Fortune’s Final Folly

by McKnight, Christina

  More to the point, what would Kate have chosen if she’d had the means to seek out a better future than her parents had given her?

  She’d like to believe she would still be exactly where she was—not in Joshua’s upmarket office, but in Cheapside, living and working in the building her mother and father had worked hard to obtain and leave to their only daughter.

  “When I began taking on other solicitors, it was necessary for my assistant to consolidate my uncle’s records. However, nothing of import was discarded. If a record of your benefactor exists, it will be in here.” He pushed open the door, and a clerk followed them into the room, lighting several wall sconces and pulling back the drapes that covered the small window in the back wall. “The files are arranged by year for past clients. And within each year, by name.”

  “Do you know how long the parcels have been coming?” she asked, taking in the large room with row after row of shelves that reached the ceiling. The room was larger and held more paper than Albert’s Bookshop. She’d been visiting the bookseller since she’d learned to read and still had yet to explore every section. A room this size could easily take decades to scour.

  When Joshua didn’t respond, she glanced up at him as he nodded to the clerk, who departed the room, leaving the door ajar in his wake.

  “As long as I can remember,” he replied once they were alone. “Four years, at least. Which is when I began working for my uncle.”

  “I know my parents moved to London shortly after I was born”—she’d nearly said after I came to live with them, but that was information she’d only recently been able to speak with Joshua about, and she wasn’t certain if she was prepared to speak further on the matter—“and my father took over the vicarage. Originally, I thought the funds came from his congregation.”

  “That is a good enough place to begin,” he mused, rubbing his chin as he scanned the room. “Sometime between five and nineteen years ago. I suppose my idea to arrange the files in such a manner was not my brightest notion.”

  She laughed, the task ahead of them daunting. “There must be shelf after shelf of files.”

  “On the contrary.” He started through the room, headed toward the shelving unit closest to the back wall and the light streaming in from the window. “During that time, it was only my uncle and his two assistants. Every once in a while, he brought me in to help with menial tasks. Now, if it had been in the past four years, we’d need to enlist the help of every Stuart and Lords clerk.”

  Joshua began removing boxes from shelves and stacking them on a desk in the corner. It took Kate a few minutes to realize he was pulling all the boxes labeled with an E.

  For Elliott.

  The man had taken an insurmountable task—at least, in Kate’s opinion—and reduced it to under twenty boxes. He narrowed it down even further when he opened the lids of a few, retrieved a folder to review, then shook his head and slid the boxes back on the shelf. She could not take her eyes off him as he moved swiftly through the room, the muscles under his coat and along his back straining as he worked. His movements required more strength and agility than she suspected your average solicitor possessed. The shelves were stacked to the ceiling, and he often needed to climb onto the wooden racks to retrieve a box. And all of it was accomplished without breaking a sweat nor removing his jacket. She could certainly see why he’d felt qualified to offer his assistance with the schoolroom.

  “You are very accomplished with the way the files are stored.” It was as close to a compliment as she could come without mentioning the accomplished way he pulled himself up onto the shelves and then jumped down, all without spilling the contents of a single box or wrinkling the fabric of his shirt and jacket where it pulled tightly across his shoulders. And she would not dare allow herself to ponder the fit of his trousers that were at eye level during his many climbs. They were at his office to discover the secrets of her past, yet Kate found it rather difficult to suppress her need to explore Joshua’s secrets.

  His brow rose as if he’d read her musings. “You cannot think my uncle made it so easy for me to earn my place in his office, Miss Kate.”

  She very nearly sighed with relief. They’d been speaking of his uncle.

  She gave him an overzealous smile, thinking back to what she knew of Michael Stuart. He’d been friendly, jovial, and had arrived at the parish or the schoolroom regularly as if he offered her father friendship, as well as serving in a more official capacity. To Kate, he had only been known as her father’s friend, Michael, not as a solicitor, and certainly not as my lord.

  “When I was seven, I was charged with sweeping the office. By twelve, I’d gained enough knowledge from my uncle that he allowed me to transport missives and documents to and from the courts. Before I departed for Oxford to obtain my proper law education, he gave me the task of researching different laws for him.” Joshua pulled out the desk chair and gestured for her to sit. “There is no task at Stuart and Lords I have not been assigned to at some point in time. Finding my way around a storage room is one of my best skills.”

  Kate wanted to share how similar she and Joshua were. They’d both worked tirelessly and gained the skills needed for their chosen professions.

  There were still many boxes to search with no guarantee they’d find any useful information that would help them. “Do you truly believe we will find anything?”

  “Do not be so glum,” he chided with a smile. “If there is a record, with any luck, it will be in one of these boxes.”

  “Luck,” she scoffed, sitting in the chair. “I haven’t had much of that of late.”

  “True,” he mused, removing the lids from two boxes. “Then let us put our trust in fate. What fortune does fate gain by allowing a fire to ravish your schoolroom and leave you homeless?”

  Kate laughed if only to suppress the sorrow that coursed through her. Since awakening at Joshua’s townhouse, she hadn’t allowed herself to wallow in self-pity or dwell on everything she’d lost in the fire. “You forgot, penniless.”

