Elizabeth Mansfield (2 page)

The batman eyed him curiously. “Whut’s it say?”

“My uncle’s dead,” Kit said gleefully.

Mickley snorted. “That don’t sound like somethin’ to cheer the soul.”

“Well, it cheers mine. I’m his heir.”

The batman looked mildly surprised. “Is ‘at a fact? Well, it seems to me that ye should give the poor dead bloke a passin’ sigh afore ye start countin’ yer gains.”

“I hardly knew him,” Kit explained, his eyes fixed on the letter. “He and my father never got on. I haven’t seen him since I was a child.”

“Then why’d the fellow make ye ‘is heir?”

“He had no offspring. Neither did his two sisters. My father was the only one of the four Merediths of that generation to have a son. So you see, I’m the next male in the line.” He looked up at his batman and grinned. “Can you believe it? I’ve become the Viscount Crittenden! From now on you’ll have to call me Your Lordship.”

“Huh! That’ll be the day,” the batman sneered. “I ‘ope ye came into somethin’ more substantial than a title.”

Kit glanced down at the paper still clutched in his hands. “I think I have. This letter suggests that there’s a sizable estate.”

“Estate, eh? Well, that’s somethin’ like!” Mickley tried not to show how impressed he was, but he couldn’t help adding, “Sorta like winnin’ a lottery, ain’t it?”

“Yes,” Kit said, somewhat numbed by the surprise of it all, “I suppose it is.”

“What sorta estate?”

“The letter doesn’t give details. But I know there’s a manor house. My father used to talk about it. It’s called the Grange. Crittenden Grange. It’s in Shropshire.” Kit’s eyes took on a faraway look as he tried to picture the green hills of Shropshire and the ancestral lands that were now his.

Suddenly, the full import of the news burst upon him. He jumped to his feet, grasped his batman by the shoulders, and whirled him about in a wild burst of exuberance, stirring up a cloud of dust from the sun-dried earth. “Mick, you clodcrusher,
smile!
”
he shouted ecstatically. “We’re going home!”

TWO

Gilbert Whitlow was only twelve and knew nothing about love and courtship. His brother Arthur was fifteen and knew everything. “You may as well face it, Gil,” Arthur said to the younger boy, who was hanging precariously over the second-floor banister in the hope of getting a glimpse of his sister’s suitor. “She’ll have him. So there’s no need to crane your neck. I tell you she’ll have him.”

The words were said with an air of such smug certainty that they irked Gilbert to the soul. “So
you
say,” he retorted, wrinkling his freckled nose in disgust.

“Yes, so I say.” Arthur, darker in coloring and more serious in aspect than his mischievous brother, pulled the younger boy from the banister by the scruff of his neck to the safety of the landing. “She’ll wed him whether we like him or not. Would you like to wager against it?”

Gilbert shook off his brother’s hold. “Caro will never marry Mr. Lutton. He never laughs.”

“She’ll do it anyway,” the older boy said glumly.

“How do you know she will? She wouldn’t have him the last time he asked.”

“That was more than a year ago. Uncle Clement was still alive. Caro didn’t have to marry
anyone
then.”

“I don’t see why she has to marry anyone now,” Gilbert grumbled, dropping down on the top step and twisting a lock of his disheveled blond hair in despair. “Why can’t we go on as we’ve always done?”

Arthur sighed. “You know why as well as I do. The letter.”

“Oh, right!” Gilbert, remembering, looked more despairing than ever. “The letter.”

* * *

They’d learned about the letter only a week before. It had been six months since Uncle Clement’s funeral, and the two boys were feeling particularly cheerful to see that their sister had at last given up wearing mourning. The two brothers and their sister Caroline were sitting at the breakfast table in the morning room of Crittenden Grange. Wide beams of sunlight spilled from the tall windows, sparkling on the tea service, the breakfast china, and their three faces. Caro seemed to have finally shaken off her doldrums. Arthur, studying his sister’s face, was relieved to see it had lost some of the pallor that months of bedside nursing, followed by months of worry about their future, had brought to it. She was looking particularly fetching this morning, he thought, in her pretty blue dress and with her short auburn curls highlighted by the sunshine.

