Lincoln kept pace with her. “Are you kidding, I wouldn’t miss this,” he murmured.
That made her smile, which in turn brought her to a calmer state of mind. She was unreasonably glad that Lincoln was sticking close to her. He had just the right mix of supportiveness and humor to keep her from going off the deep end.
She should have prepared for this moment. But she hadn’t.
Ever since that fateful meeting with Ruby and her parents, she’d focused on her studies, then her research, then the ‘alala restoration project. Every time the name Aberdeen snuck into her thoughts, she banished it far away with a mental ‘not yet.’ But time moved on, like it or not, and here she was. Maybe she shouldn’t have stuck her head in the sand for the past nine years.
The outhouse was a metal-roofed shed perched over a deep pit in the lava rocks, into which they’d poured some cement to make a septic tank. The toilet was gravity fed, so it flushed as long as there was enough water in the catchment tank. If the water pressure wasn’t high enough, you had to fill a bucket at the bigger tank and dump it down the toilet.
Lucky for Philip Phelps, they’d gotten plenty of rain lately. Still, his face was gray when he emerged from the little shed, obsessively rubbing his hands with their industrial-grade sanitizer.
“You.” Mathilda pointed the sheaf of papers at him. “Tell me exactly what happens if the Aberdeen Bequest expires.”
“Well, the monies will be disbursed to various causes close to the hearts of the old Marquess of Aberdeen and Mr. Sutton-Spencer. They were two eccentric gentlemen who shared certain interests.”
“Various causes? Not just this Saxon bloodline stuff?”
“Oh no, that’s just part of it. They were also passionate about hunting.”
“Hunting? Like what, foxes?”
“Nooo.” The lawyer hesitated, wincing as he went on. “Their particular joy was hunting birds.”
“Birds?” Mathilda thought her head might explode. “What kind of birds? Like game birds? Pheasants and so forth?” Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.
“No. They enjoyed hunting rare and exotic birds. Egrets, herons, birds of paradise, even owls and songbirds. It was not an unusual pursuit for the nobility, and it gave them an opportunity to travel together.”
“So romantic. Let’s go travel to a faraway land and shoot some songbirds.” Mathilda shook her head in disgust.
“It was a different time, obviously. The ladies used to wear plumage in their hats, and sometimes even entire preserved songbirds. It’s quite fascinating, actually, the history of plume-hunting. It became quite a craze, until so many birds were killed during nesting season that there was a backlash. As a matter of fact, that’s when the first early conservation movement was born.”
“Yeah well, count me in for the backlash. You’re saying that some of the Aberdeen funds could go to bird-hunting? What does that mean?”
“The mission is to establish hunting preserves open to…well, not exactly the public. Open to members of the British nobility and their guests. The two gentlemen were a bit snobby, to suit their time. Funds will also be used to lobby politically against conservation efforts.”
Mathilda closed her eyes, feeling a bit nauseous. Could any cause be quite so opposite of what she herself cared about? She was trying to restore native bird populations, not hunt them.
“Okay, what else?”
“They had quite a few foreign investments, both of them. You might call them ‘colonialists’. Some of the funds are earmarked for further explorations in that area. They were true believers in the might of the British Empire.”
Mathilda threw up her hands. “Great. So if I don’t marry Duncan, I’m unleashing a bunch of money that will go toward killing birds, glorifying snobby English bloodlines, and finding new indigenous populations to colonize. Do I have that right?”
“More or less.” Philip Phelps cleared his throat. “Again, this is a relic from a different time, you have to keep that in mind.”
Lincoln spoke up for the first time since the lawyer had begun talking. “Since it was such a different time, is there a chance the terms could be changed?”
“Yes! Brilliant idea.” Mathilda shot the lawyer a triumphant look. “Lincoln knows lots of lawyers, he’s always talking about them. I bet they can find a loophole. Right, Lincoln?”
He shrugged uneasily. “I can’t speak for them, but…”
Phelps shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. It’s a legally executed document that has withstood two centuries of frustrated Aberdeen and Spencer-Sutton legal challenges. Have you, er, looked at what Mr. Aberdeen wrote to you?”
“No, not yet. I think I might need some privacy for that.” Maybe she could run away into the jungle and never look back. But how could she live with herself knowing she’d been responsible for more birds getting killed?
No, face it, there was no way out of this except through it.
She glanced at Lincoln, who’d really come through for her in this moment of trauma. He’d listened to her, stayed by her side, supported her.
