An Unsuitable Heir

by KJ Charles

  “Right,” Mark said with caution. “Not a problem, then?”

  “Oh, well, I went to boarding school,” Tim said dismissively. “Half the boys were at it, not to mention a few of the masters. And you know, Clem’s my friend as well as my cousin, and he does let things slip, the dear old chap. Honestly, if I’d thought for half a minute instead of rushing off, and then accusing her like a cursed blackguard—Good God, why didn’t she say?”

  “She’ll always put Pen first,” Mark said. “Like he’ll always put her first. They protect each other.”

  “Yes,” Tim said. “Yes, of course they do, because they’re loyal. She’s loyal. It’s utterly marvellous. She’s the most extraordinary woman.”

  “You should probably go and have a word with her,” Mark suggested. “I expect she’s got a bit to say to you.”

  “I’m sure she does.” Tim flashed him a rueful grin. “I must beg your pardon too. I’ve no excuse for being so rude, except that I was planning to ask her to marry me tonight, you see, so I was rather upset.”

  “Blimey. You work fast.”

  Tim gave a helpless, laughing shrug. “I’m twenty-nine years old and I’ve never thought of marriage in my life, and now I can’t think of anything else. I’ve been restraining myself for a week. Do you have any idea how wonderful she is?”

  “Some,” Mark said. “It runs in the family.”

  That stopped Tim’s rhapsodies mid-flow. He reared back, looking a little startled, then he gave a deliberate nod, and said, “I see. Of course. I suppose this is all very difficult for you.”

  “Ah, well, not your problem,” Mark said. “You go have a word with Greta. Lady Greta, even.”

  “Oh Lord, yes.” Tim grimaced. “I’m not even sure if it’s fair to ask now, you know. An earl’s sister, and of course Pen will give her a generous settlement—she could have her pick of husbands. I should probably wait, shouldn’t I?”

  “I shouldn’t worry about that, mate. If she doesn’t want you, she won’t take you.”

  This seemed to cheer Tim up. “Yes, you’re quite right, she won’t, will she? I’m going to—” He indicated upstairs.

  “Carry on. Good luck.”

  “Thank you. And thank you again for telling me. You didn’t have to and I’m very grateful, and, er, I hope it goes without saying, I’ll do whatever I can to help Pen.”

  He hurried off. Mark looked after him, shaking his head, and set off about his own business.

  Chapter 13

  Pen huddled on the settle, staring at the fire. As children, he and Greta had made up stories from the shapes they pretended to see in the flames, as a comfort and a distraction. He couldn’t see any comfort now.

  He was condemned to aristocracy, and he’d be lucky if that was all he got condemned to. Desmond had clearly not resigned himself in the slightest to the loss of the title so briefly within his grasp; Phineas’s loathing had been evident in his voice. It made Pen feel sick, and afraid. He’d hated very few people in his life, and when he did it was for good reason. He couldn’t comprehend what it must be like to have such deep wells of loathing in your soul, such endless reserves of malice to give away and spread around.

  At least Greta would be all right. Tim had swept her off with a bewildering confusion of apologies, and since she hadn’t returned and Pen hadn’t heard the sounds of battle, he assumed all was resolved. Mark hadn’t come up yet, nearly an hour later. Pen would have gone to look for him but he didn’t want to roam this dark draughty house on his own. Didn’t want to meet a murderer, to jump at shadows, to encounter someone who hated him for his existence.

  Phineas was probably going to bring a prosecution, or make the last one public gossip, and he had the law on his side to do it. There was nothing that could stop him except any desire he might have to protect his family name, and Pen didn’t believe in that for a second. He’d read a lot about nobility and honour; everything he’d seen suggested it was all a lot of tosh. Some people did what was right, most people did what they could get away with, and some of them did what they could get away with while pretending they were doing what was right. Pen was quite sure that when Phineas mounted his spiteful revenge, he’d say he’d been forced to it by morality, and probably believe it too.

  “Christ,” he said aloud and put his hands over his face.

  He would have to cut his hair if there was a trial. Boulton and Park, who’d lived as women for so long, had been made to appear in court in male attire with hastily grown moustaches, part of the defence’s assertion that they were merely young men on a lark. He’d have to do the same, for months if not years. He’d have to cut away and ignore every part of himself that didn’t fit the box, and he felt the nauseating lurch of a dizzy spell at the thought.

