Chapter 25
London irritated him before the carriage had fully crossed into it. By the time Eric descended before the solicitor’s offices in Lincoln’s Inn, the city had become a collection of noises, delays, and human obstacles standing between him and Wolverton.
I should be home.
The thought had repeated itself for most of the journey.
He had left Adelaide standing in the morning light with her hand still warm from his, the answer to his confession caught somewhere behind her lips. He had seen it there. Or imagined he had. At this point, the distinction was becoming intolerable.
She was going to say something.
That much he knew.
Perhaps she had intended to tell him she loved him too, or perhaps she had intended to remind him that their marriage had begun as an arrangement and that one declaration did not suddenly transform its terms.
Eric handed his gloves and hat to the clerk who greeted him and followed the young man toward the private offices at the rear of the building.
Settle the Fitzroy matter. Sign whatever requires signing. Return.
That was the entirety of his plan.
If the roads cooperated, he could leave London before evening and be back at Wolverton by the following afternoon. He had already decided he would go directly to Adelaide before changing from his traveling clothes. Let the household think him uncivilized.
He had spent too much of his life waiting until tomorrow to say things that should have been said today.
“Your Grace.”
Mr. Harrington rose from behind a broad mahogany desk as Eric entered, surprise registering before professional courtesy smoothed it away.
Eric noticed. “Harrington.”
The solicitor bowed. “I had not expected you personally.”
Eric stopped halfway to the chair. “Your message was rather explicit about the necessity.”
“My message?”
Harrington glanced toward the clerk still hovering at the doorway. “Tea, please, Mr. Ellis. And close the door.”
The young man obeyed, and Eric remained standing. “The Fitzroy property,” he said. “Atlas told me there was an immediate dispute concerning tenancy and that the opposing solicitor refused to accept a proxy.”
A crease appeared between Harrington’s brows. “There is a question concerning one of the leases.”
“Question?”
“Yes.”
“Not a threatened removal?”
“No, Your Grace.”
Eric said nothing, and Harrington seemed to realize the significance of that silence. “The matter is inconvenient,” he continued carefully, “but hardly catastrophic. Certainly nothing requiring you to leave Wolverton without notice.”
Eric finally sat. “Show me.”
Harrington crossed to a cabinet and withdrew a narrow file.
The documents inside were ordinary enough at first glance.
A lease renewal. A disagreement over maintenance responsibility on one of the Fitzroy buildings.
Correspondence between two clerks. Nothing that justified dragging a duke across half the country at a day’s notice.
Eric read the first page twice, and then the second. “When did you send for me?”
Harrington sat opposite him. “I did not.”
Eric looked up. The solicitor’s expression had become guarded. “You did not send a messenger to Atlas?”
“No.”
“Did anyone in this office?”
“Not with my authority.”
Eric leaned back slowly. His irritation sharpened into something colder. “Then why am I here?”
“I had assumed you wished to discuss the Fitzroy accounts.”
“I did not know there was anything to discuss.”
That answer changed Harrington’s face, and he hesitated. Eric had known him for years. More importantly, his father had trusted Harrington’s father. That did not make the man infallible, but it did make the hesitation significant.
“What?”
“There are several matters I had intended to raise when next you came to London.”
“What matters?”
Harrington folded his hands over the desk. “Discrepancies.”
Eric stared at him. “In what?”
“Several accounts associated with properties administered through your cousin.”
The room seemed to narrow. “Atlas?”
“Yes.”
Eric almost laughed at the absurdity of the accusation hanging heavily in the space between them.
Atlas had helped oversee certain affairs during the years Eric had wanted as little involvement with Wolverton as possible.
Never the whole estate. Never anything requiring final authority without Eric’s consent.
But Atlas had acted as intermediary often enough that Eric had stopped questioning the mechanics.
“What discrepancies?”
Harrington stood and crossed to another cabinet. This time the file he returned with was considerably thicker. He placed it before Eric without opening it. “I had hoped there was an innocent explanation.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No.”
“Then give me one.”
Harrington opened the file. Figures filled the first page. Rents received. Repairs authorized. Transfers between accounts. Eric followed the columns, but nothing struck him immediately Then, he reached the bottom.
“Where did that sum go?”
“Precisely.”
Eric turned the page. Another property. Another amount. Not enormous, which made it worse. A man stealing boldly might take enough to be noticed. These were careful amounts. Sums that could disappear inside repairs, commissions, temporary advances.
