Chapter 20
Morning found Graeme pacing, Phoebe’s absence shadowing every breath. He had not slept. But duty demanded action, and Penelope Woodridge was due within the hour.
So distracted, he did not hear the knock.
He stood near the mantelpiece, rereading a line of the codicil for the hundredth time.
When the familiar ache knotted in his chest, he began pacing again, trying, unsuccessfully, to bury his thoughts in the bequest. But then the knock came again, quiet and uncertain. He snapped to attention.
“Come,” he called, his heart beating erratically, knowing it would be Miss Woodridge but hoping it would be Phoebe.
The door cracked open. A small face peered in first—wide blue eyes beneath a mop of unruly curls—before a woman stepped forward and gently nudged the boy behind her skirts. Miss Woodridge and her son. Graeme puffed his cheeks and returned to his desk in long strides to welcome her.
“Beggin’ your pardon, sir,” she said, bobbing a shaky curtsy. “I… I weren’t sure if I ought come back, sir, but seein’ as how you said…”
“You are most welcome, Miss Woodridge. Please, come in.”
Her hair was tucked beneath a faded straw hat, her gown patched but carefully mended.
She snatched off the hat and clutched the brim in both hands so tightly her knuckles whitened.
The boy pressed his cheek into her hip, trying to disappear behind her skirts.
When she stepped inside, she did not approach the chair he gestured towards, rather hovered inside the doorway, twisting the hat.
“I’m glad you returned,” Graeme coaxed, hoping to make her feel more welcome.
Her eyes darted around the study with the instinctive discomfort of a servant in a room not meant for her. He realized how desperate she must have been to come to him yesterday.
Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. “I hope I’m not makin’ trouble for you, sir.
I don’t want no bother. Only I can’t get work nowhere.
” She touched the boy’s curls. “And I thought, like I said, maybe the new earl might give me a word, a proper reference, like. So folks won’t think… won’t think I were put out for—”
“Please, sit,” he urged, interrupting.
She shook her head. “No, sir. No, thank you, but I wouldn’t dare set myself in such a fine chair again.”
Yes, she must have been awfully desperate yesterday, and curiously more hopeful than she was today.
He did not press her again to sit; rather, he took a gentler approach. “I have been thinking a great deal about what you told me yesterday.”
“Aye, sir.”
“There is something you must know, something that will affect your circumstances.”
Her fingers twisted the brim of the hat. “Somethin’ wrong, sir?”
“No, but something unexpected.”
She stiffened.
“The late Earl of Collumby made provisions for you. And for your son.”
Miss Woodridge frowned. “Pro-visions, sir?”
“He left you something in his will. A… substantial inheritance.”
Silence. A deep, hollow silence that threatened to swallow the room. She stared at him, stared hard, her eyes narrowing slightly, as though trying to interpret a dialect she had never heard.
“No, sir, that ain’t… that can’t be right.”
“It is.”
Shaking her head, she said, “I… sir, I never asked him for nothin’. I swear it on my soul. I never—” Her voice cracked. “I weren’t his… bird. Please believe me.”
Firmly but gently, Graeme said, “I believe you.”
She burst into tears anyway. Nothing loud or dramatic. Silent, shuddering tremors of someone whose dignity had been worn thin.
Her son tugged at her gown. “Mama?”
“Hush, pet. Mama’s all right.” She wiped her face on her sleeve, cheeks flushing in mortification.
“Sir, I can’t be takin’ money for… for what happened.
I never meant to get in the family way. I never meant no harm.
I only kept quiet ‘cause I’d nowhere else to go, and he…
he weren’t cruel, not truly. He were lonely, I think.
But I didn’t… I didn’t want wages for it. That ain’t decent.”
“This is not payment, Miss Woodridge. Nor charity. This is provision. Provision the earl chose to make, freely and deliberately. The codicil was properly witnessed. It is lawful, binding, and meant for your protection.”
She shook her head again, more faintly now. “I don’t understand, sir.”
“Then allow me to explain.” Carefully, precisely, he led her through the details, trying not to overwhelm her.
“The earl set aside a living for you and the boy. Your son will never want for food or shelter. A small cottage, modest and manageable, where you and the boy may reside if you wish, along with any family; it is yours to do with as you choose. A sum has also been left, large enough that you will never need to beg for employment again. The sum will be put into a trust to protect the child’s future, ensuring neither of you may be taken advantage of. ”
Miss Woodridge stared at him as if seeing a ghost. “A… a trust, sir?”
“Yes.”
“For my lad?”
“Yes.”
Slowly, she looked down, brushing her son’s curls, hat still clutched in her other hand. “He’ll be safe?”
“Safe and provided for, never wanting.”
Her eyes watered. “Then… if it’s for him… then… I’ll accept, sir. He deserves better’n what I can give.”
Graeme nodded. “I’ve sent word to the estate solicitor to return from London. He will help you finalize the details and provide instructions for what comes next.”
She bobbed a jerky curtsy. “Thank you, sir. Bless you. I don’t know what we done to deserve such kindness.”
He did not say his next thought aloud: This is not kindness. This is justice.
Hugging her son close, she said, “I’ll not trouble you longer, sir. I’ll come back when you send for me. I don’t want to be takin’ no one’s seat or food. We’ll walk home.”
“Nonsense.” Before she could protest, Graeme tugged at the bellrope. Within moments, a footman appeared at the door. “Please have the carriage take Miss Woodridge wherever she needs.”
“Oh no, sir,” she squawked, looking from the footman to Graeme with panicked, wide eyes. “That’s far too fine for the likes of—”
“It is my wish.”
After studying his expression, she surrendered with another curtsy, picking up her son to balance on a hip, the straw hat flattened under her son’s leg. “Thank you, sir, truly.”
Once she left, Graeme sat at the desk and detailed the arrangements for Miss Woodridge to the estate solicitor.
The cottage would be prepared for her arrival.
The bulk of the funds would go into a managed trust, ensuring her son’s inheritance was protected.
From that trust, a yearly allowance would be paid directly to Miss Woodridge for living expenses, providing a manageable, regular income that would not overwhelm her or insult her dignity.
Details complete, he signed the paper, rolled the blotter, melted wax into a small, even circle, then reached for the signet ring in the drawer to apply the seal. Done.
In the distance, he could hear the carriage pulling away down the lane.
The late earl, for all his faults, had made his own kind of amends.
All the estate solicitor’s worries that the mysterious Miss P.W.
had schemed and plotted to bankrupt the estate for her own benefit had come to nothing more than a bitter, lonely man assuaging his guilt, or whatever motive had moved him to be generous in the end.
Ironic, he thought, that all the man had ever wanted was an heir, and yet when he finally realized that goal, he refused to humble himself to marry beneath him to legitimize the heir, only agreeing to marry below his station through the union with Phoebe Whittington, when he saw the end was near.
Graeme had little pity for a man who, to the end, refused to acknowledge his brother’s descendants, and although providing handsomely for his natural son—only from his deathbed—would still leave his bride-to-be abandoned in limbo.
Ah, Phoebe.
Where was Phoebe?
Did she intend to come back to him at all?
He walked over to the window overlooking the garden, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. The sky had darkened to pewter grey. He lowered his forehead to the windowpane. In the past two days, he had untangled every knot except the one that mattered most.