An Unsuitable Heir

by KJ Charles

  Lazarus’s mouth was slightly open. “Are you serious?”

  “I need a hand, mate. You want to give me one?”

  “Yes,” Lazarus said with enough conviction for two, and without making the obvious joke. That fact alone from such a smart-mouthed prick told Mark a lot of what he wanted to know. “Yes. Very much so. I, uh…Thank you. I’ll try not to make you regret it. Where would you like me to start?”

  Mark almost laughed. “You’re keen.”

  “Yes,” Lazarus said. “I really am.”

  “Is that for Nathaniel?”

  Lazarus narrowed his eyes. “Nathaniel makes his own decisions. I’d like to try my hand at honest work. If doing so happens to weight his decisions in my favour, that’s his problem.”

  Mark couldn’t help a grin. “Fair enough. All right, we’ll give it a try, see how it goes, then. Oh, and…” He held his hand out. “Mark.”

  Lazarus took it. “Justin. And thanks.”

  Chapter 7

  Pen carefully ran the little stick over his lashes, coating the beeswax he’d already applied in black powder, did a bit of fiddling, took a look at the effect, and judged it good.

  “Painting?” Greta asked unnecessarily.

  “Mmm.”

  “Trollop. Do you even know where you’re going?”

  “No.”

  Greta narrowed her eyes. “Are you making a point?”

  “Yes, I am,” Pen said, and reached for the red lip salve.

  That conversation last night had been unsettling, after all the talking they’d done. Pen had been so sure Mark understood. To hear that being trapped into the earldom wouldn’t be that bad…Perhaps it wouldn’t be, perhaps he could survive it, but Pen had no interest in finding out. He’d tried survival; he preferred living. He didn’t want to think that Mark was one more person who’d say, Yes, of course I understand, but you don’t have to dress like that, be like that, where anyone can see, do you? Can’t you stop until it’s convenient?

  Pen couldn’t, and wouldn’t. He pressed his reddened lips together to even the colour and shook his hair back. Greta had put them both in curlpapers the night before, giving Pen highly satisfactory ringlets. He wore gold studs in his ears, along with a well-cut suit that flattered his broad shoulders. It was very nearly right.

  “Can I borrow your chiffon scarf? The pink one?”

  Greta dug it out of a pile and threw it over. Pen removed his neckcloth and instead wound the scarf, a frothy thing in delicate pale rose, around his neck. “There. How do I look?”

  Greta surveyed him. “Handsome and beautiful.”

  “Why, thank you,” Pen said with a curtsey. “Are you going out before tonight’s performance?”

  “No. I want to finish my book.”

  Pen came over to drop an arm around her shoulders. She hugged him back, silent for a few minutes, and finally said, “You know I want this to work for you. I do like him.”

  “I do too.”

  “And it would get you off my hands. Stop you cluttering the place up.”

  “That would be a relief,” Pen agreed, pulling her closer.

  “I miss you a bit,” Greta said, into his chest. “I need to find a chap of my own, don’t I?”

  “The queue forms on the right of our dressing-room door every evening.”

  Greta nudged him painfully. “A real one, you idiot.”

  “I know.” Pen worried about that. He was sure Greta would never marry a man who wouldn’t accept her brother as he was, and he didn’t want to be an obstacle to her happiness. He also knew that marriage meant children and once Greta started increasing, she wouldn’t be able to fly.

  No point borrowing trouble. What would be would be, and they were happy now. He kissed the top of her head. “Find someone lovely.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Greta assured him. “And in the meantime there’s always novels. Yes, come in.”

  That was in response to a knock. A stagehand stuck his head in the door. “Cab waiting for you outside, Mr. Starling, and Miss Starling’s to come too.”

  “What? Whose cab?”

  “A Mr. Braguggugh,” the stagehand said. “Bloke with one arm.”

  The twins exchanged looks. “He’s full of surprises,” Greta said. “If I’m not given time to dress he’ll have to take me as I come.”

  “You look lovely,” Pen assured her. Greta was wearing a plain day dress, and had twisted her hair into a simple knot. It suited her very well, in his opinion. “Or I can tell him to wait if you’d like to change.”

  “No, let’s go,” Greta said. “I’m fascinated.”

