“Go down to the kitchen now.” He herded her to the door, and parted near the stairs to the cellar.
She did not descend those steps. Instead she took the servant stairs up one level, to the service passageway that ran alongside the big drawing room. She found a door and cracked it ajar, so she might watch.
* * *
“The choice is simple,” Nicholas said loudly, his voice crashing through the arguments filling the drawing room. Those other conversations dwindled in the face of his annoyance until silence faced him.
Chase hoped Nicholas would not rush to continue, because the interval of peace felt delicious. He surveyed the large chamber while the last of the voices died out. A panel on one wall that hid an access to the servants’ corridor stood ajar. He strolled over and shut it.
“Choice one. The bequests are challenged by someone. Anyone. And nothing gets disbursed until Chancery rules. That means no one gets anything until that time. Except me, because the entailments are a separate indenture, as are the servants’ pensions which are in trusts funded by the ducal holdings.”
“At least we might get a respectable sum eventually,” Dolores said before a disdainful sniff.
“Choice two. We listen to what the solicitor says tomorrow afternoon regarding the accounting done thus far. There is the possibility that at least something can be paid out soon, even if the final figures are not secure yet. I have asked him to consider if half the estimated remaining funds can be divided among us.”
“It will be half a pittance then,” Phillip muttered. “It is tempting to go for more.”
“Easy for you to say, Phillip,” Agnes said. “You are such a pup that you might still be alive when it is all finished. However, I doubt your creditors will like to wait that long.”
Phillip colored until his ears were red. At twenty-two, and the youngest cousin by five years, he did not like being called a pup. He also would not care to have his aunt mention the precarious nature of his debts. He had shown no mercy to the tradesmen of London in abusing his credit, all on unfounded expectations. Once word of this will’s provisions got out, Phillip would probably be dodging bailiffs.
At the moment Chase hoped Phillip landed in debtors’ prison. His youngest cousin had little to recommend him. There were a dozen reasons why Phillip had grown into a man without good character, but even a hundred reasons would not excuse his behavior with Minerva today.
“Yet if we accept even half a pittance, we have accepted the bequests as written,” Kevin said. “Anyone who takes the money has given up the first choice. How good of Uncle to include a bribe in his will. For most of you it should hold appeal, since he owed you nothing.”
“He owed you nothing too,” Nicholas said, kindly.
Kevin’s tight expression revealed his reaction to that.
“I say we take what we can get while we are still young enough to enjoy it.” Claudine, wife of Cousin Douglas, spoke with emotional emphasis. “We have expenses now, and I don’t think it will be a pittance at all, so not half a pittance soon. He was rich as Croesus, from the talk of it. I say we hear what the solicitor has determined about the potential amount left to us when all is said and done, and convince him to release as much as possible.”
Douglas nodded obediently. Douglas never spoke much. Even as a boy he had been an observer of the world, not a true participant. As he had married a woman who talked a lot, the expectations placed on him for good conversation had decreased overnight. Chase guessed Claudine led the way in other things too, but Douglas did not seem to mind.
Over in a corner the eldest of the cousins, Douglas’s older brother, Walter, bided his time while he helped himself to some brandy from a decanter set on a table against another of those panels, one that also rested ajar. Chase mused at how they all managed to remain predictable in this least predictable situation. Walter had always thought his position as the eldest gave him more authority than Nicholas, even though Nicholas was the son of the second oldest uncle, and thus heir presumptive to the title. Even when they were all boys, Walter would try to issue commands and make decisions that no one paid attention to.
Now, glass in hand, he went to stand beside his beautiful blond wife, Felicity. She looked up at him adoringly, like a nymph to a god. They cut a handsome couple, with Felicity’s ethereal beauty and Walter’s darkly handsome face. Walter waited for the others to have their say.
“We will wait for the solicitor to explain what he can tomorrow,” Nicholas said. “I merely lay out the choices now, so that everyone understands that if even one of you issues a challenge, everyone will be affected.”
Walter stepped forward. “We will wait to hear what the solicitor has to say before any of us decide anything.”
Kevin smirked. “That is what Nicholas just said, Walter.”
“Now I am saying it.”
“How useful,” Agnes said, sardonically.
“Thank you for agreeing with me,” Nicholas said.
“I have concluded it is the right thing to do,” Walter said.
“I want the damned money,” Phillip said.
“Why? It is not likely to pay off your debts even by half,” Dolores said. “You will squander it before a single hatter gets his due.”
“At least I have the style to squander well, unlike the rest of you.”
“Like father like son,” Agnes said. “All style, no substance. Your fatherwouldbe off in Naples during this crisis, spending money he does not have. He probably doesn’t even know his brother has died.”
