Page 41 of A Caribbean Heiress in Paris
His niece was having a wonderful time attempting to tear Evan’s beard off by the root, so he stood up and placed her on his shoulders where her chubby arms couldn’t reach his face. The baby made piercing sounds of delight as Evan searched for the best way to relay this part to his sisters. After a long moment he gave up and decided to just come out and say it.
“I was going to come see you both after I’d heard from Luz Alana, but you’re here,” he said, coming to stand by the mantel facing the settee his sisters had commandeered.
He was confronted with a matching set of frowns.
“First, I need you both to understand there are questions I cannot answer at the moment, for good reasons.” Murdoch groaned, and Raghav scoffed. Evan pointedly ignored both of them. “I’ve been working with...” he paused, the wordsour brotheron the tip of his tongue “...an associate to find mother’s will.” Both his sisters gasped at that. This was something the three of them had talked about many times over the years. Iain, who tended to believe their father blindly, had not shared their suspicion that the duke had lied about their mother’s wishes.
“An associate?” Beatrice asked suspiciously.
“Yes,” Evan said shortly, gently passing the baby back to her mother. “Wait for me here.”
“Evan,” his sisters cried in unison.
“I’ve got something for each of you in my study.” Evan made haste and procured the pieces of jewelry that had been in the box. The will he left in the safe.
When he returned, he found four adults, one baby and three dogs staring expectantly at him.
“These were in a box with it,” he said, handing his sisters the bracelet and necklace their mother had left for them. His heart was hammering in his throat as he reached for the baby again.
“Where?” asked Addy, with tears in her eyes.
“We were able to track down the nursemaid that took care of her in the sanatorium.” He relayed the details he knew—like the money and land they were both meant to inherit but his father never honored, along with the conditions of his own inheritance of the Braeburn—interspersed with more questions from his sisters that he couldn’t answer.
“We cannot let father know we have the will for a few weeks. I will make sure that you get everything that mother left to you, but the timing is imperative.” His sisters only nodded with that unwavering trust they had in him.
“A wedding gift,” Beatrice murmured, her countenance contemplative. “Could you try to get around that? If it’s in the will that it’ll go to you...”
“I could, but Father could contest it for years. I have consulted my solicitor here, and he assures me this is the most effective way to get it back from him. If I can satisfy the one condition for it to come to me, then he can’t deny it.” Not that Evan had time for other routes, not when Apollo was set to descend on Edinburgh like a cyclone in less than a fortnight.
“And you’ve told your lady this?” There was no ignoring the frisson of pleasure that crawled up his spine at hearing the wordyour.
“She knows,” he said, also not enjoying the slightly wild sensation that came upon him whenever the subject of Luz Alana made its appearance. He would need to work on those reactions soon. “There is no Prince Charming in this story, and blessedly, Miss Heith-Benzan does not fancy one. She wants a business partner, not a doting husband.”
“And when is all this meant to unfold?” Beatrice asked, always with her eye on the target. Evan did look forward to sharing this particular detail.
“I thought I would surprise our dear father at his birthday celebration, given that I’m expected to pay for it.”
His sister’s smile was dangerous.
“Finally, a reason to attend that yearly spectacle of self-indulgence. He will befurious.” Beatrice looked positively bloodthirsty.
“He will be more than that,” Evan assured them. “There are other things that I cannot share right now, which will likely become public.” Adalyn seemed startled, but Beatrice had that cold, mutinous look she usually only reserved for their father.
“Bea, there will be a scandal.”
Beatrice dismissed his warning. “Don’t worry on my account,” she said with a shrug. “Gerard’s family is much too necessary to the ton for him to ever worry about them, and you know I would love nothing more than to see our father lose that all-important regard of the peerage.”
When Beatrice told her father she would marry Gerard, the grandson of a tradesman whose family had risen to prominence out of sheer perseverance and grit, he’d forbidden the marriage. Then, when he realized the fortune she’d be marrying into, he agreed to give his blessingifshe gave up her dowry. In addition to requesting a generous compensation from Gerard’s family.
No, he hadn’t feared either of his sisters objecting to their father’s destruction.
“So where will this wedding be?” Murdoch asked, breaking the tension. Evan kept an eye on his sisters, who were clearly still digesting, their attention on the heirlooms from their mother.
“I was thinking Braeburn Hall,” he said, moderating his voice. The images of Luz Alana walking through the heather to reach him, of her standing on the little cliff-side chapel at the estate, filled his head all the same.
“That’s an interesting location choice for a wedding that is, as you’ve informed us, purely a formality.” Beatrice could be so smug.
“What is so interesting about me choosing our family countryseat to elope, Beatrice?”
