An Unusual Bequest

An Unusual Bequest

Mary Nichols

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Copyright

Chapter One

Early 1817

Charlotte watched as the last of the mourners climbed into their carriages and were driven away. There had not been many of them because Lord Hobart had been old and had outlived most of his contemporaries and in the last four or five years had become something of a recluse, receiving few visitors and never going out beyond the boundaries of Easterley Manor grounds, which stretched from the tiny village of Parson’s End in one direction and the lighthouse on the cliff in the other.

‘My lady, a sad day.’

The parson’s voice brought her back from the contemplation of the sodden garden and the last coach disappearing round the bend in the drive. ‘Yes, Reverend, it is. I shall miss him.’

‘What will you do?’ The Reverend Peter Fuller was a tall man, as thin as some of his half-starved parishioners, and Charlotte often wondered how much of his own food he gave away and how often he waived the tithe from some farmer who had been beset by disaster. He was a true Christian gentleman and they often worked together to alleviate the plight of the poor in the village and in trying to bring a little schooling to the children.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Why, my lady, your father-in-law was a very old man, you must have given a thought to what might happen when he died. He has another son and he will surely be coming back to take over.’

‘He is in India where his father banished him, as I am sure you know, Reverend. No one has secrets in this village.’ Cecil Hobart, younger son of his lordship, was the proverbial black sheep of the family. He had been an inveterate gambler in his youth and his father had stood buff for him on so many occasions, paying debts amounting to thousands of guineas, that in the end he had said ‘enough is enough’ and packed him off to India to make his own way in the East India Company. At the time his older half-brother, Charlotte’s husband, had been alive and the banishment had presented no problems of succession. But Grenville had been killed in Portugal in 1809, leaving Charlotte a widow and the mother of two daughters. There was no male heir but the absent Cecil.

Even after Grenville’s death, Lord Hobart had not recalled his younger son and Charlotte and her two daughters continued to live in the family home, which Charlotte ran with commendable efficiency. In the last two years she had been nurse as well as daughter and housekeeper.

‘He will come back just as soon as he hears the news that he is the new Lord Hobart,’ the Reverend went on. ‘And if he has not changed…’ He paused, wondering how much he dare say. Cecil Hobart’s reputation was such that he feared for any lady living under his roof. He did not know exactly how old she was, but guessed it was less than thirty, and she was still a very attractive woman with a tendency to believe the best of everyone in spite of evidence to the contrary. It would be easy for a ruthless man to pull the wool over her eyes.

Charlotte turned to face him, her soft aquamarine eyes betraying her sadness at the loss of the man who had been a second father to her and whom she had dearly loved. She knew that her calm, well-ordered life was about to change, that was inevitable, but she didn’t want to think about it while grief filled her mind to the exclusion of everything but day-to-day tasks and shielding her two young daughters as far as possible. ‘I wrote to Cecil several weeks ago when I realised the end could not be far off,’ she said. ‘In spite of the estrangement, I know his lordship wanted to see him again before he died. Alas, it was not to be, but perhaps he is on his way now. I must look after everything until he arrives. He may wish me to carry on as I have been doing.’

‘And if he does not? Have you no family you can apply to?’

‘None, except Lord Falconer, my mother’s uncle, and I have never met him. He succeeded to the title when his brother, my grandfather, died, but he quarrelled with Mama when she wanted to marry Papa and said he washed his hands of her.’ She smiled briefly. ‘His dire warnings that she would regret marrying a nobody of an Irish sea captain were ill founded; my parents were blissfully happy until Papa was killed at Trafalgar. My mother died of a fever less than a year later. Great-uncle Joseph did not write and offer condolences and I assumed the rift was complete. By then I had married Sir Grenville…’ She stopped, remembering how bereft she had felt on learning of her husband’s death eight years before. Coming so soon after her parents’ demise, it had been a terrible blow, but Lord Hobart had been a great comfort. And now, he too, had gone. She had never felt so alone.

