Chapter 5 #2
Blaise found Mrs. Henkings in the small breakfast parlor, as if she had rooted herself between hearth and sideboard and would not be shifted by storm or duke. A dishcloth hung from one hand; the other tightened imperceptibly when she saw him.
“Your Grace.” She bobbed a curtsy that was more habit than deference. “I was about to bring your luncheon.”
“Thank you,” Blaise said.
Her eyes sharpened, but she nodded politely.
Blaise recognized her quiet loyalty to the viscountess. Men did not acquire useful empires without learning to read the people who kept them from burning down.
“Sit,” he said mildly, taking a chair himself rather than claiming the head of the table. “I need to know how things stand in this house.”
“With all due respect, Your Grace,” Mrs. Henkings replied, remaining upright, “my first duty is to her ladyship.”
“And mine is to the estate that now bears my name. Those duties are not always at odds.”
She hesitated, then lowered herself gingerly to the edge of a chair, as though ready to spring up if he reached for the silver.
“Your Grace may ask.”
He let his gaze drift around the room. Faded wallpaper, but no mildew. The coal scuttle was half full, not lavish, but not empty. The china was mismatched but carefully handled. There was frugality but not neglect.
“How many servants are left?” he asked.
“Four in place, not counting myself,” she said. “It was nine when his lordship was alive. Her ladyship dismissed those who could not pay without missing meals. The rest went when the wages fell too far behind.”
“And the viscountess?” Blaise asked. “Does she miss many meals?”
Mrs. Henkings’ jaw worked. “No more than the rest of us, Your Grace. There were months when I had to put bread into her hand.”
He pictured Iris’s long fingers, white-knuckled around a heel of bread, and felt something tighten in his chest.
“And the debts?” he asked.
Her eyes slid away. “Mr. Earnest keeps the books for the creditors.”
“But you know what it has been like,” Blaise pressed. “You are here day to day.”
She gave him a measuring look. “I know her ladyship has been answering every man who came to bang on that door. I know she sold nearly every bit of plate with the Hentley crest on it, and I know she mended sheets without buying new ones. She even bargained with butchers twice her size. I know she never once sent me to tell a man she was ‘not at home’ when he came for his due, even when she’d been crying not an hour before. ”
Crying. It sat ill with him that any man had seen her weep and turned away without altering his demands.
“And the viscount?” he asked softly. “What did he do?”
Mrs. Henkings’ mouth compressed into a thin line. “Died, Your Grace. That is what he did.”
Blaise huffed a low, humorless breath. “Before that.”
“He brought her here,” she said. “And he left her with nothing but the word ‘widow’ for comfort.”
There was more she would not say; he knew the limits of servant gossip.
“Very well,” Blaise said. “You may go, Mrs. Henkings. When Mr. Earnest arrives, show him to me.”
Her brows rose. “He is expected today, Your Grace? He wrote that he would call on her ladyship.”
“He will speak with me first,” Blaise said. “And you would be wise to bring tea because it will be a long conversation.”
She rose. “If you mean to be hard with her, Your Grace,” she said abruptly, “you should know she has already been pressed near to breaking. There is not much left to squeeze.”
He held her gaze. “I have no interest in squeezing her, Mrs. Henkings.”
Or perhaps I do…
The elderly woman’s expression did not soften, but she inclined her head and left him.
For the entirety of the day, Blaise walked the length of the house looking for faults, but he did not find many.
He eventually sorted the paperwork and waited impatiently in the drawing room for Mr. Earnest. When Mrs. Henkings announced his arrival, Blaise was already on edge after going through each paid-off debt.
The little man entered the drawing room and bowed before Blaise.
“Your Grace. A pleasure at last.” He glanced around the parlor. “I had anticipated…Lady Hentley.”
“You have me instead,” Blaise said. “Sit. We have business to untangle before she returns.”
“Yes. Quite.”
Blaise noted the flicker. There were rules even Mr. Earnest respected.
“Begin,” Blaise said. “How did this house come to require a Vale to save it?”