  He’d be a recluse, he decided. Perhaps Greta would want to live here and administer the estate, and Pen could quietly slip away somewhere nobody would find him….

  At twenty-three. He didn’t want to be a bloody recluse at twenty-three. He wanted to go back to the Grand Cirque and the Jack and Knave, drink gin and talk to people he didn’t have to hide from. He wanted to live in a world where people didn’t make a great stupid fuss about what other people wore or who they kissed, and he wasn’t sure how that made him the unreasonable one.

  Stairs creaked under a firm, rapid foot. Pen twisted around and felt something unclench a bit at the sight of Mark.

  “All right.” Mark came up quickly, sat by him, and pulled him over. Pen’s shoulders felt immovable for a moment, so solid and tense that he had to force them to relax, and then he slumped against Mark and felt lips on his hair, warm breath on his ear. “Oh, Pen. Love. I’m here. I’ll stand with you, you know that. We all will.”

  “It won’t do any good,” Pen said, throat clogging. “You know—”

  “No, listen. I’ve telegraphed Nathaniel. He knows every brief in London who defends queer sorts, went to school with half of ’em, and he’s a bloody good man at getting things done. Plus, he’s an archbishop’s son and you’re an earl. Phineas won’t know what hit him.”

  “But if I have to go to court—”

  “I know,” Mark said. “I know you’re scared and I know you’ll have to dress up and pretend and make yourself look like something you aren’t. But I won’t forget who you are, not if you grew a handlebar moustache and wore a sack suit and pretended to be a bloke the rest of your life. I won’t be fooled and I won’t forget, or let you forget either. I never will.”

  “Thanks,” Pen said. “That’s…something.”

  “Not enough.” Mark rubbed his face against Pen’s hair. “I bloody hope Nathaniel has something intelligent to say.”

  “Even if he can wave a wand and make Phineas go away, though, even if it was only the earldom, it won’t be all right ever again. Will it? You say you’ll be here but how can we? I’m sure people who went to Eton and have never been arrested and wouldn’t be suspected can have ‘close friends’ who spend time with them—”

  “People who belong in earl’s houses,” Mark said. “Yeah. I don’t know, Pen. We’ll do something. I’m not going away while you want me here, and that’s the end of it. I’ll sort something out, somehow.”

  Pen wasn’t sure he believed that, but he let himself pretend he did and burrowed under Mark’s arm, leaning on his practical, competent kindness every bit as much as his sturdy frame. “And we’ll just get on with it?”

  “That’s right. Just get on.”

  “It’s all I ever wanted to do. Get on with my life in peace.”

  “I know, love. I know.”

  They watched the fire in silence for a while, Pen trying not to think, because thinking brought nothing good. He simply lay against Mark, breathing with him, feeling right, even if it was only right here and right now.

  “Was that what you were doing downstairs?” he asked eventually. “Sending a telegram?”

  “Sent a couple,” Mark said. “Which caused a bit of a fuss, needing to get a boy out, but H
enry got it sorted. Why’s he called James when his name’s Henry? Come to that, why’s Pomona called Jane?”

  “Promise not to tell your mother this,” Pen said, “but all the footmen are called James and all the maids are called Jane. We used to use their actual names, but when my father married his second wife, she found it too much trouble to learn them, and apparently saying Jane and James or what have you is what the best people in London do. So then everyone had to learn to call them all Jane and James in front of the family instead of the names they already knew. It was very confusing, apparently.”

  Mark gave his response some consideration, and settled for, “Christ’s sake.”

  “I’ll change that,” Pen said. “Tomorrow, in fact. Nobody is going to be called Jane or James any more. Unless that’s actually their name, I mean. I wouldn’t ban people from being called Jane. That would be unreasonable.”

  “No half measures,” Mark said. “Either everyone in this house is called Jane, or nobody is.”

  They were both shaking with laughter, needing the release of absurdity. Giggling together and holding one another felt like a refuge from everything that pressed down on Pen, and he shut out thoughts of the future and let himself take strength from the now.

