Hugh keeps gazing at Minerva as if he adores her, and Minerva keeps gazing at him as if she adores him right back. I feel like a bad sister for being envious that she might have found the one before me …
—from the diary of Miss Venus Merriwell, aged 17
“Is there a particular reason why you are currently sporting a scowl that could curdle milk?” The reverend’s terse whisper shocked her out of her reverie. “Only Mr. Pendle’s clerk is now glaring at me as if I am the cause of it.” He gestured to the little mouse of a man behind the most enormous desk, guarding the solicitor’s office beyond, who was indeed staring at them both warily. “And at you—in case you are indeed as unhinged as you appear and decide, for whatever bizarre reason, to lash out at him in anger. Which, for the record, you look poised to do at any moment.”
“Forgive me, I was woolgathering.” She forced herself to smooth the wrinkle between her brows and pasted on a smile for the clerk’s sake to assure him all her hinges were precisely where they should be.
Although the Reverend Smythe and the clerk were right. Vee was angry. For some inexplicable reason, she was furious at the weather.
She had floated off to bed convinced she would be trapped at The Mermaid for days thanks to the relentless snow that had plagued the country for weeks, and had woken to the grand thaw instead. Enough of a thaw that it ensured there was absolutely no excuse not to leave Brighton for London as soon as the meeting with the solicitor was concluded. Which gave her no excuse to linger in Galahad’s company while they worked out what to do about that kiss.
That out-of-the-blue but totally earth-shattering kiss.
Which she was beyond keen to try again. And again. And again ad infinitum.
She caught herself about to sigh aloud as her body and soul relived it for the umpteenth time, and thus by default also confirming to the poor clerk that she had indeed taken leave of her wits, so she clamped her jaws shut.
There had been no time to talk to Galahad about it this morning. Thanks to the reverend and his wife, who had decided to breakfast early and who were already there when she arrived downstairs. Although they insisted he join them, too, when Galahad had emerged but a few minutes after her, they had not shared a single private moment together.
He had shot her a few heated looks across the table when their chaperones weren’t looking, though. Heated enough that she was convinced that, like her, he had absolutely no regrets about their kiss, but uncertain enough to confirm that he had no more earthly idea what to do about it yet than she did.
Their situation—the close bond of their families—was indeed a complication. One that could potentially create awkwardness between them and their kin forever if things did not work out, as well as perhaps creating awkwardness if they did. The family would certainly all be as shocked by this wholly inconceivable development as Vee was.
Her and Galahad? Who would have thought it possible that there could be a friendship between them, let alone the elusive frisson Olivia kept going on about? And yet undeniably a thrilling frisson was now there. It had positively sizzled as they had kissed. Enough that she had been sorely tempted to encourage him to take more liberties before common sense had prevailed and she had put some much-needed distance between her suddenly wanton body and his. Then she had felt it plain as day all night as her body had relentlessly yearned for his. Felt it keenly throughout breakfast—a tangible awareness of his presence to her core, even with three feet of solid oak table between them.
Or perhaps it had always been there and that explained why he had always bothered her so? Why Galahad Sinclair had always been the annoying itch she couldn’t scratch? The man who always drew her eyes. Whom she never failed to be aware of whenever he was near?
Now, there was some serious food for thought.
How on earth could a person as clever and as intuitive as she was have missed something so staggeringly obvious? Was the annoyance she had always felt wherever he was concerned not annoyance at all, but frustrated attraction manifesting itself as irritation?
Was he the Benedick to her Beatrice?
She had certainly always thought him handsome. Always, and much to her chagrin, she found his cocky charm compelling, too. If one considered constantly lamenting about why he got under her skin compelling. But he had always done that, and she had never been able to ignore it, so she supposed that spoke volumes. Love and loathing were two vastly conflicting emotions yet with more in common than not. Both caused a visceral, involuntary reaction in the body and the mind. Both also undoubtedly clouded judgment and masked the truth. She was honest enough with herself to know that she wasn’t always the best judge of character, as proven by her insistence on ignoring the obvious flaws in her father, Lord Argyll, and now, she realized, the irritating and incompatible Lord Dorchester. The idea of marrying that make-do, much-too-old fool now, when Galahad had ignited something magical within her, was as preposterous as preposterous could be. Such a compromise was inconceivable and would never make her happy—no matter how much she willed it or ignored the pompous lord’s many flaws. There, it stood to reason that if she was prone to ignore the bad, it was quite conceivable she could also ignore the good. That she had confused the obvious frisson of attraction between her and Galahad for disquiet? Or distrust? Were they both too wise to woo peaceably, as the Bard himself had said?
