by Jacksons Way
She sat on the opposite seat of the rented hack now, her gaze fixed on the world passing outside the window on their way to Otis Vanderhagen's office. Knowing there was no point in asking her yet again what he'd done, he studied her instead and played the memory of last night through his head. He was fairly good at judging people's reactions to things, and he would have sworn that she was initially receptive to his suggestion that she move to Texas. Her breath had caught and her eyes had gotten big and bright. A little smile had been flirting around the corners of her mouth when he'd explained how he thought it could all work.
The first sign he'd had that she might say “no” had been when she'd suggested that he send her money as he intended to send Tiny. What had he said between then and the start that had changed the way she saw the offer? Damned if he could remember anything that might have been off-putting. Billy's house. Making sure she had money to live on. That there was enough to see to her needs. Was she seeing his offer as an act of pity and charity? Surely not. He'd explained why he wanted to do it. Yes, he'd explained that very clearly; not wanting to make the same mistake her father had in leaving her behind alone and lonely. There was no way she could have misunderstood his motives.
She'd become more animated when he'd talked about the possibility of her finding a husband. Maybe, Jack admitted, frowning, he could have put that part better. Judging from the way she'd summed it up for him, it seemed that she thought he might auction her off or something. But she should know him better that. She should know that he wouldn't let anyone around her but the best and brightest and most capable of taking care of her and making her happy. He wouldn't let her marry anyone except someone who really and truly loved her and was worth her. Jesus, didn't she know that he cared about her? That he'd rather die than see her hurt and unhappy? That's why he'd made the offer in the first place. And he'd been real clear about that, too.
Maybe, Jack decided as the carriage pulled to a stop, he needed to take another run at the whole idea after they completed their business with Vanderhagen. He didn't like the distance he was feeling between him and Lindsay, and the longer it went on, the more he worried that they might not be able to get back the closeness they'd had. He missed it, and he missed it badly. It felt more wrong than anything he'd ever felt in his life.
“Ready?” she asked as he assisted her out of the carriage.
Jack nodded, but decided against suggesting that she let him do the majority of the talking, the bulk of the question-asking. He didn't know exactly where he stood with her and the last thing he wanted to risk was inadvertently putting any more distance between them. He'd just have to roll with the punches when they got inside and make the best of it. As god-awful as it was to wish horrible news on anyone, as they entered the office he found himself wishing that the news would be so devastating that it would drive Lindsay into his arms. If he could just hold her, everything would come right again.
“Good morning, Lindsay,” the attorney boomed, standing behind his desk. “Good morning, Mr. Stennett. I'm glad to see that you've returned from your trip. As I'm sure you're aware, Richard passed in your absence.”
“Yes,” Lindsay replied quietly. “Mrs. Beechum said that you needed to speak with me immediately about Richard's Will.”
“Yes, yes,” the attorney said, motioning to the chairs placed on the other side of his desk.
“The Will aside,” Jack ventured, “I have some questions for you.”
“I'm sure you do, Mr. Stennett,” Vanderhagen acknowledged with a quick nod. “And I've been waiting for them. However, I think that perhaps the reading of Richard's Last Will and Testament will answer most of them. What isn't addressed by that document, I'll answer to the best of my ability.”
“When do you plan to disclose the contents?” Lindsay asked.
“If you and Mr. Stennett will have a seat, I can do so right now. There are matters pertaining to others, of course, but they can be informed at another time and privately.”
Lindsay dutifully sat, but Jackson felt inclined to refuse just for the sake of refusing. “I'll stand, if you don't mind.”
“As you like, Mr. Stennett,” the lawyer said while gathering up a stack of documents. He handed one across the desk to Lindsay, saying, “A copy was made for you, Lindsay. And since you're capable of reading it for yourself, I'll dispense with actually reading it for you. Instead, and if you have no objections, I'll summarize for your and Mr. Stennett's benefit.”
“Please proceed,” Jack instructed, wanting it over just as quickly and cleanly as possible.
