Granted, as he had hardly slept the night before, arising early posed no challenge.
The madness of the past few weeks had truly caught up with him.
Whathadhe been thinking?
Lord Frank, for all his pompous, obnoxious ways, had the right of it.
If Alex even appeared to pursue Lottie—if he gave the slightest hint that they might marry—he would likely be awarded the marquisate.
How had he been so blind to that simple fact?
Ifhe did have to assume the marquisate—and that was a giantif—he wished it to be his own choice. Not Lords thrusting it upon him.
He was an utter eejit.
Yes, he considered Lottie a dear friend—
Why did you kiss her then?
Och, that was the rub, was it not?
One did not kiss friends. Not if one wanted to remain friends. In his world, a female friend one kissed became one’s wife.
Moreover, he had been telling himself two incongruous things.
One, that he could form an attachment to Lady Charlotte. That he could talk philosophy and kiss her and even (fleetingly, briefly) contemplatemarryingher.
And two, that he would avoid assuming the title of Lord Lockheade.
In hindsight, of course, the goals negated one another.
In order to gain the first, he had to forsake the second. Or vice versa.
But what did that mean now? Now that he suspected Lord Frank was determined to rob the marquisate?
The previous day’s revelations sat heavy. Mr. Bartlet’s words would not leave him—
Given the abuses that have been undertaken here at Frome Abbey, I would look long and hard at every other aspect of the marquisate empire. My gut tells me that if you do, you will find a Pandora’s box of misdeeds.
What was Alex to do?
He could not, in good conscience, sign the attainder without getting to the bottom of Mr. Bartlet’s allegations.
Convicts working marquisate lands.
Tenants denied employment but still forced to pay high rents.
Slave labor being reinstated on West Indies plantations.
And as Mr. Bartlet said, those facts were likely only a sliver of the full scope of the problems.
Alex would call upon Mr. Argent once he reached London. The former man of affairs would likely know who Alex needed to contact in order to better understand where things stood.
He owed it to the tens of thousands of people impacted to fully investigate all claims. How could he sign the attainder before doing that?
The words of Hippocrates rang in his mind—
Practice two things in your dealings with disease: either help or do not harm the patient.