Eric looked at the signature at the bottom. It was his own name. He went completely still. “I did not authorize this.”
“I had wondered.”
“You wondered?”
“The instruction came from Mr. Sullyard.”
“But in my name?”
“Yes.”
“And you accepted it?”
Harrington’s mouth tightened. “At the time, Mr. Sullyard had been handling a number of matters on your behalf.”
“Handling is not signing.”
“No.”
Eric turned another page to find his name forged again, not at all precisely either. No attempt had been made to reproduce his hand. The language merely claimed authorization had been given by the Duke of Wolverton through his cousin.
Eric had given no such thing. “How many?”
“We are still determining that.”
“We?”
“I asked Mr. Ellis to begin comparing the instructions against correspondence directly from you.”
“And?”
“There are inconsistencies.”
Eric sat back. For several seconds, Adelaide vanished from his thoughts. Atlas was her replacement. His cousin. His closest friend. The one man who had remained after Olivia died. The man who had stood beside him when everyone else became unbearable.
Eric looked down at the ledger again. “What exactly has he been doing?”
“I cannot yet say exactly.”
“Then say what you can.”
Harrington nodded once. “There appear to have been arrangements made in your name that benefited companies or intermediaries connected indirectly to Atlas. Some may be legitimate. Some may not. There are payments categorized as repairs where I have not yet located corresponding invoices. There are also two loans secured against smaller holdings that I do not recall you approving.”
“I did not.”
“I suspected not.”
Eric’s jaw tightened. “Why was I not told before now?”
“I intended to tell you.”
“When?”
“At our next meeting.”
“Harrington.”
The solicitor sighed. “There is another reason I was cautious.”
Eric waited as Harrington closed one ledger and opened a smaller folder. “This began shortly after you amended your will.”
Eric’s anger paused. “My will?”
“Yes.”
He knew exactly which amendment.
After the wedding, he had come to London and made Adelaide his principal beneficiary outside the entailed holdings and obligations attached to the dukedom. Property. Investments. Certain buildings. Personal assets. The things he could legally leave as he chose.
He had thought nothing of it.
A husband provided for his wife.
Even one who had begun marriage insisting neither of them expected affection.
“What has my will to do with this ?”
Harrington did not answer immediately, and Eric’s pulse slowed. “Harrington.”
“Mr. Sullyard came to see me several days after the amendment was executed.”
So, he knew about the amendment before I told him? Eric stared at him. “Why?”
His anger came cold enough that Eric could feel every separate beat of his heart. “He asked you to reverse my will?”
“He asked whether it could be done.”
“Without me present?”
“Yes.”
Eric’s fingers flattened against the desk. “And what did you tell him?”
“That only you could alter your testamentary instructions while you remained competent to do so.”
“Did he explain why he was asking?”
Harrington looked uncomfortable now. “Yes. He said you had married hastily.”
“That is hardly a secret.”
“No.”
“And?”
“He suggested the duchess might have pursued the marriage for advancement.”
Eric stared as Harrington continued because stopping would only make it worse.
“He described her as ambitious. A social climber, I believe, was his phrase. He claimed you were vulnerable because of your long isolation and that you had been persuaded into making generous provisions before you properly understood her character.”
Eric felt as if all the pieces of a puzzle had fallen into place.
Atlas had watched Adelaide at dinner.
Atlas had allowed Loretta’s insinuation to hang in the room.
Atlas had sent Eric away from Wolverton the morning he confessed his love.
And before all of that, Atlas had gone to Eric’s solicitor and asked how to undo Adelaide’s inheritance.
“Why did you not tell me?”
Harrington exhaled slowly. “Because at the time, I believed it was the concern of an overprotective cousin. Mr. Sullyard has known you since childhood. He said he feared you were acting out of loneliness and that he wished only to know whether the arrangement was permanent.”
“And you accepted that?”
“I did not act upon it.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“No.” Harrington held his gaze. “I did not entirely accept it. But I also did not believe it enough to accuse him of anything.”
Eric looked again at the files and then pushed back from the desk and stood. “I want copies of everything.”
“Of course.”
“Every transaction Atlas has touched in the last five years.”
Harrington blinked. “That will take time.”
“Begin.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“And no communication concerning me, my accounts, my will, or Adelaide is to go through him again.”
Harrington nodded. “Understood.”