The Wyndham Legacy (7 page)

“Is there a rich lady keeping you in style? Obviously a nobleman can't earn groats, why his blood would quickly turn from blue to black.”

“There are many responsibilities I have now, as you well know. I have to oversee all the properties; I am caretaker to more houses than you even know about; I am responsible for every man, woman, and child who works on all estates owned by the Wyndhams, I—”

“In short, you inherited everything.”

“You know very well the title means little to me, but I will fulfill my duties as I must.”

“Marcus, how old are you?”

“You know very well that I am twenty-four.”

“So very young to be as you are,” she said, then had the gall to shrug.

“And just how is that? Concerned for your well-being? Knowing that I am the one responsible for this damned family, as I said? Ah, don't try to turn this to me, Duchess. As I was saying, all your, er, abilities don't bring in groats. There was no inheritance to make you independent. Yet you had enough to rent that damned cottage, to—” He stopped on purpose this time, his eyes glittering anew. Perhaps now he'd see a fist again. Wouldn't that be something?

She had the further gall to shrug again. She said not another single word, and he waited, hoping, but there was not even a glint of anger in her cool blue eyes.

He gave up, saying, “Your Mr. Wicks will be here tomorrow. What do you say about that?”

“I imagine that Mr. Wicks will wish to speak to both of us. Do you plan to be here?”

He would have liked to tell her he was going to Edinburgh, but he didn't. “I'll be here. Now, I'm going to bed. I will see you at breakfast.”

“Good night, Marcus. Sleep well.”

He grunted. She stood silently, watching him stride out of the magnificent drawing room, over three ancient and rich Turkey carpets, past some furnishings that dated back to before Henry VIII. She paused a moment before leaving the Green Cube Room and looked up. All the beams in the vast ceiling were intricately carved, showing the family coat of arms in too many places as well as a series of interesting geometric patterns that struck her as designs for their own sakes. In between the beams various scenes were painted, beginning with Medieval tableaus and moving up well into the sixteenth century. There were beautifully painted figures of men and women, the colors still rich and vibrant even after so many years, the expressions on their faces still clear as well. Where the beams met the top of the wall, there were an abundance of smiling cherubs, too many, all pink and white, gazing with dewy Classical eyes upon warriors with swords and shields, painted like a foot-wide swatch of mural at the top of the walls. This last addition had been made only in the last century by an earl of Chase with more guineas than discrimination. The former older scenes were much better executed, the men and women depicted in a far more realistic manner, down to the lute strings of a Medieval young man playing for the lady before him.

The Duchess looked back down into the fire. What would Marcus have to say to her after Mr. Wicks's visit? She remembered him as such a wild young man, forever leading Charlie and Mark into the most appalling mischief. But then he'd bought a commission in the army and had been out of her life for five years. She wondered if he would still be as wild as a winter storm instead of the moralistic bore he'd become upon gaining his coronet if he were still in the
army. He'd been the devil's own son, that's what her father had called him with a good deal of fondness, perhaps even respect. At least before Charlie and Mark had died there'd been fondness. She wondered what her father would call him now.

Whyever did he feel it his duty to prose on and on instead of laugh and view his new station in life with optimism and pleasure rather than grimness and a dour sense of duty? She wondered what he was doing now—hopefully he was taking deep breaths—for he'd left nearly on the verge of apoplexy.

Actually, Marcus was only on the verge of profound brooding. He allowed Spears to assist him out of his coat, which he normally didn't do. He wasn't helpless, for God's sake. He remembered his batman, Connally, who'd spat on the floor of the tent, staring at his coat even as he held it for Marcus to shrug on, as if it were a snake to bite him. Poor Connally had been shot, going down beneath his horse, crushed to death. Marcus said now under his breath, “Bloody girl. She'll end up strangled if she doesn't change her ways, that or fall into the arms of a scoundrel.”

“May I ask what ways, my lord?”

“Your ears are a great deal too sharp, Spears. All right, the Duchess has secrets. She breeds them, she holds them tightly to her bosom. She won't tell me the truth about how she kept that damnable cottage, how she paid Badger, how she bought food, how she—”

“I quite understand, my lord.”

“She just stands there, looking all calm and unruffled, and giving one of those stingy little smiles of hers and doesn't say anything. I can't even make her angry and the good Lord knows I pushed and baited and mocked. I did my damndest. Why won't she tell me anything?”