The solicitor adjusted his spectacles. “The late viscount, Your Grace, had ambitions. Limited by means. He sought to repair his fortunes through marriage to a lady of modest rank but substantial dowry. Lord Lempster’s eldest daughter.”
“My cousin tricked her, then,” Blaise said flatly.
Mr. Earnest coughed. “He presented his situation in… optimistic terms. The marriage articles assigned her dowry directly to him for the settling of encumbrances upon the estate. Unfortunately, his lordship did not possess the temperament to alter his habits.”
“He was gambling,” Blaise supplied flatly.
“Yes, Your Grace. Racing. Cards. And speculations. Her ladyship’s portion was applied to his existing obligations. But new ones arose in their place.”
“And when he died,” Blaise said, “he left her with this moldering ruin and a pack of hungry wolves at the door.”
Mr. Earnest’s fingers tightened on his hat.
“Legally, the viscountcy estate reverts entirely to the heir. Her ladyship has a small jointure settled upon her. It is a yearly amount, barely sufficient for a lady of her station… and no separate residence. There is no dower house. Lord Hentley did not maintain one.”
“Of course he did not,” Blaise muttered.
He pictured Iris pacing the corridor, back straight, voice low with fury, as if sheer will could hold off the tide of law and custom sliding under her feet. She had never even had a house that was hers by right. Only a space she defended, year by starving year. His fists clenched.
“Very well,” Blaise said, voice sharpening. “Tell me the sums. All of them.”
They went through numbers until the air itself felt dry. Mortgages. Outstanding tradesmen and the last ugly remnant of a gaming debt that carried his cousin’s name like a stain. Blaise’s jaw set as he listened.
“I will clear them,” he said when Mr. Earnest finally paused. “All of them will be paid off at once.”
The solicitor blinked. “Your Grace, that is most generous. However, if I may say so, since you already own the Knoxford London residence, you might consider allowing this house to fall out of your direct concern. Her ladyship has managed the operations admirably. You could leave the property in her care. No further renovation would be strictly necessary. It would considerably reduce your expenditures.”
“No,” Blaise said simply.
Earnest’s brows climbed a fraction.
“This house is useful to me. It is close enough to town, yet out of the direct glare of the Season. Once it is made habitable, it will suit my nephew very well.”
“Your… nephew?” Earnest repeated. “You refer to the son of your late brother?”
Blaise’s throat tightened at the mention of Benjamin.
“Yes,” he forced the word out.
A brief silence fell, and even a solicitor, it seemed, knew better than to prod that wound.
“Then your intention,” Mr. Earnest said cautiously, “is to settle this house upon the young gentleman in some fashion?”
“In time,” Blaise replied. “For now, I will have it repaired. I want a complete survey and a plan for renovation on my desk within the week.”
“And the viscountess?” Earnest asked. “Is she to be… displaced?”
Blaise thought of Iris and the way she had said that she had no luck.
“She will not go into the street,” he said firmly. “You will arrange for her to have an allowance sufficient to keep a modest house of her choosing. In town or out of it. Somewhere she cannot be tripped over by every creditor who ever darkened this door.”
Earnest nodded, already calculating. “That will further reduce—”
“I am aware,” Blaise cut in. “Do it. And make it clear to her that the funds come through the Hentley estate, not as alms from my hand. Pride is a stubborn creature.”
He rose, and the solicitor scrambled up after him.
“One last thing,” Blaise said. “You will gently inform her of the legal position. But you will also inform her that I have chosen to clear Hentley’s mess and to provide for her relocation. I do not want her thinking the law has taken everything and given nothing back.”
“You are concerned for her good opinion, Your Grace?” Mr. Earnest ventured.
Blaise could not get the image of her in his red room out of his mind.
“Yes, I am concerned that a woman who has been used as a purse and a shield should, for once, find herself on the receiving end of a decision not made at her expense.”
He smiled then at the old man, who nodded in agreement.
“And,” Blaise added, “I find I have little patience with dead men’s ghosts cluttering my halls. I will not have my nephew walking under Hentley’s cracks.”