Page 51 of Weave me a Rope
“Let’s get that done first,” Cordelia suggested, “and then we can talk about our plans.”
She didn’t expect it to take long. She and her uncle had gone through his proposed marriage agreement before she went to her first Society engagement with Aunt Eliza. She knew the size of the dowry to be paid to her husband, the money to be set in trust for each child, and even a sum in trust for the potential eventuality the marriage became untenable.
She also knew she was her uncle’s main heir and would one day—she hoped far into the future—be a very wealthy woman.
Added to that, the agreement also included the unusual provision of leaving her own personal business interests in her hands rather than allowing it to become her husband’s property. She did not know whether the clause was enforceable, given theagreement was being signed after marriage and therefore after they became legally Spen’s possessions, which by law occurred the moment he put his ring on her finger unless the parties had agreed in writing beforehand.
When Uncle Josh took her and Spen into a smaller parlor, she read the document anyway, and partway through, looked up in shock. “Uncle! No dowry until I am twenty-five? Nearly seven years?”
Spen, who was reading another copy of the same document, commented, “I have no objection.” He took Cordelia’s hand. “Sweetheart, your uncle wants to know I have married you for yourself, and not for your money. He wants to see what I’m made of I suppose. I cannot blame him, and I do not care. I can look after my own family.”
Cordelia didn’t agree. “It is not fair. None of what has happened has been your fault. You didn’t ask your father to incarcerate you and attack me. You didn’t ask me to climb the tower and seduce you. In fact, you told me not to. And you certainly didn’t ask me to abscond from Ramsgate and cross England to marry you.”
Spen kissed her hand. “I’m glad you did. I cannot imagine life without you at my side.”
“Ye will not be destitute,” Uncle Josh grumbled. “I will give ye a job with one of my enterprises, lad. Ye’ll be paid enough to keep a comfortable home for my niece and her children.”
Cordelia opened her mouth to tell him they did not need his help, but Spen spoke first.
“Thank you, sir,” he said. “It will be good to have a job to fall back on if my own plans fail. However, I have arranged an agreement with my father that gives me an estate, with its income, plus a further five hundred pounds per year. I am familiar with the estate and know it is self-supporting and produces a small income. In future, it will provide even more.As to a job, I will be apprenticing to the stewards of my father’s estates, each one in turn, and learning my own trade, so I can take over when my father dies and do a better job of being a marquess.”
Uncle Josh nodded thoughtfully. “Good lad. Good lad. Yes, with an estate, even one that only supports itself, plus a small income, ye’ll do well enough. And the dowry will come to ye in time. Ye can use it to patch up some of the mess yer father has made. Mark this, though, Lord Spenhurst. Ye too, Cordelia. If I have reason to believe ye cannot be trusted with money, I’ll leave the rest of what I have in trust for thy children. I’m not seeing what your grandmother, your father, and I slaved for frittered away. Ye hear me?”
Spen must have anticipated Cordelia’s reaction, for he squeezed her hand again before she could return a sharp answer. “We will make you proud, sir,” he said. “I hope I can soon prove I can be trusted, if just to set your mind and your heart at rest. I know Cordelia is the most precious person in the world to you.”
It was true. Cordelia deflated with a sigh. Uncle Josh loved her, and if he was being pompous and overprotective at the moment, it was because of that love.
“If my husband does not object, Uncle Josh,” she said, “then I do not.” Still, she needed to mention a fact her uncle had left out—deliberately, she was certain. “Spen, I haven’t shown you the financial statements from Milton Embroidery.”
“No need, my love,” he told her. “That business is yours.” He tapped the agreement he was in the process of signing. “And ‘all assets and incomes appertaining thereto’.” He shrugged. “It is only what we agreed between ourselves, after all.”
That day in the tower. The day their child was conceived. Cordelia realized her hand had crept to her belly and removed it, blushing slightly. “I have been putting the income back into my expansion plans, but this year, for the first time, I havebeen building savings. I have not yet taken an income from the business, but I can afford to do so.”
He looked as if he was about to object, but she was determined to make her contribution to their comfort. “I know you will permit me to spend my own funds on my own comfort, should I want more servants, or furniture or gowns, or the like.”
Spen gave a bark of laughter. “Well played, my love. Game, set, and match. Am I to act the pompous husband and deny you your pleasures for the sake of my pride?” He lifted the hand he still held and kissed it. “You shall do as you please with your own money, and if it adds to my comfort, too, I shall be very proud of my clever wife.”
Cordelia hoped she had not bruised that pride, but Uncle Josh seemed pleased and Spen had changed the subject, so she put the matter to one side to discuss with her husband in private.
Once they returned to the rest of the company, she and Spen took it in turns to tell the story of their great deception, and Spen explained to John he was now John’s legal guardian. “Cordelia and I would be pleased if you make your home with us,” he said, “but I need to wait for the papers that give me ownership of the estate in Herefordshire.”
Over tea and cake, they talked about the provisions of Spen’s agreements with the marquess and with Lady Daphne’s father, and about the proposed trip around the marquess’s estates to, as Spen had already indicated to Uncle Josh, ‘learn the trade of marquessing’.
Sooner or later, the two peers would realize they had been tricked. “I’d prefer to defer that revelation,” Spen said. “They have had a lifetime of bending the world to their shape and I can’t predict their reaction. At the very least, I want to wait until they’ve carried out their side of the agreements they made with me.”
“Best to put it off as long as ye can,” her uncle agreed. “I’ve a few plans of my own to hobble them, but a month or two more will help to weave the net tighter.”
“You’ll be careful?” Cordelia was anxious about Uncle taking on men who could rouse the entire peerage against them.
“Don’t ye worry, love, yer uncle was not born yesterday,” he assured her. “I learnt in the cradle that cornered rats bite.”
She had to be satisfied with that since he refused to discuss his plans. “Least said, soonest mended.”
John would return to the school Uncle Josh had chosen for him and would continue using the name, John Milton. As for their other ward, “I’ll escort Lady Daphne and Miss Faversham to Ramsgate, if it suits ye, Miss Faversham,” Uncle Josh decided. “I’ll need to talk to my sister in any case. Reassure her about Cordelia.”
“We will write to you there and in London,” Spen told Uncle Josh, “and Mr. Morris’s London servants will always have our direction.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
