Chapter Twenty-Two
It came to him in a dream. The idea that just might fix all of this for them.
For her. He’d lain awake in bed that night, considering his options.
He knew the barony was Della’s. It was an irrefutable fact.
He knew if he went digging through public records, he’d find all the proof in the world that Miss Adelaide Harris was a baroness.
The proof wasn’t the problem, though. It was her family. They had always been the problem.
The idea had come to him in a dream, but it was his mother who actually convinced him to put it into practice.
It was that talk of hers, about being her own kind of dressmaker.
It made Andrew realize that perhaps Della didn’t need a solicitor to help her with this.
Perhaps she needed a specific kind of solicitor.
One who didn’t care about things like rules, not when it came to her.
It was almost poetic, the way he’d been able to connect the pieces of this particularly convoluted puzzle just in time. The way he’d been able to resurrect an old, sneaking suspicion and use its confirmation for exactly what he needed. Well, it would be poetic if it worked.
As Andrew approached the doctor’s surgery, he noticed the many people out and about under the midday sun.
It was a rare break in the rain, and Andrew found himself sweating under his many layers.
Perhaps that was just the nervousness seeping out of him.
It didn’t matter either way. Sweat stains on his shirtsleeves would definitely undermine the authority he needed to project in this moment, so he willed his body to stop.
He paused at the door, taking a much-needed moment and holding it open for a mother and her son to exit.
The young boy smiled at him. He was missing both of his front teeth.
The mother didn’t smile at all, so Andrew had no way of knowing whether any or all of her teeth were present.
It was unusual, seeing people walking in and out of the doctor’s offices.
He was known to make house calls all over London, even as far as Westfield Manor, when Lady Morley requested.
Andrew hoped he was right about those house calls. Hoped he was right about the doctor at all. He was hedging his bets on it, and there was so much at stake. One misstep could send the doctor running to Morley House, killing their entire plan before it had a chance to live.
If there was one thing Andrew had learned in his time abroad, it was to follow his instincts. Nothing was as valuable as his internal compass, and he hoped beyond hope it wouldn’t steer him wrong this time.
He took a step into the office, and he spent a heartbeat thinking about what he meant to do.
It was a despicable thing out of context.
In reality, it was the only next step he could think to take.
All he had to do was remind himself that this was for Della, and any reservations he felt faded away under the force of his adoration.
“Doctor Seagle?” he asked the man sitting alone behind the desk. It seemed fairly safe to assume that he was correct, but he needed to be sure.
“Yes.” The man set down the papers he seemed to be sorting. Andrew wanted to roll his eyes. It seemed everyone in London had gone lax on their document organization just to spite him. “May I help you?”
As the doctor looked at him over the half-spectacles that were too small for his face, Andrew could see the resemblance. That familiarity, even though they’d never been formally introduced, was heartening. A visual representation of the cards Andrew held so close to his chest.
“I need to speak with you,” Andrew said, his tone all business. “My name is Andrew Lockhart, and I’m a solicitor.”
“Lockhart?” the man said, taking off those awful spectacles and twirling them between his fingers. “I knew an Elias Lockhart. Took care of him before he went to his rewards.”
Andrew nodded. He’d expected that. He wouldn’t let it deter him.
“He was my father, but I need to speak with you about one of your other patients.” Andrew stood with his hands clasped behind his back.
He refused to sit, but he couldn’t even remember if he’d been invited to do so.
This duplicity made him anxious. He knew he wasn’t good at this kind of thing, but he also knew he had to be.
“And who might that be?” The doctor regarded him suspiciously, and Andrew could feel the tension in the room start to build. The suspicion was warranted. He was sure a strange man walking into his office enquiring about a patient wasn’t an everyday occurrence for the doctor.
“Miss Adelaide Harris,” Andrew said, even though her full name sounded wrong on his lips. She was Della to him. She always had been, and he hoped she always would be.
The doctor hummed. “She’s a very ill young lady. An incredibly sad case.”
“I suppose that’s a matter of opinion.” Andrew stepped forward.
It had never occurred to him to attempt intimidation, especially not in a physical manner.
Still, he tried, standing up straighter and looking down his sharp nose at the man sitting in front of him.
“I don’t consider her particularly sad, and she is owed both your respect and mine, as a baroness. ”
“A baroness?” Dr. Seagle scoffed. “What nonsense. Miss Harris is very ill, and besides, she is no baroness.”
The doctor stood up, and now they were facing each other with only the desk between them.
Andrew took a deep breath. Seagle was already suspicious and on his guard, his cheeks puffed up and reddened in anger.
Andrew knew he had to move quickly and efficiently.
He could do this. This was a matter of stealth and finesse.
“I don’t know how much Viscount and Viscountess Morley have told you,” he leveled the doctor a blank stare, “about what they are doing with the information you give them. I shouldn’t have to tell you that you’re despicable, a doctor taking advantage of an ill young woman, but I don’t believe you care about my opinion of your character.
But I suppose you do care for your own best interests. ”
Seagle leaned back on his heels, affronted. Andrew felt his eyes tighten into a squint. His vision narrowed into a pinpoint. If this were a hunt, this was his one remaining shot.
