Fortune's Son (24 page)

He absently weighed the gold, estimating it at no more than one hundred guineas, and deposited it in his waistcoat pocket.

Watching him, Sukey asked warily, “Just how do you propose to do that? To come about?”

He answered with a grim smile. “My dearest love, by any means at my disposal. By any means at all.”

After dispatching an urgent summons to his solicitor, Philip secreted Lady Hastings's letter in his pocket and left his mistress. Hailing a sedan chair, he directed the bearers to Mayfair, where he discovered to his consternation that the gentleman he sought was not at home.

“Roberts should have arrived from Newmarket two days ago,” Philip insisted, wondering if some new game might be afoot.

“Nevertheless, he is no longer in residence, my lord,” the footman replied.

Philip pressed his booted foot against the closing door. “What do you mean,
no
longer
in
residence
? You do not expect his return?”

“The gentleman was called away of a sudden. I am not at liberty to say more.”

“That will be all, Henderson,” a cool voice commanded from within.

Philip pressed harder, straining to see the man behind the voice. “Lee. It is you.”

“Lord Hastings. An unexpected pleasure.” Mr. Lee's tone belied his delight. He came forward to admit his guest. “As always, your obedient.” He sketched a bow. “Shall we, my lord?” He indicated that Philip should follow him inside.

Lee led Philip into a private chamber and closed the door. He gestured to the set of chairs, but Philip demurred.

“Do I understand correctly that Roberts has precipitately departed?”

“'Twas some very… personal business, my lord.”

“One must suppose it a matter of some urgency for such extraordinary behavior from the
winner
of a monumental wager.”

Philip's irony was not lost on Mr. Lee. “Nevertheless, Roberts sends his deepest regrets that once more I stand in his stead.”

“Perhaps you might care to know the nature of
my
business
before you volunteer to be his surrogate?” Lord Hastings retrieved the letter from his breast pocket. “Do you know the contents?”

Lee inclined his head. “I am in the gentleman's confidence.”

“Then you are aware of our history and that the scoundrel has eloped with my wife?”

“A most unfortunate circumstance, my lord.”

“Unfortunate? I don't believe so, Lee. This was purely premeditated. Malicious, unadulterated vengeance.”

“It was a wager, my lord, nothing more. It was not forced upon you.”

“I was intentionally baited!”

“As with any hardened gamester, your greed overcame your good sense.”

The truth stung. Hubris, as much as greed, had led to this humiliation.

“That accounts for the wager, but what of my wife, Lee? She has run off with him.”

“While none could have foreseen
that
consequence, the countess left of her own accord. It neither was abduction nor premeditated.”

“Yet Roberts,
or
should
I
say
Devington
, refused to meet me man-to-man, but instead absconds with my wife like a thief in the night.”

“I say he acted out of compassion for the lady's sake. She wished to depart swiftly and spare you what would have been a most uncomfortable and scandalously public confrontation.”

“How considerate. Now I must ask, Lee, what reparation does Devington deem suitable for the loss of my countess as well as my reputation? I'll have satisfaction one way or another. Are you still so eager to stand as his proxy?”

Lee blanched. The American colonial had resided in London long enough to know how matters of honor were settled. Moreover, Lord Hastings was widely accounted a master swordsman. He chose his next words with the utmost care. “My Lord Hastings, it was the gentleman's belief that a compromise might be struck.”

“Is that so?”

“By way of recompense, Roberts will grant clemency in settling the debt of honor. It was a fair wager that you lost, but he's agreed to save you from the public disgrace of bankruptcy… should this matter be quietly settled.”

“And you are to negotiate?”

“Indeed, my lord. Your arrival was not entirely unanticipated.”

“I would think not. What, precisely, are Roberts's terms?”

“He will allow ten years to repay the wager, provided you seek an immediate dissolution of the marriage.”

“He expects me to just give him Charlotte? You know I must file a civil suit against him, don't you? It is my prerogative as the injured party to seek financial reparation.”

“The terms are more than generous.”

“Yet I must take this to the courts. I cannot legally seek a divorce without first obtaining a judgment of criminal conversation, not that I haven't legitimate grounds. Is not this very letter unquestionable evidence of Lady Hastings's willful and premeditated desertion?”

“There can be no denial of it.”

“Then I must call upon you to act as a witness. I cannot move forward without witnesses.”

“You expect me to act against Roberts? I would do no such thing!” said Lee.

“You would not be acting against
his
interests
, if he indeed wishes to wed Charlotte. It is an impossibility until our marriage is legally severed. If you expedite the proceedings, you facilitate their union, don't you see?”

