Counterfeit Countess (25 page)
John frowned, remembering something he’d heard once, long ago. “The old man was a disciplinarian, was he not?”
Edward gave a sharp nod. “So I’ve been informed. My great-grandfather refused a life in the church when offered because, he said, he had no vocation. Our relative didn’t see the problem.
Since my great-grandfather was one of seven children, four of them boys, he had no expectations of the title and made the most of his life. His branch of the family, mine, has since prospered. Believe me sir, I have no need of a title or entailed lands. I have enough wealth of my own.”
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That remained to be seen. If he were posing as heir to a great estate, John would say that kind of thing. But the man had an air of prosperity, understated confidence that spoke of being used to command. “Are you in business?”
“Yes, sir, I am. My great-grandfather reverted to the simpler form of the family name, and set up making cloth for the foreign markets. From that we invested in shipping. We’re based in the north, from Newcastle-on-Tyne.”
Smith.
That was the hell of it, such a common name. He knew of a business imaginatively named Smith and Sons who dealt in cloth and shipping. Definitely no relation of his. “You have brothers?”
“I do. Two. My brother has three sons.” Smith gave a shame-faced grin. “The title isn’t short of heirs.”
“If your claim is proved.”
John watched carefully but Edward Smith didn’t flinch. He nodded briskly. “Naturally. I can provide the necessary proofs. But may I speak frankly?”
“Of course.” John got to his feet. “But I’m forgetting my manners. May I offer you refreshment?”
Smith shook his head. “I don’t need anything, thank you.”
John sat down, leaned back. “You were saying, about being frank.” The offer of refreshment had demonstrated showing acceptance. That was the point in the conversation where he either offered hospitality or showed Smith his back.
He believed this man. His instincts had to be razor sharp. While they were not his only method of assessment, he had enough faith in his ability to assess a character to believe in this man’s honesty.
Smith nodded, and the corner of his mouth quirked in a smile.
Another gesture John recognised in himself. “I believe frankness is the best policy on most occasions. How well do you know your man of business?”
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“It depends which one,” John said. “My personal agent and business partner is a person I would trust with my life.” Although not his wife. He wouldn’t trust any other with her. “However the man who deals with the affairs of the earldom, Roker, I hardly know.”
Edward raised a brow. “The article said you lived in Canada?”
“I did. When I joined the army I sold everything except one house and invested my money. I did well. In Canada I started in fur and developed the enterprise.”
Smith didn’t appear surprised. “I did some research. Smith and Pickering is one of the biggest trading empires in Canada these days. I asked a few contacts. Does Roker have the handling of any of it?”
“He does not. I wish to keep my business separate from the earldom for the time being. There is enough to assimilate without attempting that.” He could see no reason not to vouchsafe that piece of information, although he had decided to play his cards close to his chest for now. Only the other day he was wondering if a hidden heir could be responsible for the attacks on Faith and himself. Now, out of the blue, an heir appeared. Possibly fraudulent, possibly indigent. He want excellent proofs before he believed anything Smith said.
“I have no right to advise you, but I would say, take care with that man.” Smith shifted his attention, glanced out of the window that afforded a view of the garden beyond. In the distance, a gardener was doing something to a trellis of greenery. John guessed Smith was finding his confession difficult.
“Why do you say that?”
“It’s hardly my place.” Smith’s attention returned to within the room, to the portrait over the fireplace, a conversation piece from about fifty years ago. It showed the family drinking tea, holding their handle-less cups with great delicacy. John thought he discerned a resemblance. The shape of the head maybe, or the eye
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colour.
Smith looked straight at John again. “I came to London partly to see you. Understand, sir, I have no interest in the earldom, except from duty. I have my home, my family, and a prosperous business.”
He hesitated. “Extremely prosperous. I trade for the most part, and I own an share in several other enterprises. My brothers would be appalled if I suggested a move to London. We have no desire to change our lives. The first I knew the earldom was short an heir was when I read it in the paper.”
He broke off and his mouth flattened. “When I contacted Roker, he told me he’d searched the records thoroughly, but I cannot believe he could have done that. We have never hidden ourselves. It wouldn’t have taken too much research to uncover us.
But nobody did. Nobody contacted us.”
John distinctly remembered Roker telling him he’d hunted high and low for an heir. That alone convinced him Smith was telling the truth, or at least some of it. “You say you have proof?”
“Letters, journals, family papers and legal documents like marriage certificates. Yes, sir, in abundance. I have the necessary papers lodged with my man in the City. If you wish for confirmation, there are public records like parish registers, commercial agreements and so on. I will furnish you with any you require.” He paused. “Not with Roker, though. I would refuse to allow him to do more than view the documents since he appears to have mislaid the others.”
Roker had obscured the existence of an heir. John’s suspicions hardened. “I’d like to see the evidence, and to invite Pilkington and his clerk to view them also.”
“By all means. Any time you wish.”
The ready agreement encouraged John to believe Smith. His thoughts drifted to the woman upstairs and what this news would mean to her. With that burden off her mind, she’d rest easier about her condition. The earldom would not depend upon her producing
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an heir and she could finally forget about leaving him so he could sire a son on a younger woman. He didn’t want a younger woman.
He wanted Faith.
That last made up his mind for him. “Today wouldn’t be too soon. As long as I may call upon Pilkington to verify what I see.” He trusted himself to assess the documents, but they would need formal verification before he could accept Smith as heir. Looking at him, John saw shadows of himself and of his late cousins. The colour of the eyes and their shape, certain physical quirks reminded him forcibly of himself and added up to a truth he had no desire to deny. Which was why he’d ask Pilkington to research the man and examine the documents he owned. He wanted it too much to be impartial.
* * * * *
Although they didn’t feel the need to engage in polite conversation, they tentatively discovered a little about each other.