“Is that so?” Seagle crossed his arms. “And how do I have any interest at all in this matter?”
Andrew watched as those spectacles hit the desk, bouncing off a stack of disheveled papers. He felt the resulting echo of silence in the middle of his chest. All he could hear was the beat of his own heart in his ears.
“Oh, I do believe you have quite an interest.” Andrew didn’t smile. He didn’t gloat. He stated the facts simply and quickly. “You have been acting as a spy, sharing secrets, all the while keeping to yourself that the heir Viscount Morley dotes on is in fact yours.”
There was a sharp intake of air. So much that the man sounded like he’d created his own gust of wind.
The doctor fell backwards into his desk chair, as if his limbs wouldn’t support his weight anymore.
Andrew had his doubts about this, the entire plan, but they melted away at the sight of Seagle’s pale face.
“I’m certain it doesn’t matter to David, as his birth is legitimate in the eyes of the Church.
It may not even matter to Lord Morley himself that the only child he cares about isn’t even his.
But it would be a terrible scandal. For the physician that the aristocracy so favors to be carrying on an affair with a lady—”
“Enough!” Seagle shouted. His voice was so strained, so broken. He stood back up in a fit of rage, his hands balling up into fists and slamming against the desk’s wooden surface.
That was the moment Andrew knew he’d won.
“You’ve no proof,” Seagle tried to say, but his reaction was proof enough.
“Of course not,” Andrew admitted. “No such proof exists. But I cannot be the only one who suspects. Proof is not necessary when rumors and allegations are more than enough to ruin lives.”
The doctor hung his head. Andrew took that as another sign of the man’s defeat, and he thanked God for it, because he’d fired the only shot he had.
“I’m not sure if you are aware, but you are quite the pawn in their little game.
I’m sure that you thought discussing your visits to Westfield Manor was a convenient cover for your dalliance with Lady Morley.
In fact, they intend to use whatever information you’ve fed them to keep Miss Harris under their control.
I don’t know yet why they are so intent on keeping the barony theirs, when they’ve never publicly claimed the title.
But I will find out, and when I do, you will be collateral damage. ”
Seagle swiped an angry hand over the surface of his desk. Papers were strewn everywhere, all over the floor at Andrew’s feet. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched those spectacles shatter.
“How did you know?” Seagle asked in that voice that was as destroyed as his lenses.
“I hadn’t seen David in years,” Andrew answered.
He finally sat down. There was no need for intimidation any longer.
“I’ve been abroad. He walked into the viscount’s office when I was visiting him the other day, and I thought he was you.
I’m certain you don’t remember, but you were the person who told me about my father’s death.
I’ve forgotten a lot of faces in this life, but yours won’t be one of them. ”
There was malice in Seagle’s gaze. So unlike the expression Andrew hadn’t been able to forget all those years ago. He’d been polite, then. Professional in the way he handled Andrew’s father’s passing. Now, he seemed to be seething. Andrew was sure he’d never forget this face, either.
This was why he didn’t hunt, Andrew thought. The kill was so rarely worth the mess.
“It’s because no one ever sees them together. Esther and Morley and the children. They don’t eat together, they don’t travel together. They don’t even have portraits of the four of them. Some part of me thinks Morley knows. How could he not? He must look at David and see nothing of himself.”
The other man had begun rambling, and Andrew did nothing but listen. That particular policy had served him well so far, so he might as well continue.
“Adelaide, she favors her father, but she looks oddly like Esther, too—” he began, but Andrew interrupted. Seagle had mentioned Della, so he must.
“She has her mother’s bone structure and her father’s coloring. I never met Della’s mother, but Morley must’ve chosen his next wife by who looked the most like her.” That, Andrew knew all too well. He thought of her now, her dark hair and fathomless eyes. That round face and those high cheekbones.
“And David . . .” Seagle tried again. “He has—”
“Your bone structure and your coloring,” Andrew interrupted once more. Fair-haired David was a bit of an outcast visually in his family, but the doctor was right. No one could compare them if they were never together.
“What do you want from me?” Seagle finally asked. He’d seemed to compose himself some. A bit of that professionalism slipped back over his face like a mask.
“I have what I came for.” Andrew nodded. “I couldn’t bring this to the viscount and viscountess on my own suspicion, and I appreciate your confirmation.”
“How did I get so wrapped up in this?” Seagle huffed, raking his fingers through his hair. “I am just the girl’s physician.”
“She is not a girl. She’s a baroness, and you will address her as such.” Andrew leaned forward, almost hovering over where the doctor sat. Seagle raised his hands, as if in surrender. “I don’t think you doctors realize the power you hold in the lives of those who are ill.”
Seagle looked up, the proud jut of his chin had softened to something guilty. Like he was a misbehaving child being told off.
“And you’ll tell no one?” Seagle asked.
“Not a soul,” Andrew confirmed. “Unless I have to.”
Andrew had begun to feel bad for the man. The doctor had years’ worth of tender feelings for a woman he could never have. Andrew understood him. He hated to exploit those feelings.
Though even if Andrew wound up the same way, loving someone he couldn’t be with in the end, he’d make sure Della knew she was just that—loved.