Chapter 4
Chapter Four
“Ihad a devil of a time, Your Grace,” Mr. Pritchard, his solicitor, said with a thin-lipped smile.
Andrew lowered himself into the chair in his study, his solicitor already lifting a briefcase onto the desk. The spare man looked as though he had altogether too many things to do and too little to eat.
“What have you found, Mr. Pritchard?” Andrew rubbed at his temples.
Mr. Pritchard pushed a piece of paper across the table.
“Walter Kinley, your cousin on your father’s side.
He is recently deceased, and his wife passed from childbirth a handful of weeks ago.
I think, given the circumstances, it seems perfectly reasonable that you might have claimed the boy as your ward. ”
“Walter,” Andrew mused. The man was a few years older, and they had never been close, but he had always had the importance of family hammered into his head from the day of his own birth. The world expected such things from him. “I assume you can handle the paperwork?”
“Oh yes, Your Grace. I shall get on that at once.” He retrieved the paper with Walter’s details written across it.
Andrew had barely scanned them; he recalled enough about Walter that he could be certain the man would stand up to scrutiny as William’s deceased father.
Once William’s legitimacy could be settled, nothing else mattered. The boy would soon have his name, and he would take him in, making him his heir. That was the least he could do for Rebecca.
His solicitor shut the briefcase with a click. “Is there anything else you require, Your Grace?”
“That is everything.” Andrew leaned back in his seat, eyeing the other man. “I presume you understand the importance of discretion.”
“Not a word about this matter shall leave my lips, and once I have completed the task, I will personally burn all documents relating to it.”
“Good.” Andrew rang for his butler.
A new thing, this. As a child, of course, he had grown up in a house full of servants, but they had all answered to his father and mother. Now, this house of servants all answered to him and him alone, their loyalty to him as their new lord and master.
A duke. He would soon have to accustom himself to this new position. All the ways he would protect the family name and interests as his father had not. He would protect what was his, the way he had failed to protect Rebecca.
Still, he knew how things were done, which was why he had invited his solicitor to his house rather than visiting the solicitor’s office. A duke would never take such things upon himself when he could compel the obedience of others.
His father had taught him that.
Foxwell, his butler, opened the door. “Your Grace.”
“Allow Foxwell to take you out,” Andrew said to Pritchard, “and he will ensure you receive the full payment.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.” Pritchard rose and left the room, the butler in tow.
Andrew linked his fingers together, hoping by God that he had done the right thing by the child.
“Lady Temperance Sutton and Lady Marwich to see you, miss,” the maid said, bobbing a curtsy.
Then, she allowed the two ladies to enter the small drawing room where Jessamine currently sat, doing her best to occupy herself with a book. William had just gone down for a nap, and she had been enjoying—or trying to enjoy—a little solitude before he inevitably woke and began crying again.
“Jessamine,” Lady Marwich said, sweeping in with more than a little pomp and grandeur. “How are you faring?”
“Yes,” Temperance said, smiling slightly as she entered the room slightly after Lady Marwich. “I hope you’re not too tired.”
“Oh, she’ll be tired if I know anything about newborns,” Lady Marwich said sagely.
Jessamine rose to greet them. “I’m not so bad. Do you have any news?”
“As it happens, we do.” Lady Marwich sat. “The duke’s father.”
“Knightford?”
“As was, yes. He died rather suddenly, which necessitated the current duke to return home, because he had a commission in the army. He is the second-born son, not the heir. Carriage accident.” Lady Marwich pronounced the words with deliberation. “Father and son together.”
“Foul play?” Jessamine asked, eyes wide.
“Not that we can establish, though I have my eyes and ears out. But the one most likely to have a motive is the one least likely to have orchestrated such a thing. From what I understand, he was a lieutenant in the army, and distinguished himself well. He did not have time to gallivant about the country orchestrating accidents. No, it was merely a stroke of…well, shall I say good fortune?”
“Lady Marwich!” Temperance chided, hiding a smile.
“Things would have been markedly different if the older man had been alive, that’s for sure.” Lady Marwich fixed Jessamine with a stern look. “And you would not have the good fortune of shortly becoming a duchess.”
Jessamine grimaced. “I hardly had much choice in the matter.”
“It’s an excellent solution to a rather ugly problem. This allows you to care for William just as Rebecca would like.”