He liked Smith’s pragmatism and sense of duty, found him a man who had felt the need to establish his credentials because of his desire to do the right thing.
After viewing the papers, letters, trivial exchanges of mundanities in handwriting, as well as the formal documents which, to his eyes, seemed perfectly genuine, he was convinced.
Edward Smith was his heir, and had two nephews who could
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continue the title. Although he added the caveats that the documents must be verified formally, he confessed his acceptance.
Smith didn’t appear overjoyed, more pragmatic. “I don’t intend to change my life,” he warned John.
He’d been so sure an heir existed, but had left it to Roker to discover the details. Having at first assumed the man had too much on his plate, rather than a deliberate muddying of the truth, John had allowed his personal creed to slide. John preferred to have a finger in every pie, to keep track on everything that concerned him.
While he left details to trusted staff, he rarely allowed anyone to promulgate anything in his name without checking first. He’d developed his reputation for reliability that way.
When it came to the earldom, he’d never thought of it as his. He hadn’t earned it, nor had he made it. But faced with the reality of the situation, he had to accept it as his. Something he needed to take seriously and permanently.
Like Faith, he’d toyed with the idea of disappearing. After all, he’d done it once before. His memory had returned faster than he’d let anyone know after Waterloo, and now it was complete.
Absolutely complete.
Another thread. Did everything devolve to the same man? Had Roker promulgated the deceits and the attempts on his life, or was Roker interested only in himself and what he could skim from the proceeds? It could be Carlisle. Maybe both. It frustrated John that he didn’t know for sure, but he would.
Standing in the office of Smith’s solicitor, with red-sealed document containers on floor-to-ceiling shelves, John recalled his background. “The Dalkington-Smythes broke into my happy childhood every year to teach me estate management. If I invite you and your family to stay, be assured it will be purely for the pleasure of your company. I joined the army partly to escape the sadness when my parents died, and partly to elude the Dalkington-Smythes.”
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“I’m sorry to hear it,” Edward replied. “My parents have died, also, but I lost my mother last year and my father ten years ago. I had them for my formative years.”
John envied him. “I’m telling you because of the reason I felt I had to get away.” He picked up the glass of excellent port Edward had handed him. He glanced at the man of business, who seemed a solid man. He had a more mundane practice than Roker, but John liked him and would definitely have him investigated with a view to employing him at a future date.
If Roker was cheating him in any way, John would not hesitate to take the business of the earldom away, which would mean he’d need another agent. Pilkington couldn’t handle it all, nor would John wish him to. Besides, Thomas was more in the nature of a partner these days.
They left the offices in good accord, and after bidding Thomas farewell, John decided to accompany Edward to his lodgings before going home. The walk would give him time to think.
He would strive to keep the businesses separate as much as he could. Earldoms meant entails, bequests, pensions, dowries and other costs that should rightly draw from the estate, not the business he’d carefully constructed to perform an entirely different task.
He grimaced. He was procrastinating and he knew why. His detestation of the events he was about to describe. “From the age of seven, every summer I went to Graywood Abbey and underwent training. I was heir to the heir to the estate but both boys were healthy, so nobody expected me to inherit. However, I studied and worked hard, learned the Graywood estate and its wealth. Not until I turned thirteen did I learn why they wanted me to do this.”
Smith nodded. “Did you enjoy these lessons?”
“By no means.” The part he hated admitting to. “I thought the boys considered me their equal, but they spent a lot of time away from the Abbey. I had a room in the guest wing. Only later did I
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learn the room was usually occupied by valets and servants who needed to be close to their masters. That subtly showed me my place as under-steward to David Carlisle, the son of the current occupant of the position. The Carlisles were as set in their position as the earls, almost as difficult to displace. They made me subservient to a boy who treated me as worse than the dirt on his shoes. I thought he despised me for my stupidity, for at the time I was a shy boy, not truly comfortable in company.” The army had soon knocked that out of him. “I fought David Carlisle, though, when he would have bullied me.” A slow smile crept over his mouth. “I found a little compensation. However, I paid for it in the long run, for I believe he despises me still.” He shrugged. “I don’t have the best opinion of the man, I confess. Nor did anyone do anything about it when I told them. Not that the earl or his family were in residence often.”
“Is he a clever fellow?”
He knew exactly why Edward asked that. “He has a good degree of intelligence, although he resists learning new ways. He thinks to patronise me still, but while two years as a boy is yawning chasm, now it is nothing at all. Less than that.”
When he invited Smith to the planned ball, John admitted that the company might not become the fashionable squeeze of legend.
“The dowager has done enough to ensure reasonable attendance.”
“You are a military man, sir. Could you not call on your acquaintances?”
John stopped dead in the middle of the street and smacked his hand against his forehead to knock some sense back into it. A passing chair-mended, burdened with a tool kit and a few bits of wood cursed at him. John ignored him. “I’m an idiot. A complete fool.” He could only put his omission down to his concern with the estate and the way it was losing money hand over fist.
Abruptly, he changed direction. “If you will excuse me, sir, I have a call to make.”
After finding his first quarry not at home, John left his card and went after more prey. After so much prevaricating, he’d had enough and he would take the action for himself. Although he hadn’t visited London for some time, he doubted the areas he wanted to visit had changed a great deal. The rookeries.
Going into the rookeries meant death for interlopers. He knew that, too. Warrens of alleys, buildings about to tumble down, deliberately mined with holes in the road and carefully placed debris. Some of the houses were rigged to collapse when required, filled with people who officially didn’t exist; whores, cutpurses, pickpockets, riff raff of the lowest kind. A whore earning a living wouldn’t choose to live in St. Giles or Seven Dials, just as a successful thief would set up house elsewhere.