told him, that Livy had rallied her and her friends to Bane’s and Drake’s cause, and with them, their powerful mothers.
Livy. She consumed Bane’s thoughts. A lady of fire and steel, and yet with deep veins of vulnerability that she barely showed him and never showed the world.
She feared marriage. He had gathered that.
She feared the loss of control that marriage implied, and Bane was both unsure that he could convince her to trust him and certain that all his happiness for the rest of his life depended on him finding a way to do so.
“Do you agree, Mr. Sanderson and Mr. Sanderson?” Mrs. Pentworth said, bringing Bane out of his thoughts. He had no idea what he had just been asked, but Drake was nodding and smiling.
Bane was about to admit that he had not been paying attention when they were interrupted. “I believe the gentlemen you seek are through here,” said Drew’s voice, and it was Drew who looked around the door. “Bane and Drake? There is a messenger here for you. He says it is urgent.”
Lord Barnabas threw a sheet over the pile of iron on the floor, and Mrs. Pentworth folded up the engineering diagrams and put them into a drawer.
“Bring the messenger in, Lord Andrew,” Pentworth said.
Drake recognized the visitor before Bane did. “Caleb! What are you doing here?” It was a footman from Bancroft House, their old home, and he was wearing a black armband.
“Frannie? The children?” Bane asked.
“It is Mr. Colin, sir. Dead. Mrs. Sanderson sent me. There’s a letter.” He fumbled in the satchel he wore around his neck and handed a thrice-folded and wax-sealed piece of paper to Bane. “She needs you, sir, and you, too, Mr. Drake, sir.”
Bane opened the letter, and Drake came to stand by his elbow and read it with him.
To my esteemed brothers-in-law.
My husband, your brother, has been shot. It may give you comfort to know that he died quickly. I found his last will and testament, and if I could bring him back to life, I would, just so that I could kill him again.
He has appointed two of his horrible friends as guardians of our children and trustees for our eldest son, who inherits everything. I need you both, and especially you, Bane, for you know the business. Colin has been bad enough for it. What Marple and Curston will do to it I dread to think.
Please come.
In frantic need, your devoted sister-in-law,
Frances Sanderson.
“We have to go,” Drake said to the Pentworths. “Our brother has died, and his wife has sent for us.”
“Caleb, when did you last eat? Or sleep?” Bane asked the footman. The poor man looked exhausted.
Caleb shook his head, frowning. “I rode through last night, Mr. Bane. Had a pie in…” he gave the matter some thought. “Baldock. I think.”
The last stage before London. “Right. We’ll take you back to our rooms. You can eat again while we pack. I suggest we hire a coach, Drake. Caleb can sleep on the way.”
“I am sorry for your loss, Bane and Drake,” Drew said. “Please, let us loan you a carriage. I know Father would wish to help you reach your sister and her children as quickly as possible.”
Lord Barnabas and the Pentworths echoed the condolences. “I’ll ask for a carriage to be prepared,” Lord Barnabas told his brother. “Bane and Drake, I’ll only be a few minutes.”
He was as good as his word, and the carriage was far more comfortable than anything they could have hired.
The Winshire stables also provided the horses for the first stage—not the prized Turkmen horses, but superb specimens of horseflesh, nonetheless.
And with the carriage came two coachmen, so one could spell the other and they could drive through the night.
They had barely pulled away from their own front door before Caleb was asleep.
“Cilla and Livy will be safe while we are gone,” Drake said, as if he was trying to convince himself. It was thanks to Cilla and Livy that Caleb had found them at the Pentworth’s workshop. Their landlady had sent the footman to the Wintergreens, and the sisters had known their plans for the day.
In his note to Livy, sent with Drake’s to Cilla, Bane had thanked her, told her he would miss her, and begged her to be careful. “Mr. Wintergreen knows the danger,” he told Drake. “And the ladies themselves are aware, and have a lot of good sense.”
There was no point in regrets. They had to go to support Frannie. Bane wondered how Colin had died. No doubt Frannie would tell them.
*
Bane
Colin had been shot by an angry husband who had found their brother in his bed with his wife.
Frannie was furious. “I daresay some part of me will grieve for the worm at some point,” she said to Bane.
“He was, after all, the father of my three children, and I loved him once. When we were first married. Before he disappointed me. At the moment, though, I am so angry with him I have no room for any other emotions. How could he leave me without any way to support the other children? How could he leave us all at the mercy of those two degenerates?”
