Alex stood at the end of the path, watching them go. He hadn’t expected to be invited in. But as Miss Hayes and her aunt disappeared inside, the door shutting firmly behind them, he admitted to a certain curiosity—if not outright concern.
What had happened today to make Miss Hayes weep as she had? He’d never before seen a lady so desolate. So utterly undone. Certainly not a lady as self-contained and dignified as Laura Hayes.
It was something to do with her visit to London and the meeting she’d had with her solicitor. Mr. Weatherwax, wasn’t that his name? It would be the work of a moment to discover more. Perhaps he could help her? Perhaps he could—
But he shouldn’t.
And wouldn’t.
He had no reason to do so, and every reason not to.
Alex climbed back into the gig and set the horse in motion with a slap of the reins. Bramble Cottage grew smaller behind him as he drove away from it, down the road that led past Talbot’s Wood and onto Edgington Park, and thereby, his future.
He didn’t look back.
Nothing in his life had ever been achieved by succumbing to sentiment. He had to think of himself. Only of himself, and his interests. For if he didn’t, who else on earth would?
“I’ve never heard anything so preposterous!” Aunt Charlotte paced the confines of Teddy’s bedroom, her silk skirts and starched petticoats swishing with every step. “The nerve of the man—the absolute, unmitigated nerve.”
Laura sat in a low-backed chair beside Teddy’s bed, trying not to look and sound as bleak as she felt. “It’s early days yet. We still have time—”
“One month.” Teddy was in his nightshirt, tucked under a quilt, his back propped up against a mountain of pillows. Magpie was curled up beside him. “And then he’ll take control of everything for good and all.”
Aunt Charlotte twisted her lace-trimmed handkerchief in her hands. “If my brother were alive—”
“Don’t speak to me about Papa,” Laura said. “The whole of this is of his devising.”
“An old will. It surely doesn’t reflect the reality of what was in his mind—”
“His only will. That’s all that matters. And Mr. Weatherwax is the executor. The decisions are his to make.”
Teddy’s eyes met hers. “Until I come of age. That’s what you’ve always said.”
“That’s what I understood to be the case.” Laura gave her brother an apologetic look. “I never considered that he would argue against it. I didn’t think he could do. But now—”
“We must simply hire another solicitor,” Aunt Charlotte said. “We must challenge Mr. Weatherwax’s authority.”
“We can’t afford another solicitor. We can scarcely afford—” Laura stopped herself from saying anything more. Indeed, she’d already said far too much.
“How bad is it, Laura?” Teddy asked.
“It isn’t good,” she admitted at length. “But we’re not in debt. That’s something, at least. And we haven’t yet been forced to go hungry, or to wear rags. I have my health, and so does Aunt Charlotte. We can surely find a way to—”
“If Weatherwax won’t allow us to seek a loan so that we can reopen the distilleries, what is it he means for us to do?” Teddy’s expression tightened with anger. “Let me guess. He proposed that we sell them.”
“He did,” Laura said. “He advises that we sell all of the properties.” Weatherwax had been pressing them to sell ever since Papa died. He seemed intent upon it. It was the safest course, or so he claimed.
“And if we don’t, what then?” Teddy asked. “Are we to languish here, waiting on his charity?”
“It’s not charity. It’s our very own money. Yours, anyway, once you come of age.”
“But he says that won’t matter. That my coming of age doesn’t matter. Because I’m crippled. Because I—”
Laura reached to briefly clasp Teddy’s hand, silencing him. “He didn’t say that. He merely fears that your ill health will be an impediment to your taking charge of our property. He thinks he’s doing us a courtesy.”
“He’s threatening to take us to court to maintain his power, Laura. He’s going to claim I’m incompetent. You said yourself—”
“I said too much. Perhaps I misstated his intentions.”
“You didn’t.”
“Teddy…does it mean so very much to you to gain control of things?”
“You know it doesn’t. I was going to drop it all in your lap. But this is different. Weatherwax isn’t family. He’s an encroaching buzzard. God knows what state our finances are truly in.”