With a deep breath that pulled his waistcoat up over his paunch, Vanderhagen said, “Richard begins by acknowledging Henry and Agatha MacPhaull and Benjamin Tipton as his children.”
Lindsay instantly gasped and leaned forward. “I beg your pardon?”
Jack sucked in a hard breath. It was one helluva unexpected wrinkle. He would never have guessed something like that.
“Richard, as they say, had quite a bit of swash in his buckle in his younger years,” Otis Vanderhagen explained, smiling weakly. “As indelicate as it may be, I'm afraid there's no way around the truth of the matter. Seducing married women was his expertise. Lydia MacPhaull certainly wasn't the first. Abigail Beechum, due to unfortunate circumstances, was his last. But as far as Richard knew, Henry and Agatha and Ben were the only offspring to result from his various liaisons. He legally acknowledges his parentage and provides Henry and Agatha with a reasonable trust from which they may draw specific amounts over the course of the next ten years. After that time, the funds remaining, along with the accrued interest, are to be donated to charities Richard selected.
“Ben will receive a token bequest; largely so that he doesn't have legal grounds on which to contest the Will. If you don't mind, I'll come back to the other reasons a little later in our conversation. It will all make much more sense at that point and in the larger context.”
Lindsay nodded her assent. Jackson chewed the inside of his lip and wondered how a man could work day in and day out with his son and never publicly acknowledge the relationship. What a strange man Richard Patterson had been.
“Richard also made similar trusts for Havers and Emile, in recognition of their years of service to him,” Vanderhagen went on, pulling Jack from his musing. “Again, the trusts are to exist for ten years and then be dissolved, with the balances going to charity. Richard also established a trust on behalf of Mrs. Abigail Beechum. It will provide her with an income and remain in effect for the rest of her life. At her passing, the remaining monies will go to charities of her own choosing.”
The lawyer paused to take a deep breath before continuing. “And he made provisions for you, of course, Lindsay. There are personal remarks for you in the Will itself and I will allow you to read those at your leisure and in the privacy of your own home. But—”
“Does he happen to tell her,” Jack asked bluntly, “why he'd spent the last fifteen years stripping the MacPhaull Company of assets?”
Vanderhagen nodded. Even though Jack had expected to find the truth in the end, the gesture, the easy admission of Richard Patterson's theft, struck like a physical blow. He sensed Lindsay start and he instantly put his hands on her shoulders, wordlessly assuring her that she wasn't alone in dealing with the news.
“While Richard was kind enough to say nothing that might compromise my legal integrity,” Vanderhagen said, after letting their initial shock pass, “I will admit freely to both of you that I have not only been aware of what he was doing from the beginning, but that I have also been deeply involved in the process. I approved of his motives and I supported his efforts at every opportunity. I could be disbarred and brought up on criminal charges for what I've done, but in considering the situation, I had to do what I believed to be in the long-range best interests of the MacPhaull Company.”
Lindsay's voice quavered as she asked, “And just what have you and Richard done?”
A deep breath, a yank on his waistcoat, and then
Vanderhagen smoothly replied, “There were two primary concerns underlying our actions. The first is that you, Lindsay, are the one and only known legitimate heir of William Lindsay MacPhaull. The second is that, under the terms of the only Last Will and Testament of William MacPhaull we knew to exist, Henry would inherit all the property. We both knew that it would lead to financial disaster. In the end, you would not only be denied what was yours by birthright, but you would be impoverished by, if not your brother's certain mismanagement, then his selfishness and greed.
“Since William's whereabouts were unknown—even whether he was alive or dead—Richard thought to make things right as best he could and enlisted my aid in establishing a series of companies that exist only on paper.”
“We know about them, Mr. Vanderhagen,” Jack said. “They're the Little, Bates and Company of Boston, the Michaels, Katz, and Osborne firm in Charleston, the firm of Hooper, Preston, and Roberts, Limited in Philadelphia, and the MacWillman Company in Richmond.”