‘I understand, but, my lady, I strongly urge you to write to your relative. Time may have healed the rift and you may have need of him.’

She smiled wearily. ‘I thank you for your concern, Reverend, but I will not go cap in hand to someone who has never even acknowledged my existence. Besides, I do not want to leave Parson’s End. I have commitments here. I cannot leave the house and servants with no one in charge, or the village children who rely on me for their schooling.’

She had started the school after Grenville died to give her something to take her mind off her grief and what had begun as a kind of balm for her grieving heart had become a passion to see the education of the poor improved.

‘That may be so,’ he said, smiling indulgently. ‘But that is not reason enough to stay if life becomes intolerable, is it?’

‘There is no reason to suppose it will be intolerable and Fanny and Lizzie are upset enough over the death of their grandfather without dragging them away from the only home they have known.’

He had said his piece and there was nothing more he could do for her, except keep a fatherly eye on her. He took his leave and set off at a brisk walk down the drive, his gown flapping out behind him. Charlotte watched until he was out of sight and then turned back indoors.

It was an ancient house, with irregular rooms, uneven floors, heavy old furniture that had been in its place for generations. Some rooms, like the late Lady Hobart’s boudoir, and the drawing room, had been decorated in the modern fashion with light, stylish furniture and colourful drapes, but much of the rest predated the Civil War. But she loved it, old and new. She loved its huge fireplaces, commodious cupboards and chests, its long deep windows overlooking the gardens, impeccably kept and bordered by pine woods on one side and the cliffs and the North Sea on the other. She did not want to leave it.

Old Lord Hobart had been confined to his bedchamber for the past two years, but, even so, the house seemed empty without him. His presence had always filled it, even when he was not actively engaged in the running of it. He had been a big, much loved man, especially by Charlotte and her daughters, but the servants, too, had admired and respected him. He had been a stern employer, but a fair one, and because Charlotte had his unswerving confidence and support, they had obeyed her as if it were the master of the house himself who had issued the orders. Charlotte did not expect anything to change in that respect, not until the new master arrived and took over. After that, she did not know what would happen. The Reverend had not said anything that had not already crossed her mind.

Cecil Hobart was the son of his lordship’s second marriage and several years younger than Grenville. She had met him once or twice when she and Grenville had first been married, but the brothers did not get on well together and Cecil spent most of his time in lodgings in London and only came to Easterley Manor when he needed funds. She had not been present in the room the last time he had visited, but she had heard the angry words even through thick closed doors. Afterwards Lord Hobart had sent his younger son not only from his house, but from the country.

‘Ten thousand, he owed,’ Grenville had told her later. ‘And not a hope of recouping. Father threatened to let him stew in his own juice, but of course he could not do that. He has paid his debts and undertaken to make him a reasonable allowance, so long as he stays in India.’

‘For the rest of his life?’ she had asked.

‘One must suppose so, unless he can produce evidence he is a reformed character, but I cannot see that happening.’

‘What will happen when your father…when his lordship dies?’

‘Then, my dear, the responsibility will rest with me. I shall do whatever my father asks me to do.’

Nothing more had been said, but how was he to know, how was anyone to know, that Grenville would decide to go off on that ill-fated mission to Spain in 1809 and get himself killed alongside General Moore at Corunna? Charlotte, mother of two daughters, Elizabeth, then three years old and Frances, fourteen months, had begged him not to go, that as his father’s heir he need not, but Grenville had a strong sense of duty and adventure and seemed convinced of his indestructibility. ‘General Moore needs experienced officers,’ he had said. ‘The Spaniards are brave men but ill disciplined and against Napoleon won’t stand a chance without our help. I could not refuse to go. We shall be home again in no time.’

She could not dissuade him and he had set off full of hope and enthusiasm, never to return. Lord Hobart had taken the loss of his son and heir very badly and, though they had comforted each other, it had been the beginning of his downhill slide into senility.

The girls, hearing her mother’s visitor leaving, had come along the hall from the kitchen where Cook had been trying to cheer them up with sugar plums. They came each side of her and put their arms about her waist.

