Marriage of Mercy. Carla Kelly

on a much smaller inventory of items of interest to other family members, ranging this time from items of jewellery to pieces of furniture. She listened with half an ear.

      The servants were given their due next, some of them turned off with a small sum and thanks. Others were allowed to keep their jobs, probably, Grace reasoned, no longer than it would take for the new Lord Thomson to decide them superfluous. Still, a pound here and a pound there could mean the world to people on the level she now inhabited.

      Mr Selway put down that document and picked up the last one remaining in front of him. He cleared his throat, looking uncertain for the first time, as if unsure how this final term would be received.

      Without a look or a word, Grace knew instinctively that whatever the term was, it would fall on her. She looked around the room in sudden panic. Everyone had been accounted for and Mr Selway had explicitly insisted on her presence. She started to ease toward the door, afraid for the attention soon to be thrust upon her and wanting only to return to the bakery. She stopped moving when Mr Selway looked directly at her.

      ‘There are two final items in the will, recently added, but no less attested to,’ he said. ‘One is a small matter, the other a large one. Let me mention the small one first. I will read what the late Lord Thomson dictated to me, only one month ago.’ He cleared his throat and took a firm grip on the document. ‘For the last five years at least, I have been kindly treated by Mr and Mrs Wilson’s assistant, Grace Louisa Curtis. She has never failed to bake precisely the biscuits I craved, and—’

      The new Lord Thomson groaned. ‘Good Lord, next you’ll tell me that my uncle is bequeathing her a brewery on the Great Barrier Reef that we have no knowledge of! Let her have it and be damned.’

      Now dependent on this new marquis for whatever thin charity he chose to dispense, his relatives laughed. Grace cringed inside and started sidling toward the door again. It looked so far away.

      Mr Selway stared down the new marquis and continued. “Knowing of her kindness to me, when none of my relatives cared whether I lived or died, I have arranged for Miss Curtis to take possession of this estate’s dower house and its contents for her lifetime.”

      ‘Good God!’ Lord Thomson was on his feet, his face beet red.

      Mr Selway looked at him and then down at the page. ‘… for her lifetime. In addition, she will receive thirty pounds per annum.’

      ‘This is outrageous!’ the marquis shouted.

      ‘It is a mere thirty pounds each year and a small house you would never occupy,’ Mr Selway said mildly. ‘Do sit down, Lord Thomson, I am not quite finished.’ He glared him down into his chair again. ‘As I said, this was the easy part.’

      Grace stared at the solicitor. The colour must have drained from her face, because the gardener standing next to her guided her towards a stool that a footman had vacated.

      ‘I don’t want this,’ she murmured to the gardener, who shrugged.

      ‘Since when has what we wanted made a difference?’ the man whispered back.

      ‘Go on, tell me the rest,’ Lord Thomson exclaimed. ‘Lord, this is a nuisance!’

      Mr Selway put down the document and folded his hands over it. ‘Lord Thomson, it will probably come as a surprise to you that your predecessor had a son.’

      ‘I’ll be damned,’ the new marquis said. ‘A bastard, no doubt.’

      ‘Takes one to know one,’ the gardener whispered, but not in a soft voice. The back row of relatives turned around, some to glare, others to titter.

      ‘Yes, my lord, a bastard, so you needn’t fear you will lose a penny of your inheritance,’ Mr Selway said. ‘While his regiment was quartered in New York City during much of the American War, your uncle dallied with one Mollie Duncan, the daughter of a Royalist draper. The result was a son.’ He looked at the document again. ‘Daniel Duncan.’

      ‘How could this possibly concern any of us?’ Lord Thomson snapped.

      ‘Ordinarily, it would not. Through various means, your uncle managed to keep track of Daniel Duncan’s career. When this current American war began, Duncan commanded a privateer called the Orontes, out of Nantucket.’

      ‘So Uncle’s bastard is making life difficult for British merchant shipping,’ the marquis said, smirking. ‘Why do you think I even care about this?’

      Mr Selway picked up the document again, and pulled a thicker packet from a drawer in the desk. ‘Because before his death, your uncle arranged for Captain Duncan, currently a prisoner of war in Dartmoor, to be paroled to Quarle’s dower house.’ He glanced at Grace, his eyes kind. ‘He specifically requests that Grace Curtis provide his food and care during his parole here. When the war ends, he’ll go free. That is all the connection you will have with him.’

      Lord Thomson laughed. ‘You can’t seriously honour this. The old devil was crazy.’

      He had gone too far. Grace could see that in the way the other relatives whispered to each other. The new Lord Thomson seemed to sense their disgust of him. He folded his arms and sat silent, his lips in a tight line. ‘Well, he was,’ he muttered.

      Mr Selway spoke directly to him, leaning forwards across the small desk. ‘Lord Thomson, your predecessor would have done this sooner, had he not had this sudden decline that led to his death. Everything has been approved for such a transaction. I tell you that the deceased had friends in high places, whom it would be wise not to cross. You are in no way rendered uncomfortable at an estate you seldom visit, anyway.’

      Apparently Mr Selway was not above a little personal pride. He smiled at Lord Thomson, even though Grace saw no humour there. ‘I build only airtight wills, Lord Thomson.’ He looked down at the document before him. ‘Any attempt on your part to alter or in any way hinder the carrying out of this stipulation would be folly. I repeat: Lord Thomson had friends in high places.’ Mr Selway folded the will and left the room.

      Lord Thomson sat slumped in his seat. After a disparaging glance at her husband, the new Lady Thomson rose and gestured his relatives toward the dining room, where refreshments waited. Grace sidled out of the door ahead of everyone, eager to leave the building by the closest exit. If I hurry, I can be out of here and pretend none of this has happened, she thought.

      But there was Mr Selway, obviously waiting for her. She sighed.

      ‘Mr Selway, please don’t think I need any of the provisions mentioned in Lord Thomson’s will,’ she told him, even as he guided her into the bookroom. ‘I want to go back to the bakery.’ She tried to get out of his grasp ‘Mr Selway, please!’

      ‘Sit down, my dear,’ he said, his expression kindly. ‘There is no stipulation that you must remain in the dower house, if you don’t wish to. The thirty pounds is yours annually for life, though.’

      Grace nodded. ‘I want to save money to buy the bakery some day, when the Wilsons are too old to run it.’

      ‘Then this is your opportunity.’ The solicitor said nothing else for a long while. When he spoke, his words were carefully chosen. ‘Grace, I have observed in life that most of us place our expectations abnormally high and we are disappointed when they remain unfulfilled. Have you placed yours too low?’

      She shook her head. ‘I have not,’ she told him quietly. ‘You know as well as I do that thirty a year will not maintain me in any style approaching my former status. It will not induce anyone to marry me. Heavens, sir, I am twenty-eight! I have no illusions.’

      ‘Indeed you do not,’ Mr Selway replied. ‘You may be right, too.’ He leaned towards her. ‘Think about this, Gracie: it is 1814. This war with America cannot last for ever. Dartmoor is a fearsomely terrible place. You would be doing a great favour to our Lord Thomson to succor his only child, no matter how boisterously he was conceived.’

      ‘I suppose I would,’ she said, feeling that the words were pulled from her