Beneath Spring's Rain (Ashton Brides Book 1)

by Rebecca J. Greenwood

  The marquess pointed out the salient sections, especially her own father’s signature. Daniel studied them with her, he not having seen the documents before.

  The strict settlement originally set up by her great-great-grandfather stood, and would for another two generations, because her own father had renewed it. His marked signature and name were all over the paperwork. It was dated just after her only brother had been born—Marcus, who had lived till age four. No other brother had been born, so the estate went to the “remainderman,” the next closest male heir.

  The marquess was remarkably patient with her questions when they reached the sections having to do with monetary settlements for the “heirs of the body” of her father. A generous settlement of twelve thousand pounds to be divided between the non-inheriting heirs of body, upon the legal majority of the males, but only upon the marriages of the female heirs of body.

  There it was, in formal script and opaque legal language, but yes, she was owed twelve thousand pounds upon her marriage.

  At least, her husband was.

  If she had siblings who lived, it would have been divided between them. But as she did not, the entirety of the sum was to go to her. The estate was legally required to pay it.

  Eliza closed her eyes and pressed her hand to her tense forehead.

  “If we win the case, the court will place a lien on their rents, so you are paid first,” the marquess said. “They would be much better served to settle with us out of court and arrange a payment plan. But so far they are unwilling.”

  “They would truly rather drag this out at the Court of Chancery?” Daniel asked. “It’ll take forever!”

  The marquess’s only answer was a tightening of his mouth.

  Eliza stared unseeingly at the paneled wall of the marquess’s study. “They were planning to break the entailment.” Her lips felt numb. “The Broughtons.”

  Daniel and the marquess sat patiently silent, watching her.

  “When my cousin Charles came of age, they were going to overturn this and draft a new one.” She smoothed her hand over the hand-copied document. “‘That didn’t cut out the girls,’ they said. But this doesn’t cut out the girls at all.”

  “No, when your cousins the Miss Broughtons marry, they will be entitled to the same sum, divided.”

  Breaking a strict settlement of this form required the willing ascent of both the current life-tenant and the next heirs male—but only with an heir of age to make legal decisions. “But Charles died last year.” At only eighteen, three years away from that vital age of twenty-one, in a stupid, foolhardy duel.

  “If they had been able to break the strict settlement, they might have been able to avoid paying your portion, as it was set up in this same document,” the marquess said. “It would have been unscrupulous and dishonorable for them to do so, but they may have been within legality.”

  “Therefore,” Daniel said, “it was in their best interest to keep you unmarried until they were able to do that.”

  “But with the ‘tail heir’ dead, they could no longer break the entailment. The only way to avoid paying Lady Daniel’s portion was to keep her unwed,” the marquess said.

  “As long as you were underage and under their guardianship, they wouldn’t have too difficult of a time keeping you from marrying. Mr. Broughton would only need to deny permission,” Daniel said.

  “When did you reach your majority, Lady Daniel?” the marquess asked.

  On her birthday, when she’d turned twenty-one and could marry without her guardian’s permission.

  “March 20th of this year. The day before . . . ” She choked on the words, on the horrible thoughts that were coming to the front of her mind. “The day before they turned me out.”

  “I see.” The marquess’s pale eyes watched her, his lids half-lowered.

  He saw. Yes, he saw. Eliza felt numb all over. Her hands trembled.

  Daniel watched her with grave, pinched compassion on his face.

  He saw as well.

  But Eliza didn’t want to see.

  She stood. The men rose in response. Her stomach roiled with a sick feeling.

  “Thank you for your time, my lord. Daniel.” She curtsied. “Thank you for explaining the documents, and allowing me to read them myself. If you’ll excuse me.”

  “Eliza.” Daniel took a step towards her, worry on his face.

  “No, please, I must be alone.” She choked and fled.

  * * *

  Daniel watched Eliza go with a pain in his chest. It was a hard thing to face, a betrayal of this magnitude. He wished he could follow and comfort her, but he restrained himself as she’d requested.

  He turned to Frederick, who had a slight frown on his face—a gesture of grave concern from his stoic brother.

  “If they could keep her from ever marrying . . .”

  “Yes, such an economy for them, to never have to pay that money.”

  They gave a nod to each other.

  “Can we prove it? That her cousins conspired to have her ruined?” Daniel asked.

  “Without a confession from the parties involved? Not unless we find a servant or similar person who witnessed enough about the particulars and would be willing to testify.” Frederick shuffled the pages of the settlement, aligning them perfectly and then returning them to the leather folio they came in. “But we could use their own weapon against them. The right rumor spoken in the right ear, and the Broughtons would be ostracized just as much as she has been. And it would be deserved. If they did what we suspect, they are despicable.”

  “Justice by rumor-mill. How unsatisfying.”

  “If this drags out in the courts, rumors might start without any effort from us. We won’t be the only ones who this will occur to.”

  “Indeed. But let us protect Eliza as much as possible. Perhaps after a taste of court, they will agree to settle outside of it.

  “I have something else to discuss with you.” Frederick sat down behind his desk and pulled out a folded letter.

