The Truth About Dukes Read online

  Solomon Weatherby was both a neighbor in the country and a fellow legal practitioner in York. His wife, Elspeth, was one of few women Phoebe considered a friend. Neville did not consider Weatherby a friend, but he had been useful on several previous guardianship cases.

  He was not being useful now. Not at all.

  “Philpot, you know as well as I do that the cases appearing simple initially are the cases that become the most grievous messes all too soon. Missing heirs, complicated trusts, opinions from Chancery, secret weddings, mistresses bearing grudges…We see more drama behind the doors of the average courtroom than the public pays to see on the stages of Drury Lane.”

  Weatherby delivered this sermon while sawing away at his beefsteak. Took his victuals seriously, did Solomon.

  “I have never seen such drama as I witnessed when His Grace of Rothhaven fell to the ground,” Neville countered, “not two streets from here. The poor man commenced shaking and twitching worse than any case of Saint Vitus’s dance you ever beheld.”

  Weatherby chewed a bite of steak, his mouth working vigorously. “I have never beheld a case of Saint Vitus’s dance and I would hazard you ain’t either. Besides, one can be physically infirm without being disordered in one’s thinking, and God knows the reverse is also true. My own daughters are all too hale and fit, while they drive me to Bedlam with their chatter.”

  Neville took a long drink from his tankard, for good porter should not go to waste when a man faced a tedious discussion—or any other time, come to that.

  “And what do my daughters chatter about?” Weatherby asked, gesturing with his knife. “Marriage. Marriage, engagements, flirtations, who is walking out with whom, and which callow nincompoop stood up with which featherbrained twit at the last assembly. And why, I ask you, is this topic of obsessive interest to them? It’s not as if marriage has led their parents to anything approaching connubial bliss.”

  “Young ladies are a hopeful sort,” Neville remarked, though his own hopes were feeling somewhat daunted at the moment. “I am prepared to generously compensate you for bringing this petition, Weatherby.”

  That compensation would flow outside documented channels, of course, as per usual when Weatherby brought petitions at Neville’s suggestion.

  “How much?” Weatherby washed down his steak with a quarter tankard of good porter and held up his glass for a refill. He had once been a handsome young man. Now he was thick about the middle, and his nose had taken on the deep pink of the inchoate sot.

  “I will pay you triple the last arrangement,” Neville said, quietly.

  Weatherby set his tankard down slowly. “What are you up to, Philpot? Rothhaven is a duke, and possibly well-to-do, but his ancestral pile is falling apart. The drive is a weed patch, the terraces crumbling, and the roof doubtless leaks in fourteen places. The old duke wasn’t exactly a genius at investing, and keeping up those stately manors takes a fortune. As guardian, you will have to see to the Hall, and the whole time, Lord Nathaniel will be glowering over your shoulder demanding to inspect the accounts.”

  “And he will be permitted to see them.” Those accounts would balance to the penny, and reflect efforts intended to safeguard Rothhaven Hall as an asset. The figures would not necessarily match what was paid to the tradesmen actually restoring the Hall. “If Lord Nathaniel grows too bothersome, his daft older brother will be sent to another private madhouse, and there’s nothing his lordship can do about that. A guardian’s authority is quite extensive.”

  Other diners arrived, the noise level in the room rose, and laughter erupted from a table by the window. Sir Levi Sparrow’s wife was said to be in anticipation of a happy event, and that apparently occasioned a jovial crowd around his table, the good wishes and bad jokes flowing apace.

  Weatherby waved his fork, another bite of steak speared on the tines. “Philpot, aren’t you getting a bit ambitious? So Rothhaven has the falling sickness. He has a fit, he takes a nap, he wakes up, and he’s still a duke who can likely recite Caesar’s Gallic letters by heart. Find us a bit more porter, if you please.”

  Neville held up Weatherby’s empty tankard and signaled a harried waiter. “Rothhaven’s situation is far more complicated than a few seizures. We don’t know how long he’s been at the Hall, but for whatever time he’s dwelled there, he’s been unwilling to leave the premises.”

