Chapter Four
“I have to admit,” Mr. Porter mused as he slowly swirled the glass of brandy Chase had handed him when he arrived at Cuillin Castle. It was only late morning, far too early for strong liquor, but propriety had never stopped Porter before. Besides, the plump Weymouth solicitor always did his best work when halfway foxed. “I was surprised to hear from you after so long.”
“You’re not alone,” Chase mumbled with a half grimace into his cup of strong coffee as he sat on the large desk in his study, one leg hooked across the corner. The rest of the castle’s rooms were still shuttered, the furniture still covered in sheets, but he’d had the foresight to send word ahead to the staff to open this room so he could work.
“But now you’re back!” Porter rocked forward on his chair, and the golden liquid in his glass splashed about, punctuating his excitement. “How have you found the castle and estate upon your return?”
“Cold.”
The man roared with laughter and helped himself to a generous swallow of his drink, snorting into his glass.
Chase winced as the noise ricocheted a sharp ache through his head. Having this meeting was the last thing he should have been doing the morning after a sleepless night spent tossing and turning—and chasing ghosts. God knew there wasn’t enough hot coffee in England to drive away his sluggishness and pounding headache, although the latter had little to do with lack of sleep and everything to do with his reason for returning.
Hence the meeting with Porter. There was no point in delaying the inevitable.
“I’ve only returned for a few days,” Chase explained. He took a large swallow of the bitter black coffee, then gestured the mug at the estate around him. “To close up the castle, pension the servants, write recommendations for the others…put everything into place.” He paused and cut to the crux of why he’d asked Porter to visit today. “I also want to sell off all the assets that aren’t entailed, and I need your help to do it.”
Porter choked on his brandy. He sat up straight, sputtering and coughing to clear his throat. “Pardon?”
“I want to sell it all. Land, equipment, stock, supplies…the lot of it.”
Porter blinked at him from behind his round spectacles. “Everything?”
Chase gave a determined nod. “Right down to the last nail.” He picked up a stack of papers from the desk. “Here’s a list of properties in Dorset.” He handed them to Porter. “I want you to work with Strain and Ulster, my men in London, to coordinate the sale of the local properties and the transfers of funds.”
The solicitor swallowed down the last of his brandy with a gasp as his eyes scanned the page. Then, without looking up from the documents, held out the glass toward Chase to be refilled.
With a wry grin at being relegated to footman by the man’s distraction, Chase reached for the decanter and splashed out another generous pour.
“Good God…you’re talking hundreds of thousands of pounds if you do this across all your estates,” Porter muttered. “Most likely close to a million.”
“Not so much as all that,” Chase corrected. “It’s a minor dukedom at best.”
One his father and grandfather had already mortgaged to the hilt in order to build the castle around them. Once the estate’s debts were all paid in full, the proceeds would be closer to a hundred thousand, and none of it from the London townhouse, which had been mortgaged even more than Cuillin. Strain and Ulster’s role would be merely bill payers, at best.
“I plan on returning to the Continent as soon as the castle is closed,” he explained, “and I want matters here to be as simplified as possible in my absence. The best way to do that is to minimize the properties that need to be overseen.”
Chase crossed to the fireplace where a small fire glowed in the grate. He hadn’t lied earlier. The castle had been as cold as an ice cave when he’d arrived, the servants wisely heating only the rooms where they worked and lived. He picked up the poker and stirred at the coals, grateful for any heat the old fireplace cast up.
“Still…” Porter blew out a long breath. “What do you plan on doing with all that money?”
“Pay for my travels and a new house on the Continent.” Chase shrugged. “And some to charities, perhaps. I’ve always wanted to fund children’s education.”
Porter blinked as if Chase had just gone mad. “But—but your heirs… Surely, you want to keep your assets for them.”
Chase’s heart stopped. For one brutally painful moment, he didn’t move, not even to breathe or blink, the poker halfway stabbing into the fire. Then he said coldly, “I have no living heirs and never will.”
