Eleven
Fort
“You sent me here over a year ago for a reason, Monty. If it’s in any way related to you being here now, I have to know.” Fort paced the sick room while Monty struggled to find a comfortable position against the pillows.
Fort understood the reason for occasional secrecy, but this had become too personal. They could be endangering the lives of innocents. The ladies had suffered enough and deserved to enjoy the excitement of a new infant in the household.
He couldn’t forget the horror and panic when Lavender had disappeared earlier in the summer. She was still a bit fragile after the experience. He absolutely refused to allow anything like that to happen again.
Weston struggled. “I sent you in hopes you’d marry an heiress and have a life outside of books.”
Fort contemplated slapping his lying bully of a brother with a pillow. “You have noticed the library, have you not? Books were not your concern. Why do I need an heiress? Have the bankers misappropriated my trust? Or has Venetia asked to buy the royal crown?”
Monty started to shrug , winced, and made a rude gesture instead.
“Your trust is meager and Venetia is fine, thank you for asking. The boys, however, are costing a fortune. And our brothers are doing their best to get themselves killed. You seemed the most likely to settle down and produce the requisite heirs.”
“You did your best to get yourself killed at their age.” Fort knew Monty had settled down once he’d established a long-term relationship.
Unfortunately, Venetia was a married woman whose wealthy husband’s interests did not include his wife or females in general.
Monty’s bastards would inherit estates but not the dukedom.
Noticing his brother looked rightfully weary, Fort offered him brandy mixed with the powder Meera had left, but he rejected it. “You did not send me here to marry. You said the manor and its inhabitants were in danger. Now is the time to explain.”
“You should have worked it out on your own by now. If you had spent time in the real world instead of books, you’d understand the implications.
The entire exclave of Gravesyde is a feudal fiefdom completely governed by the manor’s owner—a lawless kingdom waiting to be seized.
It is too distant from Shropshire for the law to even know of Gravesyde’s existence.
The earl who refused to be annexed knew what he was doing. ”
Fortunes built on the wealth of legal piracy, the Wycliffe family had always been independent to the point of lawlessness.
Fort grasped that. How it applied to modern times.
. . He paced the tiled floor of the enormous, purposeless chamber built by the last heir to the title.
“Whoever owns the manor establishes the law. That’s no different from the duchy.
Our father is essentially the law over a far wider territory than this. ”
“Except the duke actually owns our lands, thus giving him electoral influence in sending officials to Parliament and establishing legal authority. Other than Hunt, the Priory trust belongs to females and children with no power to vote, govern, or own property. When I sent you here, I did not know what manner of man Huntley was. As an American, he could have started another revolution or built a criminal enterprise and there’d be none to say him nay. ”
Female wealth was a chimera, Fort understood.
Yes, the Wycliffe descendants were the beneficiaries of the vast trust the late earl had left to all his many female relations.
But the trustees had had to hunt down Captain Huntley to direct the dispersal of funds, under the rules the earl had established.
As the lone male heir of appropriate age, he possessed the only legal power.
And he was an American with no power to vote in England.
Fort had had plenty of time to learn more about Hunt and the other heirs over this past year.
Monty’s fears of insurrection were not justified.
“Fine. I can successfully report that there is no danger of Gravesyde becoming a lawless haven of thieves or revolutionaries. In fact, I can report they’ve gone to the authorities in hopes of changing just that. Now tell me why you’re here.”
“Because there is a petition in Parliament to break the Wycliffe trust and take it out of Huntley’s hands. Someone opposes Gravesyde’s petition to be annexed by Worcestershire and wants to leave the entire exclave lawless.”
Fort stared at his brother in alarm. “That makes no sense.”
“Perhaps not, but should anything happen to Hunt, the ladies would be helpless to fight whatever happens. Now that there are no more earls, no one in this little kingdom of Gravesyde has a vote in Parliament. The ladies cannot sue on their own. They are essentially in the hands of fate and their trustees.”
And Hunt. Fort saw the picture with growing alarm. The trustees had spent years finding a male heir of any sort to execute the trust. Despite all the many ways the Wycliffe heiresses had proved themselves capable, the law did not allow women to control their own property.
The only other male heirs were nine and in the schoolroom across the hall.
“Most of their families are good people.” Fort ran through the list of relations in his head, but half the heiresses did not even live here. He could not know them all. “They support Hunt and whatever the resident ladies want.”
“Not all.” Weston closed his eyes in exhaustion.
“One of them is supporting a petition in Parliament to break the trust. Warn Huntley to surround himself with armed guards. Until this is resolved, his life is in danger. It’s best that no one knows where he is until he’s assured of the annexation.
Once shire law is established, Gravesyde is less interesting. ”
“You think you were shot because someone knew you’d warn Hunt and stop the petition?” That sounded incredible.
