Chapter 2

"Will you please stop interfering with my work?"

"I'm sorry. I just wanted to help."

"You are taking food from the mouths of my children."

Caroline looked at Lucy's fierce glare and burst into laughter.

"Lucy Burton. You know perfectly well that you have no children."

"Nevertheless," Lucy said with asperity, "I will, someday, and I should like to have a respectable job, a job that includes baking the bread."

"Oh, all right. It's just that with Michael sleeping so much better now, I thought I could begin to help you again."

"I let you help me before the babe was born to take your mind off of things. Now you have him to attend to, and I am perfectly capable of handling the household duties on my own. Caroline."

"Very well. Lucy. I shall retire once again to my books. Oh, Lucy, did you read the latest copy of the newspapers that Mr. Stanhope was so good to send me?"

Lucy had always been careful to hide her inability to read, and simply gave Caroline a smile and said she had not.

"Oh, Lucy. It's so exciting. Geoffrey's brother William is to be received at St. James Court. While Lord Wellington was driving the French out of Spain, our soldiers were attacking two islands in the Americas. And apparently Captain Stanhope acted so promptly and courageously in covering their retreat both times that he may perhaps be knighted."

"How marvelous," Lucy said.

'Isn't it?" Caroline gushed. "Oh and Lucy, Mr. Digby will be here at eleven o'clock."

Lucy's face quickly darkened.

"I don't like that man."

"You have made that all too plain, Lucy, and for the life of me I do not understand why."

Lucy bit her tongue and continued kneading the dough.

"He has ably managed my money, and he has promised that Geoffrey's estate will be settled very soon."

Lucy slammed the bread down on the counter.

"Why do you dislike him?" Caroline pressed her.

With a sigh, Lucy put the bread down and turned to her mistress.

"Because, Caroline," she said, "he leers at you."

"Oh, he does not."

"When you are not looking, he is continually glancing at your breasts," Lucy insisted.

Caroline stared at the girl in shock.

"That one day, two months back, when the baby didn't take enough milk? And it stained your dress? I thought he would come out of his trousers."

"Lucy!" Caroline was horrified by the very idea. "He is a gentleman."

"He is a man," Lucy said as she resumed her work with vigor. "Gentle ain't in it."

"Nevertheless," Caroline reminded her maid.

"Nevertheless," Lucy mumbled with a significant look at her mistress's dress.

When Caroline's lawyer arrived promptly at eleven, he was greeted by a girl in a clean apron and a forced smile. Lucy promptly showed him into the drawing room and curtly informed him that Mrs. Stanhope would be with him shortly.

It was the first time that she had kept him waiting, and he was displeased.

Jonathan Digby, Esq., was a man predisposed to displeasure. He had originally had high hopes for his provincial practice, assuming that it would bring him into contact with those he considered his betters. He fully expected that those gentlemen would recognize a kindred spirit in their midst, and help him ascend the ladder of social and political influence. Instead, he found himself only a step above absolute penury, relying for his bread on the crumbs thrown his way by the local merchants who saw him as a cut-rate solution to their tawdry problems.

The awe he had felt when Sir Edward Pelham had entered his office had long since disappeared. It had been replaced with resentment. He resented Caroline Stanhope's possession of assets that were now valued at over six thousand pounds. He resented the way that her brother-in-law continually questioned the fees that he charged Geoffrey Stanhope's estate. But what he resented most was Caroline's failure to act as if she had six thousand pounds, whether she deserved them or not. She still had the same threadbare sofa that she had had when he first visited her. The drawing room still possessed the same hideous drapes, the same horrid carpet, and the same floor still badly in need of refinishing. It was as if it were not worth spending any of her six thousand pounds in Dartmouth, because the town was only a temporary residence for her at this point. A temporary residence for her, and a permanent prison for him.

He stood when she entered, disguising a frown at the thick, black dress she had selected for their meeting. It was true that she always wore black, but not always this heavy.

"Mrs. Stanhope." He bowed ever so slightly. "I trust I see you well."

"Thank you, Mr. Digby. I am well." This time she had not missed the way his eyes swept up her body as she entered the room. "What may I do for you?"

Lucy chose that moment to interrupt with the tea, and it wasn't until she had left, and closed the door behind her, that Digby felt comfortable beginning the discussion.

"First of all, Caroline, the good news," he said. "Your funds are doing well, and it appears that your next dividend will be in excess of what I had originally thought. Do you have any instructions, or shall I simply proceed as I have been?"

It was the same pro forma request that he made on each visit, and he was stunned when she failed to simper and agree that his choices to date had been perfect.

"I should like to purchase coal, Mr. Digby."

"Coal, Caroline?"

"A cellar full of coal," she instructed. "For the winter."

"Caroline," he said after a pause to collect his thoughts, "I have a fiduciary duty to ensure that you spend your money wisely. It is only the third week in October. Are you worried about the coal merchants running low this year?"

"Do not make the mistake of patronizing me, Mr. Digby. I am not an educated woman in the classical sense, but I know enough to read books, and I understand the signs of a harsh winter approaching."

Caroline's books were another source of her attorney's displeasure. The idea of a woman in need of that many books was absurd.