Porter’s round face turned pallid as the realization of what he’d said to Chase sank through him. “My apologies, Your Grace,” he stammered out. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Don’t worry, Porter,” Chase cut him off with a forced smile as he set down the poker and returned to his desk. “I know you didn’t mean any insult.”
Yet he reached for the decanter to top off his coffee with brandy.
“To answer your question, I don’t see myself ever marrying again or having more children, and I have no relatives to inherit it. The dukedom dies with me.” He forced himself not to glance toward the miniatures of Eleanor and Thomas sitting on the bookcase in the corner, or to reach into his jacket pocket and touch the little tin soldier he carried there. “Which is why I want all financial matters taken care of now, before the title and its properties return to the crown.” With a gesture he didn’t feel, he raised his mug to Porter in a toast. “And why I need the best solicitor in Weymouth to help me.”
Porter’s mouth pressed into a thin line, the man clearly not comforted by that compliment. Chase didn’t blame him. He was barely one step above a country solicitor, and the task Chase had just given him was most likely the biggest he would ever encounter in his career.
But Chase hadn’t lied. Porter was the best solicitor in the county, and Chase needed him for the next part of his plan: his quick return to Spain. He had found peace there—well, as much peace as he would ever find, he supposed—and he would establish a new life there for himself, perhaps even become a ma?tre d’armes like Titus and train his own set of wayward boys who needed direction in their lives.
“Of course, I’d be honored. I’ll send a report soon.” Porter leveraged his plump body out of the chair and pushed his spectacles into place on the bridge of his nose. “I can see myself out. Good day, Your Grace.”
Chase nodded and breathed a low sigh of relief. Porter’s agreement to sell his assets was one less problem he had to deal with while in Weymouth, which was a godsend, because he now feared he’d have his hands full with Tessa. Trouble brewed in the woman’s wake. Always had. And now, with her set on marrying Robert Renslow, God only knew the trouble she’d find if she—
“Porter!” Chase called out into the hallway as a thought struck him. “A moment.”
The solicitor returned and appeared in the doorway. “Yes, Your Grace?”
“What do you know about Robert Renslow?” God help him, he couldn’t bear not to ask, even though he knew he was putting his nose where it didn’t belong. “Have you heard anything about the man?”
Porter blinked. “The factory owner?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing unusual. That he’s in town for the season, doesn’t get foxed or spend evenings at the card tables or with widows or lightskirts…” He shrugged. “From all accounts, he’s a proper gentleman with a reliable income who’s well-respected among certain circles.”
Chase had no idea why he wasn’t happy to hear that, but the report of the man’s good character grated. Irritably. “Thank you.”
“Is there anything in particular you’d like to know about Mr. Renslow, Your Grace? I can make inquiries.”
“No need.” Chase smiled apologetically. “I was merely curious, that’s all.”
“Very well. Then I’ll have a report about the properties for you soon. For what it’s worth,” he added with a beaming smile as he met Chase’s gaze across the room, “it’s nice having Greysmere back at the castle!”
Then he was gone, strolling toward the central staircase that led down to the entrance hall where the footman would be waiting with his hat and gloves. Then the front door would close, and a cold silence would fall over the castle again.
“Good to have Greysmere back,” he muttered to himself as he topped top off his cup with a splash of hot coffee and a generous pour of brandy. “No, it isn’t.”
He carried the cup to the window and lifted it to his lips as he stared out at the stone terraces lying across the cliff top and, beyond those, at the edge where the ground plummeted away to the sea below.
How the dukes of Greysmere had ended up with such a godforsaken place for their ducal seat, he had no bloody idea. Some damnable baron ancestor in centuries past had built the place as a square-tower fortress, most likely from which he could launch smuggling boats. Another by-then-an-earl ancestor two hundred years ago had expanded the old tower with grand wings. Then came Chase’s grandfather, who had surely made a Faustian bargain by turning the castle into the rambling building it now was, complete with Robert Adam interiors and sweeping oval stairs leading to large reception rooms bathed in velvet, damask, and intricate plasterwork. All done in order to impress one of the King Georges—Chase couldn’t remember which, nor did he give a damn that he didn’t. But the castle’s alterations had proved enough both to earn the man a dukedom and to plunge his descendents into mountainous debt.