  “You said he had a fit in church. He apparently leaves the Rothhaven premises now, don’t he?”

  “That’s only the second time he’s attended divine services in my memory, and when the fit subsided, he was barely coherent. I witnessed the same sad truth when he took a fit right outside Cranmouth’s office. In that state, His Grace can’t stand unaided, he doesn’t seem to recognize friend from foe, and I have it on good authority that he will soon be dwelling at the Hall without his brother to coddle him.”

  Phoebe really should have been an intelligence officer, for she missed nothing and saw connections others were blind to.

  “Lord Nathaniel is off to join the navy, is he?”

  “He’s getting married, and he plans to dwell with his bride at Crofton Ford, twenty miles distant from Rothhaven Hall.”

  “The moment I file this petition, Lord Nathaniel will scrap those plans, and his bride will have nothing to say to it.”

  “Let him, for that will only put Rothhaven under the thumb of the same sibling who all but imprisoned him at the Hall in the first place. Our case becomes that much stronger.” Phoebe had made that point too. “Lord Nathaniel stands to benefit the most by exacerbating Rothhaven’s malady. Epileptic fits can be fatal, you know.”

  “Now you’re a physician, Philpot?”

  The waiter came with a pitcher and refilled both tankards.

  “You can leave that pitcher here, boy,” Neville said, “and a plate of buttered crab legs wouldn’t go amiss.”

  The waiter tossed them a bow and moved away. Neville detested the untidiness of buttered crab legs, but Phoebe claimed Weatherby was partial to them.

  “I am not a physician,” Neville said. “Dr. Warner is prepared to serve in his usual role.” Warner looked like a physician—dark-haired, tall, lean, handsome, and articulate, with a canny balance of a younger man’s charm and a mature fellow’s professional confidence. The judges liked him, as did the aging females he tended to collect as patients.

  “And how many cases of epilepsy has Warner treated?”

  “That hardly matters. The course of the disease is notorious enough.”

  Weatherby let out a slow, rumbling belch. “You don’t anticipate any trouble from Cranmouth? He’s at least the fourth generation in his family to serve the Rothmere interests. Even to Ebenezer, that ought to mean something. He must put on a case for the defense, and a case that holds up to scrutiny. Declaring a duke mentally incompetent ain’t for the faint of heart.”

  Phoebe always said one mustn’t be too patient or too understanding with the lower orders lest they take advantage of their betters.

  “Scruples at this late date do not become you, Weatherby.”

  Weatherby smiled. “I bend rules, Philpot, as we all do. The solicitor who breaks rules can soon find himself without a practice. The prior cases you’ve brought to me were all heading for a guardianship eventually. My petitions might have been a few years premature, but I’ve also kept an eye on your management of the clients and their wealth. You bend rules too, but you’ve yet to actually break them—as far as the available evidence suggests.”

  A threat for a threat, because evidence could be manufactured, taken out of context, and twisted to assure a particular judicial outcome.

  Neville fortified himself with another long drink from his tankard. Damned fine stuff, if he did say so himself.

  “If you win this case,” he said, “I will never ask you to bring another petition before a board of competency examiners. Cranmouth won’t be a problem. I established that much before I even thought of approaching you. Cranmouth said he’d be joining us today, in fact.”

  “Then he’s a fool. I can be seen having a meal with you—we occasionally share a table in the ordinary course—but I do not regularly break bread with Ebenezer Cranmouth. His clientele is too exalted for him to sit at the same table with a lowly squire’s son from west of town. If the three of us are seen together, it will be remarked.”

  “When the dining room is this crowded, nobody will remark anything save whether their steak was properly cooked.”

  The crab legs arrived, adding their characteristic fishy odor to the scent of cooked beef and baked potatoes.

  “These fellows ain’t stupid,” Weatherby said, glancing around the room. “The usual run of solicitor has worked hard, studied hard, and means to do good while doing well. You and Cranmouth have airs above your station. That catches up with a man.”