‘Come, girls, tea in the nursery, I think,’ she told them. ‘It is peaceful up there and will give the servants the opportunity to tidy up after our visitors. Then we will play a game of cross-questions before bedtime.’

‘Will we never see Grandpapa again?’ Fanny asked ‘Never ever?’

Charlotte looked down at her, wondering how to answer. A blunt ‘never’ might be accurate, but would only add to the child’s grief. While she paused, Lizzie answered for her. ‘Course not, he’s been put in the ground, but Miss Quinn says he won’t stay there but go to heaven and we may see him again when we go there ourselves.’ She gave a huge sigh. ‘But she said it would be years and years and by then we will be old ourselves.’

Charlotte hugged them both, these daughters who were so dear to her and the only legacy her husband had left her. There was a tiny annuity that had been settled on her as part of the marriage contract, but as the late Lord Hobart had paid all her bills, most of that had been spent on helping the poor among the villagers. Unless the new Lord Hobart saw fit to give her and her daughters a home and continue as his father had done, they would be in dire straits.

Lord Hobart had not expected to lose his heir, nor his wits, and his will had been made years before when Grenville was alive and Cecil out of favour. The house and estate would go to his elder son, who would tend it and care for it and make it pay just as he had done and his father before him. Cecil had, according to his lordship, already been given all that was due to him when his gambling debts were paid and his allowance fixed upon. The old man had been far more interested in his grandchildren, those already born and those yet to come and all unentailed funds had been left in trust for them, to be administered by trustees. It was an unusual bequest and Charlotte wondered how it would stand up in law, but she had no wish to try to overturn it. It provided for her daughters’ dowries and that was all that concerned her. But Grenville had predeceased his half-brother and the Manor now belonged to Cecil.

Mother and daughters mounted the carved oak staircase which rose from the middle of the tiled hall and then up another set of stairs to the second-floor nursery suite and schoolroom where Joan Quinn held sway over her charges. She was waiting for them, her stern, upright bearing belying the loving feelings she had for the two little girls. ‘Has everyone gone, my lady?’ she asked Charlotte.

‘Yes, Quinny, it is all over and now we must try to return to normal.’

‘Of course. Tea has been brought up. Will you stay and have some with us?’

‘Yes, and I promised the girls a game before bedtime. Tomorrow, we will do whatever we usually do on a Thursday.’

They sat round the nursery table and ate bread and butter, muffins and honey cakes, washed down with weak tea. After five days of being unable to eat properly, Charlotte suddenly found that she was hungry and the simple meal was exactly what she needed. She sipped her tea and surveyed her daughters. They had been broken-hearted by the death of their grandfather, who had always managed to talk to them on their own level and thought up interesting and informative games for them, who had taught them the names of the wild flowers that grew in the park and woods, took them scavenging on the beach and showed them the course of his military campaigns on a map. He had been a great soldier in his day, just as their father had been.

Lizzie was raven haired like her father, with brown eyes so like his that Charlotte was sometimes taken aback when she saw in them the intelligence and pride and refusal to be beaten that had been so characteristic of him. Fanny was softer, more rounded; her hair was paler than her sister’s and her complexion pinker. She was the more sensitive of the two and found it hard to accept that Grandpa was not in his room dozing, as he had done so often of late.

‘Do you think the new Lord Hobart will come?’ Miss Quinn asked Charlotte. She had been Charlotte’s governess when she was a child and, when she grew too old to need one, had stayed with her as her maid. Now she fulfilled both functions.

‘New Lord Hobart?’ queried Lizzie. ‘What do you mean? Who is he?’

Miss Quinn looked at Charlotte without speaking. ‘He is your Uncle Cecil,’ Charlotte answered for her. ‘I expect he will be coming soon to take Grandpapa’s place…’

‘No, no,’ Lizzie cried. ‘I don’t want him to. I don’t want anyone in Grandpa’s place.’

‘Nevertheless, he will come because he owns the house and the estate now and we will make him welcome.’

