Chapter Two
Lord Samuel Chance, eldest son of the Marquess of Aylesbury and not a complete fool, was not the sort of person to stare. So he was not staring.
He was gaping.
“You… You… You just said… Would you mind saying that again?” he asked weakly.
The pear-shaped, square-jawed solicitor gathered his papers together and shuffled them into a neater pile. “I think you understood me the first time, my lord.”
“But—” Samuel could not believe it. He could not believe it because it was entirely unbelievable…and it was clear that he was not the only one who thought so.
“The whole lot?” His younger brother, Benjamin, a tall man with sandy-blond hair, sounded incredulous and more than a little hurt. “Everything—it all goes to Samuel?”
“Absolutely everything,” said Mr. Todd calmly, as though he had to give bad news to people all the time.
Which, now that Samuel came to think about it, he probably did.
“I’m sorry. I think this is hilarious.” Frank grinned from the other end of the table. She had the sharp beauty that a woman with her brains resented, but no amount of apathy could turn her hair anything less than spectacular. “Samuel, the great heiress!”
“Hush, F-Francesca,” admonished their mother, her silvering hair still brilliant and paired with a beautiful pair of sapphire earbobs.
“Call me ‘Frank’!”
“It is indeed a sudden legacy,” said John Chance, the Marquess of Aylesbury, calmly, as though his eldest son inherited a great deal of money every day of the week. He rubbed his graying temples then tugged at his cravat. “What we need to understand is why.”
“But Great-Aunt Tessie barely knew Samuel!” Benjamin continued, as though their father had not spoken.
“Samuel was very g-good at v-visiting your Great-Aunt T-Tessie, weren’t you, dear?” Florence Chance, Marchioness of Aylesbury, said fondly. “I s-s-suppose this is h-how she wished to reward y-you.”
Samuel could see his brother getting redder and redder as Benjamin said, “But why on earth would she leave a small fortune to him, and only him? He’s already heir to Father’s title and estate!”
Mr. Todd cleared his throat. “Not precisely a small fortune, Lord Benjamin. I think you will find that along with the estate in Scotland, the palazzo in Rome—”
“Dear God!”
“—and a great number of investments in a wide and varied portfolio—”
“We’re never going to hear the end of this,” muttered Benjamin darkly, pushing back his hair in a harried movement. “Never.”
“—your elder brother and his wife will be coming into a fortune of approximately one hundred and twenty thousand pounds,” finished the solicitor gravely.
The chatter continued, most of it astonished, some of it irritable. Samuel was not able to take in much, for his ears were ringing and his mind had wandered out of his head to cry in a corner.
One hundred and twenty thousand pounds. One hundred and twenty thousand pounds. One hundred and twenty thousand pounds.
Twenty thousand pounds would have been a legacy far beyond his expectations. Two thousand! When was the last time he had seen Tessie—a month? Longer than that?
He had always intended to schedule another visit, but life had grown busy and then there had been Cousin Irene’s wedding and the time had gotten away from him and now…
Now his great-aunt was gone. But she hadn’t taken all her wealth with her.
One hundred and twenty thousand pounds.
“Yes, you and your wife are to take possession immediately,” said Mr. Todd from a long way off.
“Well, there’s nothing for it,” came a calm, low, and measured voice that nonetheless captured the attention of all.
Samuel blinked as he looked up. The solicitor’s office in Brighton came into view: a dark room, though that, of course, was the time of year, not helped by the dark-wooden paneling that lined the walls and the small number of candles.
The large, mahogany table around which the Aylesbury branch of the Chance family was gathered only added to the sense of darkness in the room.
Though perhaps that is the point, Samuel thought wildly. Perhaps in a solicitor’s office, where usually only bad news was delivered, it was right to have the place feeling a little somber.
It had been his father who had spoken. He was seated by Samuel’s mother, the two of them with matching O-shaped lips, looking a mite surprised but just as fair of face as ever.
They were holding hands. Samuel prevented himself from snorting. They had been in love like that since as long as he could remember.
His brother, Benjamin, only two years younger and seated to his left, snorted. “‘Nothing for it’? Yes, there’s nothing for it. Samuel will go off and be rich—”
“You are hardly p-p-poor, d-dear,” said his mother fondly.
There was something scratching at the back of Samuel’s mind. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something. Something someone had said, which had not been quite right…
“And just think what use I could put a fraction of such a fortune to,” said Frank wistfully. “More copper piping than a girl could want!”