In two generations, the Greysmere fortune had been drained, and Chase had inherited a dukedom barely one-twentieth the size it had once been. That proved beneficial to his current situation, though, because it meant fewer houses to close up, fewer servants to pension, and little to worry about once he returned to Spain.
He’d come here to do what he should have done three years ago—hell, what he should have done last year instead of lingering in London—close up the castle permanently. Judging from how empty and lifeless the place felt, a man would be forgiven for thinking the job wouldn’t take long at all. That he would be able to put his affairs in order in a matter of days and be on his way.
He knew better. This visit would be the longest few weeks of his life.
“Then best get started,” he ordered himself and returned to the desk.
Setting his coffee aside, he reached for the pile of papers waiting to be sorted. He would start with this room and its documents first, so anything of importance could be sent on to Porter and the men in London. At least that was the excuse he used to put off dealing with the other rooms as long as possible, especially the nursery. Even now, his hand strayed to his pocket to touch the little tin soldier.
But the toy provided little comfort, and the oppressive silence made thinking impossible, until he struggled to focus as he scanned each sheet. Not even the noise of servants going about their daily activity reached him. But then, only a handful of servants were still employed here, just enough to keep the place from falling to ruin or being robbed in the night. Those who remained had been set into a nervous flurry of activity at his unexpected return, only to be bewildered by his announcement that he didn’t want the castle reopened but permanently closed.
The housekeeper and butler had both stared at him as if he’d sprouted a second head, but he assured them that their employment was safe. The castle and most of its contents belonged not to him but to the dukedom, so he couldn’t divest himself completely of it and would still need staff to oversee the place.
In that, Tessa was wrong. He could never completely run away from home, no matter how much he wanted to.
But then, this place had never been his home.
He tossed the papers onto the desk and slumped down into his chair. Dear God…Tessa.
The maddening woman had been a large part of the reason he hadn’t been able to sleep last night. She’d kept invading his thoughts, stirring up guilt, remorse, and always a lingering frustration he couldn’t pin down, except for the way she’d parted from him on the arm of Robert Renslow, turning her back to him and walking away without a single glance. That had made him want to shake her.
Oh, he’d expected her to change, and she certainly had. But all the changes he saw in her were only in appearance. In temperament, she was still as fiery as ever.
He had always adored her, drawn to her spirit. Tessa had never backed down from an argument, never passed up a chance at adventure, and more than once, he’d seen her nearly bouncing with excitement over some new experience or opportunity that had presented itself. She was also one of the kindest individuals he’d ever met, with a loving heart and generous character, and her devotion to her younger sister Winifred was unquestionable. Chase had often found himself looking forward to seeing her whenever he had called on Eleanor, going so far as to bring her small gifts. But while Eleanor received flowers and books of poetry, Tessa received fishing equipment and scientific tomes, all of which set her bouncing with fresh happiness…and left Chase’s chest warming.
Yet when he saw Robert Renslow looking at her as he had, Chase couldn’t help but consider her in a new way. Not as a friend, not as the schoolgirl he’d once known and his late wife’s cousin…but as a woman, one ready for marriage and all the intimacies that accompanied it. That new glimpse of her had simply stunned him, creating all kinds of territorial urges he had no right to feel.
Renslow seemed a good match for Tessa. Good character, respectable income… Chase was happy for her. Of course he was. So why did thoughts of the man with Tessa eat at his gut like a gnawing rat?
Damnation. He rubbed at the knot at his nape. If he survived the next few weeks—
“Nodcock.”
He glanced up, and his breath hitched.
Tessa.