“But Roberts could face severe financial penalty.”

“Would he rather sire bastards upon the woman he presumably loves? As you know, I cannot meet the legal fees to obtain a divorce. I intend to seek a judgment equal to the expense. If Roberts agrees, I am willing to forgo any further settlement.”

Lee studied his friend's longtime nemesis before capitulating with a sigh. “I suppose it best we proceed as you wish.”

A small triumph, Philip reasoned, but at least they'd come to an agreement of sorts. Although he'd been humiliated by this turn of events, deep down Philip knew he'd only reaped what he'd sown, though the harvest had taken some eight years. Charlotte and Robert, the victims of many an unscrupulous turn, had by fate's caprice prevailed in the end.

“Have you anything to drink, Lee? I am much inclined to celebrate.” Ironically, though standing on the brink of ruin, Philip was elated at the prospect of liberation from the wretched and lingering purgatory that was his marriage.
Good
God, to be free at last!

Befuddled by the turn this encounter had taken, Lee frowned. “I fail to see the source of your good humor, my lord.”

“I suppose you would not. You colonials are a singularly humorless lot.”

Mr. Lee poured two glasses of claret. Philip downed the first and meditated his empty glass. “What am I to make of the rest, Lee?” He stabbed the letter with his index finger. “Am I to suppose some generosity of spirit led Lady Hastings to claim I have a son?”

Lee remained impassive. “There was mention of a young boy encountered at a Yorkshire tavern, but I know nothing further.”

“A tavern in Yorkshire?”
When
the
deuce
was
he
last
in
Yorkshire, outside of the races?
Philip had no recollection of the last time he'd swived a tavern wench. He'd abandoned those days long ago for Sukey, but if it were indeed true… “Damn it all, Lee, you must know something more!”

“Sadly, I had little curiosity in the matter.”

“Answer me this, then—is there any reason Charlotte might have concocted the story?”

“I have no reason to believe so.”

While part of him desired confirmation of the claim, the inclination was soon overpowered by the belief that if the boy indeed existed, he would do nothing but complicate an already impossible situation.

Any
self-respecting
gentleman would have put a pistol in his mouth after his wife eloped with the very man who ruined him, thought Francis Willoughby, Esquire, as the chairmen conveyed him to his meeting with the Earl of Hastings.

The earnest, bespectacled young solicitor had responded promptly to the hastily scrawled summons, completely abandoning the documents and legal texts scattered about his cluttered Holborn Street apartments in Lincoln's Inn. At this stage in his career, Willoughby the younger could ill-afford to displease any of his clients, regardless of their notoriety.

His father, Phineas Willoughby, Esquire, had been the preeminent probate attorney of his time, and was the primary executor of the Hastings Estate until his recent demise. Now Francis had assumed that dubious honor.

The tersely worded brief had revealed little, but Mr. Willoughby had a fair preconception of what services he might be asked to render the Earl of Hastings. News traveled swiftly in London, and the coffee houses were already abuzz about the earl's calamitous wager.

Willoughby was not at first inclined to hire a sedan chair for the short transit across town, but decided the half shilling to the burly chairmen well worth the protection they afforded his shoes, his clothes, and his person from the filth and perils of the London streets. As the chair conveyed him to his appointment, Willoughby recalled what details he knew of the present Earl of Hastings.

As a scapegrace second son, Philip Drake had acceded to the earldom and its entailed estates upon the concurrent and accidental (though scandalmongers implied otherwise) deaths of his father and elder brother. Remarkably, although he'd gained the title, the family fortune was still held completely outside of his grasp.

The late earl, in his intense disapprobation of his second son, had taken extraordinary measures to circumvent traditional inheritance law in order to tie up the family fortune in trust. Although the entailment guaranteed Philip Drake the title and estates, the late earl's last will and testament firmly held all monies until the time Philip would produce a legitimate male heir.

Seven years of less-than-connubial bliss between Lord Hastings and his young countess had failed to produce any progeny, and the earl's holdings were known to be a shambles. Years of immoderate living had only worsened his circumstances and fueled him to more reckless and dissolute behavior, eventually leading to his most devastating and self-destructive act.

Word of the entire salacious affair had spread like a wildfire from coffee house to coffee house. He had accepted a racing wager and lost a fortune he could not touch. Now, with his wife's elopement, he would no doubt initiate proceedings for divorcement on grounds of desertion.

Truthfully, Willoughby couldn't quite decide if the Earl of Hastings was by now insensitive, impervious, or merely oblivious to obloquy.