  There was indeed a cab outside, its horse stamping impatiently, and Mark leaning by it. His face was tense, and when he saw Pen, it froze over altogether.

  “Hello,” Pen said. “What’s this about?”

  “Uh,” Mark said. “Hell’s teeth. Pen, I hate to ask this, but can you take the paint off?”

  Pen felt his stomach plunge. “What? No, I can’t, actually.”

  “Please,” Mark said. “I wish you would.”

  “Why? Because if you have some idea to go somewhere terribly conventional, I think you should have told me first.” Pen didn’t feel like dressing conventionally; he certainly didn’t feel like being pushed into male attire without warning, by Mark of all people. “What’s this about?”

  “I’ll leave you to it,” Greta suggested.

  “No, please don’t. Look—” Mark glanced at his fob watch, then shoved it back in his pocket. “Blast. All right, I don’t suppose it makes a difference. Come on, get in. We’re going to be late.”

  Greta glanced at Pen, then stepped up and swung herself in. “If you insist. Come on, Pen, let’s solve this mystery.”

  Pen got in behind her. Mark shut the door on them.

  “He’s sitting by the driver,” Pen said blankly. “What the devil?”

  “I don’t know. If he’s got some sort of plan in mind, it had better be a good one.”

  “It does seem a bit odd,” Pen agreed dubiously. “Bother. Should I have washed off the paint?”

  Greta shrugged. “Look, he knows you. And you trust him. So either it can’t be that bad, or it is that bad and it would be a good idea for you to find out before you fall any further in love.”

  Pen stared at her, silenced. Greta gave him a quick smile, shadowed by the grimy glass of the hansom’s windows. “It is rather obvious. You’re hopelessly smitten, which is marvellous, except that it’s been ten days at most and I doubt he’s actually perfect. Nobody is. So we’ll go along and see what’s actually happening, and you can decide from there. But we won’t worry about him getting it wrong until we see that he has. Yes?”

  Pen nodded. Greta put her hand over his, and the hansom rattled on in silence.

  They emerged onto a street somewhere off Haymarket. Rain and wind spattered the pavement, and Mark was huddled in his coat as he handed Greta out of the cab. “Come on, let’s get inside.”

  “Where on earth are we?”

  “Tell you in a minute. Come on.”

  They headed up to what looked like a townhouse. There was a man at the front window, watching out—dark-skinned, Pen saw. “Gret. Look. Isn’t that the Mysterious Stranger?”

  It was their nickname, gleaned from reading too many sensation novels, for a strikingly good-looking Indian man who had come to see them several times, always taking a box. “Good Lord,” Greta said as the man turned away, letting the curtain drop. “I think it is. Where are we?”

  The door, its knocker furled in black crepe, opened and they were ushered in. Pen wondered if this was a club of some kind. It looked like a private home to his inexperienced eye, albeit an extremely wealthy one. A footman with a professionally blank expression took coats and hats, his presence making Pen feel unable to say what he wanted to, which was, What on earth is going on?

  “In here.” Mark ushered them to where a door was held open by another liveried man. He indicated Pen should proceed, so he wal
ked in, Greta following.

  “Good God,” said one lone voice, and there was an intake of breath.

  The room was full. To one side there was a bent, bald, elderly man with a stout, prosperous-looking fellow by him. In the middle of the room were three men in black frock coats: one elderly, looking like Pen’s idea of a lawyer; one in his forties, straight-backed and lavishly moustached; one very dark and rather handsome. Over by the window stood the Indian man—it was the Mysterious Stranger, Pen was sure—with a nondescript, clerkly sort of fellow, and a slim, sly man, neither of them dressed like much. All of them were looking at Pen, and all of them had their mouths open, and none of them looked like men who would ever paint or indulge in any sort of illicit activities—well, except the sly, grey-eyed one, who looked like a right piece of work—and what the bloody hell—

  “Right,” Mark said from the door. “This is Pen and Greta Godfrey, professionally known as Starling. Full names Repentance and Regret, children of Emmeline Godfrey, who secretly married Edmund Taillefer in 1850. Pen, Greta, these are the Taillefers. Your family.”

  It took a second for the words to sink in, and as they did, Pen shut his eyes, unable to believe the betrayal. He could feel Greta drawing closer to him just as he could feel all the hostile or uncomprehending eyes on him, and he turned to Mark on an upsurge of rage greater than he’d felt in years. “You shit.”

