Chapter 2 #2
His brother let out a short, humorless laugh. "Which does make it all the more confounding, does it not?"
Nathaniel grimaced, agreeing with his brother silently. His great-aunt's reputation for foresight and deliberation was well known, which meant that this bequest was not only astonishing, it was utterly mystifying.
"There will be whispers."
Nathaniel's chin lifted. It would not stay within these walls — that was the trouble of it.
There had been no great crowd here to carry the tale abroad, and it made no difference at all.
A young lady of no connection and no fortune, suddenly possessed of ten thousand pounds from the hand of Lady Susanna Warrington, was not a thing that could be kept quiet.
Her changed circumstances would be remarked the moment she stepped back into society; the questions would follow of their own accord, and his great-aunt's name — their name — would be in every drawing room in London before the season was out.
Rumours, quiet but insidious, would thread their way through the ballrooms, spoken over games of cards and cups of tea.
It could not be prevented. It could only be got ahead of.
"Our great-aunt's legacy could be stained because of this," James muttered, his jaw tightening. "Our good name could be tarnished. We are her relations, are we not? It must be done."
"There are others who could do it," Nathaniel murmured, uncertain of just how involved he wished to become. "Yes, it may bring some whispers and rumors, but — "
"We will be brought into whatever stain is pushed into the fabric of the Warrington name!
" James gripped his arm, his green eyes bright with fervor as he threw back his dark hair from his forehead with the other hand.
"Reputations are as fragile as a bird's egg.
Pristine, beautiful but easily fractured — and once they are cracked, they can never be truly mended. You know that, Ashcombe."
Nathaniel shut his eyes.
The request was perfectly reasonable, and that was what made it impossible to refuse.
James was not asking him to do something reckless.
He was asking him to do his duty — the very thing Nathaniel had been trained to do since boyhood.
And yet the duty in question required him to step into Miss Fairleigh's life.
Not at a distance, not through intermediaries, but directly — to seek her out, to speak with her, to probe the circumstances of a bequest she had not asked for.
Lord Merrow would be better placed, surely.
Or Lord Harper, whose interest in the family lines was well known.
Or even their cousin, Lady Bridgeford, who was far more at ease in the drawing rooms where such conversations were had.
But Merrow had no standing in the Warrington line. Harper's interest was genealogical, not practical. And Lady Bridgeford, for all her social gifts, would not pursue the matter with the tenacity it required.
There was no one else. There was only himself.
The recognition settled on him with the heaviness of a door closing — not slammed, but pulled shut with the quiet click of necessity. He could not walk away from it without feeling that he had failed in precisely the way he had spent his entire life trying not to fail.
"You have always fought to keep our family name clear of any and all scandal," James continued, more forcefully now. "Do not think that someone else will do it, not when you yourself can take action."
Grimacing, Nathaniel opened his eyes and looked into the wide eyes of his brother.
His thoughts had gone to the future, to the stories that would take on a life of their own, that would then stand up and dance a jig in the middle of society.
The truth, whatever it was, would be irrelevant if gossip was allowed to take hold.
Lady Warrington's legacy would be questioned.
Her entire family — her extended family, even — would be whispered about, gossiped over.
James was right. He had to do something about it.
"Then I shall."
Relief swept into his brother's expression. "I thank you, Ashcombe. I knew you would agree."
Nathaniel nodded but said nothing more. Responsibility had been handed to him from the very first moment of his birth, duty pressed upon his shoulders from the time he could walk.
He had to protect the family name, to anticipate and dissolve threats before they could even take shape.
Whatever Lady Warrington had intended by this, he had to make certain it would do nothing to damage his own family line.
And that meant finding out the truth.
He rose to his feet and reached for his hat. The solicitor's clerk was already tidying the chairs, restoring them to their places against the wall. Most of the seats were unremarkable — shifted, left at angles, the ordinary disorder of a room lately vacated.
But the two chairs near the front — the ones where Miss Fairleigh and her aunt had sat — were still precisely where they had been.
Neatly aligned, close together, as if the two women had occupied as little space as possible.
He noticed that a small reticule had been left on the seat of one chair.
Even as he registered it, the clerk moved toward it, scooped it up, and hurried to the door.
"The lady," the clerk called into the corridor. "She has left her reticule."
Nathaniel heard a murmur of thanks — Miss Fairleigh's voice, thin and distant, already at the outer door. The clerk returned without it.
He put on his hat, nodded to James, and went. Whatever Lady Warrington had set in motion, he meant to see the end of it. Tomorrow, he would begin.