The Wayward Son

by Warfield, Caroline

  Before Rob could respond, his sister’s cheerful voice, chatting with another female, came through the door to the kitchen. It swung open, and Emma came through. “Da,” she called. “Lucy brought the order of cheese, and fine quality, I must say.” She stopped in her tracks. “Robbie! You look like you were drug through the livery before we mucked it. I would have Ellis’s head if he turned up looking like that.”

  Rob stood up, but he ignored her, fixated on the woman who came in behind her.

  “Lucy, this is my brother Robbie,” Emma said, eyeing him warily.

  Her father looked from one to the other, glaring at each other. “Looks to me like they’ve met, Em.”

  “Sir Robert,” Lucy said politely, dipping a curtsey, her sour expression showing exactly what she thought of his appearance.

  “Miss Whitaker.” He inclined his head in a display of drawing room manners made ludicrous by his state of undress, setting off a shaft of pain.

  “Her Grace tells me you paid her a visit after you left Willowbrook,” Lucy said through tight lips.

  Perhaps he would be sick after all. His stomach rebelled. He disliked the glint in her eyes and hated the knowing sympathy in Robert Benson’s.

  “You’ll have to excuse my son, Miss Lucy. He was about to go freshen up,” the old man said, giving him an escape.

  He took it, but not before he heard the man say, “One hour. It’s time we talked.”

  *

  “You didn’t tell me you met Robbie,” Emma hissed. “How—”

  “It wasn’t exactly an introduction. He rode up to Willowbrook, eyeing the place like he owned it. I thought he was going to demand to come in and count the silver.”

  “You still have silver?” Emma asked, suddenly curious. The Bensons kept a bower by the river, shielded from the inn by willow trees, for their own use on pleasant afternoons. The two women sat at a little table on the bank, a pot of tea between them.

  “David took the big pieces. He left me enough serviceable pieces to use,” Lucy admitted.

  “He does, you know. Own it, I mean.”

  Lucy stared into her tea and sighed deeply, grateful Emma let silence wrap itself around her, particularly because quiet, foreign to Emma’s makeup, occurred so rarely.

  “I know he owns it,” Lucy said at last. “I can’t begrudge him. But Emma, he thinks I’m David’s mistress.”

  Emma choked on her tea, turning an alarming shade of red. Lucy ran around to batter her on the back until Emma yelled, “Stop, stop, erg—I’m well.” Only after she saw her friend take four or five deep breaths did Lucy sit back down.

  “Clarion? He thinks Clarion would make his sister-in-law his mistress?!” Emma gasped.

  Lucy started to laugh, and soon both women were convulsed. “I honestly don’t think he has taken any woman to his bed since Marjory died,” Lucy said at last. “But who knows about men?”

  “We all might be better off if he did. If your brother-in-law were laced any tighter, he wouldn’t be able to bend over,” Emma said. “He’s so busy being not his father that he’s forgotten that he’s human.”

  Lucy sobered. “Poor David.”

  Emma snorted unapologetically. “You’re his responsibility. So is Lady Mad and the hall.”

  “Nonsense. He does the best he can. It’s been a struggle since he came into the title, and that mother of his doesn’t help. Anyway, Maddy says she is no man’s responsibility and glad of it. She refused a settlement from Glenmoor, knowing David had no funds to spare. I don’t know why.”

  Emma shook her head. “He runs to London and leaves you on your own to cope. What are you going to do now?”

  “That rather depends on what your brother decides. My dream is that he might keep me on as steward.” She shrugged at the sight of Emma’s expression. “I know. Not likely any man would hire a woman. I have a bit from my mother’s estate. David put it in funds for me. If your brother allows me a sum for caretaking these last years, I might manage a cottage of my own—with a bee yard.” She pursed her lips tightly, considering whether to ask the question that truly ate at her.

  “Spit it out Lucy. I can tell something is on your mind,” Emma said.

  “Did you write to him about…”

  “Willowbrook? No. Not specifically. I just asked him to come home.”

  “Why?”

  “Someone has to take a look at what has happened to Ashmead!”