Marcus pulled away from Spears's ministering hands to pull loose his cravat and fling it onto the massive bed. “She has the damnable gall to inform me that she intends
to leave for London on Boxing Day. I set her aright on that, I tell you.”

“May I ask what your lordship set aright?”

“I told her I would soon be her guardian. She will do what I tell her to until she's twenty-one. If I can push it through, she will be under my control until she's twenty-five.” Marcus stopped, frowned down at his left boot that was proving recalcitrant.

“Sit down, my lord, and allow me to remove it.”

Marcus sat, saying, “Even if I managed to be her guardian until she was twenty-five, she would probably marry the first man to ask just to spite me. But she would never raise her voice, no matter what I did, Spears, oh no, she wouldn't deign to do that. That is doubtless beyond the scope of her emotional repertoire. No, she would just look at me like I was a seed in her garden, an unwanted seed that would sprout a weed.”

“Surely not that sort of seed, my lord. You are, after all, the earl of Chase. Perhaps you would be contemplated a bulb, not a seed.”

“Or maybe even a worm.”

“All things are possible, my lord.”

“She's a damned twit. Are you mocking me, Spears?”

“Certainly not, my lord. The very thought offends deeply. Your other boot, my lord.”

Marcus stuck out his other foot, still mulling and brooding and sprinkling all of it with an occasional curse. “This bloody Mr. Wicks who's coming on the morrow, what the hell does he want? What's going on?”

“I daresay we will know soon now, my lord. I recommend, my lord, that you allow Mr. Badger to remain at Chase Park. He's a man of excellent skills and his brain is of the first order.”

“He was her damned chef.”

“Yes, I will speak to Mrs. Gooseberry. Perhaps she can be, er, cozied into allowing Mr. Badger to prepare an occasional meal for the family.”

“You miss the point, Spears. She was living with Badger, alone, together. It isn't done. She's barely nineteen years old.”

“Your lordship surely realizes that Mr. Badger could be her father. He loves her deeply, just as a father ought to love his offspring. He would never harm her. He would protect her with his life.”

So would I, Marcus thought, then cursed. He was now standing naked in front of a blazing fire, his hands outstretched to the flames.

“Would you care for a nightshirt tonight, my lord? I understand from Biddle, the second footman who has lived here his entire life, indeed, whose family has lived here for six generations, that tonight will bring frigid temperatures.”

“No,” Marcus said as he scratched his side. “No nightshirt. The bloody things belong on women, not on men. What do you think this Wicks fellow wants, Spears?”

“I couldn't say, my lord. However, if you would care to get into bed, you could spend some time thinking about the possibilities. You would be warm rather than cold.”

Marcus said nothing, merely climbed into the huge bed, sinking down instantly into the cocoon of warmth. Spears had used a warming pan and Marcus sighed with pleasure. It was quite unlike lying between the two thin blankets on the floor of his tent in Portugal.

“Is there anything else your lordship requires?”

“Humm? Oh no, thank you, Spears. Oh, have you seen Esmee?”

“Esmee, the last time I came into rather close contact with her, my lord, was stretched on her belly in front of this fireplace, sleeping quite soundly.”

“Ouch! Here she is, Spears. After you warmed the sheets, she must have decided this was softer than the damned floor. It's disconcerting when she wraps herself around my belly.”

“She's a very affectionate feline, my lord.”

Marcus grunted at that and Spears appreciated his lordship's obvious verbal restraint.

“Sleep well, my lord. We will see this Mr. Wicks soon enough.”

 

Mr. Wicks arrived the following morning at eleven o'clock. Marcus watched the old gentleman step gingerly down from the carriage. He couldn't make out his features for he was swathed in a huge muffler, a fur hat with ear flaps, and at least three scarves, all intertwined over his greatcoat, an immensely thick wool affair that nearly dragged the ground.

He walked back into his library, guessing it would take Mr. Wicks at least a half an hour to be divested of his outer garments.

When Sampson gently knocked on the door and entered quietly, Marcus merely turned and raised a black brow at him.

“Mr. Wicks requests that the Duchess be present, my lord. Actually, he, er, insists she be present.”

“He does, does he? Well, I suspected as much, truth be told. Have her fetched, Sampson.”

“She is here, my lord, speaking right now with Mr. Wicks. She is assisting him out of all his layers of gear.”

