Chapter 10
The application asked the Court of Chancery to prevent Henry from behaving as duke until someone decided whether he was one.
Samuel Dyer read the final prayer twice, his forefinger resting beneath the cold black line while dust drifted through the sunlight above the library table.
The document had arrived folded in blue paper, tied with ordinary string, and carried by a solicitor’s clerk too young to appreciate the pleasure with which he had interrupted a ducal household.
Henry stood at the end of the table. The library fire had not been lit because the day had begun mild, though rain now pressed a gray light against the long windows and made the room colder by appearance alone.
The estate steward occupied the chair nearest the account books. He had brought three ledgers, the Rothbury plate inventories, and a sheaf of letters from subscribers whose confidence had proved conditional upon legal certainty. His cuffs bore a faint line of dust from the muniment cabinets.
Dyer finished the page and set it down.
“They have applied for an injunction until hearing or further order,” he said.
“They ask that you be restrained from dealing with the settled estates, charging their income, exercising powers said to depend upon the dukedom, or using the title to bind third parties while Christopher’s claim proceeds. ”
“Has the injunction been granted?”
“No.”
“When will the motion be heard?”
“Tomorrow afternoon, unless counsel obtains an earlier audience or the other side seeks delay.”
Henry looked at the affidavit attached to the application.
Christopher had sworn that a disputed inheritance required preservation.
His solicitor had supplied the more useful words: irreparable injury, improper alienation, doubtful authority, and the necessity of maintaining matters in their present state.
The present state had twenty-six men depending upon coal that had not yet been purchased.
“What does it decide?” the steward asked.
“Nothing yet,” Dyer said. “An injunction of this kind preserves property or restrains disputed acts while the underlying question is examined. It would not declare Mr. Christopher Blackwood duke. It would not prove the parish copy genuine. It would not annul the marriage or decide that Her Grace is unfit to act.”
“Would it remove her as co-trustee?” Henry asked.
“Not by its present terms. They argue that her appointment derives from an exercise of your disputed authority and should therefore be treated cautiously. That is an argument, not an order.”
Henry’s gaze moved to the windows.
Rain gathered upon the lower panes and ran through the soot at the sill.
Waterloo House would smell of wet coats by now.
Margaret would have moved the coal delivery entrance to the east yard because the western stones became slick in rain, and she would know precisely how many days remained before the current store fell below the reserve Sarah required for the ward.
Henry knew none of those figures without asking her.
He had promised to ask.
Dyer drew the first subscriber’s letter from the steward’s pile. “The immediate difficulty is not that the House’s existing money has been seized. It has not. The money raised at the assembly remains in the trust account, subject to its recorded purposes.”
“Coal and roof,” Henry said.
“Some of it. The first roof payment has been made, and the initial coal deposit is covered. The remaining winter contract depends upon subscriptions not yet paid and upon guarantees offered in your name.”
The steward opened one of his ledgers. “Three gentlemen subscribed on condition that the duke would make good any deficiency in the winter fuel account. Two others directed their bankers to release funds only after the co-trustees countersigned the final contract.”
“Margaret has countersigned it.”
“Yes, Your Grace. You supplied the guarantee.”
Dyer placed the subscriber’s letter before Henry. “Their bankers have received notice of the application. They will hold the sums until they know whether your guarantee can be enforced against property lawfully yours.”
“My personal credit remains mine.”
“Perhaps. The difficulty is that the guarantee was expressed by you as Duke of Rothbury and referred to income from an estate now placed in dispute. A prudent banker will wait rather than distinguish your private purse from the duke’s resources at his own risk.”
“How long?”
Dyer’s expression supplied no comfort. “Until we obtain an order, an undertaking accepted by the other side, or a substitute guarantee no one can challenge.”
The estate steward turned a page. “The House can meet ordinary food and wages for this month. The coal factor will not reserve the winter tonnage beyond Friday without the second payment.”
“How much?”
The steward named the figure.
It was not ruinous. That made the danger more offensive.
