Page 14 of Fortune’s Final Folly

Housekeeper? Laundress? Family physician?

“I do not understand.” She glanced around the lavish room. It was not the home of a modest solicitor from Cheapside. Kate had long known that Joshua was an educated man, but she had assumed he attended University as a servitor and not as an independent member. The room was far too grand for the likes of a gentle commoner. “Where are we?”

Joshua was undoubtedly a man of means if not something far more.

“My townhouse in Cavendish Square.” He rubbed at his chin and looked past her toward the hearth. “It was the only suitable place I could think to bring you.”

“You, Mr. Joshua Stuart, Solicitor, have a home in Cavendish Square?”

He shrugged, his eyes alighting on her, yet Kate sensed a barrier between them that’d never been there before. “It once belonged to my paternal grandmother.”

“Yet your office is in Cheapside?” She kept her stare trained on him, attempting to gauge any hint of deception in his answers or tone.

“I prefer to help those in actual need.” He sighed, reclining once more in his chair and clasping his hands in his lap. “I do not have much to my name, except this home and my offices.”

“Offices?” Obviously, their circumstances and personal notions of not having much varied greatly.

“The office in Cheapside where I use my time and finances to help the people living nearby, and my building off Bond Street.”

Kate had met Joshua in her youth when he’d first completed his time at University and came around to deliver parcels to her father. He’d been fresh from school and had taken a post as his uncle’s assistant. They’d had more occasion to become acquainted when he opened his solicitor’s office across the street from the schoolroom.

In reality, she didn’t know much about him at all.

“Who are you?” She breathed the question on an exhale. There were many merchants and shopkeeps who, despite their successful businesses, did not have the means for multiple properties plus living quarters in one of the most coveted areas of London.

When he didn’t immediately answer, she feared he hadn’t heard her.

Reluctantly, he stood and paced toward the bank of windows and then back before stopping at the foot of the bed. “I am Lord Joshua Stuart, second son of the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort.”

“You lied to me. To us all in Cheapside?”

“No, no,” he said, his shoulders stiffening at her accusation. “I have only withheld my place as a second son. However, I do have little to my name and have worked hard at my schooling and career in law—with the backing of my uncle, who is my father’s younger brother, also a second son.”

“Little to your name?” Kate scoffed, remembering the dreadful pungent aroma of burning dung she’d been forced to heat her home with for the past several years. “You have far more than most, my lord.”

Her stare turned swiftly to a glare, while he simply turned and returned to his chair, lowering himself as if the weight of the world rested upon him.

The son of a duke, even a second son, could not know the trials and tribulations of those in Cheapside and beyond.

“Did my father know?”

“Know what?”

“That you masqueraded as…as…” The words escaped her at the same time she recognized her anger was misguided. He’d rescued her from a burning building. Risked his own safety. And she had been taught at a young age not to cast stones. There was much about herself that she wondered about. Did that mean she was purposely deceitful? Certainly not. He’d done nothing but help. Many of those he worked with were parents of her pupils, who would have otherwise been unable to afford the services of a solicitor. Much like she, Joshua devoted his life to others. “I’m sorry, I—”

He held up his hand, silencing her. “Your father and my uncle had a long association, spanning over fifteen years. To answer your question, yes, Vicar Elliott knew that my uncle, and in turn I, were of noble birth. He also understood that every man is entitled to make his own way in life and live accordingly.”

“You speak as if your beliefs align more naturally with the people of Cheapside than those of your noble brethren.” Why would a man in possession of a grand home and a fancy office in the fashionable part of London choose to do business in Cheapside? Kate rarely had need to venture outside her neighborhood, and she only encountered nobility on the rare occasions when they sought out the East End for cheaper goods than could be found in other areas of London.

How had she never noted the aristocratic set of Joshua’s chin or his cultured speech? Perhaps she preferred not to notice, leaving her free to believe they were of a similar class. That despite his education and her lowly birth, they could live in a world where he was simply a handsome, engaging man, and she a woman with the ability to notice. Over the years, she’d watched many of her pupils, and even some she considered friends, meet men of their age, fall in love, and marry. Yet, for some reason, this seemed far from Kate’s reach.

And her thinking was not always due to any kind of class difference.

“To that, I would respond with a resounding ‘yes’,” He shook his head, rubbing his hands down his trousers, coming to rest at his knees, his chin rising defiantly. “I—and my uncle before me—am not a man who lives like most lords. I aspire to a greater purpose, as did my predecessor. Your father—as a man of God—understood us more than most.”

“Why did he not tell me?” She would not share with Joshua that there was much her father and mother hadn’t shared with her. Information about Kate they’d taken to their graves.

“Likely because he did not see it as important or relevant to our association.”