It was entirely possible.
As well as entirely thrilling.
Her and Galahad? How marvelously unexpected but right!
Vee was so deep in that giddy thought, she jumped as the solicitor’s door opened and a surprisingly young lawyer stepped out.
“Reverend Smythe—Miss Merriwell—all the papers are now ready for you to sign.”
Vee followed Mr. Pendle into the room and perched opposite his desk, hoping her suddenly wayward and inappropriate thoughts weren’t written as plain on her face as they were playing havoc with her body.
“As you will realize from my letter—” Without any preamble, the lawyer steepled his fingers the second he sat. “—my client, the late Mrs. Leyton-Brown, made some provision for the Covent Garden Asylum for Orphans in her will. It is a generous provision.” His brows lifted as if he was stunned by it, which boded well. “A very generous provision indeed.”
“Mrs. Leyton-Brown, God rest her…” The reverend glanced heavenward with a sad smile on his face. “… was one of the kindest and most supportive souls I ever knew. Especially to our orphans. She campaigned tirelessly to help raise us money. She did that alongside being our most generous benefactor from the outset. Without her, there would be no orphanage. She even donated the roof over our heads.” Which was the first thing they intended to fix as soon as they returned to it. “Her largesse has already helped so many young souls in need.”
“Clearly she was desirous of saving many more.” Mr. Pendle slid a sheet of paper across the desk. “For I am to transfer you that sum in its entirety, with no caveats or stipulations beyond her insistence that you be able to continue your good works for many years to come.”
Vee and the reverend stared at the figure in disbelief. As his jaw had dropped, she managed to find the wherewithal to query it.
“Seven thousand pounds? Seven. Thousand. Pounds.” They could repair their leaky roof with gold tiles instead of slate with such a staggering sum.
Mr. Pendle nodded. “Seven thousand pounds, Miss Merriwell. Almost three-quarters of the contents of her bank account.”
“Good gracious.” She slumped back in her chair, as overwhelmed by the news as she had been by Galahad’s unexpected kiss. “She has left us such a fortune I can hardly comprehend it.”
“Yet comprehend it you must.” No nonsense, Mr. Pendle passed a second sheet across the table. “If you could sign at the bottom and confirm where you would like the funds deposited, I shall ensure it is all done by the end of the week.” He pushed his inkwell and pen toward the Reverend Smythe, who still apparently lacked the capacity to speak, but managed to scrawl his name on the bottom of the document, at least, while he gaped.
Mr. Pendle blotted it, blew on it, and added it to a neat stack on the side of the desk before he reached out to shake his hand. “Thank you for coming so promptly, Reverend. I did wonder if I would see you before Christmas, thanks to the weather.” He reached for Vee’s hand next and shook that. “I do hope it holds off long enough that you can get home without issue.” As that sounded like a dismissal when the solicitor had clearly forgotten something, she had no choice but to prompt him.
“Is that everything, Mr. Pendle?”
“Yes. Now that the ink is dry, our business is concluded.” He stood, clearly eager to be rid of them, and swept his arm toward the door. “As I said, the funds should be transferred and available to you by the end of the…”
“I meant, is that everything from Mrs. Leyton-Brown’s bequest, sir?”
He stared as if she had grown a second head. “Were you expecting more than seven thousand pounds, madam?” He shook his head as if she was the most ungrateful person he had ever met. “When most would surely agree that Mrs. Leyton-Brown has left your orphanage a king’s ransom? I have certainly never seen a charitable donation of the like in any other will I have executed.”
“Oh, Miss Merriwell and myself are beyond grateful to Mrs. Leyton-Brown for her phenomenal benevolence, sir! Be in no doubt about that.” Finally, the reverend found his voice to save her from further censure. “But to be frank, and sorry to sound so indelicate, Mr. Pendle, while we weren’t expecting anything close to the seven thousand pounds she so generously left, we were expecting some property.”
“Property?” This was obviously news to Mr. Pendle. “I know that she owned a lot of it but still, in my experience, property usually only ever goes to family members. That aside, why on earth would you expect any property on top of all that money?”
“Because Mrs. Leyton-Brown—God rest her—” In case a thunderbolt came to smite him for his perceived ungratefulness, the Reverend Smythe glanced heavenward again in apology. “—promised as much to me herself. Only a few months ago, in fact, here in Brighton when I visited her. It was quite a specific but unprompted promise, Mr. Pendle, pertaining to the building next door to us on Long Acre. A building that has remained reassuringly vacant since the last tenants left over a year ago. A building we were rather hoping to be able to expand into as—well, not to put too fine a point on it—the orphanage is more than a little oversubscribed and we desperately need more space. The good we can do is limited by our capacity, and that was why Mrs. Leyton-Brown promised it.”
