As the door closed on him, Duff swore roundly and at length.
“Is the child Walingame’s?” Julius finally inquired, his face without expression.
“Fuck if I know,” Duff growled. Julius had informed Duff of Walingame’s departure after the fact, along with details of his and Giles’s visit.
“Then we could have a problem.”
“She claims Cricket is her sister’s. I could quiz her, I suppose.” Duff blew out a breath. “But there’s no guarantee I’ll hear the truth.” That aristocratic women went off to the country or abroad and returned with nieces and nephews was so common as to affect families high and low. Those outside the aristocracy were no exception.
“There are servants who would know,” the duke offered. Servants often testified for or against their masters in court in matters such as this.
“Molly wouldn’t. She was hired after Cricket was born. As for Annabelle’s staff in London, most have been with her for years. They are loyal.”
“Maybe not all.”
“God-damn,” Duff muttered. “We should have killed Walingame instead of letting him go.”
“That’s still not out of the question. Although, as you know, I prefer him alive on the Continent to dead with his cousin as heir. With Walingame out of England, we’re assured of peace. His cousin is an unknown.”
“Call Plunkett,” Duff rapped out. “He’ll know what we can and cannot do.”
Before the order could be issued, however, the duchess appeared.
“I just saw McWilliams in the hall,” she remarked. “And from your faces, I gather he did not bring good news.”
“I’m not sure you want to know,” Julius replied. “Seriously, darling, you might do better to stay out of this.”
“Since that isn’t likely,” she said with a smile, walking to a chair and sitting down. “Do tell me what this is all about.”
“It has to do with Annabelle.”
“What has to do with me?”
None of them had heard the door open, that fact evident from their surprised expressions.
“Please, dear, go away,” Duff said. “We’ll take care of this.”
But the gruffness in his voice couldn’t be denied, nor was Annabelle likely to be willingly sent away like a child. “Tell me or I’ll ask McWilliams myself.” To Duff’s startled look, she added, “One can’t overlook his blazing shock of hair, even from a distance.” The barrister was one of the most prominent in the city and well known. As was his bright orange hair.
“Come sit down,” Duff offered. She hadn’t been told of Walingame yet and that news might be better heard sitting down. “Although it’s nothing of huge import,” he added reassuringly.
From the tone of his voice she knew better, but she did as he wished and sat. “Now, tell me what you will. I’m quite ready.”
“First I want to assure you of your safety.”
“This sounds rather ominous.” Not that she hadn’t been expecting problems from the Harrisons.
“Walingame is alive—but he’s left England,” Duff quickly added as she went pale. “He sailed from Dover and he’s gone. Absolutely.”
Her eyes were huge. “You’re sure?”
“Very sure. We have people following him. He landed in Calais and set off for Paris.”
“So this isn’t about the Harrisons,” Annabelle noted, glancing from person to person as though searching for some clue to the mystery.
“Walingame is suing for custody of Cricket, but don’t worry—he won’t be successful,” Julius said firmly.
“Of course he won’t!” Annabelle cried, incensed at such a despicable thought. “He has no right to Cricket! She’s Chloe’s child!”
Her anger instantly obliterated Duff’s skepticism. No matter how skilled an actress, such flushed outrage couldn’t be feigned. “We’ll tell McWilliams he can go to hell and take Walingame with him,” Duff rapped out.
“Perhaps it won’t be that simple,” the duchess interposed. “If Walingame is after revenge, he may want to drag Annabelle through the courts. You know how the public is captivated by scandal.”
“Surely testimony from the midwife who delivered Cricket should be enough to stop this suit,” Annabelle offered, knowing better than most how to manage detraction. “Mrs. Malkin has known us for years. She will gladly clear up this matter.”
“Why don’t we put that question to Plunkett?” the duke suggested. “None of us are knowledgeable about the legal process.” But he was relieved that the issue of paternity wasn’t in doubt. If Walingame had been the father, even Plunkett may not have been able to solve the dilemma. By law, women generally had no rights to their children.