  Neville pushed the plate of crab toward Weatherby. “Is Ebenezer Cranmouth begrudging his daughters their every hair ribbon? Does he have to borrow the funds to keep his wine cellar stocked? Is his coach nearly as old as his firstborn?”

  Weatherby seized the largest of the crab legs. “No need to be petty, Philpot. It’s the damned marriage settlements that keep me up at night. My girls are lovely young women, but they haven’t a serious thought between them and their mama’s no better. I cannot expect a nabob to come along and fall in love with a chit who’s neither bright nor wealthy nor beautiful.”

  “At least you’ve only the two,” Neville said. “They are quite lovely.”

  Weatherby sent him a look that said he knew placatory platitudes when they were served up with the crab.

  “Cranmouth’s ears must have been itching,” Weatherby said, gesturing with a crab leg. “Yonder he comes, and with a bee in his bonnet, if I’m not mistaken.”

  Cranmouth danced between tables and dodged waiters as if they bore contamination rather than good food.

  “Philpot,” Cranmouth said, nodding and leaning his walking stick against the table. “Weatherby. Might I join you?”

  “Please,” Neville said, pushing out an empty chair with his foot. “I’ve acquainted Weatherby with my concern for our mutual neighbor.”

  Cranmouth sat and hunched forward. “The poor fellow is barmy, all right, or the next thing to it. Your mutual neighbor, that is. A few years ago, he bought a certain property out on the Dales. He recently sold that same property to somebody looking to set up a home for navy pensioners. Do you know what price he commanded for a large home with outbuildings, home farm, stables, and twelve acres of park?”

  Neville let Cranmouth draw out the pause.

  “One shilling,” Cranmouth said, banging the table. “He accepted one shilling in payment for the lot of it, furnished, as is, with all fixtures, livestock, appurtenances, and stores, in fee simple absolute. An uncomplicated property sale like this one is normally handled by my younger cousin. Had he alerted me to the peculiar terms, I would never have allowed such a failure of consideration to pass unremarked.”

  Weatherby picked up another crab leg. “The quality can be generous, and navy pensioners are a worthy charity. What else have you got?”

  Neville peered into his tankard rather than let his interest in the question show, for there had to be more. There had to be.

  Cranmouth was not given to smiling, but he smiled now. “Oh, yes, Weatherby. There is more. Given the recent upheaval with the ducal title, I was prompted to review some of the family’s older files and ledgers. The property His Grace most recently sold has a very interesting provenance, one that goes back to His Grace’s boyhood.”

  Thank the merciful powers. “Do tell,” Neville said, “and shall we order you some sustenance?”

  “Please. The tale is long and sad, and the ending, I fear, will be none too happy for my unfortunate client.”

  Rothhaven rapped his knuckles on the coach roof, then settled beside Constance on the forward-facing seat. “The courtesy of a night journey is appreciated, your ladyship.”

  “That sounds very formal, Your Grace. Perhaps I wanted to arrive at Fendle Bridge after dark to ensure we create the least possible stir.”

  Constance turned her head to gaze out the window, but of course, the shades had been drawn before Rothhaven had handed her up into Stephen’s traveling coach. Rothhaven had given orders to have the crests turned, and the grooms and coachman were not in livery.

  “We will create a stir nonetheless,” Rothhaven replied, taking off his hat and setting it on the opposite seat. “The quality of the horses alone will draw notice.”

  Matched blacks, not a white hair upon them, the leaders full of fire, the wheelers bristling with muscle. Stephen knew his horseflesh.

  “We’ll change at a posting inn,” Constance said.

  “The inn, recognizing the coach, will put a Wentworth relief team in the traces.”

  Rothhaven’s argumentative mood put Constance in mind of his behavior on the way into York. “Do you feel a seizure approaching?”

  “No.”

  “Has the prospect of a coach journey out onto the Dales put you in such a foul humor?”

  He swiveled his gaze to regard her, and by the dim light of the single coach lamp, Constance could see that her beloved was in a foul humor indeed. He might have been Quinn attempting to quell a sibling insurrection, so glacial was his expression.

  “Constance, we might well fail.”

