Chapter 5 - A Bargain with No Charity
They began before sunrise.
Cordelia slept badly because every creak of Ravensworth House sounded like a door opening.
Edmund was moved temporarily into a room beside Mrs. Finch.
Two footmen were assigned to the corridor.
Cordelia objected.
Julian ignored her.
“You cannot surround him with guards forever.”
“No.”
“Then what happens when he returns to ordinary life?”
“We make certain Vale no longer has reason to threaten him.”
“You sound very confident.”
“I am angry.”
“There is a difference?”
“Usually.”
They stood inside the library surrounded by documents.
Cordelia picked up the torn letter again.
“Why would your father warn mine about Beatrice?”
“I do not know.”
“My aunt is controlling. Bitter. Manipulative. But criminal conspiracy seems ambitious even for her.”
Julian examined the torn edge.
“Perhaps the warning was not about her intentions.”
“What else?”
“Perhaps Vale used her.”
Cordelia disliked how plausible that sounded.
Beatrice feared poverty more than almost anything.
A man offering money could easily have become indispensable.
“What happened to your father?” Julian asked.
“He died after a riding accident.”
“When?”
“Fourteen years ago.”
Julian looked at her sharply.
“My father died fourteen years ago.”
Silence.
“When exactly?”
“November.”
Cordelia’s stomach tightened.
“Mine died in October.”
Julian walked toward a cabinet.
“My father was ill for several weeks before his death. Fever, they said.”
“And you think it was not fever?”
“I think coincidences become less comforting when dead men leave torn warnings.”
Cordelia sat.
She remembered her father laughing.
His hands stained with ink.
The way he used to bring her old maps because she loved tracing coastlines.
Then came debt.
Arguments behind doors.
A riding accident.
Beatrice arriving before the funeral was even over.
“You were twelve,” Julian said quietly.
“Twelve and apparently very easy to deceive.”
“You were a child.”
“I was old enough to remember Beatrice burning papers.”
Julian froze.
Cordelia looked at him.
“I had forgotten.”
“What papers?”
“I do not know. After Father died, she spent an entire evening in his study. I woke because I smelled smoke. She said she was destroying unpaid accounts.”
“Did you see them?”
“No.”
“Think.”
Cordelia closed her eyes.
Fire.
Beatrice’s silver hair darker then.
A bundle of documents.
Red wax.
“One had a seal.”
“What seal?”
“I cannot remember.”
Julian brought several crests from a reference book.
Vale’s emblem showed a falcon above a shield.
Cordelia stared.
“I have seen that.”
“Where?”
“On the papers.”
Julian cursed softly.
They worked through morning.
At eleven, Harris entered.
“Your Grace, Lord Westcott has arrived from London.”
Julian frowned.
“I sent for him.”
“Who is Lord Westcott?” Cordelia asked.
“My solicitor.”
A short, energetic man entered carrying three cases and an expression suggesting sleep was a personal insult.
He bowed.
“Miss Ashworth.”
“You know who I am.”
“I have spent the night reading documents with your name on them.”
“That seems to be becoming fashionable.”
Westcott smiled faintly.
“I believe the signature on Vale’s guarantee is false.”
Cordelia exhaled.
“Can you prove it?”
“Possibly.”
“Possibly will not save Thornwood.”
“No. But this may.”
He opened a case.
Inside was a copy of an old settlement.
“Your mother, Eleanor Ashworth, possessed a marriage trust.”
Cordelia stared.
“My mother had no money.”
“Not much. But she had property rights in forty acres adjoining Thornwood.”
“I have never heard of this.”
“The trust passes to her surviving child.”
Cordelia’s pulse accelerated.
“To me.”
“Yes.”
“Then why does Beatrice control it?”
“She should not.”
Julian looked over the document.
“What are the forty acres worth?”
Westcott hesitated.
“Today? Perhaps one thousand pounds.”
Cordelia’s hope collapsed.
Not enough.
“But,” Westcott continued, “Vale has spent three years attempting to acquire them.”
