Chapter Seven
Two days after being put off by the solicitor’s clerk, who’d said he was not in that day, Zeph and Rafe were off to the man’s offices.
Zeph sat in the forward-facing seat of Rafe’s town coach, while he took the opposite. She hated the distance from him, but on such a fine day—and an appointment with her father’s solicitor—she would not argue.
Fighting Rafe would gain her little anyway. She had tried that.
Besides, the other man who faced her was a tall, muscular footman. Fine looking, too. James was his name, and Rafe had informed her, as the fellow followed them out to Rafe’s carriage, that the servant was assigned to her.
“Why is that?” she demanded while James looked suitably aloof, acting as if he heard nothing. His attention was on the street and the pedestrians. So devoted did he seem, she felt the point of alarm.
“Every young lady who goes out to shop or meet a friend for tea requires the assistance of a footman.”
“I thought my so-called companion would perform that service.”
Rafe smiled, but his lips were thin. “You have had four days and reviewed how many vitae?”
“Countless.”
He teased her with a rueful smile. “And interviewed how many?”
Oh, he had her there! “Three.”
“Precisely. Which is why James is your man, even when we have found your appropriate companion.”
“And you are not my man?” She pronounced the last two words with a nuance that narrowed Rafe’s green eyes on her.
“I will not always be with you.”
So you say. “Well, James! What rules do you have for my actions?”
Rafe nudged his foot against hers. His gaze told her to stop being a vixen. “He keeps you safe. You treat him well.”
She sent the footman an apologetic smile. “I will. You and I will travel the City in good company. Now…” She turned her attention toward Rafe once more. “Tell me what you know about the reputation of this solicitor.”
“Your father hired him, so he must be excellent.”
She scowled. “My father could be led.”
Rafe looked surprised. “To what?”
“Make bad decisions about people.”
“He made good decisions about politics. Joined the rebellion against Britain. Befriended Washington and Jefferson.”
“And had a mistress in Alexandria who stole all of Mama’s jewelry.”
“Well, I did not know—”
“I was in the house when she came. I was eleven, and I remember that very well. She picked me up by the collar of my gown and stuffed me in the linen closet. All the while, she told me how she hated my father and mother, and how Papa would not buy her the house she wanted in Washington. Hmm. Yes, she was so in love with Papa that she robbed him. My father could be cold and devious. I did not pity him.” She rolled her shoulders.
“So please tell me about this man, Silas Carter.”
“I have never met him. I have heard he is difficult to work with, so be aware we may have to urge him onward. One friend of mine, Lord Appleby, tells me he has worked with him. Appleby’s wife, Vivienne, was an émigré, the daughter of the Vicomte de Neufchateau.
After Bonaparte changed the rules on old aristocracy’s rights, Appleby and Vivienne applied for restitution of her family’s chateau.
But Bonaparte is not inclined to do that lately, as you might imagine. ”
“Because France and Britain are at war. I understand.”
Rafe set his teeth. “Bonaparte does not give back land.”
She nodded, a sarcastic look on her face. “The people would howl.”
“Instead, he awards the spoils to his own supporters. His generals. His sycophants.”
“Why not?” she asked. “A true despot.”
“I will tell you, too, that Silas Carter is an expert in foreign rights to property.”
“Of French émigrés to their former possessions?”
Rafe raised his brows. “Americans as well.”
“Has he won legal rights to property for others?”
“Appleby says he has.”
She blew out a breath. “In my case, he has to know not only international rights, but also Virginia’s inheritance laws.”
“What do you know of them?” Rafe locked his gaze on hers, as if this was the first time he had thought of that.
“If my father wrote that anything was mine in a last will dated before he died, then it is mine.”
*
Silas Carter was so tall, his neck so long, his torso too, that he barely cleared the lintel of his office door. With a long, pointed nose, rimless spectacles, and blue eyes the color of aquamarine, he was bald, businesslike, and a fast talker.
“You wished for my first available appointment, Miss Butler.” Carter spoke from behind his desk, his manner cold to the point of rude.
He also appeared unperturbed by Rafe’s and her demand the other day from his clerk that they have his earliest opening in his schedule.
“I have a few minutes, fortunately, before my next client. However, I must say I have had little time to do much research on your behalf since you, Sir Raphael, wrote to me four days ago of your needs.”
“I understand,” she told him with a smile. “And I am grateful for your time this morning. But I am in urgent need.”
“Of what? Knowledge of deeds to your father’s assets? Money? Do you sail soon and need these items?”
“Money would be useful, naturally.” She had everything she needed from Rafe.
Pocket money, access to shops, dressmakers, and even jewelers.
She would not be financially indebted to him when she had no need to be.
He’d been more than generous, more than kind…
and in ways loving, too. He did not wish that last to continue.
Even if she did, it was unfair to him and her to be so dependent.
She had to correct that if she could. “But no, I have not booked passage to America. Still, the knowledge of my father’s wishes would end my worries. Did he leave you a will?”
“He did. I have it locked away in our vaults and have not had time to have my clerk retrieve it.”
Rafe all but growled. “That is unfortunate, sir. Miss Butler needs that document.”
“I do. Most urgently. But then, you may be able to help me with other information.”
“Anything I can do, Miss Butler,” Carter said as if waiting upon her wishes were the very last thing he ever hoped to do.