The lawyer sat again, somewhat heavily, frowning so hard his thick dark eyebrows merged into one. “Did Mrs. Leyton-Brown happen, perchance, to put that promise to you in writing, Reverend? In a note or a letter or some such?”
“She did not.” The Reverend Smythe shook his head, and because the solicitor looked mightily relieved by that, all Vee’s hopes that they would finally be able to expand the orphanage died like Mrs. Leyton-Brown had. “It was a verbal promise, Mr. Pendle, but…” Both Vee and the solicitor sat forward as he frowned. “She did make that promise in front of a witness who can confirm categorically her intent. Does that help?”
The solicitor’s eyes narrowed. “That would depend on the witness, and their ability to convince a court of the deceased’s intentions. Overturning the tenets of a will written in sound mind is practically impossible. Almost unheard of. A court needs more than hearsay, and while I am not for one moment trying to cast aspersions on either your good character or your witness’s, nor questioning either of your motives, even the words of a vicar do not constitute proof that such a promise from the deceased ever occurred.”
Yet still the reverend persevered. “Even if the witness was the deceased’s own nephew? Her sole heir, Lord Mallory, not only witnessed Mrs. Leyton-Brown’s promise, but promised her faithfully in return that he would ensure that it was carried out.”
As hope kindled afresh Vee smiled at the solicitor, only for it to melt from her face on the back of his dour expression.
“I am certain Lord Mallory will have absolutely no recollection of that exchange, Reverend—or his promise. I am sorry.” Mr. Pendle picked up his pile of papers and tapped them to neaten the edges before depositing them all in the box, which he snapped decisively closed. His tight expression suggested he disapproved more of Lord Mallory than he did their claim. “If he denies it…”
“Which of course he won’t.” The reverend smiled with a faith in Lord Mallory’s honesty that neither she nor the solicitor shared.
“But if he does—” Mr. Pendle prodded the table for extra emphasis. “—and if the deceased’s wishes weren’t put in writing, I am afraid, as far as the law is concerned, you really do not have a leg to stand on. It would be your word against his word—and Mrs. Leyton-Brown’s will.” He retrieved that document from the box near his elbow and shook it. “Which I can assure you does not leave your orphanage any property at all.”
“Lord Mallory heard it with his own ears, sir, and swore a solemn oath to his aunt to comply. He will back me on this. I have no doubt about that, so there is no need for all this talk of courts and juries.” Yet even the reverend’s ever-hopeful smile was flatter now.
“He really won’t, Reverend. Of that you can be assured. We have been through the will together several times, and when it came to the many conversations we have had about that particular building, Lord Mallory made no mention of his aunt’s promise at all.”
“An oversight, I am sure.” The reverend smiled in sympathy. “The poor man was probably overwhelmed with grief, and it slipped his mind. Understandably.”
“I can assure you that if it did, it was quite deliberate.” The solicitor stood again and motioned to the door, clearly uncomfortable, and something about it made all Vee’s hackles rise. He knew something. Something pertinent that they didn’t. A suspicion that was confirmed by his next statement and over-friendly but awkward smile. “If I were you, I would forget the promise made by a confused and ailing old woman, forget that particular building and buy another. A better, bigger building in a nicer area. My client left you more than enough money to expand your orphanage elsewhere.”
A moment ago, he had said that Mrs. Leyton-Brown’s will was written in sound mind. Now, suddenly, she was a confused and ailing old woman.
Something was off.
“But why should we buy a building when we were promised a building, sir?” Vee was incensed by the matter-of-fact dismissal of their legitimate claim. “I am sure that I have read somewhere that a verbal contract is as binding as a written one.”
“That all depends on proof, Miss Merriwell. Categoric proof.” The solicitor’s eyes shuttered in a way suggesting he knew already that they weren’t likely to get that, but she pressed anyway.
“Which you could obtain from Lord Mallory along with the instruction to release the deed to us. I presume you do have the deed, Mr. Pendle.” She glanced toward the shut box on his desk emblazoned with the deceased’s name. “Or has that already been passed to Lord Mallory, seeing as you have met with him and discussed this particular building several times since his aunt’s death?” If the dissolute lord had the deed, he could sell the deed.
She could not let that happen.
“I am afraid, as I am also now Lord Mallory’s legal representative, client confidentiality prevents me from discussing his private legal affairs without his express permission, and I have already told you too much.” He stalked toward the door and flung it open, then practically shooed them out of it. “Should you wish to pursue your unsubstantiated claim to his property further, I must insist that you take it up with him. As it really is no longer anything to do with me.”
