Chapter 3 #3
Davy was the Welshman whom Amaranthe had hired as their manservant once they’d gotten settled in George Court, a few months after Joseph took his degree from St. John’s College and began his first post in London as tutor to an admiral’s sons.
Eyde was the maidservant Amaranthe had towed along with her when she suddenly appeared in Joseph’s university lodgings seven years ago, having fled Penwellen and Reuben’s wardship and refusing to say a word to Joseph about what had happened.
Refusing to explain why she was showing up with a maid with a belly as her only chaperone, and why she begged Joseph not to send her back.
Derwa, born a few months later, had the deep-set eyes and nocked chin of an Illingworth, an eerie resemblance to Joseph’s own.
He sagged into a chair. “Explain.”
Amaranthe resumed pacing the circuit Joseph had trod into the Brussels carpet. The carpet he’d called Inez out on just half an hour earlier.
“Eyde was a maid at Penwellen while I lived there.”
“Yes, you said.”
After their parents’ deaths, their cousin had taken them in, housing and clothing them and offering nominal status as gentlemen’s offspring.
It later emerged that Reuben was squandering the meager funds their parents had left for Amaranthe’s support on Reuben’s comfort, instead of Amaranthe’s.
Joseph at least had been able to escape to university.
It was only when Amaranthe showed up three years later, vowing she’d never return, that Joseph had the faintest hint all was not rolling quietly along at Penwellen as he’d assumed.
“Favella, as you know, was…delicate.”
Favella, Reuben’s wife, had died the year before.
Amaranthe had gone south with Mal as her escort thinking to attend her cousin’s wife in childbirth and had instead found a black wreath on the door.
Reuben had, at the time, proposed Amaranthe marry him so he might occupy himself with begetting an heir as early as possible.
Amaranthe, being already inconveniently in love with Mal at the time, had declined.
That, at least, was the story Joseph had been told.
“Reuben…”
A chill cruised down his arms and shoulders.
Men in dark corners, coming into the pantry, the scullery.
Men believing the maid in their service was their property.
That a young woman without family, of the servant class, was another good they could use at their convenience…
Hadn’t Inez warned him some men like thought like that?
The world was suddenly crueler, and more soiled, than Joseph in his naivete had ever imagined.
“Derwa is Reuben’s daughter,” Joseph said, his voice hoarse as the full weight of it hit him. Eyde, a maid in the employ of a married man, would know she could lose her position and her salary if she displeased the master.
A man who hurt a dog wouldn’t shrink from hurting a woman.
“Does she know?”
“Derwa? I don’t believe Eyde has told her yet. She’s known Davy as her father all her life, and they are the happier for it. But Eyde has always said she would tell her someday, when Reuben could no longer hurt them.”
Reuben, already in the ground by the time the letter had reached them, couldn’t reach from the grave and harm anyone now. At least, not like that.
“But the estate can’t go to her when she is illegitimate,” Joseph pointed out.
“Of course not. It’s entailed to you. Reuben acknowledged his crime when I confronted him, but he never offered to support her.”
“But you are asking me to,” Joseph realized.
His sister inclined her head. “You are, of course, under no obligation, any more than was Reuben. But it is the right thing to do, Joseph. She is his child. Eyde has a good salary as my dresser, Davy just as good as our first footman. They have a home with us as long as they wish. But Derwa…if she had some small funds held in trust, some remembrance, it would help her establish herself in the world, later. Though she’ll have Mal and I, of course. ”
Derwa had been like an adopted daughter to Amaranthe well before she married and took in the duke’s three half-siblings. “But if you arranged for the estate to provide her with something, after her natural father turned her out of the house…it would go a way toward making things right.”
And repairing the injustice Reuben had committed.
How many other men, Joseph wondered, had looked away from Reuben’s crimes? How many other men had been left to dispose of the bodies he left in his wake?
“Of course I will. Only let me get down there and see what the estate will bear.”
“Thank you. I knew I could trust you to do what is right.” Amaranthe gathered her reticule and tugged on her gloves.
“Is that why?” Joseph asked, standing again as he was, after all, a gentleman, and his sister considerably outranked him now.
“Why I came by? Partly, yes.”
“Why you left Cornwall all those years ago. To get Eyde away from Reuben?”
She stilled, and he didn’t like what lay in that stillness. The alertness. The sense of warning.
Inez had that same taut alertness sometimes, when she was alone in a room with Joseph. As if he were the larger predator, and she all too aware she was soft prey.
Nonsense. He wasn’t a predator. He’d never hurt Inez; he’d never made the slightest move to intimidate her. He’d never intimidated his sister, either; quite the opposite.
He stilled, too, with a sudden realization. Inez didn’t need prior evidence from him. He was a man; that was enough. He was of the breed she knew to be a danger to her, and even he in his own self offered no threat, that might mean little.
That wasn’t why she’d run, was it? Because she was afraid of him? A sour taste rose in his throat, and that cold chill on his back turned clammy.
“Let me guess,” Joseph said, acid in his mouth as he faced his sister. Seeing the delicate girl she was seven years ago, no more than eighteen, weary from a journey over several counties and hundreds of miles to find safety with him. “You needed to get both of you away from Reuben.”
She concentrated on precisely squaring each finger of her glove over the digit it enclosed. “Yes.”
“Anth.” His voice came out anguished. “Did he—?” He couldn’t frame the words. God above, he wasn’t a fool, but he’d never considered, then or now, that she would be in danger from their cousin.
And why hadn’t he, when he knew better? When he knew full well what Reuben was?
A cold drop of sweat slithered down his spine.
“Not me. He threatened, but I brought Eyde away before he could make good on his threats.”
“If he weren’t already dead,” Joseph said stonily, “I would kill him. As it is, I think I will spit on his grave.”
“He can’t hurt us now. And I think you can do much good as the baronet, Joseph. You might repair some of the damage he has done.”
She paused to regard him with a soft, fond smile. “It isn’t fair to you, I know. You deserve to inherit an estate in good heart, unburdened by debts or foul memories. But we get the world we have, don’t we? And it is our part to build the world we want.”
“Mother always said that, too,” Joseph remembered. He rubbed at the back of his neck. “I’ll start preparing to leave at once.”
“I shall ask Mrs. Frost if she wishes to look after the house, or if she wishes to close it up. Normally I would ask Inez, but it seems she is out of charity with you again? Really, Joseph, she is the sweetest of women. I don’t know how you manage to bring out her temper—”
“My God, she’s out there alone.” Joseph took his sister’s arm to steer her toward the door. “I have to find her.”
“She’s very capable of looking after herself, come to that,” Amaranthe soothed. “I only meant, if you had insulted her, it is your part—”
“Someday, Anth, you will recognize that I am the elder sibling, and perfectly capable of conducting my own affairs,” Joseph snapped. His body felt as if he stood on a waking fire, showered with sparks. He recalled Inez’s nervous look up and down the street, as if she were watching for something.
Something outside of his house posed a threat to her, and he had just sent her running from the one place she was safe.
“Along with you, Duchess, if I can trust your man to see you home.” He practically pushed his sister toward the front door of the little hall. “Something terrible is about to happen to Inez. I have to find her now.”