Henry could spend three times the amount upon a parliamentary dinner without causing a clerk to sharpen his pen. Yet money attached to Rothbury could now be described as evidence in a title dispute, while money promised to wounded men became too uncertain to purchase coal.
“Could Margaret’s protected income advance it?” Henry asked.
Dyer’s gaze rose at once. “Her separate-use funds are available only upon her instruction and for her benefit as defined by the settlement. They are not a convenient reserve for the estate or the trust.”
“I asked whether they could.”
“She could direct an advance if her independent adviser approved and if the trustees of the settlement considered it within their power. I would oppose the use.”
“Why?”
“Because her protection was not drafted to become the first purse opened whenever your property is threatened.”
Henry had known the answer before asking. The question had been reconnaissance, not intention.
He thought of Margaret in her room, unbound hair across the lavender pillow, telling him the law might decide which portions of their life possessed weight.
He had promised her joint action rather than impossible safety.
He had promised no private bargain, no secret sacrifice, and no decision made before she heard the danger.
The application lay between his hands.
“We should take this to her,” Dyer said.
“Yes.”
Henry did not move.
The estate steward opened another ledger.
“There are personal accounts not drawn upon the settled estates. Your army pay was invested separately before the succession. There is also the late duchess’s specific bequest. The army investments cannot be made available before Friday,” the steward added.
“Their transfer requires notice and signatures the coal factor’s deadline does not permit.
The bequest is the only personal property that can be realized on the necessary timetable. ”
Dyer turned toward him. “Which is not an invitation.”
“It is information,” the steward said.
Henry looked at the plate inventories stacked beside the accounts. “What did she leave me?”
The steward hesitated, then selected the narrowest book. “A small service of plate under the third codicil. The bequest was absolute, not for life, and the pieces were omitted from the schedule of family heirlooms.”
Dyer closed the injunction papers. “The settled plate must not be touched.”
“It will not be.”
“No silver from the state dining room, no pieces listed with the house contents, and nothing that passed with the estate.”
“I understood you the first time.”
“Understanding has not always prevented action.”
The rebuke was deserved and therefore harder to dismiss.
The steward turned the inventory toward Henry.
The late duchess had possessed the habit of numbering valuable objects even when everyone else considered arms and hallmarks sufficient identification.
The bequest included twelve silver dinner plates, a pair of salvers, a coffee pot, sugar basin, cream jug, and two branch candlesticks.
Each item bore the Rothbury arms because she had used them as duchess.
The probate inventory recorded them separately from the plate settled upon successive holders of the title.
“She left these to me by name?” Henry asked.
“Yes, Your Grace. ‘To my nephew Henry Blackwood absolutely, in remembrance of his visits and his dislike of cold coffee.’”
He remembered the service. His aunt had used it in her smaller breakfast room, where she considered lukewarm coffee a conspiracy between servants and porcelain. The candlesticks had stood upon her writing table when she dictated the founding provisions for Waterloo House.
The bequest was personal. The memory was not.
“What value?” Henry asked.
The steward gave a cautious estimate based upon weight, workmanship, and the arms.
It would cover the winter coal payment and leave enough to meet the next roof instalment if the promised subscriptions remained held.
Dyer stood. “You will not receive full value from a private dealer in haste.”
“I require enough value, not full.”
“You require advice.”
“I have it.”
“You have part of it.” Dyer placed one palm upon the inventory.
“The pieces appear to be yours to sell. That does not make sale wise today. The timing will be read as distress. The arms make concealment unlikely. Any attempt to route the money toward Waterloo House while an injunction is sought against your trust acts will be described as evasion.”
“The application does not restrain my personal property.”
“Not yet. Nor does it restrain you from making a bad decision with it.”
Henry looked at the plate numbers.
The decision formed with the clean brevity of an order given under pressure. Personal silver. No estate charge. No use of Margaret’s funds. Coal secured. Men warm.
He knew which promise the order broke.
He also knew Margaret would insist upon examining the House reserve, the settlement, the subscription conditions, and every lawful delay. She might offer her protected money. She might persuade him to wait for the hearing. She might be correct.
Friday would still arrive.