by Edith Layton
“Unpleasant though it may be,” Mr. Tompkins said sternly, “everyone of us must accept the fact of life’s impermanence. Even the youngest of us in the bloom of youth may be struck down. You are yet in both youth and health, but it is both improvident and unwise to leave the fate of your fortune to chance. At the moment, all three men have equal claim as your heir. Would you wish to see the entail broken and Lyonshall sold? Or go to a stranger who would gamble it away?”
“No,” the Earl said thoughtfully, “never that.”
“Ah, well, then, it is perhaps fortunate that this situation, however presently unpleasant it is, has arisen. For I was appalled, your lordship, to discover that you had not designated an heir. A man of your title and substance should have seen to it years ago.”
“No, really, Morgan,” Lord Beverly said sadly, “it wasn’t right of you.”
“And who is your heir, Bev?” the Earl asked pleasantly.
“M’ sister’s boy Randall. A lad with more teeth than wit. I mean it, Morgan, he’s got more teeth than a shark. And they’re crosswise. It’s terrible to sit down to dinner with him. Every time I see him, I resolve to marry on the instant, just to keep him out of the direct line. But fortunately,” Lord Beverly said seriously, “I don’t see him often. And you know I’ve got no concentration. But, Morgan, it’s shocking how you never saw to the succession, for you’ve got more wit than I, and even I have an heir.”
“My family was not large, you know. My brother was the rightful heir and I his,” the Earl said softly. “And then when I married I believed…I believed all sorts of things. And then, I confess, I never gave it another thought. No, you’re right as usual, Mr. Tompkins.”
“Then,” the older man said briskly, “might I suggest that you send off an invitation to each of them. Meet with them. And then at leisure make up your mind. Mind, I think it only fair that you should inform them that they are only temporarily to be considered as heir, but that if worse should come to worst, at least you will have provision for the future of your name and your dignities.”
“Have them all here, Morgan,” Lord Beverly said with enthusiasm, “so I can cast an eye over them. I’m no mean judge of character, you know.”
“No,” the Earl said slowly. “I shall have them to Lyonshall and you can come too, Bev. Since it was your idea, you can lighten the load for me. Should you like to accompany us, Mr. Tompkins?”
“It would be a pleasure, your lordship,” the older man said, arranging his papers. “However, the press of business, you know. But I shall come when you have decided as to which of them you choose. And I shall draw up the necessary papers. That will not only stop the impostor in his tracks, but I believe it will make you easier in your own mind.”
“That blasted impostor’s done you a good turn, Morgan,” Lord Beverly commented from the table where he was refilling his glass. “See if he hasn’t.”
“Doubtless he’s my benefactor.” The Earl smiled. “Well, fill us all up again, you selfish lout, Bev, and we’ll toast my three kinsmen. What are their names, then, Mr. Tompkins?”
“There’s Owen Courtney, Richard Courtney, and Anthony Courtney, in all, your lordship.”
“Well, then,” the Earl said, “let us drink to my new family, my loving hopeful relations. Let us drink to…” He paused and listened to the rain slash against the window. “…Owen, Richard, and Anthony, the eighth Earl, the eighth Earl, and the eighth Earl. And of course to the perfect wife.” He smiled wickedly at Lord Beverly. “An unobservant girl. And to my benefactor, James Everett Courtney…the man who never was.”
“You’re a generous fellow.” Lord Beverly grimaced.
“My heart,” the Earl said mockingly, “is as deep as my wine cellar. Drink up, old friend, to the next heir of Auden, a fellow who might like me while I live, but who will doubtless appreciate me more when I am dead. A fellow who will hang upon my every word, but will be most interested in my last breath.”
“Ghoulish Morgan”—Lord Beverly shook his head—“must be the rain’s got you in the sullens.”
“The rain…” The Earl smiled, dashing off the brandy. “The interminable rain. Doubtless.”