“If my brother were alive…” Aunt Charlotte wrung her hands. “He can’t have meant for any of this to happen.”
Laura ignored her. “It seems to me that we have three options, none of them very good.”
Teddy and Aunt Charlotte both fell quiet, their gazes settling on Laura in silent expectation.
Laura took a steadying breath. “First, we can permit Mr. Weatherwax to maintain control of our finances and our property.”
Teddy exploded with anger. “How can you even suggest—”
Aunt Charlotte’s voice rose to match his. “That man can’t be trusted an inch—”
“Yes, yes.” Laura held up a hand. “But we must consider, if Mr. Weatherwax maintains control, we shall go on—I assume—much in the same way we have been since Papa died. Things will be tight, but we shall rub along well enough as long as no catastrophe befalls us. If circumstances become too grim, we can always consider selling one of the properties.”
Aunt Charlotte’s lips thinned. “I cannot like it, Laura.”
“Nor I.” Teddy folded his arms. “What’s our second option?”
Magpie chose that moment to uncurl himself, stand up, and perform a languorous stretch. When he’d finished, he jumped from the bed, landing on the wood floor with a thump. The door creaked on its hinges as he let himself out of the room.
Laura rubbed her forehead. She could feel the beginnings of a megrim. “We can hire another solicitor to challenge Mr. Weatherwax. We’d have to borrow the money to pay him somehow. Perhaps from Henrietta? She’s never been tightfisted. And then…we’d just have to hope that the new solicitor would prevail. For if he didn’t…”
“If he didn’t,” Aunt Charlotte said grimly, “then we’d have made an enemy of Weatherwax to no good purpose.”
Laura nodded. “Exactly. And I don’t like to say so, but…I sense a vindictiveness in Mr. Weatherwax. If we fought him and lost, I suspect he would show us no mercy.”
Teddy’s narrow face had gone a shade paler, the blue shadows under his eyes becoming more pronounced. “And our third option?”
Laura’s stomach clenched into a knot. “That’s a bit trickier.” She hesitated, her mouth suddenly dry. “By rights, a half interest in Hayes’s Perfumes should be mine.”
“Only if you marry before your twenty-fifth birthday, my dear,” Aunt Charlotte said. “And even then, the half interest would belong to your husband, not to you. My brother didn’t believe in ladies involving themselves in the family business. Foolish man.”
“I daresay Papa thought he was being fair and equitable. He didn’t allow for the fact that I’d be a spinster, and Teddy would be an invalid.”
“It hardly matters now,” Aunt Charlotte replied. “With you unmarried, the whole of it goes to Teddy. And since Weatherwax is going to claim Teddy is too frail to take control—”
“But if you marry—” Teddy looked at Laura, his gaze burning with a new intensity. “You would have a half share.”
Laura gave her brother a rueful grimace. “My husband would, anyway.”
“Husband?” Aunt Charlotte looked between the two of them in confusion. “What husband?”
“And therein lies the difficulty.” Laura leaned back in her seat. “Who would I marry? Or—more to the
point—who in the world could be prevailed upon to marry me?”
Aunt Charlotte stopped pacing and turned to face them. “Why, it must be George Wright, of course! Heaven’s above, I don’t know why I didn’t see it straightaway. You’ve always worn the willow for him. And now he’s returned—”
“Not George,” Laura said, a touch sharply. “Even if he did wish to marry me—which he doesn’t—”
“How do you know—?”
“I know. I also know that I’d never marry him. Not if he were the last gentleman on earth.”
Aunt Charlotte’s face fell. “But then…what other choice is there? Single gentlemen aren’t in abundance in Lower Hawley. Certainly none who would be willing to marry into a family such as ours.”
“No,” Laura said. “We haven’t much to recommend us, have we? And we’ve very little time before my birthday arrives. Not even enough time to call the banns.” She moistened her lips. “Which is why…I think we’re going to have to settle for option two. We’ll consult with another solicitor.”
