Page 75 of Her Favourite Daughter

“Yes, Yir Grace, ‘e does. ‘E thinks we don’ know what ‘e’s about,” Younge replied. He had slowly been closing the distance between himself and the duchess knowing Wickham would think it was to assist him.

“In that case, I will shoot the idiot and take you anyway!” Wickham exclaimed exasperatedly. Saying that, Wickham pulled the hammer back and swivelled to point the weapon at Younge.

“John, Brian, please relieve this man of his pistol,” Bethany ordered.

Before he could move, Wickham felt the blade of a knife at his throat. A huge man appeared before him and ripped the pistol from his hands. Only once he was disarmed did the knife move from his throat, but not before nicking the skin, which caused a few drops of blood to escape. An instant later, he was trussed up.

When he looked around, there were many men, including Lord Meryton, his son, the Darcys, and the Fitzwilliams among them. This could not be! He had seen them depart, and the brother was still supposed to be abed.

“How many times has your father begged you to change your ways, to earn your money honestly, but you have always refused?” Holderness stated as he shook his head. “Now, you are beyond all help. You should have taken Lady Bethany’s warning to heart because you, George Wickham, are for the tower.”

“Before you think you ever had a chance, you never did. Did you think I would allow my daughter anywhere close to you unless I was guaranteed you had no ability to harm her? Besides everything else, your pistol could not shoot. ” Meryton extended his hand to Johns, who handed him the pistol he had removed from the miscreant’s hands. Meryton pulled the hammer back, and after pointing the barrel towards a tree where no one was standing, he squeezed the trigger. Other than a click, nothing happened. “The pistol is useless, and the gunpowder was switched with something which looks similar but will never burn.” Meryton regarded the miscreant with disdain. “Your plan failed before you had made it properly. We have known what you were about since shortly after Miss and Mr Younge were employed at Kiveton Park.”

All Wickham could do was stare blankly at the men grinning at him malevolently. He could not comprehend how his perfect plan had been undone.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

The day the Younges applied for positions at Kiveton Park

Mr and Mrs Buxton, Hornby Castle’s butler and housekeeper, were at Kiveton Park to speak to some of those who had applied for positions. With them was an under-butler and assistant housekeeper from the castle who would fill the two senior house staff positions at Kiveton Park. They would assist with meeting those applying and then learn more about the house from the Buxtons. With the young duchess returned, and her decision to keep and reopen the manor house at the estate, many positions needed to be filled.

The lady who had been chosen to be the housekeeper at Kiveton Park, Mrs Johnson, was seated in the housekeeper’s office with Mrs Buxton as one woman after another who applied for various roles in the house were interviewed by them. Mr Buxton and the man who would be the butler, Mr Waterford, were doing the same in the butler’s office with the male applicants.

The second to last woman the two housekeepers spoke to was one Karen Younge. Mrs Buxton was in the latter half of her fifties, but her memory was as sharp as ever. She read the young woman’s characters, which were clearly forged. Then, she searched her memories and recalled a conversation she had with Becky Younge some days before her brother-in-law had murdered her. Suspecting something was afoot, she excused herself, saying she needed the privy. She told two footmen to stand at her office door to make sure no one exited. Then, she went to go see her husband and Mr Waterford, who at that moment had Clay Younge before them.

Seeing that their mother—Clara Buxton remembered how Becky had told her about her twins, Clay and Karen—had been part of the plot to kidnap Lady Bethany, she would take no chances. It could not be a coincidence that the twins were seeking employment right after the return of Lady Bethany.

Mr Buxton excused himself from the office on seeing his wife beckon to him from the door. “What is it, Clara?” he asked when they had moved away from the office.

“Joshua, that man is Becky Younge’s son, and I have the daughter, his twin, in my office looking for work. Something is not right, especially as her characters are forged. I would wager so are his,” Mrs Buxton said quietly. She related that she had two footmen outside the door of her office where Mrs Johnson was still speaking to Miss Younge.

“Bring her to my…well it will be Waterford’s office now. We will have footmen in the room and post several outside and get to the bottom of this,” Buxton said.

Mrs Buxton returned to the housekeeper’s office where the two footmen were waiting as instructed. She entered the room. “Miss Younge, you will come with me to the butler’s office. I know who you are and that your characters are not true,” she stated dispassionately.

Karen Younge thought to try and push past the older woman and run until she saw the two brawny men just outside the door. Giving one and all sullen looks, she followed the two housekeepers into the butler’s office.

When Clay Younge saw his sister enter the office and the four large footmen outside, he knew they were in trouble. He looked to Karen; she was the clever one.

“Before I knew your mother gained employment here under false pretences, I used to like her. and often we would speak,” Mrs Buxton began.

“Our Ma did nothing wrong!” Karen Younge exclaimed. “The Osborne’s murdered her. My brother and I want our revenge, and we are assisting one of the murdering late duke’s natural sons to regain the legacy his father was promised before he too was murdered,”

“Who told you this fiction that your mother was murdered by the family?” Mr Buxton demanded.

“Well…no one, but when our Da refused to speak of it, we thought it was the Duke because I remember his men came to see Da. After that he refused to speak of Mamma or Uncle Jim,” Karen Younge admitted. “We thought that our father had been intimidated by the duke. He died before we could ask him.”

“How old were you then?” Mrs Buxton enquired.

“Seven, almost eight,” Karen Younge responded. Could it be that they had made incorrect assumptions?

Buxton looked up to one of the footmen just outside of the door. “Peters, is Harelson still training the new footmen?” Seeing the man nod, he instructed him to have Mr Harelson join them.

The Younge twins shifted uneasily while they waited. They knew they were in trouble; the only question was how much.

“Mr Buxton, Peters said you needed me?” Tom said from the doorway.

“Come in, Harelson. These are the Younge twins,” Buxton intoned. “They want to know who murdered their mother and what she did that led to said murder.”