The Earl's Mistress (43 page)

“You represent the business interests of the Flynt family, I take it?” Hepplewood was saying.

Isabella froze in midstep, peering over the balustrade.
What on earth?

“Yes, yes, but I’m looking for Mrs. Isabella Aldridge,” the man replied a little peevishly as he followed up the front steps, “or Lady Tafford, if that is now her name?”

Hepplewood spun about in the entrance hall. “It is certainly not her name, Mr. Colfax,” he said tightly. “Isabella Aldridge has not married Lord Tafford, nor does she plan to—though I do not doubt certain steps have been taken to obscure that fact.”

“And she is living
here,
then?” The man called Colfax furrowed his brow.

“Certainly not,” said Hepplewood. “She is a friend—a very dear friend. And she has not lived at Thornhill since well before her father’s death.”

“That is
not
what our firm was told,” said Mr. Colfax stubbornly.

“Then you were lied to,” said Hepplewood.

“But indeed, the lady herself said—”

“The lady herself knows nothing of your existence, Mr. Colfax,” said Hepplewood firmly. “I trust my secretary made that plain upon finding you in Liverpool? He has been speaking for some weeks to the businesses and solicitors with whom you and the Flynt family are associated.”

Mr. Colfax just shook his head. “Well, that’s certainly what he claimed, but I cannot see how such a grave misunderstanding occurred,” said the solicitor stridently. “Indeed, I’m not at all sure I should be here. I’m expected at Thornhill. By Lord Tafford.”

“Then come into my study and I will press on with my explanations,” said Hepplewood.

“Nothing would please me more,” said Mr. Colfax with asperity. “My business cannot be put off any longer. The Flynts have made their last and final offer. They will not raise it again. And now I
must
see Lady—er, Mrs. Aldridge—in person.”

Isabella’s head was starting to spin. She could not fathom what was going on—but she certainly meant to.

“Am I
still
being talked about?” she asked, coming down the stairs.

Hepplewood looked up almost guiltily. “My dear, do please join us,” he said, going to meet her. “I am so sorry for all the confusion. You have a caller.”

He crossed the marble floor with his hands held out to her.

“I can’t think how I could have a caller here when I’m but a visitor,” she said, taking them and looking up at him uncertainly. “I have left your Mr. Wells with Jemima,” she added, dropping her voice. “I wished him to know without any doubt that the girls spoke freely. He . . . He will not try to take them away, Anthony, will he?”

“He will not,” Hepplewood murmured. “But it scarcely matters; I would never let them go. Wells would have to bring half the Metropolitan Police down upon us first, and my cousin Royden will not allow it.”

Some of the tension went out of her then, and she cast up a look of gratitude. But there was no time for it, she realized, for the three gentlemen were all looking at her with a strange sense of urgency upon their faces.

Hepplewood herded everyone into his study and sent Fording off for tea. He turned then to Isabella.

“My dear, Mr. Colfax is a solicitor from Montreal,” he said. “I’ve had my man Jervis trying to intercept him for some days now. As I understand it, he represents your cousins, William and James Flynt. Is that correct, Mr. Colfax?”

“My
cousins
—?” said Isabella, sinking into a chair. “Why, I hardly knew I had any. What can they possibly want with me?”

Mr. Colfax’s expression darkened. “Mrs. Aldridge, we have been corresponding with you since your grandfather’s death in an attempt to settle this business.”

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Colfax, but I never heard your name until today,” said Isabella, her voice rising. “There is no need to become impatient with me, whatever your business.”

Mr. Colfax looked suitably chastised, and he exchanged apologetic looks with Jervis.

“Do sit down, everyone,” said Hepplewood charitably. “I think you can now see, Colfax, that everything Mr. Jervis has told you about Mrs. Aldridge is quite true.”

“
What
is true?” interjected Isabella irritably. “I only met Mr. Jervis once in my life—at Loughford. I declare, this has been the most frightful day.”

“My apologies, ma’am.” Jervis hung his head.

“My dear, it is like this,” said Hepplewood gently. “I sent Jervis up to Liverpool to attempt to intercept—or at least discover the exact business of—Mr. Colfax. Colfax believes, you see, that he has been corresponding with you at Thornhill.”

“At
Thornhill
?” she echoed incredulously.