2
Although the first letter to be delivered was addressed to “Master Owen Courtney,” it lay upon a tray just outside the door to a lady’s bedroom. It had the honor of being first delivered only because the house to which it had been addressed was only a few short blocks from the Earl of Auden’s London residence. Though the letter shared its space upon the tray with three other missives, it was placed foremost. The butler of the lady’s establishment, having an unerring eye to quality, had placed it over what to his way of thinking were inferior correspondence.
It was an advanced hour of the day when the door finally cracked open and two little white hands, with a quantity of white lace frothing over delicate wrists, picked up the tray and bore it into the bedroom. Although the tray also held a silver pot of chocolate, two porcelain cups, napery, a dish of sweet biscuits, and flowery plates to put them on, it was the letter that immediately caught the bearer’s eye as surely as it had dazzled her butler’s.
“Lud,” the lady breathed, sitting down upon her bed in a whisper of silks, and gazing blankly at the letter. Her blue eyes were opened wider than they usually were at that hour of the morning. She tossed her blond curls back over her white shoulders, took in a deep breath which caused the front of her negligee to gape becomingly, and slowly, reverently slit the envelope open.
She read the letter through once, and once again. But it was after the third reading that she gave out a little crow of delight. “Owen!” she cried, and then again, wonderingly, “Owen!”
A deep groan came from the other side of the bed and a muffled voice complained, “Again? Snooping little wretch. Get him out of here.”
“No, no,” the lady exclaimed, still gazing raptly at the letter in her hand, “He’s not here, he knows not to come in here. He’s with his nurse. But only see, only look!”
Another groan came from the gentleman, and slowly he sat up in bed, rising like some great Roman statuary, all undraped muscle and sinew, from beneath the covers. After a gaping yawn he unceremoniously took the letter from the lady’s hands and read it. And then, after rubbing his eyes, read it again.
“Auden,” he breathed. “You never mentioned how closely you were related!”
“I did,” the lady protested, “but you never listened. We’re not, in fact, closely related. He scarcely knows me. In fact, when he was on the Town, he barely acknowledged my presence. But that must have been because he had his hands full with Kitty,” she amended, preening herself. “But John was his distant cousin, just as it says in the letter. John had something of the look of him, too,” she mused, “although Morgan got the best of everything in that family, money and looks.”
“And now,” the gentleman said, sitting up straighter, “Owen is going to be named his heir.”
“No, no,” the lady said, doing some rapid thinking. “Read it again. It says that Owen is to be considered for the title. There are two others as well. My God, that must mean that Morgan is at death’s door,” she gasped.
“Put away your handkerchief.” The gentleman frowned. “It means nothing of the sort. I hear he’s in London even now, and apart from his game leg, he’s healthy as a horse. What it means,” he said consideringly, “is that he’s in no hurry to marry again, but that he has decided to name an heir.”
“I, for one,” the lady said indignantly, “cannot blame him for not wanting to marry, not after the dance Kitty led him. Shocking stuff.”
The gentleman gave an amused laugh and stretched luxuriously. Then he began to run one large suntanned hand across the lady’s silken back.
“So proper, then, Isabel? I suppose you never played dear John false?”
“Don’t speak ill of the dead,” the Lady Isabel said, pokering up and hoping he would not sense how her flesh rejoiced in his touch.
“I was spea
king ill of the living, vixen, and you know it. So,” he said, making larger circles with his hand, “you are going to dress up little Owen and drill him in manners and trot off to Lyonshall in hopes that Morgan picks him as heir?”
“Of course,” Isabel sniffed. “What better fate for my poor fatherless little boy? What sort of a mother would not make a push to have her son named heir to Morgan’s fortune?”
“And what sort of female would not make a push to have herself named Morgan’s consort? Don’t try to deceive me, Isabel.” He laughed, hauling her down to the bed and gazing into her eyes. “We rub on well together because we are so very much alike. It would make a neat package, wouldn’t it? Owen as heir, and dear Isabel as lady-wife. For while Morgan’s sworn off marriage, he’s not sworn off women. And you are such a compelling little baggage,” he said, placing his lips upon her throat.