“Well, it seems, then, as though the problem is solved,” the duchess cheerfully announced.
Perhaps it wasn’t a day in which the cosmic forces were properly aligned, for the duchess had no more than pronounced an end to their troubles when Bamford entered with another unwanted message.
“I am sorry to inform you that the Harrisons are here with a bailiff and a solicitor,” he announced mournfully.
“Little Cricket is in demand,” Duff drawled, his gaze amused. No longer disturbed by paternity issues, he was once again in a bantering mood.
“I daresay, I hope there aren’t any more litigants who wish to profit by her birth,” Elspeth noted derisively. “Although, darling,” she went on, smiling at her husband, “at this point Annabelle and I will defer to your masculine powers of persuasion or intimidation, as the case may be. Come, Annabelle, we most certainly do not want to be here when the Harrisons come in.”
“I shan’t argue,” Annabelle replied, yielding to unimpeachable reason. And feeling less anxious about Cricket’s future with ducal power and influence on her side, she willingly followed the duchess from the room.
———
The Harrisons and their solicitor arrived short moments later to find only the duke and the marquis in the study.
Millicent Harrison, frustrated in her hope of seeing Annabelle and giving her a severe set-down, blurted out, red-faced and miffed, “Where is that… that… doxy of an actress?”
Duff came out of his chair like a bolt.
“Let me take care of this, Duff,” the duke murmured.
Duff’s heated gaze swiveled to his father.
In contrast, the duke’s expression was benign. But he lifted one brow the merest distance in mild reproof.
Duff sat back down.
“Now then, what do we have here?” Julius inquired from behind the vast expanse of his desk. “Please state your business quickly, Mr… er” He looked directly at the solicitor.
“George…Carleton… Your Grace,” the Harrisons’ lawyer stammered, clearly awed, his face turning red as a beet. Nervously twisting the papers he held in his hands, he stumbled over the lines he’d previously rehearsed. “We have… come on a matter… that my clients—er—Mr. and Mrs. Harrison… assure me is… will be… in Your Grace’s best—ah—interests.”
“About the money they want, you mean,” Julius said coldly.
“Yes… well… that may be, but you would be relieved of any further—er—implication—or rather, the marquis would be—in terms of—the child.” The poor man was visibly wilting under Julius’s hard stare.
“I have no intention of haggling over money.” If ever the word arrogance was represented in the flesh, Julius evinced that attribute in voice and pose and haughty gaze. “However,” he went on in the same chill tone, “on one point we can agree. The child is not my son’s. So I suggest your clients restrain their greed. My barrister will contact you. Now, you may go.” During this conversation the duke never spared so much as a glance for the Harrisons.
“We can take the child! It’s ours to take!” Mrs. Harrison threatened loudly, infuriated at being ignored when she’d spent her entire life lording it over country yeomen and servants. “Think about that happenstance when you get all high and mighty with us!”
Julius
swung around in his chair to direct his scornful gaze her way. “If you so much as consider taking the child,” he said, his voice like ice, “I will see that you are sent off to the penal colonies—the whole lot of you—your worthless son included. Now we are done.” Coming to his feet, he looked at the solicitor with such rage, the man trembled, then turned and ran from the room.
“Say something, Jeremiah!” Millicent Harrison demanded, her bloated face white with fury.
Her husband opened and shut his mouth like a beached fish. If his wife didn’t know the power and influence of a duke, he did. And had he known that only seventeen dukes existed in all of England, he would have been even more frightened.
“Jeremiah! Tell him we have rights!” she shrieked. “Tell him he can’t talk to us like this!”
Apparently deciding his current life was far superior to one in a penal colony, Jeremiah Harrison grabbed his wife’s arm, muttered something unintelligible to her, and literally dragged her from the room.