“This is all a storm in a teacup, Vee.” The Reverend Smythe pretended that he wasn’t the least bit fazed by what had happened in the solicitor’s office as they walked back to the inn. “Mark my words. He will come good. He’s a decent gentleman … underneath it all.”
That casual phrase, underneath it all, only served to set more alarm bells ringing, because the underneath the good reverend was alluding to was Lord Mallory’s shocking reputation in the gossip columns. If they were to be believed—and because her stickler-for-details sister Diana frequently wrote one of them, Vee did—then Lord Mallory was more of a libertine than he was a gentleman. Worse, she’d had the misfortune to bump into him in a deserted hallway at one infamous ball during her first season, drunk, and he had offered, in rather coarse terms as he manhandled her, to steam up her spectacles for her, so she knew without a doubt he was no gentleman, either. He had been quite offensive when she had turned down his improper offer, so she held little hope that a man with such dubious morals and selfish character would feel obligated to uphold his aunt’s promise without the additional incentive of something in it for him.
Which bizarrely did give her some small hope for the building next door. Thanks to the lawyer’s parting advice, she had quickly reached the conclusion that the only way the orphanage was likely to get their hands on the promised building was if they offered to buy it from the cheating scoundrel using his aunt’s money. While that ironic solution left a bitter taste in the mouth, for the orphans’ sake she had to be pragmatic. It might take a tidy chunk out of their unexpected seven-thousand-pound windfall, but at least thanks to the sheer size of that windfall they could still expand, fix the roof, and have enough left over to see them right for a few years. Which was more than had seemed possible a few weeks ago, so in that respect, their good fortune was still a miracle and one she would force herself to be thankful for no matter Lord Mallory’s unconscionable duplicity.
“That said…” The reverend could not disguise his real concerns completely, no matter how hard he was trying. “I am eager to settle the confusion as quickly as possible, so I think it is prudent that we leave here within the hour. Strike while the iron is hot, as it were. That way, if we overnight in Crawley, I can call on him after luncheon tomorrow and before he goes…”
“Out drinking and carousing and frittering away all of his new inheritance on wine, women, and song?” Vee had Lord Mallory’s full measure. “I should like to come with you when you call upon him.” Where she could at least handle the negotiations for a sale when the debauched lord reneged on his promise. Unlike the good reverend, while she always tried to see the good in people, she knew firsthand that some people had little good in them and only did what benefited themselves; her ill-fated romance with the ambitious Lord Argyll was testament. If Mallory hadn’t mentioned his aunt’s promise to his solicitor when he had ample opportunities to do so, it did not take a genius to work out that he intended to sell that property for his own profit. “The presence of a woman might make him more agreeable.” Especially when the woman who intended to be present also fully intended to turn his guts into garters if he did not bend to her will.
“I think that is prudent.” The reverend huffed as they arrived outside The Mermaid. “Although if worse comes to worst, and Mr. Pendle’s grave predictions come true, it is prudent to prepare ourselves for that, too. We must remember that we have managed well enough as we are up to now—but from this day forward, no matter the outcome, we shall manage so much better with seven thousand pounds at our disposal with which we can buy somewhere better. Preferably in a less insalubrious part of town. So all is not lost, and if that is the case and we do not get the building, there must be a reason.” He pointed to the annoyingly clear sky above. “The Lord moves in mysterious ways, Vee, and usually for the best. Even if we do not realize it. Everything happens for a good reason.”
“If you say so, Reverend.”
“Apart from my wife’s nagging, of course, for that is entirely unfounded.” He sighed. “And on that subject, I shall go chivy Constance, who will not be happy to be chivied when I faithfully promised her that we would enjoy a leisurely luncheon and a stroll around the Royal Pavilion before we left.”
“Mrs. Smythe is a reasonable woman and will understand that this cannot be helped.” Just as Vee was trying to come to terms with the lack of snow to scandalously keep her here with Galahad. Which, if the reverend’s logic was to be believed, was likely for the best also. She wasn’t the world’s most reliable judge of character, after all, and knew to her detriment how easily a handsome face, charming manner, and sublime kiss could make her forget all prudence.
Vee decided to arrange for the carriage to be readied for the long journey, rather than wallow in anger and self-pity. Leaving in such haste was a disappointment after last night, but as this was for the greater good and the needs of the many, the orphans had to take precedence over any fanciful new desires of her own. Like a parting kiss on the seafront or the sudden blizzard that her wayward body was praying would delay her …
“Hello, Venus.” His silky drawl stopped her dead in her tracks.