Page 79 of My Deceitful Duchess
“Your widow’s jointure. You were entitled to one third of your husband’s estates—which were considerable—beforehebegan selling everything off he could lay hands up. It is yours by law, irrevocable.” A brief hesitation. “By my estimation, what remains will notquitecover what you are owed. And so he has nothing at all. Nothing that is his by right, because every bit of it and then some is yours.”
“Oh.” She shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know that I want it.” It would only be a reminder of that life that she had once lived, and wished only to forget.
“It’s still yours. You have an interest in properties whose rents hehas been collecting for a dozen years. Even if you don’t want it, there are a number of worthy causes you might support with the funds you would receive from them.”
Julian’s breath whistled through his teeth, and his chains rattled ominously. “I’ll be damned if you get your greedy little hands on my family’s money.”
“Yes; you’ll be damned.” The words slipped out of her throat, light and airy. “Convicted and sentenced to transportation, so I am given to understand. I cannot imagine that life in a penal colony will be pleasant, but you have earned it, after all. With your scheming, your plotting. And I—I shall behappy. That is why I’ve come, Julian—I wanted you to know that despite you, I shall behappy.” Charlie nudged his head into her palm as she slipped it beneath the table, and she was as grateful for his presence as she was for Sebastian’s.
Julian’s face flushed an angry shade of purple, and an ear-splitting shriek erupted from his mouth, shocking in its intensity. Like a child throwing a tantrum. He sounded so much like Nerissa, his lofty arrogance reduced to nothing more than juvenile petulance—both of them just rotting branches of the wretched Amberley tree. But all of the fear that she had once held for him had evaporated, and there was but one reaction she could give.
Laughter.
Which only served to infuriate him further. It took both guards to subdue him, and in that time, Sebastian urged Jenny up from her chair and whistled to Charlie, who crept from beneath the chair to his side, wary of the madman screaming his rage only feet away.
It would be the last time she ever saw this man, and that—that was good. And she paused, one foot over the threshold, and gave his own words back to him. “Oh, Julian,” she said, and inflected it with every bit of condescension to which she could lay claim. “This will not save you.”
And his shrieks followed them out, drifting on the air like music.
Chapter Thirty Six
“Inever considered a jointure,” Jenny said idly. “I suppose I ought to have. I know of them well enough. I just never considered that I would be entitled to one.” She had had no dowry, and there had been no negotiations of a marriage settlement—and certainly the duke had never bothered to discuss with her what was to happen to her after his death.
Perhaps he had expected his heir to handle it. Which Julianhad, after a fashion, she supposed. It was just that his method ofhandlingher had involved a quick death and not a small dower house buried in the countryside.
“The late duke left no will,” Sebastian said, “which might have laid out his wishes for your financial future. Absent that, English law decrees you to be entitled to one-third of his assets—with the exception of entailed properties.”
“Is it…substantial?” At his odd, speculative look, she clarified, “He never spoke with me of his assets. I assumed he was quite wealthy, but I never knew any specifics.”
“Less substantial than it might have been,” Sebastian said. “In fact, your jointure rights will expire upon our marriage. And theycouldhave been voided by a conviction of adultery or a felony crime.”
“But I was never convicted,” Jenny said. “So—”
“So you are entitled to those funds,” Sebastian said. “Which Julian has been collecting on your behalf. It’s twelve years of rents and revenue, which he has been pocketing in your absence, since he never expected you to collect upon it at all. But yes, itissubstantial. And he owes it to you. It’s a debt he cannot pay in full, and so you’ll be entitled to collect what you are due until it is.”
“And then those rights will revert to him?”
“It’s difficult to say, though I doubt it. There’s talk of an Act of Parliament designed to strip him of his title. It’s likely his properties will also be forfeit, and the dukedom declared extinct—a warning, in essence, to anyone else who might think to advance their own ennoblement.”
The sun burned in the distance over the rooftops, and Jenny shaded her eyes against it with one hand. “It’s strange,” she said. “All he had to do waswait. And it would have been his. All of it.”
“Greed is the oldest motivation in the world. I never find myself surprised by it,” Sebastian said, and he reached for her hand, collecting it in his. “But you do not have to worry—even if it comes to naught, he’ll never be welcomed again on England’s shores. He’ll be a duke in name only, and his notoriety will follow him, even if hedidfind some way to escape the penal colony.”
“I never have to see him again,” she murmured.
“You didn’t have to see himtoday.”
“No, but Iwantedto. I wanted to look him in the eyes. I wanted him to know he had lost. Is that very petty, do you think?”
“No. I think it’s rather brave.” And then he nudged her shoulder gently, into a turn. “This way.”
“Oh?” She was startled to realize she did not know where they were—she had let her mind wander while they had walked, while they had talked, trusting him to lead her. And he had, she supposed. She simply did not knowwhere. “Where are we going?”
“It’s Sunday,” he said. “Mum nags if I go too long without coming for dinner.” There was a squeeze of her hand, and then a weary breath. “She’ll nag you, too, if you let her. I wouldn’t advise it.”
“I like your mother.”
“She likes you as well. Still, don’t let her nag you. And my father and Charles can be a bit—insufferable. I can’t promise it will be apleasantdinner.”
