“He is Sir Arthur Temple, a baronet of Wotton Basset, and your great-uncle.”
Memory kicked and Raoul exclaimed aloud. “That stiff-rumped old recluse? Good God!”
“You know him, my lord?”
“Not personally. My own father was a little acquainted with him, I believe, and called him an old curmudgeon.”
That faint twitch attacked Rusper’s lip. “He is not a bonhomous type, it is true.”
“Bonhomous!” Raoul turned to his charge. “Believe me, Felicity, you may thank your stars he did not choose to take you into his household. From all I have ever heard the man is a mean-spirited, irascible near lunatic and cordially disliked by the entire neighbourhood.”
This description proved Rusper’s undoing. He gave a bark of laughter, hastily smothered, and took refuge in his sherry.
Felicity glanced from him to Raoul and back again. “Then Papa was right to call him the Beast. No wonder he did not wish to go anywhere near the man.” A frown creased her brow. “But why was he so horrid to my father? Papa often spoke of having expectations, but he only had his allowance.”
Recovering himself, Rusper nodded. “That is correct. Your grandfather having died when Mr Temple was still at school, he grew up under his uncle’s aegis along with your grandmother. She did not live to see her son become a man, and Mr Temple was wont to claim her spirit had been crushed by Sir Arthur’s distempered manner.”
“No wonder Papa loathed him.”
Rusper’s dry look appeared. “I regret to say the feeling was mutual. Your father escaped as soon as he could, he told me. Needless to say, Sir Arthur disapproved violently of his marriage. Respectable, but of no particular worth. Mrs Temple was, I understand, the youngest daughter of a vicar with a numerous progeny, whom your father met when he was up at the university.”
“They married in secret, did they not?” The eager note in Felicity’s voice touched Raoul. “I remember him telling me. Also that the Beast forbade him the house when he knew.”
Rusper gave a tiny smile. “That, I assure you, Miss Temple, exactly suited your father. He had no desire to set foot in the place ever again, he was wont to say. Except under circumstances that would permit him to do as he pleased there.”
Raoul caught the inference. “He would have succeeded Sir Arthur?”
“Had he lived, yes. Sir Arthur did marry, but his wife perished before giving him an heir. When his brother died, he did not trouble to marry again for the purpose of making one. Failing your father, there is a cousin. In any event, the property is merely a comfortable competence.”
“Evidently not very comfortable while Sir Arthur occupies it,” said Raoul with a flickering look of humour towards Felicity.
She smiled. “I had not thought to be glad of being abandoned, sir.”
Rusper’s features tightened. “You should not have been, Miss Temple. Sir Arthur behaved ill towards you. He might have smoothed your path, but he chose merely to grease the wheels of your education. When I came a second time, it was to negotiate with the headmistress there —”
“Mrs Jeavons, you mean. Negotiate what, sir?”
“For a position as schoolmistress at the academy for you, Miss Temple.”
Felicity’s shock was apparent. “You mean that was the Beast’s doing?”
He nodded. “He maintained that he was too old to take on a young girl’s future. Nor had he the inclination to do the pretty, as he phrased it, to his neighbours in hopes ofturningyouoff. He had, he said, done enough by Jeremy’s whelp — his word, not mine — if he saw to it you had means of making your way in the world.”
“Generous!” Raoul’s dislike of the man was growing. “If I understand you, sir, Miss Temple can hope for no financial assistance from that quarter?”
Felicity’s sharp little intake of breath told him this had touched a nerve. Unsurprising, since she had not exaggerated when she said she was destitute.
Rusper did not answer immediately, his gaze steady on Felicity’s face. He held up a finger as she opened her mouth to speak. “One moment, Miss Temple.”
A puzzled glance came Raoul’s way, but she remained silent as Rusper set down his glass and at last tugged at the ties of the tape binding the file still reposing on his knee. He sifted for a moment and glanced up, looking past Raoul.
“Thornbury, do you recall how far back is that final account?”
The clerk came from behind, accepted the parchment and set the whole lot upon a convenient table resting against the wall behind his employer. While he hunted through the aged parchments, Rusper’s faint smile appeared as he once more turned his gaze upon Felicity.
“Mr Temple never did receive his allowance upon that last quarter day. The accounting for those expenses arising from his demise was paid separately by my client. As also subsequent expenses relating to your education. Moreover, your Mrs Jeavons, a scrupulous lady in her financial dealings, sent me always an exact account instead of the Dutch reckoning I expected.”
Guessing what was coming, and seeing the mix of bewilderment and burgeoning hope in Felicity’s countenance, Raoul cut short the suspense. “You have saved something from the wreck, is that it?”