***

While the present Lord Hastings watched in ill-concealed edgy silence, the young lawyer furrowed his brow over the last will and testament of the late Anthony, Lord Hastings.

“Well? What do you make of it?” the present earl demanded.

“Ironclad. Truly a flawless document.” Willoughby spoke the words with filial pride.

“What am I paying you for, if not to find a flaw?”

“But the will is immutable, my lord. You may not realize a farthing from the trust until you have… er… ensured the… ah… continuation… of the Hastings line.”

“I am already painfully aware of this condition, Willoughby.”

“Then I regret to disappoint you, my lord. The provisions of the will are very clear. Indeed, crystal.”

“What if there were a child? A male of my blood? Could that satisfy the conditions to release the trust?”

“But you and
Lady
Hastings
have no offspring.”

Philip answered with a significant look.

The lawyer flushed. “You speak of a bar sinister?” The sanctimonious solicitor could not quite mouth the word “bastard.”

“I understand there may be such a child. I care nothing of the social stigma, Willoughby; I would acknowledge the boy.”

“If such a… child… exists, he still would not satisfy the requirements of the trust.”

“Why not?”

“Because the will clearly states a
legitimate
male heir. In the eyes of the law, illegitimate shall
always
be
illegitimate.”

“Surely there is a loophole,” the earl insisted.

“There is not.”

“How can you say that? King Charles had a dozen or more bastard brats and ennobled them all.”

“He had the power to create
new
titles, but not to confer existing ones. Even then, the eldest, Monmouth, was ineligible to accede to the throne.”

Philip's gaze riveted to the Allan Ramsay portrait of the fourth Earl of Hastings over the mantel. “Damn your eyes, you sadistic old bastard, for leaving me in this impossible position!”

Willoughby nervously cleared his throat. “I fear that is not all, my lord.”

“What do you mean?” Lord Hastings demanded.

The lawyer regarded Philip with an expression reminiscent of a frightened rabbit. “I may have discovered a further hindrance.”

Philip's thick brows drew together in a frown. “Hindrance? What are you talking about?”

“Given your… er… circumstances, my lord, I thought it appropriate to more closely examine the entailment as well as the trust. One can never be too thoroughgoing in these things, you know. Given you've no heir, the estate lies in a most precarious position. Should anything unforeseen happen—”

“Like my ending my misery with this interview by the end of a rope?”

Willoughby looked aghast. “God forbid such a thing, my lord! Accidents and illness are not prejudiced against the young and robust. If anything untoward were to befall you, with no declared heir the entire estate, as well as the fortune, would likely revert to the crown.”

“If I am dead, Willoughby, I won't bloody well care who gets it,” Philip retorted, but then reconsidered. “If it reverts to the crown, I would no doubt only shore up Prince Frederick's coffers, likely the last person I would wish to bless with my family's fortune. Of course fifty thousand would be nothing to our wastrel Prince of Wales.”

“Fifty thousand?” repeated Willoughby. “That would only account for half of it.”

“Half of what?”

“The trust, my lord.”

“I don't follow you.”

“The Hastings trust exceeds one hundred thousand pounds, my lord.”

Philip started. “What did you say?”

“The initial sum left in trust seven years hence was indeed fifty thousand, but the returns on the funds have been extraordinarily well managed under Mr. Gideon's hand.”

“I cannot bear the irony! How the cruel hand of fate mocks me!” Philip cried. “Here I live on the perpetual brink of insolvency while my family fortune continues to increase. Had I realized sooner, I may have been markedly less tolerant of my Lady Hastings's whim.”

“Quite, but unless you wish to retrieve her…”

“Devil take you for suggesting it! I can only thank the hand of Providence for this whole twisted affair.”

“Then we are back to the matter of the trust, the entailment, and the heir, my lord. As you are aware, Lord Anthony's will holds a substantial fortune for his eldest surviving son, at which time said son produces a male heir of his body. The conditions of Lord Anthony's will clearly adjure you not to continue in this state of intestacy.”

“Pray tell me something I don't bloody well know,” Philip snapped.

The solicitor stiffened in obvious affront. “As you are now apprised, the heir to an entailed estate cannot sell the land, nor bequeath it to an illegitimate child. Now then, under the
usual
circumstances, the titular property, according to fee tail, may only transfer to a legitimate male offspring, the purpose of which is to keep the land of a family intact and in the paternal line of succession.”

“Enough of the legal tangrams. Get to the bloody point!”

