Page 81 of His Lordship's True Lady
“You are not Bronwyn’s father, and whatever the legal arrangements, whatever the truth of her patrimony, you are already worriedabout the reception she’ll receive when she makes her come outten years from now. She’s an unusual girl with an unusual provenance. Even with an army of ducal relations behind her, she’ll face a challenge.”
Rosecroft marched along in silence until they came to the next corner. “The widow would not prevail in court, but you’re right: She could make Daisy’s life difficult. Eloping with Lily might, possibly, devolve to Daisy’s discredit. Maybe.”
“I cannot gamble with that child’s happiness on a maybe, and Lily would not want me to.”
“You still haven’t told me how I can help.”
They passed a brothel on St. James’s, the scent of hashish wafting on the night air. Lily might have ended up in such an establishment, but for her uncle’s intervention. That thought alone kept Hessian from cleaning his dueling pistols.
“Please assure me that this conversation will be held in strictest confidence, Rosecroft.”
“I will overlook the slight to my honor, because you’re in love, which equates to being half-daft in the newly smitten.”
If this was love, this endless anxiety, this constant muddle and heartache, Hessian would rather have a toothache, a megrim, and a touch of the Jericho jig.
“I will convey to you a story,” he said, “of a family well situated but not titled…” He sketched Lily’s past, her mother’s indiscretion, the early years of limited contact, the death of the foster parents, and the years in service at the coaching inn. “And Lily was retrieved from the coaching inn, because the legitimate sister eloped at the age of seventeen with a house steward. She reportedly died in a coaching accident on the way to Scotland with her intended.”
Rosecroft paused to sniff at a precocious rose growing from a pot beneath the porch light of an otherwise darkened town house. “That is a prodigiously convenient coaching accident.”
“Convenient for Walter Leggett, who has lied to Lily often and convincingly. Who has kept Lily nearly under guard, who has monitored everything from her correspondence, to her social habits, to which bachelors she stands up with for the supper waltz.”
“My brother needs to water his roses,” Rosecroft said, snapping off the blossom and tucking it into his lapel. “You think the sister is alive.”
“Have you fashioned a will, Rosecroft?”
“Of course.”
“And is one provision that your daughter inherits her portion upon the sooner of a certain birthday or her lawful marriage?”
Rosecroft resumed walking. “At seventeen, a woman cannot lawfully marry over her guardian’s objection.”
“She can in Scotland.”
“Hence your comment about needing the ability to fly. If the sister is alive and kicking her heels in the Borders, she can sue Walter for mishandling her fortune.”
“And that brings us back to scandal and to Lily being left with nothing, assuming the older sister is alive and assuming I can find her and produce evidence of her existence in two weeks.”
“I can see why the ladies went through three plates of tea cakes. What will you do?”
Scotland was three-hundred-fifty miles away by awful roads, and even if Lily’s sister had married over the anvil at Gretna Green, Hessian had no way of knowing if the happy couple had settled in Scotland or darkest Peru.
“You ask what I’ll do,” Hessian said. “At first, I cast caution to the wind with Lily, and now all I see are bad options. One hardly knows what to do.”
“I live three streets that direction and serve a fine nightcap.”
“Thank you, but I must decline, for some course of action must be settled on, and I do my best thinking in solitude. I have too much supposition and not enough facts.” All the logic in the world still required some basic facts to reason from.
“Much like being a parent,” Rosecroft said. “You do the best you can and hope divine providence weighs in favor of your children. The offer of a nightcap stands.”
“Perhaps another time. Please keep a close eye on Lily for me, and if you can spare Bronwyn for an occasional outing to the park, Daisy and I would be most appreciative.”
“And about this other?” Rosecroft waved a gloved hand that encompassed stolen fortunes, elopement, an illegitimate daughter, and at least nineteen other scandals.
“I will begin with a trip to Chelsea tomorrow and then pay a call on the Duchess of Quimbey. I’ll confer with my brother thereafter and then start packing for a trip to the north.”
“So you do have some notion of how to go on?” Rosecroft asked as the bells of St. Paul’s tolled in the distance. “A strategy?”
“I have a hunch, and a fortnight to prevent disaster, scandal, and heartbreak.”