"I apologize, Ca — Mrs. Stanhope," he said slowly, bowing low to hide his face. "I meant no disrespect. I will of course follow your instructions as always. Now to the bad news. There will be an even longer delay in closing your late husband's estate. It seems that the will is being contested."

Caroline looked up sharply. "Contested?"

"Challenged, if you will. An attorney from Exeter has entered an appearance on behalf of the Earl of Prescott, claiming that the will is a forgery."

"Even if it were a forgery," Caroline seethed with indignation, "my position as Geoffrey's wife —"

"Is also being questioned," Digby said smoothly.

"What?" Caroline froze.

This time it was a smile that Digby hid. This was the young, vulnerable girl that he had first met in May. The girl who had been heavy with child, unsure of what to do with the fortune that fate had dropped in her lap. The girl who would have come to place sole reliance on the financial acumen of her attorney but for that foppish brother-in-law of hers.

"They have produced a statement from the minister who performed your marriage ceremony," Digby coolly explained. "It is his opinion that the marriage was a sham, and that there was not valid consent on both sides."

"He lies," Caroline protested.

"Yes, of course. But a minister's word will be difficult to contradict, particularly in front of Judge Tutwell, whose brother is also a minister."

"But my brother-in-law, James, was there, and my two friends, Clara and Elizabeth."

A sodomite and two shopkeeper's assistants. Not a case that Jonathan Digby was looking forward to convince a barrister to try to make.

"I believe our best chance, in this instance, is to await the return of the Classic, whose officers witnessed your husband's will and will be able to attest to the validity of his signature."

"The Classic?" Caroline's shoulders sagged. "But Sir Edward just returned to sea."

The Classic had stopped in Portsmouth for a brief refit after its recent blockade duty, and Sir Edward had ridden over to pay his respects. He had informed Caroline that the Admiralty had in fact purchased both the frigate and the sloop, but was bound by the law to pay Lt. Stanhope's share of the prize into the chancery court where the will was being probated. It was only two weeks ago that she had received another letter from Sir Edward, indicating that he was sailing for another six months off the French Mediterranean coast.

"I fully understand your distress, Caro — Mrs. Stanhope," Digby mumured. "And I have sent letters to the Sir Edward, seeking his return at the first possible instance. In the meantime, though, you must be prepared for a delay of several months in obtaining your inheritance. Please rest assured that the dividends alone on the moneys under my management are more than ample for your current needs."

"But why?" Caroline lapsed once again into a miserable reverie. "Why would Geoffrey's father... ?"

"Money," Digby answered confidently. "Money is the answer to everything."

"Money?" James Stanhope chortled over lunch on his next visit, in early November. "Your Mr. Digby seems to be a capable enough lawyer from what I have seen, but my father already has more money than Digby will see in his lifetime."

"Then what?" Caroline asked.

James answered after a long pause.

"He wants your name."

"My name?" Caroline gasped.

"Stanhope. At the moment he cannot bear the thought that you're Caroline Stanhope and that your son is Michael Stanhope."

"He is Geoffrey's son," Caroline protested before she suddenly understood the import of her father-in-law's efforts. "Oh, my God. If he proves that we weren't validly married, then Michael..."

"Would be considered a bastard, yes," James finished the sentence. "But I shouldn't worry, Caroline. This is chancery court, after all, and they are more than happy to have an excuse to delay your case as long as possible. And then Sir Edward's return will permit the court to settle the will issue without ever having to reach the validity of your marriage."

"But if something were to happen to Sir Edward? What then?"

"Ah, well, my father has apparently already suborned the minister who performed the ceremony, and my understanding is that both of your young friends have been encouraged to emigrate, one to Canada and the other to Australia, both with unexpected new husbands and substantial new funds to help them on their way.

"But you still have me, Caroline."

Caroline stared at the intense expression on her brother-in-law's face.

"But it would cost you, wouldn't it?" she asked softly. "The secret that your father threatened to reveal..."

"It would be embarrassing, yes. Both to me and to my, eh, current companion."

"Then I could not ask you to —"

"I will do it regardless of whether you ask or not, Caroline Stanhope," James said fiercely. "I have one brother who died bravely in battle, and another who may soon be knighted for his own bravery. My sister, rather than lose her husband to the madness of our father, has forsaken his money and settled in the New World."

His sudden smile broke the tension, and he waved a hand in the air with nonchalant grace.

"It's simply a question of upholding the family honor," he said breezily. He took a brief look around the room before turning back to Caroline.

"Your family and mine."

"Thank you, James," Caroline murmured, putting her hand on his. "I hope it doesn't come to that."

"And I doubt it will. My father is a patriot, and is incapable, even in his most violent moods, of ordering that a British naval officer be harmed. And the chances of a single ship coming to grief, particularly given French cowardice, must be reckoned very small. No, Caroline. Do not fret. Sir Edward will return. He and his officers will attest to the will. And under English law, it matters not a whit whether you are married to Geoffrey if the will is valid."

"It matters to me," Caroline said fiercely.

"Of course it does," James comforted her. "But not to the court. They will probate the will. The money will be yours, along with your good name, and you will be able to raise little Michael in peace."