She was merrily teasing Gilbert for eating an entire muffin in two bites. “You look like a squirrel”—she giggled—”with all that bread stuffed in your cheeks.”

Gilbert swallowed it all with a gulp. “You’re laughing,” he remarked, pleased.

Caro looked surprised. “Is that so unusual?” she asked.

“You haven’t laughed much lately,” Arthur said.

“I suppose I haven’t. The past few months have been ... difficult.”

“Why?” Gilbert asked. “Because Uncle Clement died?”

A cloud seemed to cover Caro’s face. “Yes, that,” she said. “And ... other things.”

“What other things?” Gilbert persisted.

“You know what other things,” Arthur muttered under his breath to his brother, trying to keep the younger boy from spoiling the cheerful atmosphere.

“No, I don’t,” Gilbert insisted.

“It’s all right, Arthur,” Caro said gently. “Gilbert has a right to know. You see, dearest, I’ve been worried because I don’t know what Captain Meredith will do about us when he comes to be the new viscount.”

“But why does it worry you, Caro?” Arthur asked. “The fellow is a captain of the dragoons, after all. The dragoons are top-of-the-trees. You don’t believe, do you, that someone like that would arrive without warning and throw us out in the snow?”

“I’m sure Captain Meredith is a fine gentleman,” Caro said, stirring her tea thoughtfully, “but he is under no familial obligation to us. We are only related by marriage to his aunt Martha, a tenuous connection at best. Just because Uncle Clement—who, you know, was not really an uncle to us at all—took us in when Mama died doesn’t mean that his heir is obliged to do the same.”

“But it’s been six months and no word,” Arthur said. “Maybe he won’t ever come.”

“That’s what I’m hoping,” Caro said, throwing them a smile. “No one has heard from him since he went off to the Peninsula years ago. It’s wicked to wish him ill, and I don’t, of course, but it would be lovely if he’s never found.”

“Do you think he might have been killed in the war?” Gilbert asked, wide-eyed.

“No, for we would have been notified. What I hope is that he met a lovely Spanish señorita and is happily ensconced somewhere in Spain with his wife and a dozen children and will never wish to come home.”

But at just that moment, Uncle Clement’s solicitor made his appearance. Mr. Halford had driven up from the city for the express purpose of acquainting Caro with the contents of the letter—the letter that was to change everything.

The gray-haired, potbellied solicitor with the pince-nez perched on his nose was shown in by Sowell, the butler. He’d started out very early that morning (for the trip from London to Crittenden Grange required three hours of rapid transport), and having been nauseated by the rocking of his aged coach, he arrived tense, nervous, and dyspeptic. “Good day, ma’am,” he said sourly from the doorway.

Caro felt her heart sink. There could be only one reason for the fellow’s presence—that he was bearing the news she’d been dreading. “Do sit down, Mr. Halford,” she said, forcing herself to be calm, “and let Sowell bring you some breakfast.”

“No, thank you, ma’am, nothing to eat.”

He dropped down upon a chair at the foot of the table and placed a large leather writing case before him. Refusing her offer of tea, he attempted to still the tremors in his stomach by taking deep breaths. When at last he felt able to speak, he dug into the leather case and pulled out a much-handled, much-folded sheet of paper. “I’ve had a letter from Spain,” he said, peering across the table at each of them in turn, the eyes behind his pince-nez blinking with serious intent. “From ...
him.”

“Him?” Caro’d asked, trying vainly to hide her alarm. “You don’t mean ...?”

“Yes, the new Viscount Crittenden himself, Captain Christopher Meredith that was.”

“He’s in Spain?” Caro asked, a look of relief brightening her eyes at the thought that the new viscount might be living the very life she’d envisioned for him.

“He was at the time he wrote this. I believe he is now on his way home.”

“Oh.” The relief faded from her eyes as quickly as it had come. “He’s coming
here,
then?”

“Within a fortnight, I believe.”

“As soon as that?” Everyone at the table could see her spirits sink.