“As you wish, my lord,” Willoughby answered stiffly. “You are not the rightful heir to the Earldom of Hastings.”

Philip froze. “The devil you say!”

“I assure you, my lord,” the solicitor sniffed, “I would not have spoken so, had I not already substantiated my findings.”

“You are mistaken,” Philip ground through his teeth.

“I am not.” Willoughby tilted his chin to meet the earl's incredulous stare.

“I am the sole surviving male of my line, Willoughby. How can I not be the Earl of Hastings?”

“That is what I was trying to explain previously.”

“Then explain again! Damn your eyes!”

“My lord, I understand you are overwrought, but there is no need—”

“Answer before I throttle you, Willoughby!”

“Having traced the Hastings patent of nobility back to its original issuance, I have made the discovery that the language of the fee tail does not specify that the lands and title should devolve exclusively upon heirs male, but may be more generally conferred upon the first ‘lineal descendant.'”

Philip regarded him blankly. “But I am the sole lineal descendant.”

“I respectfully contend that you are not, my lord. Your elder brother, Edmund Viscount Uxeter, was next in the line. By the terms of the entail, you would accede in the event that he passed on
without
issue
, but this is not the case. Lord Uxeter has a surviving daughter, does he not?”

What
the
hell
had
just
happened?
Philip fiercely shook his head, as if to clear it of the nonsense that was spewing forth from the solicitor's mouth. “Sophie? Anna Sophie is the heir? Why the devil has nothing been said of this before?”

“I fear certain assumptions were made according to the normal right of primogeniture but without close examination of the actual legal language of the fee tail itself. Indeed, my lord. Anna Sophia Drake, a legitimate daughter issued from Lord Uxeter's body as defined by law, meets the criteria of the entailed title and estates.”

Philip was dumbstruck by this inexplicable chain of events. He crossed the room to pour himself a brandy and downed it in one long draught. He refilled the glass as he turned this revelation and its repercussions over in his mind, looking for some angle that would turn matters back to his advantage.

At length he ventured to ask, “What if,
theoretically
speaking
, Edmund's daughter was not in truth his, but was in actuality sired by another?”

The solicitor turned his eyes to heaven and inhaled deeply, as if offering up a prayer for the forbearance to continue this interview. “Do you mean to imply that Lady Uxeter played her husband false?”

“I am only putting forth a hypothetical inquiry. What if it could be proven that Edmund's daughter by his wife was not of Edmund's blood? Would the trust then fall to me?”

“In the eyes of the law, it would not matter a jot or tittle, my lord. As long as Lord and Lady Uxeter were wed at time of birth, the child is legally his, even if it could be proven biologically to be otherwise.”

Philip realized the hypocritical truth. Even Prime Minister Walpole was saddled with a son and heir that the world at large knew was sired by his wife's lover, Carr Hervey.

“Of course, having owned the title for six years, you would be in a position of strength to appeal to the chancery court, but this will no doubt prove a very drawn-out process.”

“How long?” Philip asked in growing unease. “Are we talking weeks or months?”

“Oh no, my lord… in the usual case, this manner of litigation takes years to settle.”

“Years?” As the urgency of his position began to set in, Philip once more emptied the contents of his glass. The initial burn had settled into welcoming warmth that infused his blood and fortified him enough to continue. “And in the interim?” he asked.

“In the interim, until the dispute can be resolved, I fear your patent of nobility and its associated privilege would be placed in abeyance.”

“You mean suspended?”

“Indeed, my lord. Until the matter is settled by the Chancery.”

“But the bloody title is all that protects me from the sponging house!”

“Then may I advise a complete liquidation of all viable assets.”

“It's not enough! And once word of this circulates about London, my multifarious creditors will descend like a pack of hyenas to ravage whatever remains of my carcass.”

His trepidation at spending the remainder of his days in the King's Bench was increasing by the minute, a place notorious for practicing every species of fraud, extortion, and torture, under the full protection of the law.

“Then I see no alternative but to appeal to your creditors to grant you some reprieve.”

“I see you know nothing, Willoughby! No gentleman of honor would so demean himself.”

“Then I would advise very careful consideration of the alternatives, my lord. The sacrifice of one's pride might be considered by many to be an immeasurably lesser evil than sacrificing one's freedom.”

Philip dismissed Willoughby, far more rattled than when the lawyer had first arrived. He shuddered to think he was brought so low that he might be forced to choose between sacrificing his last vestige of honor and facing internment in debtors' prison. He considered another drink, but found the sobering effect of the lawyer's parting words was far stronger than the brandy's power to numb him.