Vanderhagen nodded and, meeting his gaze over Lindsay's head, replied, “Ben said he thought you would soon unravel the puzzle. As usual, he was right. Benjamin Tipton is a very perceptive young man.”
“Ben knows?” Lindsay gasped. “He's involved?”
“Very much so. And we come to the matter of Richard's bequeath to him. Ben arrived in the city at his mother's death, determined to claim his birthright regardless of the scandal it might create. Richard was equally determined to keep him from doing so. I suppose, in the crudest analysis, Benjamin has been blackmailing Richard for years. Richard, thinking that it was best to have Benjamin where he could be controlled as much as possible, brought him into the company with a private stipend to supplement his bookkeeper's salary, and with a commitment to recognize him as a legitimate heir at Richard's passing.”
Vanderhagen looked down at the document as he added, “Richard, as you might well imagine, resented being placed in such a position. The amount of Ben's bequeath reflects the monies Richard paid to him over the years.”
“Does Ben know?” Jack asked, trying to see how the ripples played out.
Vanderhagen shrugged. “I've said nothing to him. Nor have I discussed the terms of the Will with any of the other parties involved. My primary concern has been with informing Lindsay of the circumstances. Informing the others can be seen to in the days ahead. There's no particular hurry.”
Jack, sensing that the ripples were turning into waves, asked, “Does Ben know about the shell game?”
Vanderhagen nodded. “Being an intelligent and perceptive man, he caught the pattern of our activities soon after his employment, and it was necessary to bring him into the project.” The lawyer smiled wryly. “And while Richard and I did it against our wills and better judgment at the time, we've had to admit that he's proven himself to be an extremely valuable asset over the years. He's very good at devising ways to debilitate businesses without doing harm to any individual life or limb. It has never been our objective to hurt anyone physically.”
“Just businesses,” Jack felt compelled to add.
“Yes, Mr. Stennett. They were made unprofitable, sold to the phantom companies, rehabilitated, sold again, and the final profits invested in various other business enterprises. All of them—and there are twenty-five—along with a dozen accounts in American and foreign banks make up the trust Richard established for Lindsay. She may draw from the trust as she wishes and can assign it to her heirs as she deems appropriate. As of the last quarterly accounting, the trust was worth in excess of seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
Jack clenched his teeth as realization after realization hammered his brain. He'd been as wrong as wrong could be about Richard Patterson. Otis Vanderhagen, too. And Ben Tipton. He hadn't read a single person in this mess right. He'd been wrong about every goddamn thing all along. Lindsay wasn't going to be left poor. She was rich beyond even the wildest of any man's dreams. She didn't need him for anything. There wasn't any reason for her to go to Texas with him. In fact, she'd be a damn fool if she did. He had nothing to offer her that she couldn't buy for herself ten times over.
“You are a very, very wealthy young woman, Lindsay,” he heard Vanderhagen say. “And you have Richard to thank.”
“And you,” she whispered. “And Ben.”
“Our parts were small and only in support of an objective that was born of Richard's basic decency and good conscience.”
Anger, raw and white-hot, shot through Jack's veins. “Well, if I might intrude on the glorification of Richard Patterson for a moment,” he growled, “I still have some questions I need answers for.”
Vanderhagen nodded and smiled. “I'll do my best to provide them.”
The man's easy manner only added to Jack's ire. “Let's start with who writes the letters for the phantom companies.”
“It occurred to Richard and myself early on that Lindsay needed to become involved in the daily operations of the MacPhaull Company in order to learn the skills necessary for her to ably oversee the trust she would eventually inherit. We took every precaution to see that she had no reason to wonder about the legitimacy of the paper companies we'd established. To that end, we looked for and found a person skilled in the art of forgery. Havers is the one and only author of the correspondence for all four companies.”
“And who went to the various cities, found the simple-minded children, and set up the correspondence shams?” Jack demanded.
“How do you know about that?”