‘Well, I shan’t. I shall hate him.’

‘Why? It is not his fault your grandfather died.’ Even as she spoke she wondered how true that was. How much had sorrow over his younger son contributed to his slide downhill? The loss of Grenville had been the main factor, she was sure, but after that, the estrangement from his younger son had preyed upon his mind, though he was too stubborn to hold out the olive branch. Charlotte knew this, though his lordship rarely spoke of him. A second son, happily in the bosom of his family, prepared to work and take his proper place in the scheme of things might have mitigated his loss. Perhaps Cecil had changed, perhaps he was now ready to face up to his responsibilities…

She distracted the children from the conversation and they finished their tea and set about the game of cross-questions, which occupied them for an hour or so. After they had gone to bed, Charlotte went back downstairs, back to reality, and that set her wondering about the future again and whether her brother-in-law could be relied upon to give her a home. But even if he did, she would still need to find an income from somewhere in order to retain her independence. Whatever happened, she must protect and provide for her children.

The crowd in the card room at White’s was noisier than usual. There were four men at one table who had imbibed too freely and were becoming boisterous. Viscount Stacey Darton sat a little way off, idly watching them and wondering how long it would be before they came to blows. One of them looked vaguely familiar and, though he racked his memory, he could not place him. He was thickset and his face was tanned to the colour of rusty hide, even more than Stacey’s, which, after three years, still retained a trace of the sun he had caught in Spain. The man was dressed in a black frockcoat and calf-length grey pantaloons at least two years out of date. His neckcloth was drooping and his hair untidy. Though he did not look like one, Stacey assumed he was a gentleman or he would not have been admitted to the club.

His companions were better dressed, young bucks out to fleece someone they saw as a rustic; each had a pile of coins and vouchers at his elbow. The untidy one threw down his cards. ‘That’s me out, gentlemen. I assume you will take another voucher?’

‘What, more post-obit bills, Cecil?’ one of his companions enquired. He was tall and so thin his face was almost cadaverous, surrounded by lank dark hair. ‘How do we know you will cough up when the time comes?’

Cecil laughed. ‘Because the time has already come, Roly, my friend. My revered father was buried today.’

‘Good Lord! Should you not have been at the funeral?’

‘Why? He never wanted me when he was alive, why should I trouble with him now he’s dead?’

‘So, you’ve come into your inheritance at last, have you?’ another asked, looking at Cecil under beetle-black brows. He was shorter and broader than the first speaker, his complexion swarthy.

‘Yes, but I’ll thank you not to noise it abroad, Gus, or I’ll have the dunners on my back before I can retreat.’ He laughed harshly. ‘Present company excepted, of course.’

‘Oh, so you mean to repair into the country soon?’

‘Naturally I do. I must take up my inheritance, though what state it is in, I do not know. From what I hear, my father had windmills in his head the last few years and didn’t know what he was about.’ He laughed again. ‘It’s all been in the hands of my sister-in-law.’

‘What’s she like?’

‘Oh, she’s comely enough, or she was, haven’t seen her for years and she’s had two bratlings since then, females, luckily for me. I’ll soon rid myself of her.’ He chuckled. ‘Unless she’s worth keeping. You never know…’

‘Supposing she has married again?’

‘Then she will most certainly be out on her ear and her husband along with her. I want no leeches on my back.’

‘I think, my friend, you need some protection,’ one of the others put in. ‘What say we come with you?’

Stacey smiled, knowing the men were not wishing to protect the man so much as the money he owed them and their debtor was well aware of it, but he shrugged as if it did not matter to him one way or the other. ‘Please yourselves, but be warned—the estate is on the coast of Suffolk, miles from anywhere. A dead end.’

‘Oh, we’ll soon liven it up.’

Stacey was still racking his brain to remember where he had seen the one called Cecil, when he heard his name called. He swivelled round to see a huge man bearing down on him, his face split in a wide grin. ‘Stacey Darton, by all that’s wonderful!’ he exclaimed, holding out his hand as Stacey rose to greet him, revealing himself to be almost as tall and broad as the newcomer.

