A Scandal in Battersea (Elemental Masters #12)(43)

He wiped his eyes, pleased to have produced some genuine tears. “Yes . . . yes of course you are right. And now she is with him, where she longed to be, both safe in the arms of Jesus.” He rather thought that was a nice touch. “Tell me, Mister Abernathy, what must I do? What must be done now? I am sure there are many tasks but—I don’t know where to start.”

Now more comfortable with his role, Abernathy straightened, and his expression smoothed into one of professional sympathy. “According to the terms of our agreement with your late father, the firm will undertake all the necessary arrangements for you. We assumed it would be a modest funeral—?”

“Yes, of course, just myself, and mother’s servants,” he replied, trying to sound just heartbroken enough to be bereaved, but not unmanly. “Any friends she once had fell by the wayside when she became . . . ill.”

“Quite right, quite right.” Abernathy removed a notebook from inside his coat and consulted it. “Fortunately she can be interred in the family vault beside your father immediately, and there will be no need to wait. Would Wednesday do?”

It can’t be soon enough. “Yes . . . yes of course,” he replied. “Just send me the details, and anything I might need to sign. I rarely leave the house; my work, you know. I will be here, certainly until at least suppertime every evening.” He started to get up to show Abernathy out, but the man remained seated. “Is there something more?” he asked, and sat back down again.

“One small matter, of your trust,” Abernathy replied, and coughed. “As you know, the trust specified that you were to have your affairs overseen by a member of the firm.” He flushed a little. “However, Arthur Fensworth, who undertook that task, seems to have taken leave without notice. This leaves us shorthanded, and the other members of the firm have suggested that your mother’s sad demise effectively breaks that trust, leaving you the sole heir, and us with no obligation to continue what must have been somewhat distasteful, since you are a grown man in perfect command of his senses.” The very slight lift of Abernathy’s eyebrow conveyed to Alexandre, without words, that only the insistence of Fensworth had led them to continue the practice of the quarterly visits and the minute examination of his accounts. Precisely as he had suspected. Only that old goat knew my father, and knew how little my father trusted me to handle my own affairs.

“The firm hopes you will allow us to continue to administer the estate, but from henceforth, you need only drop us a message to have whatever you like transferred from the account of the estate into your own,” Abernathy concluded. “We will, of course, under this arrangement, arrange for all the final expenses and death duties without needing to trouble you.”

“Of course,” Alexandre said, numbly, unable to believe his good fortune. No more penny-pinching! No more having to account for the least little expense! No more busybody Fensworth! “That would be . . . admirable. Thank you. My father was right to put his trust in you.”

“Have you any suggestions as to the disposition of your mother’s servants?” Abernathy asked delicately.

“Six months pay, and letters of recommendation from the firm?” Alexandre replied. “I . . . don’t think I can bear to even look at the house. I think it must be closed up. Possibly sold. So much death . . . I am the only one left . . . I could not bear to be alone in so much familiar, empty space.”

“Quite, quite,” Abernathy rose, uncomfortable again now that there might be a second display of emotion. He probably put all that down to Alexandre’s being a poet. “We’ll see the house is closed up, and revisit the disposition of it, and your mother’s personal effects, in three or four months, shall we? And your suggestion for the servants is perfect—generous, without being effusive. We will see to that as well. Now, I really should go. There is much to do.”

“Yes, yes of course,” Alexandre replied, rising himself. “Thank you, Mister Abernathy. Thank you.”

He saw the man out, and closed the door only when Abernathy was inside his carriage and pulling away. Then he went to his sitting room and poured himself the largest brandy he thought he could drink at one sitting without being fuddled by it.

Dead! he thought with glee. The bitch is dead at last! And that meddling old dotard is missing! And I, I, I have control of every damned penny, at last!

He tossed down the brandy, scarcely able to believe in his luck.

Or . . . was it luck?

Having his mother die, just after the entity had told him that “opposition” was going to be removed could have been coincidence. But having Fensworth vanish? At the same time?

No. That was not coincidence, could not have been coincidence. Fensworth vanishing alone would not have broken the trust. His mother’s death would not have removed Fensworth. As long as his mother lived, Abernathy would have felt duty bound to make sure Alexandre did not misuse the funds that were supplying income for both of them. And the tyranny of Fensworth would never have ended until the old dotard died himself.

But both of them going? And the firm deciding that he could handle his own funds? No, that could not possibly be coincidence. Somehow that thing in the basement had exercised its influence, and given him the one thing he wanted and needed above all others at this moment—financial freedom. Financial freedom to make sure the entity got what it had demanded.