by Rue Allyn
Mae gasped, and her eyes went wide. “You mean this is a clerical error.”
James rustled the papers he held into one hand then withdrew a handkerchief from his coat pocket and mopped his brow. That and his earlier flush were the only signs of any disturbance to his calm. The man must have ice water for blood.
“I believe so,” he stated. “However, because your grandfather approved the draft and signed the final version, we cannot be certain that any mistake occurred.”
Taking courage from the thought of what her sisters might do, Mae pursued the issue. “Grandfather’s character alone would be sufficient to prove his intent. Would that not justify setting the will aside?”
“You would be surprised, Miss Alden, how often the dying act against character.”
“Not Grandfather. Surely there is some way to resolve the issue,” she mused aloud. Offended that James would question her knowledge of her own grandfather, Mae bristled and once more spoke without thinking. “That is why we retain a legal firm. Please do what you must to have this ridiculous document declared null and void.”
“I’m afraid I cannot.”
“Why not? You’re our lawyer.”
“No, I am not.”
As if struck, Mae’s head snapped backward. “I beg your pardon?”
“Miss Alden, the firm of Collins & Collins represents the estate of Mr. Carlton R. Alden IV. You are claimant to that estate; thus my firm cannot also represent you. To do so would be a conflict of interest and a breach of legal ethics. I am very sorry.”
“Perhaps I shall hire another firm.” Appalled by her frequent lapses in restraint throughout the entire conversation, doubt quaked through her. However, lightning had not struck her down, nor had Hades appeared to drag her to the underworld like the minor goddess whose name she bore. Perhaps she could survive this meeting unscathed.
“You may contest of course. However, if you recall the first clause of the will is a no-contest clause.”
She hadn’t been paying attention, so she didn’t recall. “No contest?”
“Any beneficiary who protests the terms of the will is automatically excluded from inheriting.”
“Oh dear.” She was used to having her wishes denied or ignored. However, the will was so peculiar she felt compelled to step outside her familiar, protective shell. She must learn more about the terms. “Still, I would like to seek legal counsel and perhaps pursue the matter. Can I afford to do so? How much does a lawyer charge for such services?”
James named a figure.
“So much?” Mae twisted her hands. The number amounted to robbery.
James stood and began to gather his belongings. “That is considered a fair and reasonable price for legal services. I regret this, but the delay in our appointment has caused me to be late for another commitment. You may have this copy of the will to read at your leisure.” He slid the neat stack of paper on the desktop into an envelope. “You may of course contact my firm with any questions. I will send a clerk with more documents for your signature and to gather the personal papers your grandfather wished the firm to keep. Harry will see you and your housemaid to a cab and give the cabbie directions. You’ll be home safe and sound in less than an hour.”
As she left the office, Mae turned her situation over in her mind, trying to come up with a feasible solution to keep her sisters out of the poorhouse. She missed their protective presence. Even James’s indifferent calm would be preferable to the desperate isolation descending upon her. Safe and sound, he had said. Imprisoned was more like what she felt in the manse. “What in the world am I to do?”
• • •
Early the following Wednesday, James slouched in his desk chair, shook his head, and tried to focus on the terms of the contract before him. He’d been staring at the paper for more than twenty minutes.
However, the only thing he’d seen was the image of Mae Alden during the reading of that terrible will. A hideous black dress dwarfed her slight form and tinted her skin with ash. Her moss green eyes looked at him with doubt and worry. She’d resembled nothing as much as a bedraggled kitten, if a kitten could smell like the whiskey tinged violet scent that clung to her clothing. Her hands had been cold despite her hour beside the warmth of the pot belly. Her lips had trembled as she bid him good day. Her posture had been straight, and though she’d never be a tall woman, she’d borne the awful revelations of her grandfather’s will with a dignity and grace that greatly exceeded her stature.
