Laughter rippled across the benches—sharp, unkind.
“Treason, adultery, theft—those are crimes,” a peer scoffed. “Lying isn’t.”
John’s jaw lifted. “Adultery, I think. But I’m not certain what it means.”
More chuckles. List smiled, thin and poisonous. Maisie’s stomach lurched. He was circling, waiting for his moment.
“And your mother?” someone asked more gently from the podium next to the chancellor.
“She was always there.” John cringed when he said it but Maisie knew it was true, she’d been there. Bedridden but alive for most of his life.
“Where?” List’s voice cut the air. “In spirit? After her death?”
“Order!” barked the chancellor.
But List pressed forward, voice ringing like a whip. “The boy speaks to ghosts. Let me assume the estate’s management on his behalf—”
“Hey,” John cut in, clear and sharp. “Not so fast.”
Maisie’s heart clenched.
“My mother,” John said steadily, “was sick. But she always loved me and made sure I was looked after. She stayed upstairs. I read to her—‘The Tortoise and the Hare.’ She said I was old enough to defend my name. Slowly but surely.”
“Was your mother Miriam Morgenschein?” asked the chancellor.
“No, milords. My mother was Henrietta Elsbeth Vancourt. She married my father in 1795.”
“Do you have proof?” another Lord demanded. “That you are not the son of Miriam Morgenschein?”
John hesitated. His fingers worked the satchel strap, then steadied. “No. But I’m related to her niece, Maisie Morgenschein.”
Gasps stirred the chamber.
Maisie gripped the bench so hard her nails bit through the fabric of her gloves.
“Explain,” the chancellor ordered.
John opened his satchel. His hands did not tremble. “There’s aletter—from my father to my mother. He wrote that Miriam and Ephraim Morgenschein were his best friends in Vienna. Miriam died early but Ephraim married and had a daughter, Maisie. My father wrote that if anything happened, Miss Maisie Morgenschein should raise me. He called her kind. Said the Jews could be trusted with my name and estate.”
He passed the papers forward.
Maisie closed her eyes, her mumble of home cracking like a thin egg.
The chancellor scanned the page. Another paper followed. “This bears the seal of the Marchioness of Stonefield, your mother. Signed by the Archbishop of Canterbury.”
John’s voice piped up again, soft but unflinching. “It’s in Latin. I don’t take Latin till next term.”
A ripple of laughter, gentler this time. The chancellor nodded. “It is a marriage license. Your parents wed in England. Before your birth.”
John pulled out one last paper. “This is from my headmaster at Eton. My birth certificate. He said I ought to return it.”
The clerk took it, examined the seal. “Legitimate. English-born. Registered peer of the realm.” In other words, John had no Jewish blood and his title was safe.
A hush fell. For a heartbeat the whole chamber stilled.
John lifted his chin, his small hands tightening over the satchel in his lap. The chamber had gone so still that Maisie could hear her own heartbeat.
“I don’t want to give up my inheritance,” he spoke as steady as he could though his lip trembled. “I don’t want to lose my life in England. My loyalty is to the Crown. But one day—”
