“Of course I remember you. How was your journey?” Caroline asked politely. She hadn’t expected him to come personally.
“My journey was quite—” he began, but Somerson interrupted.
“Sit down Caroline, and let’s get this over with.” He turned to Mr. Rice. “I trust you brought a letter as per my instructions for Caroline to sign?”
Mr. Rice turned to Caroline. “It is my understanding from His Lordship’s letter that you wish to renounce your inheritance, my lady.”
Caroline glanced at Somerson, who was glaring at the man of affairs fiercely. “I am her guardian. You may address your comments to me. Caroline, sign the paper and leave the room at once.”
Mr. Rice smiled politely, unafraid of Somerson. “I’m afraid I haven’t brought any such letter, my lord. As Lady Marjorie’s man of affairs, my business is directly with Lady Caroline now. I believe birthday felicitations are in order, my lady?”
“Thank you, Mr. Rice,” Caroline said.
Somerson rose to his feet. “You may go, sir. You have nothing to discuss with anyone but myself. I am the head of this family, and Caroline is my dependent. If there is nothing to sign at this moment, then I will have my own man in London draw up the necessary documents. Good day.”
Mr. Rice did not move. He instead took the top document of the pile of papers. “Not as of today, my lord. I have a copy of Lady Marjorie’s will—your late mother left some very specific instructions. She left you some jewelry.”
“Yes, a little ruby ring she wore every day. She gave it to me before she died,” Caroline said, rubbing the finger where the ring had once sat.
“There are several other pieces, an emerald pin, a pearl necklace with a diamond clasp—”
“If they were gifts from my father, they belong to Countess Charlotte, then my own daughters, not to Caroline.”
“They belonged originally to Lady Marjorie’s own mother, my lord.” Mr. Rice slid the document across the little table toward Somerson. “Now if you’ll recall from your father’s will, my lord, he did leave a number of instructions regarding Lady Caroline’s inheritance. They are restated here, in your stepmother’s will.”
Caroline felt her breath catch in her throat. Somerson pinned the little man with a glare that would put a bird of prey to shame. “She was hardly my stepmother. She was barely older than I was when she married my father.”
“Perhaps not, my lord, but the late earl wanted both his wife and his daughter well cared for upon his demise.”
“Marjorie did not suffer by my hand. After my father died, I gave her a house to live in for her lifetime,” Somerson said.
Caroline recalled the gloomy, ill-repaired manor she had grown up in, as far from London as possible, with no money allotted for clothes or niceties beyond the very basics. Scarcely a month after her mother’s death, Somerson had sold the place without a word to Caroline, and she had been forced to depend on the kindness of neighbors for nearly a year before Somerson summoned her to London and gave her a choice.
“Her Ladyship’s will provides a specific legacy for Caroline,” the man of affairs said pointedly.
Caroline looked at her half brother. His wide face was red and beads of sweat rolled down his forehead. “What does this mean?” she asked Mr. Rice.
Somerson tossed the paper aside. “It means nothing! I am her guardian. I control her money, which she has now insisted she wishes to renounce so she might be independent. She has willingly offered to sever her ties to her family, and I have agreed.”
Caroline picked up the will and scanned the neatly written provisions.
“There is a clause in the will which states that if Lady Caroline is not married by the age of twenty-three, which she is today, then she will assume control of all the moneys that have been placed in trust for her.”
Caroline read the words, her eyes widening at the amount of money she was about to inherit. “What if I had wed before today?” she asked.
“Then His Lordship would have negotiated the payment of your dowry to your husband, of course. The rest of the money would have remained in your name.”
Somerson got up and paced to the window. “How is this even possible? Marjorie Kirk was a penniless baronet’s daughter when she tricked my father into marrying her. This is my father’s money, and therefore mine, and I intend to contest the will. Where would she have gotten this kind of money unless she stole it from his estate?”
Mr. Rice patiently drew out another document. “It was a wedding present, my lord, a trust set up by the Dowager Countess of Somerson for the new countess.”
Somerson turned and stormed back to the table. “My mother?My mother was dead!”
“I meant your grandmother, my lord, CountessGeorgianaSomerson.”
Somerson’s brows crumpled inward in confusion. His face seemed to fold around the hard pinch of his lips. “Mygrandmother?” he hissed.
“Indeed. Put in trust. The funds were for any children of the union between your father and Lady Marjorie, since you would inherit the entirety of the Earl of Somerson’s titles, estates, and fortune.”