“Yes, he believes you’ve been living there all this time—indeed, he thinks you never left, because that is what Lady Meredith has led him to believe. I suspect that’s why, when your grandfather died, the portrait he bequeathed you was posted to Thornhill.”

Isabella turned her watchful gaze on Colfax, who had flushed faintly. “My father died nearly six years ago, sir,” she said, “leaving my sisters and me on our own. We live in Knightsbridge, over our bookshop. I can’t think why my aunt would suggest otherwise. On the other hand, I can’t think what your business might be with me.”

“Why, it is the terms of your grandfather’s will, ma’am,” he said stridently. “It
must
be settled. This lack of direction is beginning to make strategic investment decisions difficult for the Flynts. They simply wish to know if you are in, or if you are out?”

“In or out of what?” she blurted.

“The family business,” said Colfax. “Ma’am, do you not understand you own half the company?”

Isabella felt her eyes widen. “I . . . I beg your pardon?”

“But the cash is piling up,” continued Colfax, clearly grateful to finally have his audience, “and capital investments are direly needed. The Flynts have written and waited and written and waited, but you—well,
someone
—kept putting them off.”

“I know nothing of this.” Isabella sat very rigidly in her chair.

“Well, that is neither here nor there now,” said Colfax, waving an obviating hand. “Now I merely need to know if you wish to sell out. The Flynts are poised to buy out a steamship company that will limit the company’s liquidity. You need to choose a path, Mrs. Aldridge.”

“Anthony.” Her voice quavered a little, and she did not dare turn to look at him. “What is this man talking about? And how do you come to know about it, when I do not?”

Hepplewood considered Isabella’s question but a moment, then set his hands firmly on his thighs. It was time, he realized, that they had a very private conversation.

“Gentlemen, I must have some time alone with Mrs. Aldridge,” he said, rising. “We have important things to discuss.”

Colfax’s eyes widened. “But—But I have come all the way from Montre—”

“As I’m well aware, sir.” Hepplewood had already thrown up a staying hand. “But the Flynt family has fallen prey to a liar, and that is not Mrs. Aldridge’s problem. You should have sent one of your Liverpool associates down here years ago.”

“But how were we to know Lord Tafford had died? Or that Mrs. Aldridge had removed from Sussex? Or that someone would have the audacity to pretend to . . . well, to
be
her?”

Hepplewood simply shrugged. “In any case, Mrs. Aldridge now requires time to consult her own solicitors,” he insisted. “She cannot depend on you or Jervis to advise her—or even me, come to that. You’ve brought the financial records, I trust? And the Flynts’ offer?”

“Well, yes,” said Colfax.

“Leave them with Jervis, then, and Mrs. Aldridge will be in touch,” he said, herding both men out the study door. “Jervis, see Mr. Colfax up to Claridge’s and arrange a suite of rooms to be billed to me.”

“Certainly, my lord.”

Just then, Fording approached. “Mr. Wells has taken his leave, sir,” he said. “He said he was late for tea, and his wife was expecting him. He leaves Mrs. Aldridge his kind regards.”

“Does he indeed?” grunted Hepplewood, glancing back at Isabella. “I daresay Jemma must have told him just how that devil kidnapped her off the street.”

Thinly, the butler smiled. “Yes, I gather the young lady likened it to being snatched up by a press gang,” he said. “Mr. Wells seemed unamused.”

“Sir?” Jervis dipped his head to catch his employer’s eyes. “Am I off, then?”

“Yes, yes, thank you.” But at the last instant, Hepplewood stepped out the door, too, and caught Jervis’s arm. “Wait, just what kind of money is Colfax talking about here?” he murmured. “Any idea?”

“Flynts’ has its fingers in timber—cutting, milling,
and
exporting—as well as banking and shipping,” said Jervis, arching one eyebrow warningly. “William Flynt sits on the board of the Bank of Montreal. The family has links to trading houses worldwide. Colfax values the entirety at two and a half million pounds. And having merely peeked at the financials, I’d say he’s hedging a bit.”

“Good Lord,” said Hepplewood. “They’re offering her over a million pounds?”

“Shocking, is it not?” Jervis murmured.

Shocking
did not begin to describe it.

Hepplewood went back in and shut the door, his hands shaking a little.

“Anthony.” Isabella had risen from the sofa. “What on earth is going on? Kindly explain.”