Monty didn’t answer. He was out again. Worried, Fort sent for the physician, thanking the heavens that Meera had chosen to stay in the manor rather than go back to her cottage.
Meera assured him that the patient was merely suffering from fever and loss of blood.
“We do not know the part fever plays in healing or how much blood loss affects recovery. But so far, he is responding normally. Let him sleep. Keep giving him strong meat broth. The kitchen has acquired some good marrow bones from the new butcher. Healing takes time.”
Not reassured, Fort hated to abandon his brother, but he had to discuss what he’d learned with the others.
Lawless lunatics might be endangering Captain Huntley and the Priory?
With all the gentlemen gone, how the devil did he notify Hunt while informing a household of women likely to have hysterics and set up boiling oil on the ramparts?
The Wycliffe descendants did not waste time weeping.
After Meera’s departure, Lavender tapped on the open door while he was still brooding. She carried a tray with a soup tureen, a teapot, and a plate of sandwiches. “I don’t think you’ve eaten anything since breakfast?”
Fort couldn’t remember eating. Gratefully, he took the tray. “Weston is sleeping. We need a brazier to keep the soup warm.”
They both glanced at the narrow hearth that might or might not be connected to a vented chimney.
“I’ll let Arnaud and Thea puzzle that out,” Lavender decided. “Your students have questions. I can sit with his lordship. I have my sewing basket.”
“I’d rather you tell me what is happening while I eat.
Fetch your basket, if you wish. I’ll bring in a chair.
The boys aren’t going anywhere.” He didn’t know why he said any of that, other than that he needed Lavender’s refreshing frankness to remind him that the world wasn’t all cynical intrigue and ugliness.
He gave his students instructions for reading, then carried a dainty, cushioned chair into the sickroom. Lavender appeared dubious but settled in with her sewing while Fort plowed through sandwiches.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” she admitted nervously.
“The boys have been reading about designs in hopes of translating the earl’s odd engravings.
Meera has told Clare she might leave the bed to sit in a chair, so she is writing feverishly again.
Miss Eleanor, the baron’s assistant, has been sent for to copy out the finished pages. ”
Fort stretched his legs and relaxed a little.
“It is good to hear all is normal outside this room. I enjoy listening to you.” He enjoyed looking at her.
Blond wisps dangled at her ears, framing huge violet eyes and ripe lips that had probably never been kissed.
She’d lived in a girls’ school until she arrived here at the age of seventeen.
She’d had two birthdays since. She was no longer that rebellious schoolgirl who had smitten him with her beauty and audacity.
Weston would have ten fits and die of a heart attack if Fort should mention his interest in a penniless by-blow. Not having great wealth of his own, Fort relied on his family for support. Had he accepted the vicarage. . . His parish would have hung him by now.
“I have little to say,” Lavender said dismissively. “You must be very bored.”
Fort gave that some thought as he chewed. “I enjoy challenges, yes, but I also need quiet times to think. I am not much at explaining myself.”
She tilted her head in curiosity. “You said you were not a good student, yet you know so much!”
He shrugged. “I read. I think. I observe. I do not much care for being lectured and did not enjoy the company in school. How about you? Would you rather be in London, dancing in ballrooms? Your card would be full every evening.” His experience with women was almost as limited as hers with men.
He lacked social polish but craved her attention.
She threaded her needle and regarded the garment she worked on rather than respond to his poor flattery.
“I would like to experience a ballroom and an opera and the theater, but mostly to admire the gowns and fabrics. I’d love to go to Paris and see the new fashions before they appear in fashion books.
But this is home. I need to be useful and have family and people I can love around me. ”
Knowing the story of her illegitimacy, Fort knew she had reasons to feel unloved.
Monty’s bastards were growing up in a wealthy home, with two good—if not doting—parents.
Lavender had gone unacknowledged and unwanted in her early years, then abandoned to a boarding school that had not even taught her to read.
She was only now developing a small relationship with the aristocratic grandmother who’d paid for her education—but not accepted her as family until recently.
“I’ve never had dreams,” Fort admitted. “I lack the creativity Thea says is necessary for solving Wycliffe’s puzzles. You’ve already inspired the boys more than I have been able to do.”
She looked startled. “Me? All I did was describe sewing. It’s all I know.”
“It’s a profession that can take you to Paris, if you wish. Reading is not the only way to learn.” He might take her to Paris, if they did not live extravagantly. He supposed he did have one dream these days, however impossible it might be.
Arnaud strode in and glared at the sleeping earl, preventing Lavender from responding. “Did Weston say anything of use?”
“Not about assassins.” Regretfully, Fort finished his tea and stood. “We probably need a group discussion.”
“That had better include me,” Lavender warned. “I am not neglecting my business to simply babysit an invalid.”
Her creativity was needed. Fort’s thoughts and observations weren’t helping much. How the devil would he find the words to tell this family that they might lose the home they loved—and that the new mother’s husband was in danger?