“How?” Teddy wondered. “You’ve already said we haven’t the money for it.”
“I’ll ask Henrietta to lend it to us. Just the consulting fee, mind. We don’t even know yet if we have a case against Mr. Weatherwax. I don’t want us pressing forward with no hope of success. There are unscrupulous solicitors who would happily wring every last penny out of us in pursuing fruitless claims. We must proceed with caution.”
“Perhaps we should speak with a local solicitor?” Aunt Charlotte suggested. “Someone in Guildford or—”
“No, it must be London. We need a solicitor who’s canny, as well as capable.” Laura reached for her reticule. “A maidservant at Mr. Weatherwax’s office recommended someone.”
“A maidservant!” Aunt Charlotte’s brows shot up. “What would a maidservant know?”
“I haven’t any idea. But she gave me a solicitor’s card.” Laura withdrew it from her reticule and handed it to her brother. “Someone in Fleet Street.”
Teddy looked it over with a frown. “Thomas Finchley, Esquire.”
Laura nodded. “The best solicitor in London, apparently. I shall write him a letter this very afternoon. Then, in the morning, I shall call on Henrietta and broach the subject of a loan.”
Aunt Charlotte’s face creased with worry. “And if Mr. Weatherwax finds out?”
Laura rose from her chair. “We shall simply have to pray that he doesn’t.”
Alex leaned back against the trunk of the oak tree under which Miss Talbot had spread out their picnic blanket. Or rather, one of her footmen had. The liveried servants had followed along behind them from the house, carrying plates, cutlery, and provisions, as they traipsed the grounds of Edgington Park looking for the perfect picnic spot.
Henrietta Talbot was in her element. Kneeling in a heap of fine muslin skirts and ruffled petticoats, she doled out cold roast chicken and other comestibles from a hamper. “For you, George.” She handed him a plate heaped with food.
George took it, barely succeeding in hiding a flinch. At the vicarage, he hadn’t been able to keep down his breakfast. “What I need,” he’d said earlier that morning, “is the hair of the dog that bit me.”
“What you need,” Alex had returned, “is to attend to your debts.”
It had been enough to sober George. And when Miss Talbot’s invitation had arrived from Edgington Park, summoning the pair of them to a picnic on the grounds, he hadn’t dared to refuse.
Alex’s gaze drifted over him before settling, once again, on Miss Hayes. She was resting on her hip not far from Miss Talbot, her more modest spill of linen skirts bunched up about her ankles, revealing a glimpse of well-worn leather half boots. Since her arrival, only minutes before they’d departed the house, she’d been assiduously avoiding meeting his eyes.
While he couldn’t seem to stop himself from looking at her.
It was aggravating at best. Infuriating at worst. When it came to Laura Hayes, he appeared incapable of exercising control. By rights, he should have been angry at himself. Instead, he was irritated with her.
The plaguing female.
There were faint shadows under her smoke-blue eyes, and a general air of distraction to her manner. She’d hardly strung five words together since they’d sat down.
“You’re peaky, Laura.” Miss Talbot passed her a plate of food. “You must eat something.”
George picked at the chicken on his own plate with a grimace. “No one could eat the amount you’ve given us, Hen. You’ve been too generous, as always.”
“I suppose you’d rather I brought something from Papa’s cellar,” Miss Talbot said. “But you can’t drink your meals, George. You’ll make yourself ill.”
“By the by, what have you brought to drink?” George asked. “Lemonade, I suppose.”
“Naturally. And a bottle of elderberry wine—”
“Aha!”
“—of which you may have one glass. Really, I don’t know what sort of dissipated life you’ve been leading in London, but you’re home now, and you can’t make such a spectacle of yourself as you did when you came to dine at the Park.”
“Every fellow drinks to excess on occasion,” George grumbled. “Even your father, I daresay.”
Miss Talbot glanced at Alex. “Even you, Mr. Archer?”
George laughed. “Archer doesn’t do anything to excess.”
Alex accepted a plate of food from Miss Talbot. “A man mustn’t be a slave to his vices.”
