Читать книгу How to Sin Successfully - Bronwyn Scott - Страница 13

‘Well?’ Riordan took his seat behind the large walnut desk and fixed the solicitor with a stare he hoped would qualify as ‘imperious’.

‘It’s not good news,’ Mr Browning began, giving the glasses on his nose a push with his middle finger, a gesture Riordan found singularly annoying.

‘Of course it isn’t.’ Mr Browning never managed to bring good news.

‘Lady Cressida Vale and her husband, the viscount, want custody of the children.’ At least Mr Browning wasn’t sugar-coating anything but that didn’t stop a cold stab of fear from settling in Riordan’s stomach.

‘You mean they want custody of the trust funds.’ Riordan held his temper, but just barely. He’d expected this. Lady Vale had intimated as much at the funeral.

Mr Browning gave Riordan a censorious look over the rims of his glasses for speaking so baldly. ‘There is no proof of such motivation.’

‘She is a maternal cousin of their father and I am a paternal cousin. When it comes to next of kin, we are equal, except that my family stepped forwards to care for the children when her side had the chance and did not.’ Riordan remembered very well Elliott swooping in to save the day four years ago when the children had become penniless orphans.

‘Things are different now.’ Mr Browning was prevaricating this time. It could only mean there was more bad news.

Riordan leaned back in the chair and steepled his hands. ‘Naturally things are different. Elliott left the children well provided for. Ishmael, their father, left them nothing but a mouldering estate.’ No one had wanted to take on the burden of two young children with no prospects.

‘The guardianship is different now, too,’ Mr Browning pressed on uncomfortably. He pushed a paper forwards in explanation. ‘The former earl was deemed a proper guardian.’

‘Are you suggesting I am not?’ Anger started to simmer.

‘I’m not. They are.’ Browning nodded towards the paper, urging him to read it.

Riordan scanned it, his anger boiling at the list of sins enumerated against him: an improper lifestyle of womanising and gambling, no structure for the children, an incoherent education—the list went on. All of which could be remedied by the presence of a motherly figure in the household, presumably Lady Vale. The thought was laughable. Lady Vale was about as maternal as … well, no apt comparison came to mind, to borrow Miss Caulfield’s word from earlier in the day.

‘The children will have their structure. Tell the Vales that.’ Riordan pushed the paper back across the desk with a sense of satisfaction. ‘I have a governess.’ Ha, the Vales could try to trump that. The Vales argued for structure—well, he had it. Miss Caulfield and her appreciation for such structure would feel vindicated.

Browning coughed and fidgeted. ‘With all due respect, milord, you’ve had five governesses.’

‘I haven’t exactly “had” five governesses.’

Browning coughed at the vulgarity. ‘Hired. You’ve hired five governesses in an unseemly short period of time.’

‘And the point is?’ If that skinny ferret of a solicitor was going to agree with the opposition, Riordan would make damn sure he had to come out and do it blatantly.

‘Well, five, milord, seems to undermine your case rather than help it.’

‘That’s your opinion.’ Riordan skewered Browning with a hard look. ‘My brother left those children to me. He did not leave them to the Vales and for good reason. The Vales can disagree with me all they like, but Elliott’s will is uncontested.’ He was relying on the immovable bulwark of English law to hold firm.

Mr Browning was silent and Riordan felt the weight of unspoken words hanging between them. ‘Mr Browning, say something,’ Riordan said quietly.

‘I am sorry for the loss, milord. I liked the earl a great deal.’ Meaning that he didn’t care for the current earl nearly as much. Riordan was used to it. It wasn’t the first time he had been measured against the perfect standard of Elliott and come up lacking. ‘The nature of the earl’s death does call into question the sanctity of his will.’

‘Put that in plain English for the rest of us.’

‘The Vales could argue the earl was mentally unstable.’

Riordan studied his hands. ‘Would they win?’

‘I don’t know. Does it matter?’ Mr Browning offered astutely.

It wouldn’t. It was the scandal of it all coming out that mattered. Elliott’s memory would be besmirched. Riordan would put a stop to that if he could. His brother had been an upstanding saint of a man who’d met with a mysterious end. He didn’t deserve to have his life publicly examined and criticised.

Riordan reached for the paper again. He stared hard at the words itemising his fall: womaniser, no home structure, lack of a motherly presence for the children. Browning was most regrettably right. A governess would not plug the dyke. He tapped a finger on the polished surface of the desk, thinking. A governess might not, but a wife most certainly would.