  All the Taillefers exploded into speech at once. Pen didn’t care. He stood, staring at Mark, who met his eyes blankly. He was propped against the closed door—keeping them in, Pen realised—and he’d done this, he’d forced him into this sodding, sodding earldom….

  “You absolute bastard,” he said, almost incredulously. “You sod. How could you?”

  “You’re a liar and these people are nothing to do with us and we’re leaving,” Greta said over him, at full volume. It didn’t help—everyone else in the room seemed to be shouting except for the Mysterious Stranger and his sly companion. It was a riot of angry, red-faced noise, Greta’s voice rising with shrill rage over the bellows of men, Pen shouting to keep himself from curling over in misery, hearing his own voice crack. Mark stood, inexpressive, watching.

  Eventually the tall, dark man took the floor, identifying himself as Nathaniel Roy, the one who’d paid Mark in the first place. He was imposingly large and well-dressed, and he spoke like a rich man. Pen knew that sort: men who always had whatever they wanted by right of birth, the kind who thought they could have their pick of the girls who danced and sang. The kind to whom even Greta would offer false smiles and flattering words, because it was too dangerous to thwart their whims.

  The kind Pen was born to be. He would not.

  If he’d been inclined to fairness or objectivity at that moment, he would have said Roy spoke with persuasive clarity on his behalf, but he didn’t feel fair. As he listened to the man recite Mother’s miserable history of betrayal at the hands of Edmund Taillefer, he felt nothing but a rising sense of powerless rage, and rage at his powerlessness, and an absolute determination to get the hell out of this trap.

  Roy concluded in a strong, clear, commanding voice. “Mr. Repentance Taillefer is the heir to Crowmarsh, the Earl of Moreton, and thus the head of your family.”

  “I will not have this nonsense!” the stockbroker man spluttered.

  “Nor will I,” Pen said. “You’ve got no proof of this, and we were brought here under false pretences.”

  “This is nothing to do with us,” Greta added. “We don’t know what you’re talking about and we aren’t part of this family.” Her voice rang with scorn.

  “You see?” the stockbroker demanded. “If even this mountebank denies it—”

  Pen swung to him. “What did you call me?”

  “Excuse me!” the sly man said in remarkably penetrating tones, shoving himself into the centre of the room. “My name’s Lazarus. I work with Mr. Braglewicz as an enquiry agent.”

  Lazarus, the man this had been done to save, was Mark’s partner? Pen opened his mouth to give his opinion at that, and had his breath stolen by the man’s next words. “Last year, when I was working for myself, I met Emmeline Godfrey. She was looking for her children.”

  Pen could feel Greta’s tension by his side. They waited together in frozen silence as Lazarus told them how their broken mother, the true Countess of Moreton, had fled the Potters and come to London searching for them. It would have taken her months to scrape the pennies together, hiding them from Erasmus’s greedy eyes. Pen’s heart felt as though it was lodged too high in his chest.

  “She came to me,” Lazarus said. “She showed me this.” He pulled a cloth wrapping off something he’d held, and Pen’s jaw dropped as he saw the picture. Greta’s hand found his and gripped it, painfully hard.

  They’d had it done the day before they ran. Greta had managed to persuade Mother to take them to the travelling fair, supposedly to buy cloth for a dress to wear at her wedding to Erasmus. They’d spent a shilling they could ill afford to have the artist draw them all together. Mother couldn’t fight for them, but she had loved them all the same, and they’d both taken comfort from leaving her the drawing now in Lazarus’s hands.

  Pen grabbed for it. Lazarus pulled it away, and said, “You’re like her. Not so much in features, but in the expressions. She missed you both so much.”

  It hurt like the slice of a razor, first numbness and then burning pain. “Give it to me. Please.”

  “Is it yours?”

  To claim it would be to name himself Repentance Godfrey. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t not.

  “It’s no good,” Mark said, voice gentle. “I’m sorry, but it’s done.”

  Greta’s hand tightened on Pen’s. “It’s ours. That’s us. That’s Mama.”

  Lazarus had more questions. Pen didn’t care; there was only one thing he wanted to know about the precious portrait. “Why did she give it to you?”

