Candace Camp - A Dangerous Man

“He left you nothing?” Anthony asked skeptically.

“Oh, he left me a bit,” Honoria allowed, waving it away. “A mere pittance, really. However, that is a mother’s lot, I suppose.” She released the sigh of a martyr.

“But how does this help Lady Eleanor?” Anthony asked, dragging Honoria back to the subject at hand.

“He left control of the trust to her!” Honoria said indignantly. “Even though I am Samantha’s mother, he did not make me guardian of her money until she comes of age. He left That Woman as sole trustee!”

“Why would he cut Lady Eleanor out of his will, then put her in charge of Samantha’s money for the next six years?” Anthony asked.

“I don’t know. Edmund was never one who understood money.”

Anthony thought that her statement was a bit of the pot calling the kettle black, but he wisely refrained from pointing this out.

“You have to see what an opportunity this presents for her to siphon off money from the trust,” Honoria told him. “She wrote me saying she would ‘explain’ the trust to me when she brings poor Edmund’s ashes home. I do not need any ‘explanation.’ It is quite clear to me what she intends to do. My poor daughter and I will live in poverty, while she bleeds Samantha’s trust dry.”

“Honoria, calm yourself. I will not let that happen,” Anthony promised her grimly. Even allowing for Honoria’s usual gift of hyperbole, Anthony was troubled by what she had told him. It did not make sense, really, but neither could he ignore Honoria’s theories. If Lady Eleanor did indeed have control of Samantha’s money, she could easily take out a great deal of it without anyone’s noticing. And there were several suspicious things about Edmund’s death.

“But how can you stop her? She has gotten away with murder, and she has control over Samantha’s money.”

“I will go to see the woman,” he told Honoria. “And I will make sure she realizes that if anything is amiss, she will have to answer to me.”

ELEANOR STEPPED DOWN out of the carriage and simply stood for a moment, looking up at her house. It was an elegant white stone structure, with clean, symmetrical lines, and it warmed her heart to look at it again. It had been almost a year since she had been here, and it wasn’t until she saw it again that she realized how much she had missed it.

The children bounced out of the carriage after her, letting out a whoop at the freedom after being confined in the carriage all day. “Look! We’re home!”

Their amah, a small, quiet Indian woman named Kerani, followed them at a more sedate pace. “Wait, please,” she called after them softly, and it was a measure of their affection for her that they waited at the bottom of the stoop, bouncing up and down, as she walked over to join them.

The front door was opened by a grinning footman, who stood aside to let Bartwell exit the door first. “Miss Eleanor!”

Bartwell’s well-worn face was creased with a smile. One would have thought, Eleanor told herself affectionately, that it had been months since her old friend and butler had seen them, rather than the few days it had actually been. The servants had gone ahead to open the house and prepare it as soon as their ship had pulled into port, while she and the children had stayed behind for a few days. It had given the children a much-needed respite from traveling. The days cooped up on the ship they had taken from Italy had left them bored and full of pent-up energy. It had also served, much to Eleanor’s delight, as a means of breaking free of the smothering company of Mr. and Mrs. Colton-Smythe.

Hugo Colton-Smythe, a middle-aged cousin to a minor baron and a lifelong civil servant, and his wife, Adelaide, had been traveling on the same ship home from Naples to England as Eleanor, and they had taken it upon themselves to provide her with their respectable chaperonage. Only six months a widow, she was not, they were sure, up to dealing with all the exigencies of life, even the restricted sort of life aboard ship, and certainly she should be shielded from the importunate advances of the other passengers, many of whom were foreigners, and several of whom, they were sure, were adventurers seeking out a vulnerable wealthy widow.

Eleanor knew that kindness had been their main motive—and ignored the uncharitable thought that they were almost as interested in being able to drop into conversation little tidbits, such as, “When we were traveling with Lady Scarbrough…” However, she had found it an ever-increasing chore to put up with their mundane conversation and stultifying outlook on life.

She had been afraid that they would want to ride on with her to London, and for that reason, the thought of spending a few extra days in port while Bartwell saw to the house had seemed a godsend to her.

“Bartwell,” she greeted the butler with a happy smile and a quick hug. Most people, she knew, found her choice of butler strange. He was a retired pugilist who had worked for her father since Eleanor was a child, and he was as fond of her as if she had been his own daughter. He had accompanied her when her father had sent her to school in England when she was fifteen, and she had been grateful for his companionship as much as for his protection. “I trust everything is in order.”

“Oh, the usual, miss,” he told her with a grin. “That Frenchified cook of yours is throwing a fit. But we’ve got the house all tidy and ready for you and the little ones.”

He turned to the little ones in question, nodding his head in polite greeting to the shy, soft-spoken Indian woman before inviting Nathan to show him his boxing form, holding up his hands as targets, then admiring Claire’s new bonnet.

Eleanor reached back into the carriage and pulled out the teak box that had traveled on the seat beside her all the way from the coast. It was dark, made of the finest wood and beautifully carved, and its hinges and fastening were fashioned of gold.

Swallowing the lump that rose in her throat, Eleanor murmured, “You’re home at last, my dear.”

“Miss Elly,” a deep voice behind her said. “Welcome home. Here, let me take that for you.”

Eleanor turned, smiling. “Hello, Zachary. It is good to see you.”

Zachary was another of her employees whose presence in her household was the focus of much gossip, Eleanor knew. His skin was dark—not much lighter, in truth, than the box she held in her hands—and because of this, the ton found it scandalous that Zachary was not a liveried servant but Eleanor’s man of business. Zachary and his mother had been slaves, belonging to a Southern man whom Eleanor’s father had been visiting. Eleanor’s father had purchased both the boy and his mother, and had freed them when he returned home. Zachary’s mother had become the cook in her father’s home, but Mr. Townsend, seeing the young boy’s intelligence, had paid for Zachary to be educated. He had worked for Mr. Townsend after he had gotten out of school, and upon her father’s death a few years ago, he had come to work for her, handling the details of Eleanor’s business affairs.

She handed the box over to her business assistant without hesitation. Zachary and Bartwell were two of the people she trusted most in the world, the other one being her dear friend Juliana. Moreover, Zachary had admired her husband’s talent and had spent more than one evening discussing music with him. “Put this in the music room, please.”

“Of course.”

Eleanor went into the house, the others following her, and there she found the remainder of the servants lined up to greet her. She was tired, but she was not one to shirk her duty, so she spent time with each of them, greeting the ones who had returned with her from Italy by name and letting Bartwell introduce her to those whom she did not know.