  “He’s ignored the will and the situation for years. Why now?” Lucy demanded.

  Emma wiggled uneasily in the wicker chair.

  “Emma…” Lucy’s voice took a warning tone.

  “The imposters. This past year there are suddenly more of them, odd men coming more often, and some have been more aggressive. One or two menacing. Someone wants Willowbrook and is pushing you out.”

  “Do you really believe that? Someone, as in a particular person, not just a series of opportunists?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t like what has been happening. Robbie’s a soldier, and he has been working in Paris with all that monarchy and Bonapartist business. I thought he could sort it out. I didn’t think he’d put you out. I still don’t think he will once he gets the lay of things. You can trust him, Lucy.”

  “Does he know he can trust me? He doesn’t sound like it.”

  “Give him time, Lucy.”

  “I’ll have to, won’t I?” She thanked Emma for the tea and fetched her pony and trap from the inn, trotting him across the bridge with a heavy heart. Give the man time? I have as little time as I have anything else.

  Chapter Eight

  Rob sat in the battered leather chair in front of the innkeeper’s desk but rose when the old man pulled his desk chair around to the window and gestured for him to sit there. A pot of coffee waited on the table in front of the window. He sat back down, sipped a mug of the black liquid, and let the familiar smell of leather, beeswax, and paper seep into his bones.

  The study had always been a refuge, a place to bring his struggles and triumphs, a place to absorb the man’s wisdom. But that was before— He stifled the thought. Robert Benson had always been a source of common sense. Rob decided to set the one big lie aside for now. If anyone could sort out this mess, it was the man across from him.

  “What did Spangler tell you?”

  “Only that the old earl left me Willowbrook, and I could take possession if I signed a thick pile of paper,” Rob replied.

  “Did you sign?”

  “You taught me never to sign anything in a hurry, especially if someone seemed too eager to have me do it.” He pulled the papers out and tossed them on the table. “Something about Spangler didn’t sit right.”

  “He helped the earl write the will,” the old man told him. “As soon as it was read and folks took possession of businesses, they had no idea how to manage, someone swooped in and bought them up for half their value.”

  “A crowd of them, I gather.”

  “Heirs? Aye. Some got a pittance in cash or the odd silver trinket. Some got shops in Ashmead.”

  “Spangler was behind it?”

  The old man nodded.

  Rob shook his head. “No shock there. His eyes glittered when I mentioned selling, but he didn’t push. Why?”

  The older man shrugged. “Deep player, that one.”

  “He wasn’t happy when I told him I came to refuse it. He tried to tell me it couldn’t be done. I’m fairly sure it would revert to the estate. I would say he wanted to protect the earl’s desires, but I don’t think he has an altruistic bone in his body.”

  “Why didn’t you do it?”

  “It would go to back to Clarion, and…”

  Amusement filled the older man’s expression “Lucy,” he said.

  “I take it she isn’t what I thought. Mad—the duchess told me it was Clarion’s home before the old earl died.”

  “Aye. He and Lady Marjory were happy there for some years before she took sick. Lucy is his wife’s sister. She came to live
with them when her parents died and then to nurse Lady Marjory. When old Clarion died first and then Lady Marjory soon after, the young earl couldn’t stay under the same roof with her, so he just left her there with Agnes.”

  “Damn. So, I’m saddled with a farm I didn’t ask for and a dependent that isn’t my responsibility. One to whom I owe an apology.” He glared at the coffee, wishing for something stronger.

  “You can still refuse it.”

  “I may.”

  “If…” the old man prodded.

  “If I understood what Spangler gained if I keep it.”

  Old Rob nodded. “I’d lay a monkey he wants it. If Clarion took it back, the estate wouldn’t let it go.”

  Rob snorted. “It might help if I knew how Clarion planned to provide for Lucy Whitaker,” Rob went on. “If I stay around and leave her there—or worse, give it to the blasted woman—all of Ashmead will think I’m keeping her.”

  “Aye,” the old man said with the ghost of a grin, taking a careful sip of his coffee. “It’s a fine piece of land, though, no matter why old Clarion decided to give it to you. You could sell it.”