  “If we find what we are looking for, my hope is that you won’t be penniless for long.”

  “You have more optimism than I can muster, at least in my situation.” She focused on the files he’d stacked in front of her, thumbing through the folders. Easton. Edgewood. Edmonds. Elmer. Eskins. Ewing.

  No Elliott.

  She set the files aside and removed the lid from the next box.

  “If you keep the faith, fortune always follows.” He returned another box to its place on the shelf.

  The son of a duke was far more likely to find fortune than a woman born in Cheapside. Fortune was practically bred into men of the upper class. Joshua’s idea of faith and Kate’s view on it were very different. Faith was something that allowed her people to make it through long, stormy nights with no heat and little to eat, knowing that tomorrow would bring nothing different than the day before. Still, those of the working class raised themselves from their flea-ridden beds, dressed in their worn clothes, and trudged through their day, only to return to their beds hungry and cold once more the next night.

  She shook her head to clear her maudlin, dour thoughts.

  What would her father say if he were alive to witness her faithless musings?

  Besides, Joshua could no more be held accountable for the circumstances surrounding his birth than she was.

  They were both fortunate in their own ways.

  “Ah-ha!” Joshua held a folder above his head. “Here it is. And in record time.”

  He placed the file on the table in front of her and retreated.

  “Go ahead, look at it,” he prodded.

  Kate glanced over his shoulder, wishing she felt even a small measure of the excitement clearly shining in his expression. She was uncertain what was worse: not finding the file they sought, or discovering it didn’t hold the answers she longed for.

  She ran her fingers along the edge of the file and over the word: Elliott/De Vere – Via Mr. Caleb Abelston, Solicit
or (The Duke and Duchess of Shrewbury).

  Except for her own surname, she recognized none of the others.

  She reread the label, praying something would spark her memory, but…nothing.

  She’d never heard the name De Vere, nor was she acquainted with a Mr. Caleb Abelston. And the closest she’d come to meeting a true duke was Joshua, and he was only the second son of a duke.

  “I do not know any of these people,” she confessed. “What of you?”

  “Abelston was my uncle’s friend. He passed away not long after I left for Oxford.” He stepped forward and reached over her shoulder to flip the file open. His fingers grazed her cheek as he pulled back. “Mayhap there is more information inside.”

  She swallowed at the same time a shiver ran down her spine. She attempted to forget how close Joshua stood. If she reclined even an inch, her shoulders would touch him. She’d never longed for such an intimate touch with a man before, but in that moment, Kate wanted more, so much more than the mere accidental graze of Joshua’s hand.

  She wanted the touch to be purposeful and unending, not momentary and unplanned.

  Instead of giving in to the urge to think and do something that had nothing to do with her precarious situation, Kate began to read the top page in her parents’ file. It held little more than the location of her father’s vicarage and their residence above the schoolroom. The next page detailed a schedule of payments made, beginning in April 1803, and continuing quarterly until about a few years ago.

  “I was born in December 1802.”

  “The last scheduled payment recorded was the month before my uncle’s passing.”

  “We were correct in our assumptions,” she said, pointing at the date at the top of the page. “My parents said they moved to Cheapside from the countryside a couple of months after I was born. This is dated February 1803.”

  “Mayhap it is linked to your father’s vicarage?”

  “I do not think so,” Kate replied, flipping to the next page. “What would a duke have to do with an impoverished vicarage in Cheapside?”

  “Not his Cheapside appointment, but his past one…in the country. Did he ever speak of where it was or what shire they moved from?”

  She shook her head. “My parents preferred not to speak of the past.”

  She had believed that her parents had suffered through a miscarriage, and that was why they doted on her and were overly concerned with her safety. They’d treated her as if she were as fragile as a perfectly sculpted statue. And as valuable, as well.

  The next page listed several names and a direction:

  The Duke and Duchess of Shrewbury

  Pierce De Vere, Earl of Holderness

  Shrewbury Gardens

  Oxfordshire, England

  As she set the paper aside, a smaller slip of parchment fell from the file. Across the top was written Bank of England with a date listed as February 1803. It was a recorded deposit for forty-two thousand pounds in a trust account for Vicar Ralph Elliott and his wife Mrs. Mercy Elliott. The funds were to be given out quarterly for a twenty-one-year period, with an initial withdrawal of ten thousand pounds. Kate’s hand trembled. She received four hundred pounds every three months.

  Twenty-one years from February 1803 would be February 1824—two years away. Part of her was relieved to know how long she had to keep receiving the funds, while the rest of her wished to return to the time when she gladly accepted the envelope and never dreamt of the day they would stop coming.

  “What does the final paper say?” Joshua’s warm breath caressed the nape of her neck and, for a brief moment, Kate focused on his closeness.

  Setting the deposit record aside, she looked at the final paper. It was more of a document.

  “It is a deed. To a property.”

  There was no need to find the property location on the document. The deed was dated March 1803, and the sale price was ten thousand pounds.