“And,” Temperance added, “he’s handsome.”
Jessamine scoffed before she could help herself. “As though that is of any importance. But how did you meet him?”
“He came by the Minerva House the other day to ask after Rebecca and her son,” Temperance said. “How he discovered she attended is beyond me! But I suppose some secrets slip through the net. He has a great deal of influence to throw around.”
“It’s odd, really,” Jessamine said contemplatively. “Rebecca and I spoke about our childhoods, but although she said she and her cousin were close as children, they were less so as they grew older.”
“That’s the way of many children,” Lady Marwich said knowingly.
“Particularly when ladies marry and establish their own households, and young men are left free to do as they choose. Of course, the duke was hardly free to do as he chose, sold into the army as he was. And at such a young age.” She tutted.
“A bad business, that. A younger son, I suppose, has less need for an education, but to deliver him into the less-than-loving hands of the army when he is still but a boy. That is not the act of a loving father.”
“Presumably,” Temperance said, “his father never expected him to inherit.”
“One must never rely on the constitution or general good luck of one’s eldest son.” Lady Marwich clacked her cane against the floor. “That’s a recipe for disaster. And shows lamentable lack of foresight.”
“So now I’m trapped with a man who has no experience running an estate or being a duke?” Jessamine demanded.
Lady Marwich waved a dismissive hand. “And you will be new to being a duchess. Do you expect him to snarl and complain about it? We must all deal with the hand we’ve been given. And, where possible, ask God to shuffle better cards.”
Jessamine and Temperance laughed, and Jessamine felt her spirits lift a little.
No matter what she endured, she would always have her friends with her to catch her before she fell too far.
And while Lady Marwich could occasionally be gruff, she was always kind, and having seen so much of the world, it was impossible not to be guided by her.
“Thank you both for coming,” she said, but before she could continue, there was a knock at the door.
The butler entered, stern and disapproving—he disapproved of everything Jessamine was, she suspected—and cleared his throat.
“The Duke of Knightford to see you, miss.”
Before Jessamine could command he be shown in, if she had even intended to do so, there were sounds of footsteps, and the duke himself appeared on the threshold. His brows came together upon seeing Lady Marwich and Temperance.
“Ladies,” he said, and bowed. “I wish to speak with Lady Jessamine privately, if I may.”
“Would you like me to remain as chaperone?” Lady Marwich asked, and Jessamine almost laughed.
Chaperone. As though the situation was somehow salvageable.
She would be marrying the duke no matter what anyone saw or thought. And there was no one here to cause a scandal at her being left alone with him, though she hardly feared a scandal much at all. That was why she had offered to take William; she did not fear the condemnation of the ton.
“It’s all right,” she said to her friend, attempting a smile. “I rather suspect the situation has gone beyond societal conventions.”
“Then we will take our leave.” Lady Marwich rose, eyeing the duke with curiosity but not disfavor. “And we will be sure to visit again. Temperance.”
Temperance also rose. “Good luck,” she whispered as the two ladies left the room.
The duke turned his narrowed eyes on Jessamine. “You have been spreading your location about your friends.”
“Not in the slightest. Lady Marwich and Temperance are my dearest friends, and I expect Irene—that is, the Duchess of Setton—told them.”
“No one should know your whereabouts,” he snapped.
“They will not spread it more widely. But it suits me to have friends who may visit to lift my spirits.”
He stared at her as though she had said something utterly incomprehensible. “Your spirits?”
“Yes, my spirits. This is hardly the situation I had expected myself to be in, and although I am grateful for Your Grace’s offer, it was not the marriage I had anticipated for myself.”
“Did you have some other aspiration?” he asked, his voice icy.
“I had not expected a grand title at all,” she retorted. “Nor a husband whom I don’t know and who has no real interest in me as a wife. But that is neither here nor there, because it is done, and we can hardly back out now. I merely…”
Heavens, she merely wished he were someone else. Someone rather less forbidding, who looked as though he could cast her into the ground with a single blow, though she had no expectation of him raising a hand against her.
She raised her chin. “I had not expected this, either.”
He took a single step toward her, covering most of the distance between them. Now, her tilted chin was a necessity to look up into his face.
“Do you suppose this was what I had expected for myself?” he asked.
“Not in the slightest. But you at least have some freedom.”