  “Oh?”

  “You’ll forgive me, I hope, if I have acted on your behalf with the intent of bettering your situation?”

  “Of course.” Daniel raised his brows.

  “Especially if the consequences do not appear to be as I intended?”

  “How so?”

  “I attempted . . .” Frederick’s mouth twisted, “to soften our uncle’s heart.”

  Daniel snorted a laugh. “I could see that as being difficult for you, seeing as your own heart is on the cold side.”

  Frederick slanted him a look but did not comment. He opened the letter and placed it before Daniel. “I wrote to our uncle extolling Lady Daniel’s virtues, and your own character shown in marrying her. Then outlined what we know and suspect about the foul play surrounding her reputation.”

  “You extolled Eliza’s virtues?” Daniel felt shocked.

  “She holds herself very well. Most females would not have weathered the tragedies of her life with half such dignity. If it were not for this scandal nonsense, there could be no objections to her whatsoever. Your good sense in choosing such a bride for yourself shows you have some sort of a brain in your head.”

  “Thank you, Frederick.” This was high praise from his fastidious and discriminating brother. Daniel’s chest expanded at this approval of his adored wife and of himself.

  “I hoped I might be able to convince our uncle to relent and reinstate you as his heir. I’m afraid it may have had an opposite effect to my intention.” Frederick appeared almost sheepish. He must be quite embarrassed, indeed. Daniel watched him with amused fascination.

  “I sent the letter soon after you left for your wedding trip. I received no reply from him until today, when I received this cryptic note.” He waved the piece of creased paper between them. “Our uncle says he will not be renewing the previous arrangement, and that he and much of his household are going off to Scotland for a time. And adds, ‘It is neffy Daniel’s and his lady’s fault entirely,�
��“ Frederick read. “And, ‘The Scotsman’s laws are much more reasonable than the English.’”

  Frederick lowered the paper, his eyebrows lifted and his upper lip lengthened. “I cannot imagine to what he is referring.”

  “Can you not? Could it be? No, that would be . . .” Daniel pressed his fist to his mouth to stifle the grin that wanted to take over his face.

  “That would be most singular, indeed,” Frederick said. They exchanged a look.

  Daniel burst out laughing.

  * * *

  Eliza played the pianoforte, reveling in the beautiful, mellow sound of the notes, and the pleasure of its dynamic range. The ability to produce gentle tones and roaring crescendos was a lovely thing.

  She would not let her mind dwell on thoughts of treachery, of betrayal. Thoughts of callous, cruel, selfish, evil actions against herself. She would not let her heart hurt from anything anyone else might have done against her.

  But her cousins had needed her to not marry. And what females were the least likely to marry? Penniless ladies who’d been ruined by already-married rakes. And even more surely? The kept mistresses of married gentlemen.

  That Lord Crewkerne could have acted as he did, she could understand, though it made him despicable.

  But for her own flesh and blood to . . . to arrange for her ruination, to participate, to destroy her, to destroy her life, over money, was . . . horrendous.

  She pushed all such thoughts down and away and kept the music room filled with rich, rolling tones.

  And that night, in the room she shared with Daniel, she let him hold her.

  But she did not cry. She would not cry.

  Chapter 40

  Sunday afternoon, Eliza walked into the Ashton House library and stopped short. The marquess was there, standing before a large, open window that looked onto the small but immaculately laid out walled garden of Ashton House. Sunlight silhouetted his tall, lean outline, his hands clasped behind him. The library was otherwise empty.

  Her first inclination was to turn around immediately and hope he hadn’t noticed her intrusion, but a breeze wafted into the library from the garden, redolent with the scent of blooming peonies. It brought the memory of her wedding day. Peony blossoms had surrounded her that day, adorning her bouquet and bonnet.

  She stopped and forced herself to walk into the room. What other opportunity might she have to speak privately with Daniel’s elder brother?

  Her stomach stirred with butterflies, and her heart rate increased in speed, but she approached him. “Pardon me, my lord.”

  The marquess turned, his face in his usual controlled, implacable expression.

  “May I speak with you?”

  He gave a nod.

  She grasped her hands in front of her. “I have been wondering . . . I do not understand. . . ” She stopped, tried to compose her words. “My lord, why did you not stand in the way of Daniel marrying me? Why did you not oppose an action that would bring scandal down on your family?”

  A single pale eyebrow raised and lowered in response to her question.

  “Why, you ask?” He turned back to the open window. He did not continue, and her heart rate picked up. Her face heated, and she clenched her fists into the fabric of her skirts. Would he answer her nothing? Was she being dismissed?

  The words fell out of her mouth. “Why, when I would only cause trouble for your family?” She flushed deeper. She shouldn’t have let her tongue be that unruly. If he would not answer her original statement, more words would only further degrade her.

  The marquess stood still, close-mouthed, imperious and impeccable.

  She would not fidget. She would not.

  She was about to apologize for disturbing him and leave, when the marquess spoke.

  “When he was nineteen, Daniel was injured on the Peninsula. He recovered but was not yet fit for duty, so he joined us in London for the Season.” The marquess’s tones were dispassionate, but that he was answering her at all sent a thrill of nerves through her.

