in neat rows. He bent closer.
An orderly hand had written these, nothing like his uncle’s ungainly scrawl. The notes chronicled wool sheared from sheep and sold at profit, tithes received from tenants, costs for candles, for food. And what was this? New gowns for the governess? Didn’t the cost to gown a governess generally come out of the governess’s wages? And since when did governesses require silk and fine wool?
“How long do we plan to rusticate here?” Richard asked. Jerome looked up to find his brother watching him with a frown.
“Until we learn the truth,” Vaughn reminded Richard, prowling around the room like a lion on display in the Tower Zoo. “You know I’ll only stay until we can see the estate secured in the proper hands. Then I can go after whoever killed Uncle.”
“We do not know anyone killed Uncle,” Jerome said with what he hoped was a mix of determination and compassion.
Vaughn shook his head, causing several strands of pale blond hair to come loose from his queue and hang on either side of his narrow face like moonbeams. “It was murder, Jerome. He told no one where he was going. We have only the word of the doctor who returned the body that he’d been in a duel. And if it was a duel, don’t you think he would have had me second him?”
Richard stretched his legs closer to the fireplace as if finding even the throne too small. “Uncle made some enemies over the years. That’s hard to deny.”
Vaughn paced from shadow to light and back again. “So many that his valet fled in fear the night of his death, and I have yet to find the fellow. I should be in town, hunting him down.”
“But your family needs you here,” Jerome reminded him. Vaughn’s temper had been running hot since Uncle’s death. While Jerome hoped to be able to wrap up matters quickly, he still intended to see to it that they stayed away from town long enough for that temper to cool.
“Have you learned anything yet?” Richard asked.
“Very little,” Jerome replied, leaning a hip against the corner of the mahogany desk. “I’ve met the governess, Miss Walcott. She seems oblivious to the requirements of Uncle’s will.”
“She can’t be,” Vaughn put in. “She must have a part in this. Why name her in the will otherwise?”
Jerome shrugged. “I agree with you that she should seem more pleased by uncle’s demise if she was behind the change in the will, but she seemed sincere in her grief. She says he was much admired. According to her, Uncle was a doting father who visited several times a year.”
Richard’s frown deepened. “Impossible. He was never away long enough to get to Cumberland and back.”
They had cause to know. The three of them had ridden hard for over three full days, changing horses as they went, to reach Carlisle and make enquiries, a good part of another day along rutted country roads to find the manor. Jerome had no doubt that when Benjamin Caruthers realized they’d headed north without him, he’d be right behind, but he wasn’t a young man, and couldn’t maintain the same pace of travel. Besides, he’d come in a heavy traveling coach that was slower than a man on horseback.
“We weren’t with Uncle every minute,” Jerome reminded his brother. “He could have sired an entire family of daughters while we were away at school. And the last few years, he tended to keep to himself more and more.”
“You mean you avoided him more and more,” Vaughn said. He stopped in the sunlight, a dark figure against the brightness. “You never could appreciate his habits.”
Richard exchanged glances with Jerome before turning to eye their cousin. “His habits included every possible indulgence, with little regard for legality or even decency. You’ll pardon me for wanting better.”
Vaughn stepped out of the light, but his eyes narrowed. “He could practice virtue just as well. You might give him credit for that.”
Jerome found that impossible, particularly under the current circumstances. “Sinner or saint,” he told Vaughn, “we know one thing for certain. He managed to change his will with none of us being the wiser.”
“I still say it’s Caruthers,” Vaughn answered. “Uncle would never have cut you out this way, Jerome.”
Jerome wished he could believe it was as easy as a lying solicitor, but these changes smacked of something more. And it was too like his uncle to want to put Jerome in his place.
Richard, however, seemed to agree with Vaughn. “You may be right. It sounds as if Caruthers knew about this house and that will the entire time, the old fox.”
“Well, the fox will need to outrun the hounds this time,” Vaughn replied, returning to his pacing with a sudden grin that softened his sharp features. “It took us days to get here, but it may take Caruthers a fortnight to reach the manor, thanks to the reception I so graciously arranged along the way.”
Jerome could only hope. Vaughn had left gold and instructions all along the coaching route, but whether the solicitor’s journey was slowed even further depended on where he chose to stop and with whom he chose to speak.
“I’d say we have, at most, a week to learn the truth before Caruthers arrives,” Jerome told them. “Somewhere in this house is the proof he thinks will show that Samantha is Uncle’s legitimate daughter.”
“What exactly are we looking for?” Richard asked.
“A marriage certificate, most likely,” Jerome replied. “But it may be something more nebulous—a letter from Uncle to her mother, the written testimony of the attending physician or midwife, the notation of a vicar before her baptism. It’s probably kept somewhere secure—a safe, a strongbox, or with the older estate documents in the muniment room, if this place has that sort of archives.”
Vaughn paused expectantly. “And when we find it, what then? Do we destroy it to prevent the lie from spreading?”
“If necessary,” Jerome agreed.
“And if she is Uncle’s daughter?” Vaughn pressed.
How could he answer? A part of him wanted to hurl the proof into the nearest fire and be done with it. Was this why his grandfather had set up his own will to hem in his oldest son? He’d feared Arthur Everard’s recklessness, so he had insisted on an entail that put the control of most of the property and fortune with Caruthers. How he’d forced Uncle to sign the entail agreement, Jerome couldn’t imagine.
But Grandfather’s will had tied Jerome’s hands as well, and Uncle and Caruthers had fought every improvement he’d proposed. For years he’d worked, studying farming so he could convince the solicitor to institute the best practices on their estates, learning the shipping trade with Richard so they could make optimum use of the share the Everards owned in various ships, scrutinizing every movement on the Exchange to ensure their investments grew. Despite the restrictions placed on him, he had managed to increase the fortune by over one hundred thousand pounds at last estimate, while their estates flourished and their ships sailed loaded with rich cargo.
And Uncle valued Jerome’s skills so little that he offered a girl fresh from the schoolroom to replace him? Unthinkable!
“She isn’t Uncle’s daughter,” he told Vaughn. “And we’re going to prove it.” He turned to his brother. “When the news of Uncle’s death is told, people are likely to dredge up memories about his life. You have a talent for getting people to talk to you. Strike up a friendly conversation at that inn we passed on our way into the valley. See what you can learn.”
Richard nodded, gathering himself and rising.
“And me?” Vaughn asked.
Vaughn was the wobbly wheel on Jerome’s plan, the one most likely to roll off in another direction entirely. His unending need for action could prove a problem if not harnessed.
“For now,” Jerome said, “keep the staff out of my way. Then