Thank heaven the police had apprehended the scoundrels who attempted the kidnapping. The men would spend long years in prison contemplating their actions. That did not mean Mae was completely safe. It angered James that she had no family to guard her from the opportunists who would make every effort to take advantage of her despicable situation.
James didn’t know any of the Alden sisters well, but from the little he’d seen, Mae appealed most. He admired her quiet, peaceful demeanor. Kiera was the most independent and perhaps the more beautiful of the three, though she’d been gone three years. Who knew what time and circumstance may have done to that wild spirit or her appearance? Edith seemed to be the bravest. While she was certainly bold, James couldn’t agree with the assessment of bravery. How much courage was required to run off to relatives, leaving your youngest sister at home to care for a badly injured old man and bear the brunt of his passing alone?
No, James would take the burnished gold of Mae’s fine hair, the peach of her delicate complexion, and her quiet, shy-kitten modesty over the boldness and beauty of her sisters any day. The man who shared a bed with her unassuming allure would be lucky indeed.
Not that he’d be that man. He would soon enter his thirtieth year, but comfortable as marriage might be, the idea of taking a wife seemed alien. Besides, what man with any self-respect would wed a woman with that will hanging over her? The man would be branded a fortune hunter of the worst sort. Although given the will’s horrid terms, Mae would be lucky if she wasn’t abducted and raped. Monday’s episode might just be the beginning. Damn it, he would have to hire guards. She’d suffered too much.
James had tried to be kind in his reading of the will, but too often gentleness was misunderstood by the bereaved. Experience had taught him to display as little emotion as possible and get the process completed quickly. Carlton Alden deserved the worst fate God could provide for leaving the sisters in such damnable circumstances. James’s inability to change those circumstances rankled.
No woman, least of all one as defenseless as Mae Alden, deserved to dwindle into poverty or worse. Unwarranted burdens would crush her quiet strength. She’d drown like a kitten in a stone-weighted sack. She deserved a husband, a home and children born out of love not greed. She deserved to be courted. He straightened abruptly and set the contract aside.
A marriage, even an engagement—given that she’d be in mourning for at least six months to a year—could resolve the problem of keeping her safe from opportunists and dishonorable sorts who might choose to harm her to gain access to the Alden fortune.
By heaven, he’d see that she got a courtship. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, arrange a marriage for her—that would be too much like her draconian grandfather. However, James could see that she had the opportunity to be courted. Her mourning presented a problem, but surely there were ways around that. He numbered several bachelors amongst his clients and acquaintances who would be perfectly eligible suitors. A properly worded settlement would take care of any gossip about fortune hunting. Certainly if he couldn’t come up with appropriate candidates, his aunt could, for she moved in the highest circles of Boston society. Pleased that Mae Alden would soon be safe and relieved of every burden, James resumed his perusal of the contract. Yes, Mae deserved to be courted, wed and protected. He would see that it happened. All he had to do was find the right man.
“I hear you’re being courted by Cabot, Lodge and that upstart Kennedy as personal attorney for their respective families.”
James lifted his
gaze from the contract to stare at the fashionable man entering his office. His cousin was a bachelor and of good breeding. He’d be wealthy enough once he had full control of his inheritance. John Collins-Morton was fit and, James supposed, attractive enough. His cousin’s hair was brown instead of black. He had a generous smile plus the Collins’s height and blue eyes—James’s own hazel pupils were an exception acquired from his mother. However, for some reason unknown to him, women found John’s lazy, blue gaze attractive. Although some women preferred the hazel to the clear Collins blue. Would Mae prefer the blue? James shook his head. He wouldn’t give her the chance. At twenty-four, John was still sowing oats. He would never do as a mate for quiet Mae Alden.
“Where did you hear about Lodge, Cabot and Kennedy, and who let you in? I told Harry I didn’t wish to be disturbed.”
“Are you saying you aren’t glad to see your favorite cousin?”
“I’m always glad to see you and the rest of my aunt’s family. However, I must review these contracts today, so my client can sign them tomorrow. Otherwise, he’ll lose a great deal of money, and I’ll lose a profitable client.
