“I imagine you sent your nephew correspondence?” Philippa asked gently.
“Enough to paper every wall in the castle,” Miss Oak confirmed. “I didn’t intend to open the school until after my year of mourning, but there was no reason to postpone possession of the deed and ensure all the pieces were in place. But without Arminia’s testament, I have nothing. And her will is hidden somewhere in that castle.”
“You mentioned a legal opinion being on your side?” Graham prompted.
Miss Oak set down her cup. “For as much good as it does. An accidental fire at the lawyer’s office destroyed the only other copy. Densmore is my only hope. He responded to my inquiries only once, to say he had not come across his mother’s will or any clues as to its location. Our year of mourning concluded last week. That very night, mynephew took it upon himself to go out drinking… and gambled away the castle in a card game.”
Elizabeth gasped. “But it wasn’t his to wager! Heknewbetter.”
“Perhaps why he wrote an IOU, but never handed over the deed,” Miss Oak said.
Faircliffe inclined his head. “A debt of honor, like the letters from your sister, is not legally valid.”
Chloe patted her baby’s back. “Without a will, it could come down to possession of the title—and the castle.”
Jacob placed the ferret he’d been holding on the floor. “Then we must talk Densmore into handing over that deed.”
“Or steal it, if he refuses to cooperate,” murmured Chloe.
Elizabeth smiled. “And then force him to leave the castle by sword-point.”
“Has your nephew somewhere else to live?” Philippa asked.
Miss Oak nodded. “He owns several properties. Densmore does not need the castle for any practical reason and, indeed, has spent very little time there until after he lost that wager.”
“The earl’s there now?”
“He’s not left the grounds since that night.” Miss Oak’s shoulders tightened in visible frustration. “I’ve a waiting list a mile long of bright young women eager to begin work as caretakers and tutors. I’d hoped to start interviewing instructors next week, but Densmore has barred the door and will let no one in.”
“Wait.” Marjorie turned toward Faircliffe. “Doesn’t the earl attend the House of Lords?”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him there,” the duke replied. “I wouldn’t recognize him if he were in this parlor.”
“That’s because he prefers gaming hells to Parliament,” Miss Oak said. “The real question is how to stop him from giving the deed to Richard Reddington.”
“Reddington?” said all ten Wynchesters at once.
“That’s who won my land in that card game,” Miss Oak explained. “At least, so he thinks. Without Arminia’s will to say otherwise… Should I attempt to keep the castle, Reddington has the resources to make my life difficult.”
“I’ll run him through with my blade,” Elizabeth said quickly.
Jacob kicked Elizabeth in the shins.
“And take off Densmore’s head, too,” she whispered unrepentantly. “Her wretched nephew is the one willfully refusing to hand the castle over to his aunt, as his mother wanted. Only a scoundrel would disregard his parent’s dying wish.”
Elizabeth had no tolerance for heartless, selfish, dishonorable knaves. In fact, she would be proud to wrest Miss Oak’s legally inherited deed from the dastardly Earl of Densmore’s cold, dead hands!
3
The Earl of Densmore’s very much alive hands… were nowhere near his mother’s old castle.
Where, precisely, the earl’s hands—and the rest of him—might be was a question Stephen Lenox would love to know the answer to. He’d run his lordship through with a blade himself for putting him in this damnable situation.
Cover for me, his favorite, if feckless, cousin had said.I’ll be gone for a few nights at the most. All you have to do is pretend to be me. It’ll be easy! You’re next in line to the title anyway. Just collect my correspondence, don’t let anyone in the door, and I’ll be back before you know it.
The earl had not come back. Stephen was beginning to suspect he never would.
Castle Harbrook was now his prison.