  Was he worried, then? “I’ve been failing my daughter since the day I put her into Etta Wilson’s arms, Rothhaven. I expect Ivy will be wroth with me—if I’m ever introduced to her—and that more failure awaits me in the mothering department. She’s my daughter, though, and I hope she will eventually see the advantages of attaching herself to a ducal household. In any case, her well-being must come first. I simply want to see her.”

  “You long to see her, though you hope for much more.”

  The coach was barely past the village, and the journey would last for hours. Perhaps rolling along in the dark, spatting and sparring, was a metaphor for marriage, but Constance believed in beginning as she intended to go on, even with the man she loved to distraction.

  “If you cannot conduct a civil conversation, sir, I will ride up with John Coachman.”

  Rothhaven guffawed, the first such expostulation Constance had heard from him.

  “You’d do it too, and probably take the reins from him before another mile’s progress. Has it occurred to you, my love, that in addition to the fact that you and I are the aristocracy Mr. Shaw so detests, I am also afflicted with the falling sickness?”

  “And why is that detail relevant?”

  Rothhaven kissed her cheek, for no reason Constance could think of. “Some consider the falling sickness a curse, evidence of divine judgment, a mark of the devil.”

  “Some are ridiculous.” Constance took off her bonnet and put it on the opposite seat next to Rothhaven’s top hat. “I was poor, Rothhaven. Grindingly, wretchedly poor. I picked oakum, I carried hod, I ran errands all over York in my bare feet in wintertime and was glad for the coin. The same ignoramuses who think the falling sickness is a sign of God’s disfavor think the poor are lazy and stupid. You never saw a harder-working, more resourceful, wily, self-disciplined, and determined batch of people than the nearly destitute. Before the hope gets kicked out of them, they are unstoppably ingenious and tireless in their efforts to survive.”

  “Is that why you were so determined to thwart Soames’s awful treatment of his patients? Because you’d experienced oppression firsthand?”

  “I had certainly been on nodding terms with despair by then. Soames was evil, treating people who should have been guests in his home like specimens or livestock.”

  Rothhaven turned down the lamp so the coach was all but dark. “I fault my father for many, many things, but he at least did not give Soames guardianship of me. I later learned that Soames was legally in no position of authority over any of us.”

  “He was confident that your families would not trifle with his experiments. Vile man. Is obtaining guardianship complicated?”

  “That depends. If Shaw consented to give me guardianship of Ivy, that would simply be a matter of paying the lawyers and waiting for a judge to sign an order.”

  “And if he refuses to consent despite clear evidence that Ivy wants to be with me and would flourish in my care?”

  “I do not kidnap minor females, Constance, and you cannot either. That is precisely the sort of eccentric behavior that will attract all the wrong notice.”

  The horses stretched into a canter, meaning the swaying of the coach grew worse even in this exquisitely engineered vehicle.

  “I am compelled to agree with you,” Constance said. “Those who go around kidnapping children are precisely the sort of people society looks upon unfavorably. Let’s get comfortable, shall we?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The benches, Rothhaven.” She lifted the opposite bench to withdraw a pair of blankets. “They fold out to make up a bed, and we will be stuck in this wretched coach for hours.”

  “By rights, our families ought not have allowed us to share this coach.”

  Constance kissed him. “You are my family now, and I hope Ivy is soon to become family in the meaningful sense. Get up so I can find us some pillows.”

  He rose and switched seats while Constance retrieved pillows from under the forward-facing seat. The next few minutes were taken up with creating a bed from the folded-down benches.

  “To gain legal authority over Ivy,” Rothhaven said, “would mean bringing a petition in court, and if Shaw objects, proving Shaw unfit.”

  “Do you trust Cranmouth to undertake that assignment?”

  “Not particularly.” He pulled off his boots and set them aside. “Cranmouth might have alerted Nathaniel to the single apparently charitable donation my father made—year after year. Might have stopped some of my father’s more dubious investments. Cranmouth chose not to. He is a cypher, loyal to Rothmere coin rather than to the Rothmere family. Now that I’ve concluded some real property transactions, I can look to replace him.”