“Ah, so kind of her,” he said, feeling testy and sounding sarcastic because he didn't know what was going on. Well, actually he did know. Obviously Mr. Wicks had come to inform him of the amount of money his uncle had settled on her. Who cared? He would have settled money on her himself, in any case, as a dowry. He said, “When the Duchess has completed her disrobing of Mr. Wicks, do show them in, Sampson.”

It was, in truth, another ten minutes before Mr. Wicks, a scrawny, quite old, rheumy-eyed gentleman, walked into the library, the Duchess at his side. The old man looked around him with great interest. The library was a wealth of history, Marcus thought, feeling a surge of unconscious
pride. He looked at the Duchess. There was no expression whatsoever on her face. She looked serene and calm as the damned mistress of the Park, as if Mr. Wicks were the vicar here to discuss an excursion to the lime wells near Bell Busk for the orphans.

But Mr. Wicks was a London solicitor of some renown. He was the man Marcus's uncle had hired to legitimize the Duchess. What more was there other than a monetary settlement? Odd that his uncle had hired an entirely different solicitor to deal with this matter rather than one of the distinguished Messieurs Bradshaw, solicitors for the Wyndhams, father to son, for the past eighty years.

What the devil was going on here?

“T
HIS IS
M
ARCUS
Wyndham, the earl of Chase, Mr. Wicks. He is my cousin.”

“My lord,” Mr. Wicks said, his voice surprisingly vigorous for a gentleman of his advanced years. Marcus also saw the sharp intelligence in the old gentleman's eyes at that moment. He realized that he would be a formidable opponent, no matter what his age. “It is a pleasure to meet you, sir. Er, it perhaps seems strange to you that I must see you as well as Miss Wyndham.”

“Actually, now, she is a lady. However, Lady Duchess Wyndham sounds a bit farfetched.”

“I agree,” she said. “Let us simply retain Miss Wyndham or perhaps even Miss Cochrane.”

“No,” Marcus said. “No, I won't allow that. You are now a Wyndham and that is what you will be called. I like Lady Duchess.”

She gave him a slight smile, looked down at her white hands lying still in her lap. She said nothing more.

Marcus looked away from her to the solicitor. “Perhaps, Mr. Wicks, you would care to be seated near the fire. You can tell us what you must from that vantage.”

“Thank you, my lord. The weather is a bit brisk today and I find that the older my bones survive, the thinner they become. Now, let's begin.”

Marcus sat beside the Duchess on an exquisite old Queen Anne settee, beautifully sculpted, covered with pale cream and dark blue brocade.

“Now, my lord, you are fully aware that your uncle, the
former earl of Chase, married Mrs. Cochrane and legitimized the child of their union.”

“Yes, I approve of his action. However, why wasn't I informed immediately?”

Mr. Wicks didn't hesitate, but said frankly, “It was my agreement with your uncle. All was to be finalized before any of the Wyndham family was informed, including his youngest brother's wife and her family currently residing in the Colonies in a place called Baltimore, and, naturally, your mother. This was to protect Miss Wyndham, er, Lady Duchess. Surely that is understandable, my lord.”

“Yes, certainly,” Marcus said, rising quickly and striding over to the fireplace. “Had I known before the legalities were completed, I would have posted immediately to Smarden and strangled her in her bed and thrown her body over the Dover cliffs. Yes, it makes a great deal of sense to a brigand of my stamp.”

The Duchess cleared her throat. “He's merely jesting, Mr. Wicks. Unfortunately, after the death of Charlie and Mark, my father took a dislike to his lordship, because he was alive and they weren't. Then, of course, all his wife's babes died. This must have been the reason for his behavior, not because he didn't believe Marcus honorable, but simply to rub his nose in it, so to speak. Marcus, it's true. I trust you will not think of it further.”

“Don't you believe it, Duchess. He blamed me for not being there to save them, that, or die with them. I was close by, over at the Rothermere Stud, but not close enough. He saw that as full measure of my perfidy, my lack of honor. He quite hated me, Duchess.”

“Surely you're exaggerating,” she said.

“Am I, Mr. Wicks? Did my uncle tell you rather how fond he was of me? How delighted he was to see me succeed him?”

“Perhaps it is best if I address that a bit later, my lord. Now, sir, you must wonder why I requested your presence.”

Marcus merely inclined his head, an action that made him look older and strangely, quite forbidding.

“There's no easy way to say this, my lord.”

“Then spit it out, Mr. Wicks.”

