His Lordship's True Lady (True Gentlemen #4)(96)
Oscar sank back into his chair. “I don’t have an inherit—? Papa?”
“You were a minor,” Walter snapped. “Managing the funds for you was my duty, just as managing funds for that spoiled, ungrateful, undeserving, lying, little—”
The door had opened quietly, and Mrs. Delmar stood in the doorway. “You were saying, Uncle?”
Oscar mopped his brow with a handkerchief. “Oh God. That’s Lily. That’s the Lily who’s my cousin. She looks a deuced lot like the other Lily. I think I shall be sick.”
Delmar ushered his wife into the room, seating himself between Mrs. Delmar and her uncle.
“Leggett,” Delmar said. “Greetings, from Scotland. And yes, this marriage was and is legal. Had I any idea the chicanery you were capable of, I’d have eloped with my dear bride that much sooner. You look a bit peaked. Felons tend to have the loveliest complexions. Years without seeing any sunlight has at least that benefit.”
Leggett braced his hands on the back of his chair. “You can’t prove any of this nonsense.”
“Have a seat,” Hessian said, when he would rather have smacked a glove across Leggett’s arrogant face, “while I regale you with proof. Roberta Braithwaite has letters from Lady Nadine confirming the conception and healthy birth of a second daughter more than a year after the death of Lady Nadine’s husband.”
Actually, Hessian had those letters now, and had been glad to pay handsomely for their possession.
“The present vicar of a certain Derbyshire parish,” he went on, “has signed an affidavit confirming that one Lilith Ferguson was in the care of his predecessor and sent to work at the age of nine at a specific inn in the same town. Mrs. Delmar has a birthmark on the inside of her elbow that exactly matches the birthmark Lillian Ann Ferguson still bore at the age of seventeen.”
Leggett more or less fell into his chair.
Alas for Leggett, Hessian was not finished. “The innkeeper confirmed the girl’s employment and description, and further confirmed that her uncle, one Walter Leggett, took her away at the age of fourteen. Said uncle was good enough to sign the guest registry in a very legible hand, and his signature is dated. Ephrata Tipton, now the wife of Captain John Spisak, has contributed extensively to the narrative as well. Shall I continue, Leggett?”
“Papa, we need to go,” Oscar croaked. “We need to leave and pack, for this is ruin. A few years on the Continent and we might return, but Grampion is an earl. Lily is friends with a countess. We need to leave.”
And now came the best part, the part Lily had devised with her sister’s consent.
Hessian forbade himself to smile, though Worth was looking quite smug. “You, Oscar,” Hessian said, “may take yourself to darkest Peru, but your papa faces a different fate.”
Finally, Leggett had nothing to say. Hessian wished Lily could see him in that moment, afraid and ashamed, held accountable at last. No false smile lit his features, no sly self-satisfaction lurked in his eyes.
“There’s money,” Leggett said. “The Fergusons have funds that would go to Nadine’s daughter upon her marriage or her twenty-eighth birthday, whichever shall first occur. The sum is handsome, and nobody need do without because I made a few unfortunate investments.”
Mrs. Delmar snorted. Oscar half rose and sat back down.
“You will do without,” Hessian said. “You will do without your freedom. We’ve seen Lady Nadine’s will, Leggett, and her estate was left to her offspring living at the time of her death, share and share alike. She was purposely vague so that both of her daughters would inherit. You lied to the judges in Chancery—under oath, of course—the better to further your schemes.”
Leggett’s shoulders sagged. He’d aged ten years in the past quarter hour, but his purgatory was just beginning.
“Do you know, Leggett,” Hessian mused, “what it’s like to have no hope, no joy, no affection for years on end? To hold on to your honor as best you can regardless, to be as decent under the circumstances as you can be, despite all the injustice visited upon you?”
Leggett was staring at the carpet. Oscar was simply gazing into space.
“Mrs. Braithwaite,” Hessian said, “had the letters from Nadine proving the existence of two daughters. Her silence on the matter comes at a price, one only you can pay. You will propose to Roberta Braithwaite in good faith, marry her in a legal and binding ceremony. You will become responsible for her welfare and her expenses, and you had best not displease her. She is no longer in possession of the letters, but she has a fine memory for a slight.”
“I’m to be… married?” Walter said.
Laughter welled, but Hessian contained himself. A gentleman never ridiculed another’s misfortune, even when that misfortune was the most exquisite justice.
“You are to be married,” Hessian said, “and may God have mercy on your soul.”
Leggett was silent for a long time, regarding the documents on Worth’s desk before he pushed to his feet. “Come along, Oscar. We’re finished here.”
They were finished in every sense, almost.
“One final item,” Worth said. “Miss Lily Ferguson is missing the sum of seventy-eight pounds, which was taken from her by her cousin Oscar. She wishes him the joy of his thievery and hopes he’ll use that money to learn a trade or seek his fortune abroad, for it’s the last money he’ll ever see, save for what he can earn with his own efforts.”