Chapter Five
By four o’clock that afternoon, Gabriel had reduced the Montfort difficulties to four neat piles upon his desk.
One pile contained debts that could be delayed. One contained debts that could not. One contained documents that might, with sufficient patience and optimism, prove useful. The fourth pile contained no optimism whatsoever.
He had labeled that one, with more restraint than it deserved, urgent.
Sunlight pressed weakly against the windows of Messrs.
Ashby and Son, turning the dust in the air to pale gold and illuminating the worn dark wood of his father’s old desk.
Gabriel had meant to replace that desk when he took over the practice.
It was scarred, too large for the room, and bore an ink stain near the right corner that had survived every attempt at removal.
His father claimed the stain had character. Gabriel thought it had been indulged long enough.
He sat behind the desk now, coat buttoned, sleeves immaculate, quill set precisely beside his notebook, and stared down at the late Viscount Montague’s affairs with an irritation that had nothing to do with ink stains.
There should have been something.
A settlement provision. A small trust. An old investment.
An overlooked account from the late viscount’s mother, perhaps, or a forgotten portion placed somewhere sensible by a man who had known his wife well enough to understand that Lady Viva Montfort could turn income into candlelight, champagne, and houseguests with alarming speed.
But after three hours, Gabriel had found no hidden fortune. No annuity. No benevolent clause tucked into the will like a pressed flower. No quiet legal miracle waiting beneath a layer of dust.
There were only debts, arrears, obligations, and the unmistakable evidence that Miss Montfort had been fighting a losing battle with more courage than experience.
He turned another page in her little account book and forced himself to review the column a third time.
The figures did not change. They had no respect for his wishes.
Lady Montague’s jointure: insufficient to maintain London house.
Remaining funds: modest, dwindling, vulnerable to continued expenditure.
Wine merchant: must be settled in part to prevent public complaint.
Milliner: immediate negotiation required.
Ashby and Son: arrears significant.
That last line sat on the page accusingly.
Gabriel opened his notebook and looked at the list he had made before visiting the Montfort house.
Montfort affairs
Review late Viscount Montague’s will.
Examine Lady Montague’s settlement.
Calculate arrears owed to Ashby and Son.
Determine remaining ready funds.
Recommend alternate solicitor.
Conclude account upon settlement of urgent matters.
Provide final bill and demand payment.
It was an excellent list—clear, sensible, and necessary.
Yesterday morning, it had seemed the only rational course. But that had been before Miss Montfort had looked at him across the late viscount’s study with her bright blue eyes, and her mouth trying for humor while panic gathered beneath it.
That had been before he had seen the note in the margin of her account book.
Find money somewhere.
This morning he had added three more items to his list.
Write Lord Montague requesting delay of possession.
Advise Lady Montague regarding reduced establishment.
Advise Miss Montfort regarding alternative possibilities.
Gabriel dragged one hand down his face. He already regretted the last one. It was clearly not the work of a solicitor. He reached for his quill, more to have something proper to do with his fingers than because the figures required another mark.
This was exactly how it began. First a man noticed a young lady was frightened. Then he admired her courage. Then he began inventing reasons why an unpaid account deserved more of his time than any other matter on his desk.
His father would be delighted.
Gabriel was not. He had to keep his wits about him. It would not do to become sentimental.
He bent to the papers again. The late Viscount Montague’s will was clear in all the ways he wished it were not.
The title had passed to Algernon Montfort.
Brambleberry Court was entailed. The London town house, though not entailed in the same manner, appeared to be held with the estate and not settled separately upon Lady Viva.
There was no language granting her the right to occupy it indefinitely.
No protective clause for Miss Montfort. No clever provision by a farsighted father.
Either the late viscount had not imagined dying while his daughter was still young enough to be left exposed, or he had imagined the new heir would behave generously.
Dead men, Gabriel had found, were forever expecting too much of the living.
The office door opened.
Gabriel looked up sharply.
His father stood on the threshold, one hand resting on the handle, his silver hair rumpled by the wind and his old brown coat buttoned incorrectly by one hole. Retirement, Gabriel had begun to suspect, suited his father far too well. It had made him cheerful, careless, and insufferably serene.
“I thought I might find you here,” his father said.
