An Unusual Bequest. Mary Nichols

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.’

      ‘That will change, given the company of other young ladies of her age. Send her away to school.’

      ‘I thought of that, but I can’t find one to take her. She doesn’t want to go, so, whenever I take her to view a school and meet the teachers, she behaves so badly they won’t even consider her. And my father is no help. He humours her in whatever she wants and told me he likes to have her near him.’ He stopped suddenly and laughed. ‘I am sure you do not want to hear about our family squabbles. Let us have dinner together and talk of old times and free-traders and anything else but wives and children. I assume you have neither shackles.’

      ‘No, and, if your experience is typical, I am glad of it.’ He turned as the group of card players behind him tipped over their chairs as they rose drunkenly to go. ‘I don’t know what White’s is coming to, allowing people like that through the doors. Who are they, do you know?’

      ‘No idea,’ Stacey murmured. ‘That swarthy one with the scar on his cheek seems familiar, but I cannot place him. When you arrived he was telling the others he had just come into his inheritance. If it means a title and some blunt to go with it, I suppose that’s why they were admitted.’ He watched the men leave, lurching from side to side and grabbing hold of each other for support. ‘He said the estate had been run by his sister-in-law of late and he was about to go to Suffolk to claim it from her. I pity her, whoever she is.’

      They dismissed the men from their minds and did as Stacey had suggested and ordered dinner and enjoyed a convivial evening reminiscing about their time in Portugal and Spain and the horror that was Waterloo, the terrible state of the economy, the poverty and unrest in the country and the extravagance of the Regent, who must surely be the most unpopular ruler in England’s history. And from there they went on to smugglers and lawbreakers generally, many of whom were driven to desperate measures by poverty and hunger, and what could be done to cure the country’s ills. By the time they parted, they had set the world to rights and Stacey was feeling more cheerful, though none of his problems had been solved or were on the way to being solved.

      

      His father had a town house in Duke Street and he ambled back there at two in the morning, deciding that he must do something about Julia, though he freely admitted he knew nothing about bringing up children, especially girl children fast approaching womanhood. If only Anne-Marie had not died…

      He reflected on his eighteen months of marriage, eighteen months in which he had bitterly regretted being talked into it by his parents. ‘She will make an admirable wife,’ he had been told. ‘She has the right connections and a good dowry and she is more than agreeable.’ That had been true, but what they had failed to point out and what he had been too young to appreciate was that Anne-Marie was little more than a schoolgirl with an empty head. She wanted him for what he could provide: the status of being addressed as ‘my lady’ and clothes and jewellery, piles and piles of clothes and boxes and boxes of jewels. She was entirely ignorant of the duties of a wife and, once he had got her with child, would have nothing more to do with him and sat about all day eating sweetmeats. Who could blame him for purchasing his colours and going off to India to serve with Sir Arthur Wellesley? Later, after a brief sojourn at home, he had gone to Spain with him to share in his setbacks and his victories. Sir Arthur had been showered with honours and become first Viscount, then Marquis and now the Duke of Wellington, beloved of the people. Stacey came home to a problematic daughter and very little else.

      Would Anne-Marie have matured if she had lived? Would their marriage have reached any kind of accommodation? He doubted it. But her legacy was Julia and their daughter was his responsibility, not his father’s. He should not have left her so long that he had become a stranger to her. But he did not think returning with a new wife was the answer either. She would then have two strangers to contend with and, as she resented him, how much more would she hate a stepmother? He resolved to return home the next day and take her in hand.

      

      The cold and rain of the last few weeks eased overnight and the sun was trying to shine, though it was hazy and the roads were still full of puddles that drenched pedestrians every time a carriage clattered by. He spent the morning at Gentleman Jackson’s Emporium in Bond Street, honing his boxing skills, and the afternoon at Tattersalls, wondering whether to buy a mare to put to his stallion, Ivor. At six o’clock he went home, changed into a travelling coat, ate a solitary meal and took a cab to the Spread Eagle in Gracechurch Street to board the stage for Norwich. He was only marginally surprised to find three of the card players of the previous evening were also travelling on it. After all, the man called Cecil had said something about going to Suffolk to claim his inheritance and it was roughly in the same direction.

      The men were not as rowdy as they had been the night before; in fact, they looked very grey about the face with dull, red-rimmed eyes. Stacey was thankful they were disinclined to talk and, as soon as all the baggage had been stowed and the outside passengers had climbed to their perches, he settled in the corner of the coach and shut his eyes. They were out of town and well on their way before anyone spoke and then it was the man he had heard addressed as Cecil who uttered the first words. ‘I know you, don’t I?’

      Stacey ignored him, but the man leaned forward and poked his knee, repeating his question. Forced to open his eyes, Stacey found the fellow close to him, breathing brandy fumes through blackened teeth, although Stacey noticed he had bought himself a new suit of clothes and was looking tolerably smart. ‘I beg your pardon?’

      ‘Don’t need to beg my pardon, friend, I was merely passing a comment that we have met before.’

      ‘Have we?’

      ‘I believe so. Hobart’s the name. Lord Hobart of Easterley Manor.’

      ‘Your servant,’ Stacey said without enthusiasm. He had taken an aversion to the man, though he could not have said why. It wasn’t simply his looks, which he could not help, but his manner, which was rough and coarse. And the derogatory way he had spoken of his sister-in-law was not the way of a gentleman. He did not know the woman, but, whoever she was, she surely did not merit such disparagement, especially if she had been looking after his property for him.

      ‘And you are…?’ Cecil prompted.

      ‘My name can be of no interest to you.’

      ‘Indeed it is, if we are acquainted.’ He suddenly banged his head and laughed. ‘Malcomby, that’s it! You are the Earl’s son. I knew I recognised your physog.’

      Stacey groaned inwardly. It seemed the man did know who he was. ‘Stacey Darton,’ he said.

      ‘The Viscount. Well, well. After all these years.’

      ‘I am afraid I do not recall…’

      ‘No, you would not, I was only a young shaver at the time and you were a Captain of Hussars, very grand, I thought you. I might have taken up the sword to defend king and country myself if I had not had business on the sub-continent. Do you still not remember where we met?’

      Stacey shook his head. In spite of his apparent indifference he was curious.

      ‘It was at my mother’s funeral. She was Madeleine Stacey, your father’s cousin. You were named for her.’

      ‘Cousin?’ He remembered now. Madeleine was daughter to his father’s aunt and as, at the time of her death, he had returned from India and was waiting to rejoin his regiment, he had gone with his father to the funeral. And this uncouth man was her son. He could hardly believe it, did not want to believe it.

      ‘That makes us second cousins, does it not?’ Cecil held out his hand. ‘How d’ you do, Cousin.’

      Stacey, never an uncivil man, shook the hand and was then obliged to shake hands with his companions who were agog with curiosity. ‘May I present my friends,’ Cecil said, ‘This is Mr Augustus Spike.’ He indicated the beetle-browed man sitting beside him. ‘And