John ambled into the room, twitched a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and dusted a cherry wood Hepplewhite arm chair before sitting to contemplate his cousin. “Harry has fallen asleep. I walked right past him, and he didn’t even stir. You need a new clerk.”
James tossed his papers on the desk. “Damn it. I can’t fire the man. He’s been with Collins & Collins since my father and yours first opened the firm.”
“Harry’s half blind and too decrepit to do more than molder by a fire. Pension him off and hire someone younger. Someone who can see.”
James inhaled, seeking patience. He’d been out of sorts since the reading of the Alden will. Earlier he’d snapped without reason at his clerk—after years of loyal service, Harry deserved better treatment—and now James wished his cousin at the devil even if he was the closest thing James had to a brother.
Aside from his younger sister Eulalie, his aunt’s brood—son and three daughters—were all that remained of the once large Collins family. Despite modern times and new knowledge, medicine still could not conquer disease. Over the last decade, between cholera and smallpox, James had lost his uncle, mother, youngest sister, and most recently his father.
Thank the Lord his aunt’s branch of the family had been touring Europe for the past three years. Aunt Lydia had hoped to catch a title for her eighteen-year-old daughter, Victoria. James could have told his aunt not to bother. Vickie was a hoyden—pretty—but a hoyden nonetheless. No man with a brain would think her a suitable wife, especially for the stiff-necked British nobility. Other than keeping the family safe from contagion, the only benefit of that trip had been his sister’s return to Boston at his aunt’s urging.
Somewhat more than two years ago, Lalie had lost her husband and miscarried their first child within a single month. Inconsolable, she refused to travel while in deep mourning. In James’s opinion, such extensive grieving was almost as bad as none at all.
The sound of fingers snapping in front of his nose turned him from his wandering thoughts.
“I say, Jim, you’re almost as bad as that clerk of yours.”
James grimaced. “You know I dislike that nickname.”
John grinned. “Hence the reason I call you Jim as often as possible. I’ve been trying to tell you that you are invited to dinner this Sunday and warn you that my mother has matchmaking fever again. I intend to leave the city in a few months but am having trouble avoiding Mother’s machinations at present.”
“You’ve always been a slippery character with women. I’m surprised your mother has any success outwitting you.”
“She has extra motivation. I’ve been entertaining myself with the charming Miss Cressida Damato, whom Mother met on the return crossing to Boston. Cressida and her brother have business here. When Mother discovered the two knew no one and intended to rent rooms, she invited them to stay with us.”
“How does flirting with Miss Damato motivate Aunt Lydia’s matchmaking instincts?”
“Mother imagines that I might be serious and creates every opportunity to throw the two of us together. I don’t mind so much. Cressida’s entertaining, but I worry she’ll get the wrong idea with Mother encouraging her. Mother’s also determined to restore Lalie’s spirits and find her a new husband. Lalie wants nothing to do with any of it. Do me and your sister a favor. Come to dinner Sunday and persuade Mother to stop.”
“I agree with Aunt Lydia. Lalie needs to get past her morbid memories. As for trying to convince my aunt to do anything other than exactly what she pleases,” James snorted, “she’s your mother. You make her stop.”
“You know Mother. I protest her matchmaking, and she throws three days of birthing travails in my face. As if producing a child gives her the right to treat me like one my entire life.”
“She might have a point.” James liked John and enjoyed his company, but privately thought that Aunt Lydia would treat her son more like an adult if John acted like one. However, John shared his mother’s predilection for not hearing that which he didn’t wish to hear. So telling John anything was near impossible. Nonetheless, James promised himself to speak with Aunt Lydia about Mae Alden and Lalie.
“You can’t be serious. Now be a good fellow and promise that you’ll talk to Mother.”
James shook his head. He wasn’t about to make rash promises or confide his plans to John who enjoyed gossip almost as much as he enjoyed women, whiskey and horse racing.
