Page 3
Meaning, his dead kin had most likely had been a milksop and a prancing, affected popinjay.
Had he worn stays?
Broden had heard some Englishmen padded their clothing to enhance certain anatomical features and also wore stays to diminish others.
Broden used the occasion to take the solicitor’s measure, too.
At odds with his fastidious behavior, gravy stains marred Oswald’s buff-toned, wrinkled waistcoat and a shock of fuzzy red-brown hair poked straight up from atop his otherwise bald pate. Almost as if someone had forgotten to shave the rest of the unfortunate man’s pointed head.
It rather gave the man the appearance of a paintbrush.
He peered over the round wire-rims of his spectacles. Seemingly unaffected by either Broden’s superior size or his obvious vexation, he calmly lifted the corner of another document he’d pulled from his brown leather portfolio.
“Mr. McGregor—?” The lawyer flushed blotchy red. “I beg your pardon.”
He noisily cleared his throat and began again.
“My lord, the prior earl was most emphatic that in the event of his death, his heir only be notified when it became abundantly clear that the title would not pass to a progeny of his loins. As his wife was with child at the time of his lordship’s unfortunate death, prudence demanded postponing the pronouncement of the fifth Earl of Montforth until the babe’s birth, seven months later.”
A bloody Sassenach earl.
How in all of Christendom had such a wholly preposterous thing occurred?
The earldom did lay just inside the British side of the borderlands, but still…
His focus beyond the soggy landscape visible through the windows, Broden scrunched his eyes and rubbed his chin. Wasn’t there something he’d heard once about a long-ago relative scampering off with a noble decades before?
Was that the connection?
His mother might recall.
He’d have to ask her after Oswald took his leave.
As the attorney had explained, somewhere in the gnarly, extended, and complex family tree, Broden and the previous earl had shared ancestral blood.
Where, precisely, was unclear to him.
“I take it the bairn was a wee lass?” Working his thumb across the stiff wax seal, Broden regarded the attorney. There was something about the man that raised his hackles. Something besides him being an Englishman and a slimy solicitor, to boot.
In short, he didn’t trust the man.
Perhaps a visit to Oswald’s London offices was in order.
Oswald sighed as he removed his spectacles and wiped the lenses with a less than pristine handkerchief he’d lifted from his inside coat pocket. “Seven children in nine years and the only surviving offspring are all daughters. Five, to be precise.”
Standish had been a busy man, and mayhap not a complete peacock if he sired that many bairns. Or perhaps, he’d just been desperate to beget an heir. A sliver of pity for Standish’s wife poked Broden.
“And quite naturally, it did take several months to locate the next male in line for the title,” Oswald blathered on. “We exhausted all of our leads in England before resorting to directing our attention to Scotland.”
As he tapped a bony finger atop the scarred and scuffed desk, the man’s contempt was fairly palpable. He seemed no keener to tell Broden of his new title than he was to learn of the bloody nuisance.
He heartily wished he hadn’t been found.
“The law is very clear, my lord. You…,” he glanced down at the page before him, his brow knitted. “Broden Lachlan Errol McGregor, are the fifth Earl of Montforth.”
Oswald’s nasally, clipped tones set Broden’s teeth on edge. Not good, considering a very fine tether held his ire in check.
The fire popped and snapped as a log fell, disintegrating into glowing, crimson-orange coals. More for a need to do something than to build the flames once more, Broden laid the letter atop the mantel beside a bronze candlestick, then knelt and added another log to the blaze. With the poker, he shoved a few coals beneath the new addition, coaxing the fire, and soon hungry flames licked up the sides.
