“Er—perhaps.” He hesitated; this was the most delicate territory of all. “His Grace the fourth Duke had two younger brothers.”
“Oh yes,” she said after a moment, a lilt of surprise in her voice. “Good heavens. I forgot about him.”
Mr. Edwards nodded. Nearly everyone had, because the duke had ordered it so. Lord Adam had been banished, but his name was still spoken at Carlyle Castle. Lord Thomas St. James, on the other hand, had disappeared at the age of five as if he’d never existed. He had been his mother’s favorite son—so much so, that she took him with her when she fled her husband, the third duke, and returned to her native France. Rumor held she had gone back to the French vicomte who had been her lover. It was whispered that Lord Thomas might be his child.
It had been an enormous scandal, and the third duke had declared both his wife and son dead to him. On one notorious occasion, half a dozen servants had been whipped for gossiping about her. After that, the names of the runaway duchess and her son were never mentioned by any of the Carlyle servants or staff. The fourth duke had been no more forgiving of his mother’s desertion, and in time Anne-Louise and her son Thomas had been all but forgotten.
“I have made a few attempts to trace him and his mother, without success.” Mr. Edwards paused. “It has been several decades. Who knows where Lord Thomas may be?”
The duchess sniffed. “His grandchildren, you mean. He would be a man of eighty or more, if he were still alive—Carlyle men do not live that long.” A fresh spasm of grief contorted her face for a moment before she went on. “And those grandchildren, if he had any, would be French.”
“Likely so,” Mr. Edwards murmured. “I would have to launch a determined search to trace Lord Thomas and any of his descendants.”
“Must you?” she snapped.
He hesitated. “If a son or grandson of Lord Thomas should survive . . . His claim would be preeminent, Your Grace.”
For a moment the duchess sat in grim disapproval. “An army man, a cardsharp, or a Frenchman,” she said sourly. Her gaze moved upward, over the exquisitely adorned ceiling of the room, over the tall gleaming windows, over the graceful furnishings and paintings in gilt frames. “And one of them will have Carlyle.” She turned back to Edwards. “Send for them. All of them, if you can find any relict of Thomas in France, but I want the other two here, as soon as they might come. I shan’t allow any callow fool or heartless scoundrel to take my son’s place.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Attend me through next week,” she went on. “I will have some instruction regarding this decidedly lackluster lot of heirs, and there are some urgent matters about the estate which must be settled as well.”
Mr. Edwards sighed. “Your Grace, I cannot handle all the affairs of the estate, even if I were to take up residence in the castle. You must allow me to engage a new estate steward. Mr. Grimes assures me he is utterly unable to return to his post, and I fear he never will be—”
Irritably she waved one hand. “Very well. But on a trial basis only,” she added as the solicitor breathed a sigh of relief. “Grimes suits me very well and I shall hold out hope for his return.”
Mr. Grimes was nearly seventy and had developed a lung condition; he would not be returning to his post. Mr. Edwards had already arranged his pension, needing only the duchess’s approval—and a replacement. In the meantime, the responsibility had fallen onto Mr. Edwards himself, and these six months had nearly driven him into his own retirement. “I shall make inquiries as soon as I reach London, ma’am.”
“Hmph.” She gave him a dark glance and shook her finger at him. “A sober, reliable fellow, Mr. Edwards, with a vast experience of managing such an estate. Not one of these hungry young men who wishes to experiment with improvements to things that need no improving!”
“Naturally, ma’am.”
“You may go,” she announced, and the solicitor got to his feet, gathered his papers, and bowed his way out of the room.
Sophia Constance St. James, once one of the most eligible heiresses in England, sat in her silk-upholstered chair, her bejeweled fingers clutching a handkerchief of finest Irish linen, and gazed vacantly through the tall mullioned window at the rolling sweep of lawn, prosperously dotted with sheep on the distant hills. It was Carlyle, as far as the eye could see and acres beyond.
Almost sixty years ago she had come here as the young bride of George Frederick, the fourth duke, a man twice her age. On her wedding day her mother had whispered in her ear to stand her ground early, or to give way forever. She had chosen to stand her ground; she was the only child and heiress of a wealthy banker who brought immense wealth to her marriage, and she demanded that her husband recognize her worth. And he, tyrannical and arrogant though he was, had done it, because she gave him no choice.
When he died, she’d expected a life of more ease and comfort, only to suffer the devastating loss of one son, a nearly fatal injury to her eldest child, and the death of her only daughter. Still, she had not quailed from her duty. For nearly thirty years she had been guardian of everything she could see, in her son’s stead, fiercely determined that Carlyle would be preserved and whole for the next generation.
Now it would go to someone else’s son, and she would bury hers—affectionate, charming, beloved Stephen, her heart’s darling. Her throat tightened with misery. Three of her children, dead; all of her dreams and loves, gone. Although her eldest child still lived, he was no longer her Johnny, and he hadn’t had the sort of life she’d ever dreamt of for him. The vast, verdant vista out her window might have been a mirage.
A rustle at her skirts disturbed her morose thoughts. “Oh, really, Percival,” she exclaimed as the ginger cat leapt into her lap.
“I am sorry, Your Grace,” said Philippa Kirkpatrick, closing the door behind her. “He was lying in wait outside the door.”
The duchess smiled, holding up the cat so they were face-to-face. “Never willing to be excluded, are you, my great beast?” She let him down and he curled up in her lap, lashing his tail across his face.
“Shall I put him out?” asked Pippa.
“No, no, let him be,” the duchess said, her fingers ruffling then smoothing the cat’s fur. “He is a comfort.”
Quietly Pippa took a chair beside her. She folded her hands in her lap and waited.
The duchess was grateful for that. Despite her youth, Pippa wasn’t one of those flighty modern girls, wild for dancing and flirting over cards with a beauty patch on her cheek. She was kind and sensible, with a tender, loyal heart. She had always been a sweet girl, from the first moment the duchess had seen her, on the day Jessica married Pippa’s father, Miles. Snug in his arms, young Pippa had gazed at her with big dark eyes and smiled, and the duchess had been instantly smitten.
“See, Mama,” Jessica had said with a luminous smile, smoothing the little girl’s hair. “I’ve got a husband and a daughter at one fell swoop!” Jessica had loved Pippa like her own, and the duchess had followed suit. The girl had grown up to be very like Jessica, and privately the duchess wished Pippa had been her granddaughter.
She sighed silently, sorrow flooding her again. She would never have grandchildren now. “Has Mrs. Humphries brought out the crepe?”