  He couldn’t face the evening meal in company. He rang for a tray to be brought up instead, feeling like a demanding monster as he did it, and a fraught-looking Pomona informed him that everyone else in the house was doing the same. Mr. Hapgood and Desmond had retired to bed; Phineas was closeted with Mr. Conyers; Tim and Greta were the only people in the dining hall.

  “At least they’re happy,” Pen said to Mark after Pomona had left. “She was so upset after Tim shouted at her.” Greta normally rose to challenge like a lioness with a grudge; Pen had not fully realised how much she had come to care for Tim until he’d seen her cry. “Thank you for talking to Tim, by the way. I was going to but I didn’t have a chance. Was it difficult?”

  “Nah. To be honest, I think he’d have taken pretty much anything as long as it wasn’t Greta with me, but I don’t reckon he’s bothered anyway. Easy sort of bloke, that.”

  “Oh, God bless him. You don’t still suspect him, do you?”

  “No, I don’t,” Mark said. “I think he’s all right. And I think a bunch of other stuff too, but do you mind if we talk about it tomorrow? I want to chew over some stuff and have a word with Justin, too.”

  “Oh. Yes, of course.” Did that mean he was going back to London? The thought made Pen feel abruptly alone, and hard on the heels of that came the realisation that he was always going to feel this way, because Mark would always have to go. He’d go, and Greta would marry Tim, and Pen would be alone.

  He bit his lip. “Whatever’s best. Could you…could you just hold me now?”

  “Planning to,” Mark said. “And I’m staying in your room tonight, and we’re locking the door.”

  —

  They did exactly that. Pen didn’t feel like anything more than holding, and Mark didn’t suggest it. They lay together, skin to skin, talking quietly, making silly jokes and telling stories. They were both doing whatever they could to avoid talking or thinking about the future and hold off the sense of all-encompassing dread, and it worked, a bit.

  They went to sleep in one another’s arms, drifting off together in peace, and woke up to a banging on the door that sounded a lot more like a police raid than the maid with hot water.

  “The hell?” Mark rasped. He rolled out of bed and went to get his soft old robe from the little room as Pen sat up. “No, stay there, don’t answer it. I want to know who it is.”

  Another flurry of hard knocks. “Mr. Pen!”

  “That’s Henry,” Pen said, grabbing his own robe and pulling it on. “Just a moment!” He waved Mark back into the doorway of the anteroom—after years with theatrical types, he thought about staging—and opened the door.

  Henry looked flustered and panicky. “Mr. Pen, come quick. Please.”

  “What’s happened?” Pen demanded.

  “Mr. Phineas. It’s Mr. Phineas, sir.”

  “What does he want?” Pen demanded. “Actually, I don’t care. Whatever it is, he can wait.”

  “No, but he can’t, sir. He’s dead.”

  Pen blinked at him. “Say that again? It sounded like dead.”

  “Yessir. He’s dead.”

  “What of?” Pen demanded. “I mean, what happened?”

  “I dunno! He’s just dead.”

  “What the bloody hell,” Mark said. “Phineas? Are you sure?”

  “Please come, sir,” Henry said. “Only we don’t know what to do.”

  “Two seconds,” Pen said, and grabbed for trousers.

  Pen’s room was on the first floor east, Phineas on the first floor west, on the other side of the house. Pen, in trousers and bare feet, untucked shirt, and bright silk robe, headed round the corridor accordingly and was stopped by Henry. “No, this way. He’s in the Long Gallery, sir.”

  “What? What’s he doing there?”

  “Bugger all, I’d think,” Henry said, and slapped his hand to his mouth with a look of appalled horror. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean—”

  “You’re shocked,” Mark said. “It takes people that way sometimes. Better than crying or being sick, if you ask me.”

  “Absolutely,” Pen agreed. “Just don’t say anything like that in front of Desmond. Oh God, Desmond. Has someone told him?”

  Henry nodded. “Mr. Timothy went, sir.”