Julius softly sighed as the sounds of Millicent Harrison’s noisy rancor faded down the hall. “I apologize. I dislike losing my temper.”
Duff blew out a soft breath. “It would be difficult not to with a woman like that. Think of Annabelle’s poor sister, caught in her clutches.”
“A sad situation indeed. Christ—I need a drink. You?” The duke glanced at Duff as he moved to a well-stocked liquor table.
“Yes. How does one live with a woman like that without doing her bodily harm?” Duff murmured, following his father across the room.
“God knows. It makes one grateful for a wife like your mother, though,” the duke said, tossing a smile over his shoulder.
“I agree.” Having stopped just short of where his father was pouring drinks, Duff leaned one shoulder against a bank of bookshelves. “So, what happens now?”
“I wash my hands of the entire sordid mess. Plunkett will give our blackmailers as little money as possible. We have already discussed the finances; he will deal with this George Carleton person. And that will be that,” the duke enunciated with crisp finality. Picking up the brandies, he handed Duff his.
“To peace on earth,” the duke murmured, raising his glass to his son. “And the last of the Harrisons in our lives.”
“Amen to that.”
Both men knocked back the liquor, ringing down the curtain, as it were, on a noxious scene.
“Now that we have—or will have—bought off the Harrisons’ interest in Cricket—and that will be in the nature of a signed document, by the way, Plunkett tells me—what are your plans, if any, with Miss Foster?”
Duff shrugged. “I have no plans.”
“You seem quite enamored.”
“I am.”
“But?”
“But that doesn’t require planning.”
“Ah.”
“Don’t say you and Mother think I should be making plans—as you so delicately put it?”
“Your mother likes Annabelle a great deal, as do I.” Julius dipped his head. “As do you. And Cricket is quite the most adorable child I’ve seen—in addition to those in our family, of course.”
“I’m sorry to have to disappoint you, but even if I were so inclined, which I’m not, Annabelle has already told me she is not interested in marrying me.”
The duke looked surprised. “She did?”
“Quite emphatically.”
His father smiled. “Are you doing something wrong?”
“I’ve heard no complaints,” Duff drawled. “She is, however, concerned with the conventions—what people will say, that sort of thing.”
“What people say is of no consequence.”
“And so I told her, but she persists in her beliefs.”
“What if she were to leave you? She has a reputation for doing so. What then?”
Duff gazed out the window for a moment, not entirely sure of his answer. And then, reverting to form, he said with a smile, “I expect I’d find something to do.”
Chapter 35
And so it was left.
The duke knew better than to press the point. Whether he and his wife liked Annabelle was incidental; it was Duff’s life. But neither he nor Elspeth could forget that through Annabelle’s good graces, their son had been returned to them.
Dinner that night was en famille and lighthearted, the prospect of the Harrisons’ control over Cricket at an end, animating the conversation. Plans were made for a boat ride on the Thames, weather permitting, and for another day at the races as well. Several bottles of champagne only added to the gaiety, and a kind of snug pleasure enveloped the gathering.
“I will pay you back,” Annabelle said later that night as she lay in Duff’s arms. “Let me know what the Harrison settlement is.”
“We’ll know tomorrow. Plunkett is meeting with them in the morning.”
As it transpired, the sum the Harrisons received was considerably less than they’d anticipated. Plunkett informed the Harrisons and George Carleton that the duke was considering bringing manslaughter charges against them in relation to Chloe’s death. At that point, Jeremiah Harrison understood whatever leverage they might have had was gone. When Plunkett offered them a thousand pounds if they signed away their rights to Celia, alias Cricket, despite his wife’s protests, Jeremiah quickly signed.
As for the Walingame suit, Plunkett found dealing with McWilliams slightly more difficult.
“The earl is willing to go to any lengths to support his claim,” McWilliams began, immediately taking the offensive. “He has the funds to bring this to trial—and the motivation. Miss Foster will not find him amenable on any level.”