“The former earl left all monies, all properties, all houses, and all possessions not entailed specifically to his successor, namely you, my lord, to his daughter, Josephina Wyndham.”

There was utter silence. Marcus stared at her for a long moment, then said in a too calm voice, “Josephina? That is quite the ugliest name I have ever heard. You must thank me every night in your prayers that I renamed you Duchess.”

Mr. Wicks looked at sea, and twitched his papers about nervously. “Did you understand what I said, my lord?”

“Yes, certainly, sir. You have just told me that I am a pauper. A pauper living in this great mansion, but a pauper nonetheless. I have been stripped of everything. If he had chosen to beggar his family in a more efficacious manner, why, I couldn't begin to imagine what it would be. You see, Duchess, I wasn't at all mistaken about my uncle's true feelings for me. Did he bother seeing to his own daughters, Antonia and Fanny?”

“Yes, my lord. He left each of them ten thousand pounds. But that was in his previous will. That will still stands, including all the bequests to servants, other retainers, and the remaining Wyndham relatives.”

“So I was the butt of his vengeance—I, his heir.”

“Not entirely, my lord. It is just that now, Lady Josephina is, well—”

“Don't refer to her by that repellent name. She owns everything except for Chase Park, I believe. Is there anything else entailed to me, Mr. Wicks?”

“Yes, my lord. The London house on Putnam Place is yours, rather it is yours for your lifetime.”

“I quite understand. Aught else?”

“There is a hunting box in Cornwall that is entailed, near
St. Ives, I believe, and some two thousand acres of rich farmland. There is nothing else, my lord. I'm sorry.”

“There is not a single bloody sou for the upkeep of this monstrosity of a house?”

Mr. Wicks said slowly, “Your uncle, the former earl, feared that you would simply consign him to the devil if he left you nothing to keep up the entailed properties. Thus, he has left me the trustee for all the Wyndham properties, monies, houses, possessions. I am also Lady Duchess's trustee and guardian until she reaches her majority. When she reaches the age of twenty-one, she is to act in joint trusteeship with me to oversee all the entailed Wyndham holdings. The incoming principle from all the Wyndham holdings is excellent and continues to grow each year. There are properties in Devon, Sussex, and Oxfordshire. However, my lord, the monies are not within your discretion.”

Marcus said nothing. Indeed, he looked rather bored, dismissing both them and the killing blow struck him by his uncle, long-dead, no longer here to gain his vengeance.

He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned a negligent shoulder against the mantel. He laughed then, a very soft, bitter laugh. “You were wrong, Duchess. Will you now admit that he hated me? Will you admit that this is no simple nose-rubbing? The bastard—no insult intended to you, Duchess—the bloody damned bastard hated so much that I would succeed him that he has turned me into a poor relation, dependent on Mr. Wicks here for the very bread I eat, for any repairs I deem necessary to make, for the payment of all our servants. And doubtless dependent on you, his bastard, for any crumbs you would wish to throw my way, all this because of his hatred for me. He has crushed the hopes of his own progeny and future Wyndham generations.”

Mr. Wicks looked unutterably depressed. “Let me say, my lord, that I argued vigorously with your uncle, but he wouldn't be swayed. He did hold you in remarkable dislike,
I will admit that. However, he did agree to leave you a, er, quarterly allowance.”

Marcus looked primed for violence. “No wonder you all but laughed at me last night, Duchess, with me going on and on about becoming your guardian, providing you a dowry, protecting you as I now must protect my family. Now you have everything. Now you no longer need a man to see to your needs. Yes, you must have found all my prosings quite entertaining.”

“No, I did not. You must allow me to explain, Marcus.”

To her surprise, he managed to say with the utmost calm, “I don't think so, Duchess. Well, I believe that I will consider this. Good day to you, Mr. Wicks.”

“But, my lord, there is more. You must stay! You must listen to me!”

“Even more than this? I think not, Mr. Wicks. I think I am quite up to my craw with your revelations.” He nodded to her, then strode from the room, not looking back.

Mr. Wicks shook his head. “It wasn't an honorable thing your father did, my dear. Certainly making you legitimate was well done of him. Providing you a substantial dowry would have been proper, but this—leaving you everything and leaving his lordship an allowance, nothing more, leaving him the supplicant for any funds he will need—it is abominable.”