John pursed his lips and wrinkled his brow while he studied his fingernails. “You know, I’m five years younger than you. It’s past time she badgered you with a few respectable women.”
“I’m not her son.”
“True, but you are head of the family. Since your father passed away, she’s been on a tear to get each and every one of the Collins’s younger generation married. Fond as she is of you, it wouldn’t surprise me if she tried to get you leg-shackled as well.”
James remained silent. His intentions to marry or not were no business of his loose- lipped cousin. Heaven forbid John should learn of James’s plans to do a little matchmaking of his own. Rumors would spread like wildfire. Mae’s situation was bad enough. James wanted very much to offer her solace, but of course that was out of the question. His position as executor of the Alden estate made impossible any but the most professional relationship.
He hadn’t liked being the one to tell her the terms of the will. Restraining his empathy and maintaining a professional demeanor had been difficult. He’d liked even less that she had no family near at hand, no confidante to support her after hearing the terms of the will.
Quiet and modest, he admired her. She’d taken the terms of the will with surprising equanimity. She hadn’t broken down—though she had obviously been distressed. However, no tears or wailing for Miss Persephone Mae Alden. More quiet than the kitten he associated with her, she’d listened with great forbearance and asked very reasonable and thoughtful questions—even if that low, throaty voice of hers had interrupted with annoying frequency. He hadn’t really been annoyed at her, but rather at the circumstances that required him to be the bearer of bad tidings. If he were inclined to wed, she was exactly the sort of woman he’d want as a wife. At his age and as head of his family, perhaps it was time he considered marrying and establishing his nursery? The thought of carefully worded settlements reminded him that he could transfer his executor’s duties to another attorney. Perhaps he needn’t look farther afield than himself for a suitor to lighten Mae’s burdens.
“James. James!”
“Huh?”
“You’re wool-gathering again. You must be working too hard. Another reason to hire a new clerk—perhaps two.”
James shuttered his gaze and focused on his cousin. “Perhaps.”
“Now are you coming or not?”
“Coming?” He held his breath. He really had no time to carouse, nor did h
e wish to deal with the ribbing John would give his too sober cousin that a refusal would prompt.
John rolled his eyes. Standing he strolled the perimeter of the office. “You haven’t heard a thing I’ve said in the past five minutes. Mother wants you to come to dinner Sunday after church services.”
James exhaled slowly. “I am always happy to dine with my aunt. Will you and your sisters be there?”
“Lalie, Victoria, Miss Cressida Damato, and her brother Vincent will be present. My younger sisters, Cordelia and Nanette, have already been shipped off to Burton’s school, which is another topic you need to discuss with Mother. That school is rumored to be a hotbed of suffragist activity and cannot be a good place for my sisters. You also missed me telling you that I’m considering an investment in the Mississippi River trade and will travel to New Orleans to see the main offices of the company as well as some of their paddle wheelers.” Completing his circuit, John stood once more before James.
“I see. Your anticipated journey will take you down the Mississippi?” James rose.
“Yes, but no firm date is set, as I’m a tad short on cash and haven’t yet received most of the basic information I requested about the company’s finances. I don’t suppose you’d like to make me a loan against next quarter’s allowance?”
James shook his head. “You’ll never learn to live within your means if I bail you out.”
John sighed. “That’s what you always say, yet I always come about.”
“Because you are forced to use that brilliant mind of yours for a productive purpose instead of gambling on ponies, of which you are an extremely bad judge.”
“True, but until my next flash of brilliance occurs, I am stuck at my mother’s beck and call as escort for Lalie, Vickie, and Cressida. Mother thinks she can stir Lalie out of her mourning doldrums with a series of discreet entertainments.”
“I wish her success in that endeavor. My sister has been too sad for too long. I worry about her.” Together they turned toward the office’s outer door. “How will you travel to New Orleans when you finally go?”