Samuel suppressed a smile at the solicitor’s rapidly blinking eyes, the way the man’s prominent jaw dropped. Most people reacted that way when they met his sister.
“I was going to say,” said their father slowly, “that I have been thinking of doing something for some time, and what with this news, and the fact we are here at a solicitor’s…”
Benjamin groaned. “I knew it.”
Samuel looked between his brother and father. “Knew what?”
“It was only a matter of time.” Frank sighed, shaking her beautiful head with an expression of deep discomfort. “We’ll just have to hope he doesn’t lord it over us.”
Samuel cocked his head, not in on the joke, evidently. “Who? Lord what?”
“I am minded to pass on my title to my eldest son,” said the Marquess of Aylesbury with a wry look. “Now. Before my death. Just as my elder brother has done for his own son.”
And that was when Samuel’s ears decided to simply stop working at all.
No. No, he wouldn’t. His father had always said that he admired what his brother William, Duke of Cothrom, had done in prematurely handing over the title to Samuel’s cousin Thomas, but that he would not do the same—and to be quite honest, Samuel had been relieved.
Being Lord Samuel Chance, eldest son of a marquess, was fun. He could have even more fun as Lord Samuel Chance, eldest son of a marquess in possession of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds.
But being the Marquess of Aylesbury? All that responsibility, and duty, and—here Samuel gulped—requirement to marry?
Oh, Lord. The mamas of good Society already hounded him enough. He didn’t need the addition of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds and a more notable title.
“I th-think it is an excellent idea,” Samuel’s mother was saying fondly. “Like a ret-t-tirement—I’ve been s-saying for years, you s-spend far too m-m-much time locked away in that study, w-working on the estates. It’s d-difficult and compl-plicated work!”
Samuel groaned.
Benjamin crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back but still managed to send a smirk in Samuel’s direction. “Oh, well, if you’re going to have all that money to prop up the estate…”
“Your f-father has the p-place in very g-good financial h-h-health!” their mother said hotly.
“I’m just saying, it’s not like Samuel won’t be spending it on wine and women.”
“A bold decision, but I know the Chances are renowned for such choices,” Mr. Todd interjected with reddening cheeks. “My lord, I will need you and your wife to come back to the office in a week to sign the paperwork. There will be a great deal to be done.”
Samuel looked at his father. John had rather been looking forward to returning to his London townhouse, his eldest son knew. The last thing he would want to do was linger in Brighton, of all places.
The strange thing was, everyone was looking at Samuel.
Samuel blinked. “What is it?”
“When M-Mr. Todd says, ‘m-my lord,’” said his mother with a dry smile, “he m-means you.”
It was a good thing Samuel was seated, for he would surely have suffered with weak knees had he been standing in that precise moment.
My lord was now…him? Well, once the formal abdication paperwork was completed.
Oh, he’d been Lord Samuel as a courtesy because of his father…but to be a lord in his own right?
Frank was giggling. “Your face!”
“The new Lord Aylesbury’s face, I think you’ll find,” teased Benjamin. “Oh, goodness, Lilianna will be in hysterics when she hears!”
Samuel supposed their absent sister would find the thing amusing.
The whole family would. Despite his brother’s accusation earlier, Samuel wasn’t particularly spendthrift or wasteful; he wasn’t particularly bad at managing his accounts or anything like that.
But to become a marquess in the matter of minutes…
And that was when his mind finally caught up with him, and he realized precisely what it was that had been nagging at him these last five minutes.
“Mr. Todd,” Samuel said formally, “I will be happy to return in a week to sign any paperwork that needs seeing to, but I will not be able to bring my wife.”
The solicitor blinked through thick spectacles. “She is not in Brighton?”
“She is not in existence,” said Samuel with a wry expression. “I am unmarried.”
It was not so much a confession as a declaration.
He had never seen the problem with being unwed; he was, after all, only seven and twenty.
There was plenty of time to find a wife if he so chose—though now that he came to think about it, now that he’d inherited the damned title, he should probably think more seriously about it.
In five years or so.
Which was why it was so odd that Mr. Todd should look so stricken. “No—No wife?”
“No wife. Not yet, anyway,” Samuel added, seeing his mother’s eyes lighting up. “I am sure, one day—”
“‘One day’ will be insufficient,” interrupted the solicitor. “That won’t do at all!”