  “If I sell, I’ll choose my agent carefully. And I can’t do that until the Whitaker woman has some place to go. Should I sell it back to Clarion?”

  Old Rob shook his head sadly. “Can’t afford it. Besides, Spangler doesn’t want it to go back to him for some reason. I’d like to know why.”

  “Me, too. What would you do?”

  The old man leaned back. It was the moment he had waited for. “First, I’d have your brother Eli look at the papers.”

  “Eli?” He’d meant to ask after the boy who had been nowhere to be found in the three days he’d been home.

  “Apprenticing with solicitors in Nottingham. You can trust Eli.”

  Rob’s brows rose. “Good advice. I’ll ride over tomorrow.”

  “Delay until you can smoke out Spangler’s plans. You’d be doing us all a favor. Then I’d ask the lady for an accounting, even before you sign. Demand she come here to talk to you. Let Ashmead know you seek information about the Willowbrook finances. Make sure she pays rent publicly once you sign. That should deflect gossip off of her.”

  “And on to me?”

  Old Rob grinned. “It can’t hurt you in London, can it?”

  Rob nodded. “Good advice, but one thing—my baby brother wants to be a solicitor?”

  The old man beamed. “Has been over there these three or four years now.”

  “I thought he’d take this place after you,” Rob said.

  “I always thought you would,” the old man replied sadly.

  *

  “Tell me again. Where were you?” Lucy addressed her question to a lanky, half-grown boy drinking lemonade in her kitchen. His reports of a stranger on Willowbrook had Lucy’s full attention.

  “Andy, and me went to see about the badgers like you told us to,” John Thatcher told her. “We thought we might check the rocks around Limestone Ridge where it meets Caulfield land. So, we come up the meadow, crossed the stream, and started up hill. When we came around the stand of maples, we saw him.”

  “Go on. Tell me exactly.”

  John shrugged. “Not much to tell. He walked around. Kept looking up the hill.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Tall. Skinny looking. Shiny pate.”

  “Shiny? Balding? Did he have red hair?”

  “What he had were brown, I know that fer sure, but mostly he’s losing it,” John snickered. “Dint look dangerous.”

  Not a Caulfield bastard or imposter, Lucy thought. “Well dressed or poorly?”

  “Well, sort of. Town clothes.”

  “What the devil was he doing?” she murmured. “You say he just walked around?”

  “Aye. Slowly, and stopped a lot. Like he were studying something.”

  A rocky outcrop lined Willowbrook’s border with Caulfield Hall, more of it on the Caulfield side. When her sister lived, and David had the care of the place, Lucy liked to climb up and enjoy the view. Now she had no time to spend on a spot useless for crops or foraging, and she largely ignored it.

  “Did he have anything with him?” she asked.

  The boy scrunched up his forehead as if thinking hurt. “Pulled something out o’ a pouch once and aimed it up the hill,” John recalled.

  “A weapon?” Poachers we can manage, she thought.

  “Don’t think so. It were round,” he said, and then he sat up straighter. “I remember Andy said it was funny for a watch to have handles, and I said it was too big to be a watch. Won’t fit in a waistcoat. Is that important?”

  “Perhaps.” The stranger sounded like a surveyor of some sort. Is David checking the boundary? Maybe Sir Robert wants to make sure he gets everything coming to him. Lucy leaned her elbow on the table, chin on her fingers, and considered the possibilities. John, pleased with his contribution, polished off his lemonade.

  The door came open with a bang when Agnes bustled in. “This came from the Willow,” she announced, handing Lucy a message. She glared at John’s avid curiosity until he took the hint.

  “Are we finished then, Miss Lucy?” he asked.

  “Yes, thank you, John,” she murmured absently, reading the message over again. She waved a hand as if to shoo him away.

  Agnes sank down onto the vacated chair. “Well?” she demanded, making no effort to pretend any discretion.

  Lucy folded the missive. “The Thatcher boys caught some stranger studying the limestone ridge. No red hair on that one.”

  “Not that. What about the message. It isn’t Emma Corbin’s writing.”