  It was for the schoolroom and her residence above…the only home Kate had ever known.

  “It appears we have little option but to seek out the Duke and Duchess of Shrewbury in Oxfordshire.” Joshua’s matter-of-fact declaration was not in line with Kate’s thinking in the slightest. “You and I must remain in London to begin the work on your building. I can send Henry, my assistant, to Oxfordshire with your request.”

  “Do you not wonder why the duke and duchess would bequeath such a generous amount to my parents?” she stuttered, gathering all the papers. “It is a lot of money, my lord.”

  “Joshua,” he corrected. “And all the paperwork seems to be in order. Does it matter what the money is for?”

  “It is more than mere money. It is a fortune, Joshua.” And it would run out shortly after her twenty-first birthday. She couldn’t shake the suspect timing of it all. She had been born, her parents had moved to London, purchased an entire building, and her father worked nearby. She’d always believed that her father’s meager salary from the vicarage provided enough for their living expenses. One thing she refused to believe—or spend one more moment pondering—was the notion that her parents were involved with something outside the law and that’s where the money had come from. Her father had preached numerous times about the evils of ill-gotten goods. Never would he have accepted payment in reparation for an illicit deed. Would he?

  As she shoved everything back into the folder, the backside of one of the pages caught her notice. There was a design scrawled in black ink on the half sheet. It wasn’t drawn haphazardly but with care and precision. Something within Kate warmed as she traced the pattern—she’d never seen it before, but she felt it meant something.

  The bottom of the page was missing, torn away, leaving the paper half the size of the rest.

  She finally turned the document over and set it back in the file and closed the folder.

  “I’m sorry, Kate.” Joshua settled his hand on her shoulder, and the intimate connection from earlier returned. He hadn’t only set about to help her, he was also a part of it all. The defeat in his tone spoke to the fact. “At least we can proceed with contacting the duke. And the deed proves the building belongs to you and no one else.”

  What had she hoped to find? The money had been arriving for so many years already, it was careless to believe the answers were so readily available to her and Joshua. Kate rested a hand flat on the table atop the file and closed her eyes. Why did it seem that every time she gained some spark of hope it was stripped from her?

  “Mayhap I am not meant to discover anything of my past.”

  Joshua’s hand moved down her arm until his hand rested on hers, covering the file even more. “We shall not allow a small setback to dissuade our quest, shall we?”

  She turned slightly and glanced up to where he stood behind her. He grinned, and she noted a twinkle in his eyes. The situation was serious and could have dire consequences for Kate, but she nor Joshua was prepared to walk away from it.

  Joshua stepped back as she stood and turned to fully face him, the shelves of file boxes at his back. She wanted the truth, yet she also knew that she didn’t want to disappoint Joshua if she gave up or if correspondence with the duke proved fruitless.

  “Kate.” Her name was little more than a sigh escaping his lips as he gazed down at her. “I know it does not seem like much information, but we now know several names and places to continue our search. What more have we to do until your building is repaired?”

  She could list a dozen responsibilities between them, the children and his clients at the top of the list.

  “It cannot hurt to send Henry with my request,” she acquiesced.

  He took her gloved hand and squeezed it reassuringly. “I will draft a letter with all due haste and have Henry on his way presently.”

  Kate stood in stunned silence as Joshua raised her hand and placed a kiss on her wrist, a mere inch above her glove. The heated press of his lips to her bare flesh had her stomach fluttering and her breathing quickening. The gesture was so unexpected
a squeak escaped her throat, and she nearly pulled her hand from his hold. But, at the same time, her heart wanted to beg for more.

  “Joshua?” She didn’t step away as he pulled back and dropped their hands, keeping a hold of her finger. His gaze never left hers. What struck her the most was the way the golden flecks sparkled in his eyes. “I—I—I—”

  What she wouldn’t give to be fortunate enough to stare into his eyes forevermore.

  “My lord?” The door pushed open, flooding the interior of the records room with the light and noise from the outer offices.

  She wasn’t sure who moved first, but they broke apart as if they’d been caught in a most compromising and scandalous position. His hand released hers, and Kate’s chest tightened as the loss of the contact overtook her. But Joshua was not hers, he would never be hers. And as such, he was not hers to lose.

  “Good day, Mr. Barber,” Joshua greeted the clerk as he stepped into the room.

  “I was sent to see if you were in need of assistance.” The man stared only at Joshua, and Kate dropped her gaze to her feet.

  “We were just finishing up but thank you.” Joshua collected the file from the table and held out his arm to Kate. “Are you prepared to depart?”

  Every instinct within her screamed that she was not ready to depart, that she needed a few more minutes alone with Joshua…to discover what had transpired between them and intuit what was to come.

  However, when Mr. Barber strode into the room and began returning boxes to the shelves and tidying the mess they’d made, Kate knew her moment with Joshua had passed.

  With a smile, she took Joshua’s arm, and they started for the door.

  Kate had been right. The file had only brought about more questions and gave her few—if any—answers. Perhaps it would be the same with her connection to Joshua.