Stacey had met Gerard Topham in Spain and they had fought alongside each other right to the end of the war, including the aftermath of Waterloo, and become great friends. ‘Topham, my old friend, I did not know you were in town.’

‘Nor I you. I thought you would be in the country with your family, or I would have let you know I was coming.’

‘I needed a respite.’

Gerard laughed and folded his huge frame into the chair next to Stacey’s, beckoning to a waiter to bring more wine. ‘You’ve only been back six months and you need a respite? Civilian life not to your liking, my friend?’

Stacey resumed his seat, forgetting the noisy card players. ‘Civilian life is fine, if a little dull; family is another matter. My father nags worse than an old woman and as for my daughter—’ He stopped suddenly. ‘Never mind that, tell me what you are up to.’

Gerard poured from the bottle the waiter had brought. ‘I couldn’t settle to civilian life either, so I offered my services to the Home Office…’

‘Militia? A bit of a comedown after Spain, isn’t it?’

‘Not militia exactly. I’ve joined the Coast Blockade.’

Smuggling had fallen away after Pitt reduced the excise duty on tea, but it had received a boost when the wars with Napoleon began and a new line in merchandise offered itself: French prisoners of war going one way, spies coming the other. Later, when the French economy began to totter, English guineas fetched more than their face value. If reports Stacey read in the newspapers were accurate, it was still going on. The Coast Blockade had been formed to combat it. ‘Catching free-traders. That must make you very unpopular. Most people accept them, accept what they bring too.’

‘Maybe, but free-traders are far from the romantic figures those of us in our comfortable homes imagine them to be, bringing cheap luxuries, and doing no harm. Many of them are discharged soldiers with no work and a dangerous knowledge of firearms, explosives and tactics, learned in the service of their country, and they are putting their knowledge to good use. They are vicious and often murderous if someone stands in their way, and the damage they do to the economy of the country is enormous. Nabbing them is a challenge and I have never been able to resist a challenge. I came to town to report to the Home Office and tomorrow I’m off to ride along the coast, picking up what information I can along the way. Come with me, if you like.’

Stacey was tempted, but, remembering his responsibilities, smiled ruefully. ‘I’m afraid I cannot. I must go home.’

‘To be nagged?’

‘Most likely.’

‘What about?’

‘Marrying again. My father thinks I have been widowed long enough and my daughter needs a mother, not to mention that he wants a male heir before he dies. Not that he is ailing, far from it. He is hale and hearty. Too hearty sometimes. As for my daughter, she has been thoroughly spoiled by her grandparents. I shall have to take her in hand.’

‘And you are not relishing it?’

‘She is like a stranger to me, treats me with polite indifference as if I were a visitor who has outstayed his welcome. Understandable, I suppose, considering I was with the army all her life and saw her very infrequently. Her mother was expecting her when I was posted out to India and would not come with me because of her condition and her fear of the climate. In the event she was proved right, because she died having Julia…’

Gerard had known that, but he hadn’t known of the difficulties his friend faced on returning home. ‘I’m sorry, old man. So, you are in town looking for a wife?’

‘My father might wish it, but I don’t. Anyway the Season is not yet begun and I am not in the market for a débutante; they are almost always too young and usually too silly. If I remarry, it would have to be someone of my own age or perhaps a little younger if I am to have an heir, with a modicum of intelligence and common sense, not to mention having some regard for me and me for her. I am unlikely to find someone like that in the drawing rooms of the ton. It won’t be an easy task, considering whoever takes me on has to take my wayward daughter with me, and at this moment I do not feel inclined to inflict her upon anyone.’

‘Oh, surely she is not as bad as that?’

‘I wish I could say I was exaggerating, but she has become a hoyden of the first water, rides astride her black stallion all over the estate, shoots and fishes and hunts, just as if she were a boy. I wish she were a boy, I could be proud of a male child with those accomplishments. There isn’t a feminine bone in her body and at thirteen that is to be deplored.’