  No, it is not. The bold script slashed across the paper was as impertinent as the man who wrote it.

  “The heir wants an accounting.” She handed it to Agnes. No point in trying to keep it from her anyway.

  “That one doesn’t waste words, does he?” Agnes scanned the message twice.

  “Doesn’t bother with manners either,” Lucy replied.

  “He wants to see the books. They in order?”

  Lucy flashed Agnes a scathing glance. “Of course.”

  “Good thing. Sounds like he wants them yesterday.”

  “He is welcome to come and look at them,” Lucy spat. “I have no time to—”

  “He says bring them to the Willow. Do you want to start annoying the man that can turn us out?”

  Lucy dropped her head back. “I suppose not. But I’m not going to hop to. I have too many things to do this week. I told Emma I’d have more honey on Monday. I’ll see him then, and, yes, I’ll bring the books.”

  Chapter Nine

  The Willow and the Rose did lively business Monday morning. Word of Miss Whitaker’s confrontation with the man who professed to be the innkeeper’s son but whom the entire county knew to be the earl’s heir had filled the village.

  The good people of Ashmead generally held one of two views. Some viewed Rob as a returning hero who would be the salvation of Miss Lucy Whitaker, if not, indeed, all of Ashmead. The others didn’t hesitate to call him a bastard and assume he’d be, “No better’n the others. Out to take what he can get.” Those milling around Benson’s taproom that Monday tended to be in the latter camp, although almost every household in Ashmead found a representative with an excuse to turn up at the inn that day. Even Paul Farley, Ashmead’s normally unflappable doctor, lingered over his lunch.

  Behind the bar, Robert Benson, innkeeper, wiped a clean counter and watched his sons, who sat in a walled snug in the corner from which they could observe both the door to the kitchen and the main entrance.

  Rob spoke with his brother Eli in hushed tones. “You looked at the will itself?”

  “Copies only. Got Spangler’s secretary to show me when the reprobate himself was out. I got a look at the deeds, too, when the lazy sod wandered off for a pint—that wouldn’t happen in our office, I can tell you.”

  When Eli smiled, he reminded Rob of the dreamy boy likely to forget his chor
es and trip over his own feet. That towheaded youngster had matured into a confident young man, cautious in his speech but sure in his profession. Their reunion had been subdued but affectionate to Rob’s relief. His brother gave every sign of pleasure in Rob’s return, but he neither criticized him for his absence, nor slobbered with hero worship.

  Eli’s expression sharpened, and he went on, “I have not been able to get up to Caulfield Hall. The earl will have the originals.”

  “But you are confident I can sign without falling into a trap.” It wasn’t a question. Rob repeated the words as much to reassure himself that their analysis was correct as to elicit a response.

  Eli nodded, and his lips twisted in a wry smile. “The land and the minerals that lie under it are yours. Someone went to great trouble to spell that part out carefully. Whatever the earl hoped to engineer and whatever Spangler is up to—and I am sure the worm is up to something—the documents are safe to sign.”

  “He wants the property in my hands.”

  “Not the earl’s. It appears so. I wonder…” Eli bit his lip.

  “What?” Rob demanded.

  “Clarion has been adamantly opposed to mining on Caulfield land.”

  “The minerals,” Rob mused. “In this part of the country, likely coal.”

  “Black gold. It has been the ruin of many a village in the Midlands, Rob,” Eli responded, eyes wary.

  If Eli intended to expound on that subject, Rob waved it away. “Whatever Spangler intends, signing may drive him into the open.”

  Eli sighed. “He wants it in your hands. So, I’d say yes.”

  “Or Miss Whitaker’s? Does he hope I’ll turn out to be of a charitable bent and simply give it to her?” A man might do that for a mistress… Rob dismissed that thought as unworthy. Willowbrook wasn’t Clarion’s to give, and Rob had no intention of taking his half-brother’s leavings. Shame washed through him. Emma and Da both seemed to find the notion of the Whitaker woman in Clarion’s keeping ludicrous. What am I going to do with the woman? Rent her Willowbrook temporarily. Then what?