“I realize keeping this in court would be profitable to your firm,” Plunkett noted mildly, never having liked McWilliams’s lack of ethics. “And you may do so if you so choose. My client’s fortune is considerably more than Walingame’s, however. Furthermore, the duke is not concerned with the ultimate cost of this litigation.”
“Then we will see how Miss Foster does on the witness stand,” McWilliams returned boldly.
“I expect she will do exceedingly well. However, I doubt it will come to that.” Plunkett pulled a sheet of paper from a leather portfolio and handed it across the table to McWilliams. “Take note, if you please, of the fact that one Thomas Harrison is named as the father of the child. And here are the documents relating to the marriage between Miss Foster’s sister, Chloe, and Thomas Harrison.” The papers were duly handed over. “Furthermore, we have testimony from the midwife who attended at the birth of the child, Celia, and two corroborating witnesses to the lying-in and delivery. Let me know when you’ve seen enough,” Plunkett said with a small smile.
McWilliams frowned as he perused the papers, then tossed them aside. “These could all be forgeries and false testimony. My client contends that the child is Miss Annabelle Foster’s and he is the father.”
“In that case, I’ll wish you good day.” Plunkett came to his feet and straightened the papers into a neat pile before placing them into his portfolio. “We will be seeing you in court.” He walked to the door, then turned and said, “You might consider your reputation, however. My client has considerable influence. You are bound to lose this case—eventually. And furthermore, occasion the displeasure of my client, the duke. I caution you to weigh the liabilities, particularly with Walingame discredited at every turn. He will not be allowed back in England; the duke has so vowed. I wish you good day.” He turned to the door.
“Wait.”
Plunkett suppressed a smile and turned back.
“Perhaps we could reach a settlement,” McWilliams said, smooth-tongued and bland. “An amiable agreement, as it were.”
“Westerlands won’t give Walingame a penny.”
“I was thinking”—McWilliams let the sentence hang.
“My client would be willing to offer you a fee for services. In lieu of the time you’ve already spent on this case.” Plunkett put up a cautioning hand. “I don’t suggest you be greedy. T
he duke is quite out of humor on this issue.”
“Say, five hundred pounds?”
Plunkett had never heard such hesitancy in McWilliams. He was tempted to knock the sum down on principle. But the duke had already given him leave to go as high as five thousand pounds, so he restrained his personal antipathy toward a man like McWilliams with little scruple and less time for the truth. “Five hundred pounds it is,” he agreed. “And, may I say, you’ve made the right choice. Westerlands is in high dudgeon over this.”
In short order, McWilliams signed a few documents, relinquishing his interest in the case, and Plunkett left the law offices in Piccadilly to report back to Julius on his successful missions.
Chapter 36
When the news was delivered to Westerlands House, an immediate celebration took place. The duke had his reserve champagne brought up, a fact his family took note of. Only births and marriages had formerly called for the reserve champagne.
The party was replete with good cheer and laughter, toasts were raised to the Harrisons’ departure from London, to Plunkett’s expertise, to Cricket’s future. Annabelle was profuse in her heartfelt appreciation to the Westerlands family for all they’d done for her, particularly in terms of the Harrison settlement. As for Walingame’s case, she had thanked them privately, since her mother didn’t know of the earl’s attempt to claim Cricket.
Sometime later, when the merrymaking and jubilation had moderated and conversation had turned to other, more mundane, subjects like Lady Jersey’s upcoming rout, Annabelle made an announcement. “I think it’s time our family returns to Shoreham,” she said, having purposely chosen the public venue in order to lessen dissent. As shock registered on every face, she brightly added, “Cricket so adores being outside—she would prefer being in the country. As would my mother, I’m sure.” Her smile was luminous. “As would I, after the excitement and tumult of the last few weeks.”
There was no one at the table who dared to protest, although most would have liked to. The duke and duchess, her mother—even Duff’s sisters and brother—had come to cherish Annabelle.
When someone loves you Page 23