Chapter Twenty
Elias found himself seated in the pews of a mostly empty church, some moments later, without much clarity on how he’d come to be there or what had passed in the time between now and when he had been standing in the aisle next to Hattie.
“Ruby and Errol took the guests to the Rest,” Hattie was saying to him, squeezing into the little space between his body and the armrest at the end of the pew and putting her newly bejeweled hand above his own.
He had given her this gift quickly, and in the aftermath of the unpleasantness, but still, it was a thing of beauty.
Still, her heart fluttered to see it. “We offered to see your parents to the nearest clinic, but they insisted on traveling on their own directly to the constabulary. Presumably they intend to file a complaint against Mr. Harcourt.”
Elias moved then, his head snapping over to look at the barrister, whose hand was currently being dabbed with a wet cloth by Monica.
Julian Harcourt’s pale eyes raised and met Elias’s and he gave a twist of his lips and a shrug. “Let them,” he said. “I know a judge or two.”
“Miss Thresher,” Elias said, surprised to hear his own voice, and more surprised still to feel himself standing, pulling away from Harriet. “Monica. I am so very, very sorry for what my stepfather said.”
Monica paused, the cloth, gone pink with Harcourt’s knuckle scrapes, hovering above the knuckles themselves, and glanced up at him. “Me?” she said, sounding surprised. “I think maybe I got the least of it, Elias. Besides, I am the fat one. No secret in that.”
“Miss Thresher,” both Harcourt and Elias said in immediate, alarmed voices, winning a shake of the head and a giggle from her.
“I am well with it,” she said. “Why should it be an insult?”
“They called me ‘the simple one,’” Hattie said, looking amused by it from her place in the pew. “It does beg the question of how they measure intellect.”
“Hattie,” Elias said, the name tearing from his throat in a ragged whisper. “I did not know they would do that.”
She blinked at him, eyes golden in the post-storm rays of sunlight. “Of course you didn’t,” she said, as though he’d just informed her that he didn’t have wings and could not fly. “No one thinks you did.”
“You will, however, likely be the one who has to get rid of them,” Malcolm said, leaning against the church doors with his arms crossed over his chest. “Or whatever solution you decide is most appropriate. They aren’t likely to listen to anyone else.”
“Certainly not us,” said Libba.
“I’m a little offended that they insulted everyone directly except me,” Rhys noted, squinting out the window. “They got their shots in at Ruby and Errol on the way out. The lightskirt and the farmhand, apparently.”
“They didn’t actually name us,” Malcolm pointed out, touching his sister’s shoulder.
“They didn’t have to,” Rhys said. “We know what they meant.”
“The Black ones,” Libba provided, raising her brows.
“No,” said Rhys with a curl of his lip. “The posh one and the pantomime.”
Mal laughed, a short chuckle that seemed to ease his shoulders. “Yes, that’s what they meant, Lib.”
“Go on, then, Baron,” Rhys said, turning to Elias with something behind that customary sparkle that looked like sympathy. “What’s their shorthand for me? The thieving one? The skinny one? The beauty?”
“The eternal optimist?” Malcolm muttered.
Elias stared at them for a moment, his mind still stuck in the mire of before. “The Welsh one,” he heard himself saying. “Usually.”
“The …” Rhys repeated, his voice going up an octave in outrage. “‘The Welsh one’?! That’s it?!”
“Oh, you’ve angered him,” Monica said with a little frown. “Rhys, it’s all right.”
“‘The Welsh one’!” he repeated, waving his hands at Monica like the jiggle of his fingers would punctuate the point. “That is an insult. Oh, well done, you sneaky snakes. They know just where to strike to cause maximum pain.”
Elias agreed with that. But he could not say so.
Instead, he turned to Harcourt and said, “Who is the Widow Starling?” And when the man looked up to him with a pained expression, he added, “You told me Willa was an orphan.”
“She was,” Harcourt said. “Lord Selwyn, you know very well that the widow they spoke of is Willa’s aunt.”
“I … do not know that,” Elias managed, his brow furrowing.
Harcourt’s eyes fell briefly to Elias’s hands, flicking over his new ring. “Elias,” said Harcourt, slowly. “It was in the letter.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Selwyn!” Malcolm said, exasperated. “You still haven’t read it?”
“And he’s wearing that ring, anyway,” Rhys said with a low whistle. “Brave.”
“Well, we can’t go fetch it right now,” said Hattie, standing and walking toward Elias as she spoke. “Mr. Harcourt, perhaps you can summarize the information for us, in the name of brevity?”
“I …” Harcourt said, wincing as Monica dabbed a particularly jagged cut. “I am not certain that is wise. There are decisions outlined in that letter that Lord Selwyn was to make of his own private accord.”
“I think they just became a sight less private, Harcourt,” Malcolm pointed out with a raise of his brows.
Harcourt sighed heavily. “It is up to Elias,” he said. “If he gives me leave, I will do as you ask.”
Elias was staring at him, his mouth dry and immobile, unsure he was even comprehending what was being asked of him.
Hattie slid her hands over his arm, gripping him lightly but firmly enough to pull him back to earth.
“Yes,” he managed. “Yes, you have my leave.”
Harcourt nodded, looking very tired all of a sudden.
“Very well. As you all know, the Selwyn land and the Starling house are, or were until today, I suppose, independent pieces of property. When your uncle died, and you became baron, your parents attempted to take the house from Willa as part of your inheritance. She had anticipated the attempt and prepared legally for it ahead of their arrival on the day of the funeral.”
“They were going to try to evict her on the day of the funeral?” Rhys said, his face twisted up in disgust. “Jesus.”
“They failed, obviously,” said Harcourt with a shrug.
“But seeing as young Elias here was already packed, Willa used the opportunity to bring him under her custody. She pointed out that she could oversee his tutelage and education as baron if he learned his own lands from standing upon them, even though he would not inherit her house until the time of her death.”
“Or ever,” Libba muttered.
“Yes, well,” said Harcourt with a frown, “that hadn’t happened yet. Hattie hadn’t happened yet. Much less the rest of the wards.
“Your parents agreed to leave you with Willa in exchange for continuing to maintain the allowance they had been issued by the late baron, including the amount that would have been presumed for your care. She agreed to be rid of them and was forced to maintain that allowance to prevent their interference with you at various continued points in your life after that day.”
“What?” Elias snapped. “Like what?”
“Like pulling you out of Eton,” said Harcourt, though it sounded like it pained him. “Or Oxford. Like forbidding your military service or appearing in Society at events that were important to you.”
Something in his chest wedged loose and shattered against his ribs. His insides felt cavernous and cold. “I see. And this allowance was paid out of the lands funding that I inherited, I take it?”
“Yes,” Mr. Harcourt said. “And so was the living costs she sent to her elderly aunt in the Midlands. Neither has been paid out since the death certificate was signed because Willa was very clear that it would be your active choice if you wished to maintain them, and that silence should be taken not as a rejection, but a refusal to begin a new series of debts to those to whom you owe nothing.”
“Release the aunt’s funds immediately,” he said. “As to the rest, I will make a decision bearing my conversation with the necessary parties.”
“Elias,” said Hattie, frowning. “You don’t have to.”
He looked down at her, glowing in her orange gown, and felt the full press of sadness against his chest. “I do,” he said, holding up the ring for good measure.
She knew what it said, after all.
And she knew what it meant.