She was staring, unseeing, at the toes of her dark blue slippers that peeped from beneath her gown. “You didn't tell me all of it, Mr. Wicks. You gave me no hint of what my father had done. You simply told me that he had left me quite a rich young lady, nothing more. What he has done is reprehensible. I won't allow it. I won't be a party to it.” She looked at him full in the face now and her look was fierce. “Listen to me, sir. I fully intend to undo all that he did. Marcus doesn't deserve to be served such a turn. I refuse to allow him to be beggared. The nerve of my father blaming Marcus simply because he wasn't there, possibly to drown along with his cousins.

“You and I controlling his purse strings? You and I giving the earl of Chase an allowance? No, it is hideous. I will see it undone immediately.”

She rose and began pacing. He'd never seen her so animated before. She turned suddenly and said in a deep commanding voice, “See to it, Mr. Wicks. You can leave me something, but all the monies, all the other houses and properties, any and all holdings must be returned to Marcus.”

Mr. Wicks said very gently, “I'm sorry, my dear, but I cannot.”

“What do you mean you cannot?”

“Your father foresaw that you could possibly react in this manner. He knew you were good-hearted, loyal, if you will, to your cousin. He said that if you refused the complete inheritance and all responsibilities it carried with it, then it would all be turned over to the wife of his youngest brother who died some five years ago, the wife and children living in the Colonies.”

She took the sheet of paper from him and read:
Mrs. Wilhelmina Wyndham of Fourteen Spring Street, Baltimore, Maryland.

“There is quite a large family, I understand. Three children born of the union.”

“But I have never heard of this Wilhelmina, who would be my aunt.”

Mr. Wicks cleared his throat. “Well, it seems the late earl's youngest brother was what one calls a gamester, a bad penny. He lost everything, including an inheritance from a distant aunt, and his father ordered him gone. He went to the Colonies. There he met Wilhelmina Butts and married her. To be blunt, Grant Wyndham was your father's favorite brother, despite his dispossession by your grandfather. He thought it would be a great joke to bring his rakehell brother's family back here, give them all the money—that is, ma'am, if you refuse to accept the responsibilities he's laid upon you.

“You see that your hands and mine are tied. I will assure you, Duchess, that I would never treat his lordship as a pensioner, despite my issuance of a quarterly allowance for his personal use. I won't treat him like a poor relation. I won't be a tyrant about funds that he needs for maintenance or repairs for the entailed properties or lands. In short, I will consider his pride of the utmost importance.”

“You don't know Marcus, Mr. Wicks. No matter your assurances, your kindness and understanding, he won't accept it, ever. Marcus is a very proud man, but he's even more than that, he's perhaps excessively principled and holds himself to the highest standards. He's actually quite magnificent.”

Mr. Wicks looked at her oddly, but just for a moment, then said, “Perhaps he won't accept this. But then again, duty is a powerful thing. Does he want to see a vast estate gutted? I hope not. I do fear, however, and I said this to your father, that after I have gone to my heavenly reward, the man who takes my place may consider himself a very powerful being indeed and treat the earl like some sort of indigent charity. I fear that. As I recall, your father merely rubbed his hands together and laughed.”

“You have considered this a great deal, Mr. Wicks. Have you found no way out of the mess for Marcus?”

He brightened at that. “Oh yes, indeed, there is a way, yes. Your father, after he laughed, told me what he planned, but you and the earl won't perhaps be inclined to, er, follow through with it.”

“And what is that, pray?”

“Your cousin must wed you before eighteen months have passed after your father's death to undo what will come to pass. Indeed, the two of you marrying would cancel out everything I have told his lordship. Your father wanted your blood in future earls of Chase. He said it would help to dilute Marcus's tainted blood.”

“Marcus's blood tainted? That is utter nonsense. Do you so quickly forget that I am a bastard?”

“Nonetheless, it is what your father wanted above all things. He wanted your sons to succeed Marcus.” Mr. Wicks shrugged. “He felt that if you refused, then he didn't care if the earldom fell into ruin. That's what he said, ma'am, he didn't care. This all happened after your mother's death. He changed, an alarming change. He simply didn't care anymore about anything. I was more than alarmed, but he simply didn't care. I remember he said to me when it was all done, ‘Wicks, Bess is gone, my wife, the only woman I ever wanted, is gone. She never came to Chase Park where she always belonged, and she should have, if there'd been any justice. Let my nephew wallow in his own bile, I care not. Let him taste just a small bit of the injustice God meted out to me.' ”