“A commendable philosophy,” she said. “Don’t you agree, Laura?”
Miss Hayes looked up from peeling an orange. For a fraction of a second her eyes locked with his. “Indeed.”
Alex’s fingers tightened on his plate. He felt the unwelcome urge to draw her away somewhere private. To talk with her. To find out if she was safe and well—and to ask if there was anything he could do to alleviate her burdens.
The last was perhaps the most disturbing impulse of all.
He turned his attention to Miss Talbot. She was cutting her chicken into dainty, ladylike bites. She was beautiful. And surprisingly astute, as well. He hadn’t expected her to reprimand George for his drinking, however gently. “Do you often picnic on the grounds?”
“If I can get a party of friends together. Everything is better in company, don’t you find? But it must be a select company, else it fast grows tedious.” Miss Talbot popped a piece of chicken into her mouth. “You look skeptical, sir, but there is good society to be had in Lower Hawley.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Alex said. “Country villages hide all manner of treasures.” Miss Talbot blushed prettily, but it was Miss Hayes’s face to which his gaze gravitated, quite against his will. “The housekeeper at the vicarage mentioned a Roman ruin.”
George reclined back on his elbows, his plate of food abandoned beside him. “An old heap of moldering stones. It used to bring in all sorts of cranks to the village.”
Miss Talbot made a face. “It still does on occasion. And Papa still permits them onto the grounds.”
“They were a ramshackle lot.” George looked at Miss Hayes with a sudden grin. “Do you remember that German fellow? The one who kept asking you to translate for him?”
Miss Hayes continued to section her orange. “He was a harmless tourist.”
“He was impertinent,” Miss Talbot retorted.
“Do you speak German, Miss Hayes?” Alex asked.
She briefly met his eyes again. “A very little. Not enough to mention.”
George laughed. “She said hello to his party of travelers auf deutsch and the fellow was smitten.”
“Hardly.” Miss Hayes ate a section of her orange, pausing to wipe the juice from her mouth with her napkin. “They were friendly people, that’s all. And happy to meet anyone here who spoke their language.” She glanced at Ale
x. “My father was accustomed to traveling to France for his business. He sometimes ventured into Germany, as well. And even into Spain, on occasion. He could greet everyone in their own language.”
Alex smiled slightly. “And taught you to do the same?”
She sectioned another wedge from her orange. “He didn’t plan on my brother and me remaining all of our lives in Lower Hawley.”
“I’d have invited your brother today if I thought he’d come,” Miss Talbot said. “It’s been ages since I’ve seen him. He was always such a dear, trailing after me wherever I went. Why, he must be practically a man grown by now.”
“He’ll be one and twenty next month,” Miss Hayes replied.
Miss Talbot looked aghast. “One and twenty? Good lord. It makes me feel positively aged.”
George snorted.
“How in the world does he occupy himself?” Miss Talbot asked.
“Sketching and painting, mostly,” Miss Hayes said. “He’s become a competent landscape artist, and he’s quite skilled at sketching wildlife. I’ve encouraged him to submit some of his drawings to a natural science journal in Edinburgh.”
“Have you? Perhaps I shall hire him to paint my portrait one day.” She gave Miss Hayes a beneficent smile. “You may tell him so. It will give him something to aspire to.”
Alex wondered if Miss Talbot’s condescension rankled. Miss Hayes hadn’t yet shown any impatience with her friend. And there was no sharp edge to her tone when she addressed Miss Talbot. But Alex couldn’t imagine anyone not feeling some degree of resentment. He knew all too well what it was like to be of unequal status. A veneer of respectability—of wealth and reputation—had done nothing to quell decades of feeling inadequate.
He’d been only a stripling lad when he’d left North Devon, angry and desperate—willing to do anything to get away. He’d even been willing to betray his friends. What use were they when the rest of his life was a misery? Better to save himself. To find a way to forge ahead on his own.
He hadn’t reckoned on what his life would be like without them.
A Convenient Fiction Page 8