  They hurried down, around, along, and came to the long space they’d had cleared for tumbling. A form lay in the centre of the space, on the bare boards. Mr. Hapgood was on one of the window seats, looking old and shocked, wearing a surprisingly bright paisley gown and slippers, his bare calves looking scrawny and improper. Greta, in her long flannel robe, sat by the maid Pomona, her arm round the girl’s shoulders; Mr. Conyers stood over them both, tall and commanding. The butler, Ponsonby, was wringing his hands, face struck with what looked like genuine grief.

  “Mark, thank goodness,” Greta said. “Do something.”

  That was what Pen had had in mind to say. He lagged behind slightly as Mark strode over to the crumpled heap that had been Phineas.

  “Any idea what happened?”

  “Poor Pomona found him in here this morning.”

  Mark went to his knees by the body. “Cold. And stiff, too. He’s been dead for at least two hours, probably a fair bit more. What time is it?”

  “Quarter past seven.”

  “And he’s fully dressed. Was he usually up before six in the morning?”

  “No, sir,” Pomona said. “Hot water at seven thirty, and breakfast at eight.”

  “Could he have been here since last night?”

  “God,” Pen said. Phineas’s body seemed smaller than the man had, and weaker. It was an indecent, too-intimate sight. The thought of this thing lying unnoticed on the floor all night made him shudder. “The poor man.”

  “Who might have come through here last night?” Mark asked patiently.

  “I walk around the ground floor each night, before bed, to extinguish any lamps or candles,” Ponsonby offered.

  “Last night?”

  “I came through here, yes, sir, at perhaps ten o’clock. I didn’t—didn’t see—”

  “You couldn’t have missed him if he was here like this,” Mark said. “Who saw him last?”

  “He was with Mr. Conyers in the evening,” Pomona offered. “I brought a tray.”

  “We discussed Lord Moreton’s claim, and Mr. Phineas’s evidence regarding his character and conduct, until perhaps eight o’clock,” Mr. Conyers said. “He left me in a mood which I might call confrontational, expressing his intent to speak further to Lord Moreton.”

  “Well, he didn’t,” Pen said. “I was in the Small Drawing Room till I went to bed and Mr. Braglewicz was with me all the time. We didn’t see anyone.”

  “No, he didn’t come up,” Mark agreed. “Who saw him after eigh
t? Anyone? Tim?”

  Tim shook his head. “He’ll have bid his father good night, though. We can ask Desmond. He’s dressing now.”

  “Does it matter?” Mr. Conyers asked. “Mr. Phineas is dead, his father deprived of his only child. Must Mr. Desmond be interrogated about this tragedy?”

  “Tragedy,” Mark said. “What do you think he died of?”

  “How the devil—I beg your pardon, Lady Regret. How would I be able to answer that? I suppose his heart. An apoplexy.”

  “He was a fleshy gentleman,” Ponsonby agreed sadly. “I believe his doctor warned him about overexertion.”

  “I don’t reckon his doctor could have helped this,” Mark said. “It looks to me like he was smothered.”

  “Oh, no,” Greta said. “No, no, no. What the bloody hell is going on?”

  Mr. Hapgood’s eyes bulged. Pen put in, “How do you know?”

  “I don’t, for sure, but I’ve got a mate in a mortuary,” Mark said. “Works there, I mean. His eyes are bloodshot, and that happens with suffocation.”

  Pen had a momentary, horrible memory of the stifling pressure over his own face. “But—no, you can’t be right. How would someone smother him if he wasn’t in bed? And if he was in bed, why would he be dressed?”

  “I don’t think this was done with a pillow,” Mark said. “I could be wrong, I’m no doctor. But I saw something like this once in a chap I was set on to find. He’d been in a brawl, and someone punched him in the throat—”

  “There is a lady present!” said Mr. Hapgood sharply.

  “Yes, and she wants to hear this,” Greta said. “Go on.”

  “Hard blow.” Mark mimed the action to his own throat with his fist. “That’s a good way to take a man down fast in a fight, or to frighten him. Someone lands that on you, you can’t breathe for a bit, you remember it for the next few days when you swallow or talk. Right? But if the punch lands too hard, your windpipe swells, much as your face does when you get a black eye. Only, when your windpipe swells, it closes.” He made a tube with his hand and then clenched the fingers. Pen shuddered. “It’s a dangerous punch. Men land it with no intention of doing more than winning a fight, and end up swinging.”