“Yes, I’m afraid so.” The solicitor adjusted his spectacles nervously. “Having received the notification of his inheritance, and having no encumbrances to prevent it, His Lordship made immediate plans to take over his ... er ... duties.”

“No encumbrances, you say? Does that mean he has no family?”

“None. He’d been wounded at Salamanca, but he’s quite well now. According to the date on this letter, he set out from a place called Bejar more than a week ago and expects to be in England by the tenth. The letter contains the instructions he wishes to be carried out in time for his arrival.”

Caro stiffened at once. “Instructions?”

Arthur understood his sister’s reaction to that word. Caro was a very independent sort. She didn’t respond well when given orders. Their father had died shortly after Gilbert was born, and their mother a mere eight months after that. It was Caro who’d been responsible for the two boys’ upbringing—and her own—ever since. Even though Uncle Clement had taken them in, he’d been too preoccupied with his ill health to pay much attention to two underage boys. Caro had made all the decisions regarding their care; she’d supervised meals, hired tutors, mended trousers, chosen books, arbitrated quarrels, and, in general, guided their lives. As for Uncle Clement, he soon found himself relying on her to run the household, take care of his correspondence, and watch over his health. But even Uncle Clement, viscount though he was, did not give Caro orders. He’d learned very early that one didn’t order Caroline Whitlow about. Caro didn’t take “instructions.”

But of course the solicitor couldn’t know all that. Unaware of Caro’s stiffening, he opened the letter and began to read aloud the orders that the new viscount had sent. These were quite explicit, ranging from his wishes for the location of his bedroom (facing south) to the number of household staff he required (four). Among the other items on his list of requirements were a bedroom adjoining his for his batman; an English—not a French!—chef in the kitchen; and room enough in the stables for the four horses he was bringing with him from Spain.
If necessary,
he wrote,
sell four of the estate’s horses to make room for mine.

“Dash it, Caro,” Arthur cried out, “he won’t sell my Windracer, will he? Or your Brandywine?”

“Hush, Arthur,” Caro said, white-lipped. “How can I say? Let Mr. Halford finish.”

“There’s not much more,” the solicitor said. “He concludes only with the request that no ceremonies or social events be held to mark his arrival. ‘After my years in Spain,’ he writes, ‘I require nothing more than a time of absolute quiet and peace.’“

“Absolute quiet?” Caro muttered angrily under her breath. “And what about us? We, I suppose, will be expected to hide in the attic and thus be out of his way!”

The two boys exchanged looks. Their sister was in a fury, and they knew it. They watched uneasily while she paced twice about the room, trying to regain control. “Tell me, Mr. Halford,” she asked finally, her mouth tight, “is the man mad?”

The solicitor felt it incumbent upon him to defend his client, although he could not meet Caro’s eyes while he did it. “It is not madness, is it, ma’am, for a man to wish for peace and quiet after serving in a war?”

“Should fighting a war make one inconsiderate of others?” she shot back. “There’s not a word in that ... that ... document to show that the fellow has given a single thought to
us\
Have we not been part of this household more than twelve years? What are his intentions toward us, pray? And what of the staff? He
must
be mad if he expects to run this house with a staff of four. What does he think we should do with the other twelve, most of whom have been employed here more years than I? Discharge them?”

Mr. Halford’s eyes fell. “I fully understand your concern, Miss Whitlow,” he murmured, biting his lip unhappily, “but you do realize, I hope, that I must do as I’m ordered.”

“Yes, of course,” Caro murmured with a helpless flutter of her hands. “I mustn’t vent my spleen on you. You are not to blame for any of this.”

An unlawyerly expression of sympathy crept into Mr. Halford’s eyes. He had felt for years that Clement Meredith, the late Viscount Crittenden, had been remiss in his duty. He’d made these three young persons his wards, but he’d never formalized the arrangement. Nor had he ever taken the trouble to rewrite his will to make provision for them. Whenever the solicitor had tried to suggest making revisions, the viscount had put him off, saying he would get to it when he felt “more the thing,” and that there was plenty of time. But there hadn’t been much time after all, and now it was too late.