  “She didn’t,” Lazarus said. “She left it with me temporarily, in the hope I could use it to find you. She never came back for it, I believe because the Potters forced her to return to Norfolk. I didn’t know anything of that at the time, so I didn’t look for her. I could have helped her, and I let her go. I’m sorry.”

  This was the man for whose safety Mark had traded Pen’s happiness. “She could have found us,” he said thickly. “If we’d known she was here—”

  Lazarus held out the picture. He didn’t drop his eyes, but Pen thought he looked ashamed. They should look ashamed, the whole damned lot of them. He loathed them all.

  He and Greta turned away together. Her eyes glittered with tears; her jaw was set against letting them fall.

  “One more thing,” Lazarus said behind them. “A question for the Taillefer family, since you’re all here. Which of you ordered the murders?”

  There was a stunned second and then the room erupted again with outraged upper-class bellows. Pen didn’t look round; he didn’t care. Greta’s eyes were brimming, and as he watched, a tear spilled over and ran down her cheek.

  “She came,” she whispered. “Pen, we could have met her, if we’d told her, if we’d known…”

  Pen pulled her close, feeling her shoulders rigid and set, her deep breathing to keep control. “I know. I know.”

  “Um,” said someone quietly. “Excuse me?”

  Pen looked around, to see the Mysterious Stranger and the clerk hovering awkwardly.

  “Hello,” said the Mysterious Stranger, holding his hand out. Pen had expected him to have an Indian accent, but he spoke like any other Englishman. “My name’s Clement Talleyfer, Clem. I’m Edmund’s half brother, which makes me your uncle, although that seems odd, doesn’t it, and I wanted to welcome you to the family.”

  Greta raised her head to give him an incredulous look. Clem made a face. “Yes, such as it is, I know. But I’m pleased you’ve been found and I’m very, very sorry about everything. About your mother, and Edmund, and all of this. And also I wanted to say, I’ve seen you both pe
rform and you’re absolutely wonderful. Really quite marvellous. It’s a privilege to be related to you.”

  “Is that what our other relatives think?” Pen asked, under the ongoing shouting, in which the tall lawyer, Roy, was taking a considerable part.

  “Good heavens, no, not at all. Sorry. Let me introduce you to Tim, though, Timothy Taillefer, who is your…oh good heavens…second cousin? Is that right, Tim?”

  “It is, old chap. I’m very pleased to meet you both.” The man called Tim looked extraordinarily ordinary, with fair hair and none of the strong Taillefer features, and a suit that, unlike most of the tailoring in the room, hadn’t been carefully measured to fit. He had a pleasant face, though, as he smiled at them both. “I’m, er, not quite sure what’s going on, I must admit. Who is that man Lazarus, and…did he say murder? He can’t possibly be accusing Desmond, can he?”

  “That’s Desmond there,” Clem told Pen helpfully, indicating the ancient man. “He’s your great-uncle, and he was going to be the new Lord Moreton.”

  “Who are the other people?” Greta asked.

  “The man with the moustache is Mr. Conyers, Edmund’s man of business. If there’s anything you want to know about your father—”

  “No,” Greta and Pen said together.

  Clem looked a little taken aback. “Well, if there is, you should ask him. Although he’s working for Phineas now—that’s Phineas, the portly man, he’s Desmond’s son. That’s all your family except for Tim’s sister Lily, who’s in India.”

  “Our family?” Greta said. “Our family was our mother. This isn’t our family.”

  “I’m afraid it is,” Clem said. “That is, I dare say the lawyers will have to do whatever it is—”

  “I’m not going to court,” Pen said flatly. “I refuse.”

  “What’s that?” The speaker was the stout man, Phineas. “Did you hear that? He’s refused to pursue this! Well, I will, sir, I will see you in the witness-box—”

  “I hope that it will not be necessary,” said the elderly lawyer. He looked around seventy, tired and white-haired, with gilt-framed spectacles. “Gentlemen! May I have your attention? For those who do not know me, my name is Hapgood, and I have been the legal representative for the Earls of Moreton for almost forty years. Mr. Roy has presented a number of documents to support…” He looked over his spectacles at Pen. “For the moment and without prejudice, I suggest I should refer to this gentleman as Mr. Repentance.”