“You say nothing?” He laughed into her neck. “Too busy thinking, no doubt. Well, rest easy. For I wouldn’t mind.”
He felt the sigh of relief as it swelled in her chest. But then he felt a new tension in her, saw it begin to cord her smooth neck.
“But, my dear,” she said softly, “then that would be the end of…us, wouldn’t it? And wouldn’t you mind that?”
He laughed again and lowered himself to her. “I never said that, now, did I? Now, that I would mind.”
“Still,” she said before she gave herself up to his morning ritual of awakening for them both, “it seems unfair to Morgan, doesn’t it? I mean, after Kitty, especially.”
The gentleman drew away from her and looked at her steadily. She returned his gaze openly.
“Morgan, is it, eh?” he said with a little rise of anger. “He is a catch, isn’t he? What did you say, ‘He got the funds and the looks’?”
Seeing his anger, the lady put out one little hand and placed it on his lips to prevent him saying another thing.
“Truly,” she said playfully, “you are a bear in the morning. You know, it is all you, you, you. How could anyone ever take your place in my heart? I would only do what I must do for my future. You know that,” she said wistfully, dropping her gaze and pouting.
“Never forget the rules,” the gentleman said, as he relaxed. “You may play your husband false whenever you choose, but you must remain constant to your lover…especially if you wish your lover to remain discreet…about many things.”
“Why are you saying this to me?” the lady sniffed, allowing a tear to well artfully in one blue eye. “When have I ever given you cause for complaint? Now”—she smiled through the tear, which amazingly had already begun to retract—“are you going to spend the morning berating me? Or delighting me?”
“Witch,” he said, dropping to whisper into her left ear. “Bitch,” he said into her right ear. “That is what I like about you. Your single-mindedness.”
But she did not hear what he whispered then or later, and he did not see that through most of his ministrations that morning, she kept her eyes closed so that he would not see her rapid calculating as she weighed her options.
*
The second letter to be delivered lay outside yet another door. This letter could not be delivered till late afternoon, as the address was a locale on the unfashionable outskirts of Town. This one did not lie upon rich carpeting, but rather upon a cold, somewhat grimy floor. And a floor, moreover, that was three stories up and in a public hallway. So that by the time the recipient saw it lying there, a glowing white rectangle in the dim hall, it already bore a heel print.
But the gentleman scooped it up and peered at the crest, and made sure of the name it was addressed to, for he did not at first believe that it was for him at all. But it read clearly “Richard Courtney.” Then he carried it into his room and closed the door tightly, as if against intruders, before he settled himself in a somewhat threadbare chair near the window to read it before the last light left the afternoon sky.
He, too, read it through several times before he rose and paced the room. It was a small room, badly furnished with what looked like castoffs from someone’s attic. An iron bed, a few dispirited chairs, and a table that looked as though it might swoon if it held a large meal, comprised the decor. A small bundle of wood lay ready to be lit in the grate, but it would not be lit until the temperature truly tumbled, for the price of fuel was prohibitive for the occupant. The gentleman who paced the floor looked no more able to hold a substantial repast than his mean table did. He was tall, but bone thin. His shoulders were wide, but wide with the raw look of adolescence, though he appeared to be a man in his second decade of life.
His was not a handsome visage—it was too stark for that; each feature seemed too large for the background it was placed upon: the nose too long, the chin too long, only the long brown eyes seemed to complement the thick brown hair. But as he paced, the long mournful face began to take on light and life, lending animation to the whole.
Finally the gentleman stopped in his tracks, then went swiftly to a large book that stood almost alone in the one bookshelf in the room. He scanned the back pages of the old Bible, tracing names that had been written so long ago that the black ink was growing rusty with age. Then, and only then, did he allow a wide grin to form upon his wide mouth. He rose and inspected himself in the mirror above the fireplace. His clothes were clean and his brown jacket and biscuit pantaloons fit well and seemed newer and more rich than any other objects in the room. He scanned his shining boots for dust, and finding none, he smiled again and went hurriedly toward the door, still clutching the letter.
