Chapter Nine A Marriage Becoming Real #3
Clara forgot to breathe. Lionel looked between them. Something passed across his face. Understanding perhaps. Not of the legal matter. Of Sebastian. He saw something Clara herself was still afraid to trust. Lionel turned away.
“You are making this emotional.”
“Yes,” Sebastian said.
Clara looked at him. He seemed almost surprised by his own admission. Then Lionel exhaled.
“The ledger is not with me.”
“Where is it?”
“I don't know.”
“Convenient.”
“It was removed from Bellamere before Adrian died.”
“By whom?”
“I do not know.”
“You visited Bellamere.”
“Yes.”
“Twice.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Adrian asked me to locate the papers.”
Clara frowned.
“For him?”
“For the family.”
“Those are not the same.”
Lionel looked at her.
“No.”
The distinction chilled her.
“Did you alter the will?” Sebastian asked.
Lionel’s head snapped toward him. “I did not put pen to it.”
“That was not my question.”
Lionel held his gaze for several seconds before looking toward the fire. “Adrian told me he was reconsidering Bellamere. I told Sedgewick the family could not afford an executed bequest that effectively admitted the old duke had taken Whitcombe money.”
Clara felt cold. “And what did Sedgewick do?”
“He prepared another final page naming me.”
Sebastian’s voice became dangerously quiet. “Did Adrian sign that page?”
Lionel did not answer.
“Did he?” Clara asked.
“Not in front of me.”
There it was. The room seemed to contract around the admission. Lionel had not forged Adrian’s hand, but he had helped turn an intention Adrian discussed into a legal act Adrian had never properly executed.
Sebastian stepped closer. “Hollis?”
“Sedgewick said he would have the substituted page witnessed and regularized.” Lionel’s mouth tightened around the last word. “I knew better than to ask exactly how.”
“So you knew the document was defective,” Clara said.
“I knew Adrian wanted the Whitcombe matter contained.”
“That is not the same as knowing he wanted me removed from his will.”
Lionel’s silence answered.
Sebastian looked at him with open disgust now. “And when Adrian died, you claimed Bellamere anyway.”
“It was the executed document presented to probate.”
“A document you knew had been manufactured from a page Adrian had never properly signed.”
Lionel’s composure finally cracked. “For God’s sake, you already married a duke.”
The room went silent. Clara felt the insult immediately. Not crude. Worse. The assumption beneath it. You have enough now. Sebastian moved one step forward. Clara touched his arm. He stopped. She looked at Lionel.
“My marriage does not erase theft.”
He opened his mouth. Clara continued.
“And becoming a duchess has not made my mother’s money less hers.”
Lionel looked away. No answer. Sebastian’s hand closed gently over Clara’s where it rested on his sleeve.
Only for a second. They left without another word.
The breakthrough came two days later. Fane sent word just after breakfast that an older archive belonging to the Harcourts’ former solicitor had been discovered in storage near Lincoln’s Inn.
Sebastian read the note once. Then looked at Clara.
“Do you want to come?”
She smiled.
“You are learning.”
The archive occupied two dusty rooms above a solicitor’s office and smelled of paper, leather and disuse.
Clara loved it immediately. Sebastian sneezed twice and accused the legal profession of storing dust deliberately to discourage investigation.
They spent three hours searching. Fane’s clerks worked through boxes.
Clara examined indexes. Sebastian read settlement files.
At noon, she found the reference. Bellamere.
Investment Trust. Whitcombe. Her pulse quickened.
“Sebastian.”
He crossed immediately. Clara pulled the ledger free.
It was heavy, leather-bound and tied with faded tape.
Fane appeared beside them. For once, no one joked.
They carried it to the long table. Sebastian opened it.
Pages of neat columns. Dates. Investments.
Transfers. Interest. Clara found her mother’s name.
Margaret Whitcombe. Her throat tightened.
Not merely Sir Edmund. Her mother. The principal stood clearly.
￡25,000. Then returns. Reinvestments. Unauthorized transfers.
Adjusted liability. Fane began calculating.
Sebastian stood beside Clara. His shoulder touched hers. Neither moved. At last Fane sat back.
“Approximately thirty-one thousand pounds principal and acknowledged liability before accumulated interest.”
For once, Clara’s ready answer deserted her.
“And with interest?”
“Close to forty.”
Exactly. Adrian’s provision. Sebastian exhaled slowly.
“That proves it.”
Fane nodded.
“Substantially.”
Fane turned several pages and placed one finger beside an older Bellamere notation.
“More importantly, this establishes why Adrian’s original bequest was structured as it was.
Bellamere was security for the Whitcombe investment, and the additional fund brought the acknowledged debt close to forty thousand pounds.
The earlier will was restitution, not generosity. ”
Clara let the distinction settle. Adrian had not invented a fortune to soothe his conscience. He had finally tried to return what the Harcourts should never have kept.
“Lionel’s claim?”