“Clearly,” she said with the most formal of fake smiles, “you would wish that. Well, sir! I need to know where my father banked. Do you know that?”
“I would have to have your father’s last will before me to divulge such information to you.”
“Sir!” Rafe inhaled and shifted in his chair.
Zeph had never seen him irritated—except by her, of course—and this experience was a revelation that thrilled her.
Carter shrank before her eyes, and inside, she grinned.
She would never tangle with Sir Raphael Durham on any matter—except one.
“Only a few banks in Britain deal regularly with American exporters of tobacco and cotton.”
Carter shifted his eerie blue eyes toward Rafe. They narrowed. They burned. “This is true, sir. Maxwell’s of Manchester. And now Nathan Rothschild, who has transferred his business from Manchester to London.” He shot a look at Zeph. “Do you perhaps know where your father banked here in London?”
She shook her head. “He told me little of his financial actions. Although I did do his books for him a few times.” She grew wistful to let her words sink into Carter’s disbelieving brain. “The first time was before he left Paris for London in 1795.”
Carter’s razor-thin brows rose to the ceiling. They stayed there, so high, Zeph thought he might turn to stone that way, permanently appearing surprised. “How is that, Miss Butler?”
“That I corrected what others had flubbed?”
“Exactly.”
“I am very good at mathematics, Mr. Carter.”
The man pulled his chin back into his neck and checked the veracity of this with a scouring of Rafe’s gruff expression.
“This is true, Mr. Carter. Miss Butler is very skilled with numbers.”
The man hummed as he pondered this.
“I did it again when I was nineteen, sir. In 1802, my papa came to Paris carrying his estate ledgers that his overseer at home in Virginia had muddled. He also had with him his own books, listing his savings here in England. I was good. He knew I was capable of finding errors, if there were any.”
“And were there?”
“Quite a few, yes,” she said with a certain overweening satisfaction.
Carter still did not believe his ears. “Amazing. And…and you are now how old?”
This man is an idiot. She smiled. “Twenty-two, soon to have a birthday in October.”
Carter cleared his throat. “Any idea what your father’s bank balances were then?”
“With a French banker, a Monsieur Lenoir of the banking family and house of Jarre, located in Paris, Papa had five thousand dollars and twenty-two cents. He used some of that to pay for my living expenses and my schooling. In some English bank in Manchester, he had fifteen thousand and forty-two dollars and twelve cents. The month was June. The year, 1802.”
“During the peace of Amiens. Hmmm.” Carter tapped a finger on his thin lips. “I will ask the man who was our ambassador to Paris that year if he was acquainted with your father.”
“Charles Whitworth was that man,” she told him. “And my papa was well acquainted with him.” She wanted to preen, but sat stoic in the face of Carter’s blush and bluster.
Rafe smiled so broadly that he had to cross one leg over the other. She even saw him bite his cheek to hide his mirth.
“The man knew my father well. My father was not only a friend of Thomas Jefferson, but he helped negotiate much of the purchase of the Louisiana Territory by the United States from the French.”
“A purchase that here in Britain we disdained.”
“Of course you did,” she said matter-of-factly, but with great relish. “I do understand your sorrow. Much of your old territory is now gone to us.”
Carter swallowed and sat forward, his long fingers flexing together upon his polished desk. “Why did your father have so much money with a French banker?”
“He traded with the French just as he traded with Great Britain. Indigo and cotton from our plantations. Whiskey, too. When we first came to Europe, my father and I lived in Paris. It was a terrible time. The Terror, you see. But still my father had to have money, didn’t he, to support us both.
The American government is young and poor.
They paid my father a pittance. He dealt with the French as he dealt with the British to sell his products.
He banked his money here to pay our daily living expenses, as he did in Paris. ”
“When did he come here? And where did you live? If his will has no notice of where he banked, we can look at property sales or leases. Drafts for payments of that can tell us about which banks your father used.”
“I have no idea where my father lived here in London. I was not with him.”
Carter tipped his head. “Where were you?”
She smiled, and she was certain her expression was blank. “My papa left me in France.”
Carter blinked, trying desperately to hide his shock.
“Yes, he enrolled me in an all-girls school, run by the woman who had once run a school in the palace of Versailles for Marie Antoinette. Madame Campan was her name, a lovely lady, and my friends even today are the French emperor’s sister, Caroline, and Empress Josephine’s daughter, Hortense.”
“A…amazing,” Carter murmured, unable, judging by his stammer, to summon any other word.
“I have had quite an education,” she told him, implying all she had learned in the chaos of Paris Society. If he had heard any rumors of her internment in the Conciergerie, he gave no notice. That, she was pleased not to discuss.
“Indeed, Miss Butler, you have.” He now seemed happy, if not honored, to have her in his office. “But now you are here with us and wishing to reestablish your inheritance. A fine idea.”
“Necessary.”
“If you remember any details of your father’s financial activities here in London or even Paris, do come to tell me. I would say write to me, but I understand that you are interested in a speedy resolution of your circumstances.”
She rose. She was done with this man. “This is true. I am relieved we can proceed, sir. You will keep me informed of your progress.”
“I will. Do I also inform you, Sir Raphael, of the progress?”
Rafe had gotten to his feet. “No, sir. Direct your information only to Miss Butler.”