He looked at the letter once more before putting it carefully into his pocket. For it was the letter that he would bring to his ladylove. And it was the letter he knew that would mean more to her than candy, than flowers—more, perhaps, he thought, halting only for a moment in sorrow, than himself.
*
The third letter had a long and weary journey and finally arrived limp after more than a week’s travails. It bore upon its formerly pristine surface the fingerprint of a coachman in Leicester, a small warp from a rainstorm over Nottingham, and the scars from a drubbing it had received when it fell from the pouch near Mansfield. But now it lay safe and snug next to the beating breast of a tall, stout gentleman as he stood outside a shop window in Tuxford.
The gentleman was engaged in tapping a coin upon the window to attract the attention of those within. But after a few moments, when, from what he could see looking into the shop from behind a quantity of bonnets and feathers that impeded his view, no one turned to see him, he sighed, dropped the coin back into his pocket, and went in through the door. Three elderly women were debating the correctness of having a purple feather upon a mourning bonnet and a young girl and her overbearing mother were debating about the merits of a chip straw against the wisdom of a rather more dashing white satin bonnet with what the young girl tearfully maintained were the sweetest blue flowers. No wonder, the stout gentleman thought, grimacing, no one had heard his steady tapping.
The elderly parties were being waited on by a weary elderly woman, who nodded like a metronome at their every opposing comment. And the girl and her mother were being served by a slender young woman dressed serviceably in brown. When she looked up for a moment and saw the stout gentleman, her wide light brown eyes grew wider in dismay and the faint blush on her white cheeks fled. She began to step toward him, but he shook his head and smiled back at her to alleviate her distress. He took out his watch and pointed to it, nodded, and went out of the shop again. At that the young woman relaxed and went back to the transaction she had been overseeing, which was beginning to end in a flood of tears on the girl’s part and a tight-lipped nod on the mother’s side.
The stout man stood sighing and rocking back and forth on his heels in impatience outside the shop. He did not like to go into the shop where Elizabeth worked. It always filled him with dismay and a feeling of incompetence when he saw the way she actually had to go out and earn the money she contributed to the household every week. Deuce
take it, he thought savagely, she ought to be making the rounds picking out bonnets to adorn herself with, rather than creating and selling them like a common shopgirl. His niece, working as a shopgirl. His niece, still on the vine, and such a fine-looking girl too, but with no husband and no prospects of one and no dowry and no prospect of one. He felt the familiar guilt and sorrow he always experienced when he thought of Elizabeth, but this time he pushed the thoughts away with the force of the rising excitement he felt about the letter he now bore, beating wildly with every wild beat of his heart.
It was only after the girl and her mother left, the girl sniveling, the mother looking triumphant, that Elizabeth herself came flying out the door. She had thrown her pelisse over her dress, her light brown hair glinted like satin where the westering sun touched it, and her fine topaz eyes were bright and wide with excitement. Her uncle thought again, with a pang, of roses born to blush unseen, and so with none of the preamble he had been rehearsing, he pulled the letter from his coat and thrust it at her.
“What is it, Uncle?” Elizabeth breathed, unable to take in the fact of the letter till her eyes had scanned his face. “You never come to the shop. Is it Mother? Or Aunt? Or Anthony? Miss Scott let me out early, for even she knows it is not your habit to come to the shop. Oh, please, what is it?”
“Nothing dire. Nothing amiss with anyone at home. It’s only that I’ve such exciting news, it couldn’t wait until you got home,” he said with truth. For it was of prime importance that Elizabeth read and absorb the contents of the letter before she got home, and more importantly, before she spoke with her cousin Anthony.
“This letter?” Elizabeth asked, puzzled.
“Yes, the letter,” her uncle said impatiently. “Read it. Read it and then ask questions.”
Elizabeth stood in the center of the street and rapidly scanned the letter. Halfway through it, she looked up at her uncle, her speaking face lit with radiance. But her uncle shook his head and urged her, “Read on, read on.”