Hepplewood drew a deep breath and urged her back down, seating himself beside her. “What is going on, my dear, is that you are a very wealthy woman,” he said, turning to face her. “It seems that after your mother’s marriage, your grandfather never changed his will.”

Isabella’s mouth fell open. “He never . . .
what—
?”

“Never changed his will,” Hepplewood repeated. “George Flynt died leaving his estate to be divided equally between his son and daughter, even though both had predeceased him. His son had two children, your Canadian cousins William and James. But his daughter had only one.
You.
Which leaves you owning half the Flynt empire, with William and James owning a quarter each.”

“An
empire
?” she repeated. “How did a Canadian wilderness become an empire? It’s preposterous. And why leave anything to me?”

“He was sentimental, perhaps?” Hepplewood shrugged. “Perhaps he simply couldn’t bring himself to cut your mother out. Or perhaps he just never got round to the paperwork. He left an old will on file with his former solicitor in Liverpool and never altered it. Jervis found it early on. And at the time that will was drawn, the estate was not likely worth what it is today.”

“And what
is
it worth today?”

Slowly, he exhaled. “A lot,” he finally said. “A quite shocking amount. Such a shocking amount that I should rather we had an expert run through the financials before I commit to giving you a number. If that is acceptable?”

“
A quite shocking amount,
” Isabella quietly murmured. “That is . . . impossible to fathom, really.”

“It is impossible for me to fathom,” he admitted, “even though I suspected the truth—or a part of it. But I did not quite expect the full extent of his estate.”

Isabella’s eyes were wide, and a little hopeful. “So . . . do you think perhaps I shan’t have to keep a bookshop after all?”

He gave a shaky laugh. “No, my dear, you definitely will not,” he said. “Of that much I can assure you. And you won’t need to fear Everett ever again.”

“Will I not?” she said, lifting a mystified gaze to him. “This is all so very strange. Anthony, how could I not have known any of it?”

He took both her hands in his. “Isabella, is it possible your father
did
know?” he asked. “And that perhaps he did not tell you for . . . I don’t know—for fear of losing you? Or out of some sort of resentment of your grandfather?”

She shook her head. “He wasn’t like that,” she said, “though my mother . . . yes, she may have known. Or suspected. But Grandfather was a hurtful subject for Papa, so she never spoke of him. And, as you say, the business was probably worth less at that time.”

“Then could your mother at some point have confided your grandfather’s plan to Lady Meredith?” he pressed. “Is such a thing possible?”

Isabella’s gaze grew distant. “I can’t imagine why,” she said. “Of course, when Lady Meredith was still married to Father’s younger brother, they often visited. She and Mamma were friendly, after a fashion, but never were they close.”

“Your grandfather wrote occasionally, you said,” he mused. “Perhaps Lady Meredith read a letter that was not intended for her eyes?”

Isabella’s eyes rounded. “Anthony, that’s
just
the sort of thing she would have done!” she whispered. “In fact, after Mamma died so suddenly, it was she who came to pack up Mamma’s things. Papa was so devastated that he could not leave his bed.”

“Well, we shall likely never know the whole of it,” Hepplewood muttered. “Lady Meredith won’t confess. But she has certainly been pretending to be you, and putting Colfax and the Flynts off in her letters. She’s likely been trying to coax from them the precise value of the company while ordering Everett to press you into marriage.”

“But eventually the Flynts would not be put off.” Isabella’s voice rose. “That’s what’s been driving Everett’s increasing desperation, isn’t it? Why he took such an insane risk today? Lady Meredith knew Colfax was coming—and that he would expect to find me at Thornhill—perhaps married to Everett. Dear God. Is that why you took us all to Greenwood?”

“In part.” He flashed a grim smile. “Brooks told you, I suppose, that Tafford had a special license in his pocket today?”

She shook her head. “I have not seen Brooks,” she said, mystified. “I was so uneasy I decided to walk here from Whitehall. But I would not have married Everett. Anthony, I
would not.
I would have been afraid for the girls, but I would have trusted you to take care of them. To get them back for me.”

For some moments, he simply sat beside her on a narrow sofa, holding her hands in his and drawing in her comfortingly familiar scent. His mind kept turning back to the last time he had made love to her; of the ache he’d felt wrenching at his heart after leaving her bed.