Lawyer Crighton cleared his throat yet again. "Lord Stoneridge instructed his relatives that there was to be no formal mourning period. They are forbidden to wear mourning or to refrain from their usual pursuits." He scratched his head. "If you knew his lordship, sir, you'd understand that such instructions were quite in character. He was not a conventional man."
"And why is he going to such lengths to give me a fair chance, as you put it?" The earl shook his head in disbelief.
Crighton was silent for a minute before saying, "His lordship would not care to see Stoneridge Manor go to rack and ruin for lack of funds to maintain it, and I also believe he wished it to remain in the hands of a member of his son's family."
"Ah." The earl nodded slowly. "One could almost feel sorry for the devious old devil… torn between loathing the idea of a Gilbraith in residence and ancestral pride."
He drew on his York tan gloves, smoothing the fine leather over his fingers, a deep frown between his chiseled brows, wrinkling the scar. "A union between a Gilbraith and a Belmont would be something indeed."
"Indeed, my lord."
"I give you good day, Crighton." Abruptly, his lordship strode to the door.
The lawyer bounced up to bow his client from the room and down the narrow flight of stairs to the street door. He waited politely as the earl mounted the glossy black being held at the door by a street urchin and rode off down Threadneedle Street toward Cheapside.
Lawyer Crighton returned to his office. It was to be hoped the young Belmont ladies hadn't heard the scandalous accusations dogging the heels of the Earl of Stoneridge. Such rumors would hardly endear a prospective suitor, particularly one of Gilbraith parentage – surely sufficient a disadvantage.
Sylvester rode back to his lodgings on Jermyn Street. Two years ago he would have gone to one of his clubs and sought companionship, port, and a game of faro. But he could no longer bear that instant of silence as he walked into a crowded room, the averted eyes, the stiff acknowledgments of his onetime friends. Never the cut direct – except from Gerard. He'd been acquitted, after all. But he'd not been exonerated.
Cowardice was a charge that clung like slime.
"It's insufferable! How can we possibly be expected to live five miles from a Gilbraith!" The young lady at the pianoforte slammed her hands onto the keys in a crashing chord. "I don't understand why grandpapa should have insisted on such a thing."
"Your grandfather didn't insist we live in the dower house, Clarissa," Lady Elinor Belmont said mildly, examining her embroidery with a critical frown. "I think a paler shade of green…" She selected a silk from the basket on the table beside her. "But while we're hardly in danger of debtors' prison, we need to husband our resources. If I dip into capital to set us up in our own establishment, it'll cut into your dowries."
"I don't give a hoot about a dowry," Lady Clarissa declared. "And neither does Theo. We've no intention of marrying, ever."
" 'Ever' is a big word, dear," her mother remarked. "And there's still Emily and Rosie to consider."
Clarissa swung round on the piano stool, her big blue eyes stormy. "It's just so galling," she said. "To have to remove to the dower house, when we've always lived here."
"Don't fuss so, Clarry. We've always known it would happen… ever since Papa was killed." A tall young woman looked up from a fashion magazine, a ray of sunlight picking golden glints in her dark brown hair. "And the dower house is very spacious. Besides, once Edward and I are married, you can all come and live with us."
"Poor Edward," murmured Lady Elinor with an amused smile. "I hardly think a young man, even one so accommodating as Edward, would relish starting married life in the company of his mother-in-law and three sisters-in-law."
"Oh, fustian, Mama!" Her eldest daughter leaped to her feet and flung her arms around her mother. "Edward loves you."
"Yes, I'm sure he does, Emily, dear, and I'm much obliged to him," Lady Elinor said placidly, returning the hug. "Nevertheless, we shall remove to the dower house and make the best of it."
Her two elder daughters knew the tone. Behind their mother's mild exterior lay a will of iron, rarely exerted but never to be ignored.
"Mama, where's Theo? She promised to help me cut up these worms." A young girl wandered into the room, extending a cupped hand.
"Rosie, that's revolting! Take them away," her sisters commanded in unison.
The child blinked through large horn-rimmed spectacles. "They're not revolting. Theo doesn't think they are. They're to be part of an experiment… a bio… biological experiment."
"Theo doesn't know the first thing about biological experiments," Emily said.
"But at least she's interested," Rosie responded with asperity, peering at the contents of her palm. "If you're not interested in things, you never learn anything. That was what Grandpapa said."
"That's very true, Rosie, but the drawing room is not the best place for worms," her mother declared.
"Alive or dissected," Clarissa put in, closing the lid of the pianoforte. "Take them away. Theo's gone fishing… heaven only knows when she'll reappear."
Lady Belmont bent over her basket of embroidery silks so that her daughters couldn't see the tears glazing her eyes. While they'd all had a close relationship with the old earl, Theo had been the closest to their grandfather and was struggling with a well of grief that Lady Belmont understood as perhaps the other girls didn't. Theo had needed a father. Kit's death when she was seven had left her with needs that her mother couldn't satisfy. The others had adapted, it seemed, and their grandfather's influence had been important, but not as vital as their mother's. It had been the opposite with Theo.
In the days since the earl's death, she had plunged herself into the affairs of the estate and the solitary pursuits that had always pleased her with a single-minded dedication that would shut out her grief. She paid little or no attention to the household routine these days. Clarissa was right – Theo would return before dark, but there was no knowing exactly when.
That same afternoon Sylvester Gilbraith downed his tankard of ale in the tap room of the village inn and leaned back, resting his elbows on the bar counter behind him. The room was dark and smoky, and he was aware of the surreptitious glances of the inn's customers as they drank and spat into the sawdust at their feet. They didn't know who he was and speculation was rife. Not many gentlemen of quality fetched up at the Hare and Hounds in Lulworth, demanding a room for the night.
But it didn't suit Lord Stoneridge to declare himself just yet. He guessed that the village inhabitants and the estate workers would share the Belmont hostility to a Gilbraith. Such attitudes were passed down from the manor and rapidly became entrenched, even when the reason for them was long forgotten.
He pushed himself away from the bar counter and strolled outside. Summer had come early this year. The village street was bathed in sunshine, the mud hard-ridged, and the groom in the stableyard drowsed against the wall, sucking a straw, the brim of his cap pulled well down over his eyes.
He straightened, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles as his lordship beckoned. A sharp command brought him running across the cobbled yard.
"Saddle my horse."
The lad tugged his forelock and disappeared into the stable, reemerging after five minutes leading the earl's black.
"Is there a cross-country route to Stoneridge Manor?" His lordship swung himself astride his mount, tossing a coin to the lad.