Julian looked up.
“Why?”
“That is the interesting question.”
They spread maps across the table.
The forty acres appeared insignificant.
Woodland.
A stream.
Old quarry markings.
Then Julian noticed a notation.
“Mineral rights.”
Westcott nodded.
“Exactly.”
Cordelia frowned.
“What mineral?”
“We do not know.”
They rode out that afternoon.
Cordelia, Julian and Westcott crossed the southern fields until they reached an abandoned quarry hidden by trees.
The place had not been worked for decades.
An elderly groundsman met them.
“My grandfather used to call this blackstone hollow,” he said.
“Why?” Cordelia asked.
“Coal.”
Julian and Westcott exchanged looks.
Cordelia stared at the ground beneath her feet.
“Coal?”
“Maybe. Old surveyors came years ago. Then nothing happened.”
Westcott crouched, examining exposed rock.
“If there is a workable seam, forty acres could be worth ten times our estimate.”
Cordelia understood.
Vale had not wanted Thornwood merely because of debt.
He wanted her land.
Her signature.
Her marriage.
If she married him, he would obtain everything without challenge.
“He knew,” she whispered.
Julian’s jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
“Beatrice knew too.”
“We do not know that.”
“She arranged the marriage.”
“Cordelia.”
“She tried to sell me to the man attempting to steal my inheritance.”
“Perhaps she was deceived.”
“Why are you defending her?”
“I am not. I am asking you not to condemn anyone until we have proof.”
She turned away.
Julian caught her arm.
She looked at his hand.
He released her immediately.
“Sorry.”
Cordelia stared toward the abandoned quarry.
“I have spent fourteen years believing I owed Beatrice everything.”
Julian remained beside her.
“Perhaps she wanted you to believe that.”
The thought hurt more than Cordelia expected.
That evening, a storm rolled across Ravensworth.
Cordelia stood alone on the library gallery reading her father’s surviving letters.
Julian found her after midnight.
“You should sleep.”
“So should you.”
“I own the house. I am allowed hypocrisy.”
She did not smile.
He climbed the stairs.
“You found something.”
Cordelia handed him a page.
Charles Ashworth had written:
I will not allow Beatrice to sign away Eleanor’s trust. She insists Vale can save Thornwood, but I do not trust his numbers.
Julian read it twice.
“Your father knew.”
“And Beatrice knew the trust belonged to me.”
“Yes.”
Cordelia’s eyes burned.
“She watched me mend clothes in rooms without heat.”
Julian said nothing.
“She called me dependent.”
“Cordelia—”
“She told me I possessed nothing.”
Her voice cracked.
Julian moved closer.
For once she did not step away.
“I would have shared it,” she whispered. “If Thornwood needed money, I would have helped. She only had to tell me the truth.”
“That would have required giving you a choice.”
Cordelia looked at him.
He understood.
That was exactly what Beatrice could not tolerate.
“I hate being powerless,” Cordelia said.
Julian’s voice was quiet.
“Then let us change that.”
“How?”
He extended his hand.
“A bargain.”
She eyed it.
“I am becoming suspicious of bargains.”
“This one is simple. You help me expose Vale. I help restore what legally belongs to you.”
“And what do you receive?”
“The satisfaction of ruining a man I already dislike.”
“That is not enough.”
Julian’s eyes held hers.
“No.”
Cordelia waited.
“What else?”
He hesitated.
Then something vulnerable appeared behind the Duke’s careful expression.
“More time with you.”
Her breath caught.
He did not move closer.
Did not charm.
Did not smile.
“I said no hidden obligations,” he continued. “So I will not hide that.”
Cordelia looked at his offered hand.
Then placed hers in it.
“Six weeks,” she whispered.
His fingers closed around hers.
“Six weeks.”
Neither of them believed that was all the bargain meant anymore.
And neither noticed the shadow standing beyond the half-open library door.
May you like
Aunt Beatrice had arrived at Ravensworth House.
And she had heard everything.