“We've seen it play out in Boston,” Lindsay explained quietly, serenely. “The weekly rent money sent by Abigail Beechum; the return letter sent inside the packet and put right back into the postal carrier's hands.”
He looked back and forth between them, his brow cocked. “You two have been very busy people, haven't you?” he asked in a manner that reminded Jack of a schoolteacher who'd caught little boys being naughty.
“Yep,” Jack all but snarled. “Who set it up?”
“Richard,” the attorney supplied. “And then he came back and enlisted Abigail Beechum's assistance so that if the project was discovered, there was less of a chance of his being immediately implicated in the whole thing. It was theft, you know, and he could have been imprisoned for his actions.”
“He used Abigail and didn't tell her that she was being involved in a criminal activity,” Lindsay observed, a bit of censure in her voice, but not nearly enough, to Jack's way of thinking.
“Essentially,” Vanderhagen agreed, managing to look chagrined on a dead man's behalf. “If it helps any to know, he felt great remorse for that in the years afterward. In part, the structure and amount of her trust fund is something of Richard's atonement. That and his regret for not marrying her. By the time he came to realize that was the course he should have taken, it was too late to pursue it. He regretted the decision the rest of his life. He made amends as best he could and in other ways.”
“Blessed be Richard Patterson,” Jack groused, not knowing whether he was madder at Lindsay for being so accepting or Vanderhagen for being so damn smooth at making theft and irresponsibility sound honorable. “Who arranged for me to get the chopped-up rat and the note?”
“You posed something of an initial problem, Mr. Stennett,” the lawyer said, his chagrined smile still in place. “As you might well imagine, the first consideration was that in examining the books of the company you inherited, you might discover what Richard and I had been doing all these years and file criminal charges against us. I knew that we had some time to both cover our tracks and ascertain your abilities and intentions. I'm sure Richard also understood the ramifications of your unexpected ownership, but he clearly didn't react well to the development.”
“No kidding,” Jackson commented dryly.
“With Richard's collapse, the project was left in my hands to manage with Ben's assistance. It was his opinion, as a result of having several private exchanges with you, that you were suspicious of the books and that it would be in ours�
��and Lindsay's—best interests to drive you away. I reluctantly agreed and left the matter in his hands.
“By the time it became obvious that he'd misjudged both your resiliency and your tenacity, it had become equally apparent that you were interested in Lindsay in a romantic sense.” He paused to give Lindsay a condescending smile. Jack clenched his teeth and fisted his hands at his sides, trying to decide whether he ought to punch out the bastard's teeth now or later.
“We concluded,” the attorney went on, “that even if you did unravel the conspiracy, you wouldn't take any actions that would jeopardize her future financial health. Given that, we decided that eliminating you was no longer a necessity.”
“Did it ever occur to you that in trying to ‘eliminate’ me, you might have inadvertently hurt or killed Lindsay?”
“We were very careful to see that that didn't happen. Your carriage accident was just that, an accident. Neither Ben nor I had any part in it. Lindsay was never endangered by actions we took. What danger she was ever in was the result of her own actions in the situation.”
Calmly, quietly, apparently oblivious to Jack's turmoil and anger, Lindsay said, “I have a question or two, if you don't mind, Mr. Vanderhagen.”
“Certainly, Lindsay. Ask me anything.”
“Can Henry challenge, in any way, Jackson's inheritance of what remains of the MacPhaull Company?”
“No,” the attorney answered firmly. “With Richard having formally and legally acknowledged Henry—and Agatha—as his offspring, neither of them meets the legitimacy requirements of your father's initial Will. Which was made immaterial by his second Will leaving everything to Mr. Stennett. You, as a legitimate heir, could challenge it, but Henry doesn't—as we say—have a legal leg to stand on. The estate is Mr. Stennett's to do with as he pleases.” He looked up to meet Jack's gaze and smiled. “And I understand that it pleases him to put a great many properties up for auction. Everyone in town is talking about it. Interest in acquiring seems to be running high.”