  “He had not been with us long when he approached me, asking if any provision could be made for him to marry. His lady love was coming out, he said. Calf love, of course, but he persisted, gave an impassioned speech that she was the greatest hope of his life.

  “Would I give my permission for him to marry? Could there be provision for him, and for a wife? If there was, he would endeavor to fix her interest.”

  His nostrils flared. “I had to tell him no.” The marquess’s hands loosed from behind his back and flexed at his sides.

  “But not because he was unfit to marry. Though young, a more dutiful and well-behaved youth would be rare to find. He was more obedient in many ways than one ought to expect a youth as high-spirited as he to be.

  “And not because I had any objections to the lady. She came from good family, one we have long been friendly with, and had shown ample evidence of her own good breeding when in company.” He turned, gave her an inclination of his head. Her spine straightened and she blinked rapidly at this praise.

  He turned back to the window, and a slight frown marred his smooth, sharply defined features. “I had purchased Daniel’s commission in the army with the first blush of funds from my marriage. He hoped things had stabilized and continued well since then. They had not. I had to inform him that his first commission was all I could do for him, as the money was gone.”

  A twitch under his eye and a flexing of his jaw were the only indications of the marquess’s emotions at this statement.

  “Our financial state was worse than it had been before my marriage. You may have heard some of the rumors of my relationship with my late wife.” He half-turned, looked at her from the side.

  Eliza forced herself to give a slight nod of acknowledgment. She knew what had been talked about in Leicestershire after the woman fled with her lover.

  “There were some failed investments, and my late wife . . . she was many things, a gambler one of them. She incurred large debts of honor.” The marquess’s hands fisted at his sides.

  “Only the entailed properties are left. All else had to be sold. We still labor under heavy debts. I strive to free us from them, while still giving my siblings their due as children of the Ashton name.”

  His fists loosened, and he turned to her. “Lady Daniel, when I first sent my brother to war, I saw the optimism of childhood fade from his eyes.”

  His own were a clear, cold blue, so light as to be almost colorless, his contracted pupils the darkest places on his face.

  His expression softened. Was that regret? “But it was when I explained to him how there would be nothing for a wife for him, nothing for a future nursery except what he could get in the army, that I saw hope die in him, overcome by duty and harsh reality. It was then, I know, that he made the decision to never marry and to give his life to his country.”

  A chill went through Eliza, and her shoulders jerked as a horrible vision assaulted her of Daniel dead on a battlefield, as red-soaked as the watercolor he’d painted of the aftermath of battle. She tried to push the image away from her mind.

  She could only thank gracious Providence Daniel had survived.

  “I accompanied him,” the marquess continued, “to the come-out ball of the young girl he was in love with. As I would have gone to any event your grandparents invited us to.” She looked back up to him and he gave her a respectful nod.

  “Daniel has always done his duty, has always sought to do what is right and best.” The marquess turned to the window again. “He danced with his love once and did not approach her again that Season, despite being at multiple events together. I saw the sadness and yearning in his eyes.” His hands were white-knuckled fists. “It was my own poor choice of wife that caused that hopelessness, that situation.”

  He turned to her, his gaze intense. Eliza’s breath stopped in her lungs.

  “So when my brother came to me again, wanting to marry, wanting to rescue the girl he loved so many years ago, I did not oppose. I coul
d not and would not.” A fierceness and determination flashed in Daniel’s elder brother’s eyes. “I act for my brother’s happiness. I value that over any fool scandal, though society will never understand it.”

  Eliza’s heart leapt, her eyes widened in surprise at his vehemence.

  He lifted his chin and dispassionate control blanked his expression once again. “The debts remain, despite my efforts to free us of them. Monetarily, I cannot do much for you and your marriage. But I can support it, put my name and approval behind it publicly, and help in any way a marquess with little money but some power and rank can do. And I trust,” his lips almost quirked a sardonic smile, a flicker that was quickly gone, “that the marriage my brother believes will be the making of his happiness, will be.”

  Eliza held back a flinch, her self-absorption of the last few weeks coming to her mind as a convicting accusation.

  “I know my brother finds it as his honor to play the hero.”

  Eliza forced herself to meet the marquess’s eyes again and was surprised when she found a hint of compassion in their cool depths.

  “Despite the frustrations connected to tomorrow’s judicial proceedings, I have rarely seen Daniel as happy as he has been these last two days.”

  Eliza breathed, blinked, and felt the tension drain out of her. “Thank you, my lord.” She attempted a smile. “I do care for Daniel’s happiness.”

  “Very good.” He gave a nod. Then he looked away, stood back into his precise posture, and walked back to the window.

  He turned and gave her a bow. “My lady, a good day to you.”

  “And to you.” She curtsied low. She was being dismissed. She turned to leave but stopped herself. “My lord, thank you.”

  He looked over at her.

  “For your candor,” she said, gratitude running through her. “And your support.” She gave him a small smile and exited, her heart rate still elevated.

  Chapter 41