“This is my office.”
“Still. One likes to be correct occasionally.”
Gabriel returned his attention to the papers. “If you have come to ask after the Montforts, you may spare yourself the performance of casual concern.”
His father stepped inside and shut the door. “Ah. Worse than expected then.”
“Did you expect anything else?”
“I expected Lady Viva to have spent too much, Miss Montfort to have hidden the worst of it from her, and you to be displeased.”
“Then congratulations. You are nearly right.”
His father’s eyes crinkled. “A comfort at my age.”
Gabriel did not smile. “The arrears to the firm are significant.”
“I know.”
“You did not press them.”
“No.”
“You should have.”
“Perhaps.”
Gabriel’s quill tapped once against the desk before he caught the motion and stilled it. “That is all you have to say?”
His father crossed to the chair opposite and sat without invitation, as he had done for thirty years and evidently meant to continue doing until the grave claimed him. “What would you like me to say?”
“That you allowed sentiment to overrule prudence.”
“I did.”
Gabriel looked up.
His father regarded him mildly.
The admission annoyed him more than denial would have done. “You put this firm in a difficult position.”
“No. I put you in an irritating one. There is a difference.”
Gabriel brought his closed fist down against the desktop. “A professional man must be paid.”
His father blinked at him innocently. “Yes.”
“And if clients cannot pay?”
“Then he must decide whether he values the coin more than the conscience.”
Gabriel leaned back. “That is precisely the sort of statement that creates unpaid accounts.”
“It is also the sort of statement that prevents old men from being ashamed of themselves.”
For a moment, neither spoke.
Outside, wheels rattled over the street. Somewhere below, the clerk coughed. Gabriel turned a page because silence, like disorder, could become too familiar if permitted to linger.
His father’s gaze settled on the account book. “That is Miss Montfort’s.”
“Yes.”
“She has a fine mind.”
Gabriel disliked how quickly he answered. “She has a careful one.”
“Ah. You noticed.”
“I noticed she has been doing work no young lady should have had to do.”
His father’s expression softened, and Gabriel immediately regretted the words. Their truth did not trouble him nearly so much as what they revealed.
“She was thirteen when Montague died,” his father said quietly. “Lady Viva was never the same afterward.”
“Grief does not pay tradesmen.”
“No,” his father said. “It does teach a man what is important, however.”
Gabriel’s hand stilled on the account book.
He and his father would never agree on this subject.
His father had come away from loss believing tenderness must be given wherever it was needed.
Gabriel had come away with another lesson entirely: that what one loved could vanish without warning, that a careless act could sit in the mind for years, and that control was the only defense a man might hope to possess.
Proper conduct. Paid accounts. Clear rules. Duties kept in order.
Those things could not save everyone. He knew that.
But some stubborn part of him still believed that while order could not prevent every catastrophe, disorder invited them. A man who kept his accounts balanced, his conduct proper, his duties clear, and his wants firmly governed at least gave the world fewer chances to punish him.
His father’s gaze softened, which made Gabriel’s temper tighten.
“You think I stayed because Lady Viva amused me,” his father continued.
“Sometimes she did. You think I let the account accrue because I had lost all professional sense. There were days when that may have been partly true. But I stayed because each time I saw Miss Montfort, I remembered the first year after your mother died.”
Gabriel looked up sharply. He swallowed.
“You were a boy,” his father said. “Trying to become useful before you had finished being bereaved. You sorted my papers. You corrected my appointments. You stood in doorways asking whether I had eaten.”
“I remember,” Gabriel intoned.
“I do too.” His father’s voice lowered. “And I remember wishing someone had told me that a child’s competence can be a form of pleading.”
Gabriel closed the account book.
A taut silence followed. He disliked this subject. He disliked the memories: his father hollowed by grief, the house gone quiet, the small desperate pride Gabriel had taken in being helpful because helpful boys needed less.
“Miss Montfort is a client,” he said.
“Yes,” his father replied. “And you were my son.”
Gabriel’s jaw set. “I have seen too many aristocratic households devour sense, money, and everyone foolish enough to serve them. They sign papers without reading them, spend money without earning it, and expect men like us to make consequences tidy. I have no wish to become another ornament of Lady Viva’s disorder. ”