“Frannie, we will challenge the will,” Bane assured her. “Surely no court will give the control of young children—not to mention the business—into the hands of men who are so deeply in debt?”
There was a lot to do. Bane picked up the various threads of the business and Drake spoke to the coroner to find out when the body would be released and then to the vicar and arranged the funeral.
They both spent some time with their nephews and their niece.
Only Lewis, the eldest, really understood that his father had gone for good.
He did not seem particularly bothered. Apparently, he had not seen his father more than a couple of times a month, and even then, according to Frannie, Colin showed no interest in the lad.
Bane had assumed that Frannie had been largely running the business, and that was confirmed during the next few days.
Colin’s contribution had been to cancel her orders, interfere with her decisions, take money from the safe for his own spending, and otherwise hinder her efforts.
If Lewis’s guardians and trustees left Sanderson Medicinals in Frannie’s hands, he would have a healthy company to inherit when he reached twenty-one.
“It is over to us to make certain that happens,” Bane said to Drake.
Reluctantly, they made certain that a message was sent to Brighton, to Curston, and Marple. Since they were so prominently named in the will, they should be at its reading, which would take place immediately after the funeral.
By return mail, Frannie received two elegant expressions of condolence, formal phrases with little substance.
Bane also wrote to the lawyer Fullerton had recommended, outlining the problem and asking him what could be done to protect Frannie, the children, and Lewis’s inheritance.
The brothers braced themselves to confront and oppose the two men when they arrived.
But when the day of the funeral came around, they had still not appeared, and the reading of the will went ahead without them.
It was as Frannie had said. Colin had made no provisions for his wife or his two younger children.
He had not even left the customary legacies to long-standing servants.
Instead, the will left “Everything of which I die possessed to the eldest son of my marriage, Lewis Sanderson.” It went on to make provision, in the event that Colin died before Lewis reached his majority, for “my dearest and most esteemed friends, Jasper Viscount Marple and Arthur Curston, to act as guardians of my son Lewis, and trustees of the properties, estates, businesses, and personal possession that I leave to my son Lewis.”
The solicitor was a little annoyed that Marple and Curston were not there for the reading, and demanded to know why Frannie had not contacted them.
“The gentlemen were both notified,” Bane informed him. “You will stop hectoring the widow.”
The solicitor sniffed. “Since Mr. Sanderson did not appoint a guardian for the younger children,” he said, “the Court of Chancery will do so. Probably the gentlemen that Mr. Sanderson appointed for Master Lewis Marple, since that would be convenient.”
“Those gentlemen are not fit to be guardians for any child, let alone a daughter,” Frannie protested.
“We shall challenge their suitability in court,” Bane told her. “And Frannie? Since Colin did not leave you anything in his will, you are entitled to the one-third dower portion that is yours by common law.”
Or so the London lawyer said in the letter Bane had in his pocket.
“Well,” said the solicitor, reluctantly, “that is probably true. Unless there is a reason for the appointed guardians to challenge that amount.”
When the sour little man packed his papers back into his briefcase, Frannie gave a sigh of relief. “I know this isn’t over,” she said to the brothers, “but at least I did not have to deal with Lord Marple and Mr. Curston today.”
But why? That was what was bothering Bane. Why had Colin’s “dearest and most esteemed friends” missed his funeral? Because they did not care for Colin the way he cared for them? Or was there a more sinister reason?
“Frannie, we have to go back to London.”
Frannie’s face fell. “Of course, Bane. I have taken you away from your work.”
Bane shook his head. “There’s nothing we cannot handle from here. At least for a short time. But Frannie, there are two ladies we care about. Marple and Curston have been threatening to force them into marriage. I’m worried…” He trailed off, his concerns too formless to articulate.
“Hell!” Drake cut the expostulation off and shot a shame-faced glance at Frannie. “Sorry, Frannie. Bane, do you really think…? But we cannot take the risk. Frannie, if all is well, we shall come back straight away. We will not leave you to deal with those two horrid men on your own.”
Frannie’s frown had deepened as they spoke. “You must go. Marple is a stupid boy whose mother has spoiled him, but Curston is vicious. Save your ladies, and write to tell me what I must do next.”
She was pulling the servants’ bell as she spoke, and when a maid hurried into the room, she gave instructions for “my brothers’ carriage to be prepared. They need to hurry back to London.”