The Inheritance (3 page)

“The lands are unentailed, Your Grace. And there is considerable wealth. It is all yours to do with as you will.”

“What does that mean, Pa? Unentailed?”

“I’m not sure I understand myself, Colin.”

“Please allow me to explain, Your Grace.” Phipps turned to Colin and said, “It means, m’lord, that there is no restriction on the sale of the land. That it is not a lifetime tenancy, so to speak, but can be sold by the present duke. Unless he wishes to entail it for his heir?” Phipps looked to Nicholas for direction.

“Colin is my son,” Nicholas said in a quiet voice, “but I wasn’t married to his mother.”

“Oh. Oh, dear.” Phipps took another look at Colin, his face sympathetic. “Of course, then, you wouldn’t wish to entail the properties, not if you would wish your eldest son to inherit them, rather than the heir.”

Colin had a frown between his eyes. “I’m confused again, Pa.”

“What Phipps means is that under English law you’re not my legal heir. Isn’t that so, Phipps?”

“Quite so, Your Grace.”

“Under those circumstances, Phipps, I don’t believe I’d care to entail the properties,” Nicholas said. “Assuming I accepted the title, that is.”

“Does that mean I’m not an earl?” Colin asked, his face slightly flushed.

“I’m afraid so, sir,” the solicitor said, amending his form of address and his level of deference. “Not a lord at all, I’m afraid.”

Colin grinned. “Thank goodness. I wouldn’t know what to do if I had people bowing and scraping at me all the time.”

Simp had been sitting quietly, listening. He turned to Nicholas and said, “I think you ought to take him up on it, Nick. We could use the money to do some improvements around here.”

Nicholas raised a black brow. “Use the money from England to improve the ranch? I hadn’t thought about that.” He turned to Phipps. “Any reason why I couldn’t sell everything in England and use the proceeds here?”

Phipps kept his face impassive. The only evidence of his feelings on the subject were the balled fists at his sides. “Of course that is possible, Your Grace. But surely Your Grace won’t wish to dispose of Severn Manor. It has been in the family for generations and—”

“That’s enough, Phipps,” Nicholas said. “How soon can I take control of my inheritance, assuming I agree to do so?”

“There are papers to be signed, Your Grace, some formalities.”

“Can I take care of it here?”

Phipps shook his head. “I’m afraid it will be necessary for you to go to England, Your Grace.”

There was a moment of silence while Nicholas pondered the strange whims of fate. He was the Duke of Severn. He had wealth beyond his dreams. He could return to England, finally, and put to rest the ghosts of the past.

It’s too late. Your father is dead
.

But maybe whoever had told the lie wasn’t dead. Maybe he could still find out the truth about his birth. And he wanted to see Severn Manor again. He had spent his first eight summers in the palatial manor house, playing with his cousins, Tony and Stephen.

“All right,” Nicholas said. “I’ll go to England.”

The solicitor smiled. “You’ve made the right decision, Your Grace.”

“Really, Pa?” Colin said, leaping from the rocker and crossing the room to his father in three strides. “Are we going to England?”

“Yes, Colin.”

“Jehoshaphat!” Colin said. He grabbed Simp’s hands and pulled him up from the sofa to dance him around in a circle. “We’re going to England, Simp! We’re going to sail across the ocean in a ship!”

“Ain’t gettin’ me off dry land,” Simp retorted.

“You have to come, Simp,” Colin said, pausing in his celebration. “We couldn’t leave you here all alone!”

“Someone has to watch this place,” Simp said. “I’ll be waitin’ right here when you get back.”

“Pa? Tell Simp he has to come.”

“Simp’s right, Colin. Someone has to stay here and take care of the livestock. Besides, we’ll be back before you know it. It won’t take long to sell Severn Manor and collect my inheritance, isn’t that right, Phipps?”

“Exactly, Your Grace. Assuming Your Grace doesn’t change his mind and decide to stay in England.”

“Don’t worry,” Nicholas said. “There’s absolutely no chance of that.”

Her Grace, the Duchess of Severn, had been summoned to the library as though she were a naughty child. It wasn’t to be borne! Except she had no choice but to bear it. The barbarian who had demanded her presence was none other than His Grace, the new Duke of Severn. From now on he would be making the decisions, guiding the lives and fortunes of all who lived at Severn Manor. And that included her, Margaret, Dowager Duchess of Severn, the previous duke’s very young widow.

Margaret, called Daisy by those who loved her, fought back a surge of grief for the husband who had been gone a year, taken by an inflammation of the lungs. She still missed Tony dreadfully. Especially now. Tony would know how to handle the toplofty foreigner who had come all the way from America—where he had hunted down outlaws to make his living—to take the reins of power from her.

Daisy had held those reins for the past year during the search for the missing heir, so she knew how difficult they were to manage. If it were not for her concern that Tony’s long-lost cousin wouldn’t look after the best interests of the servants and tenant
farmers she had grown to care for over the eight years she had been Tony’s wife, she would have been long gone to the dower house.

But she wasn’t about to leave the premises until she had assured herself that a certain cold, grayeyed stranger intended to take care of the people whose lives he now held in his callused, unrefined hands.

Daisy halted abruptly at the library door, unaccountably nervous now that the time for confrontation had arrived. Her corset prevented her from taking a deep breath, but as a reigning belle who had once taken the
ton
by storm, she was a creature of fashion, and fashion dictated a tiny waist.

She resorted to several shallow pants to release the tension in her shoulders. She resisted the urge to wipe her sweating palms on the striped skirt of her Worth gown and settled for balling her trembling hands into fists, which she hid in the folds of striped black velvet and yellow satin.

“Is he in there, Higgenbotham?” she demanded of the footman stationed at the library door.

“Yes, Your Grace.” There was a short pause before he added, “Pacing like a tiger, Your Grace. If Your Grace wants my advice, you won’t go in there alone.”

“Thank you, Higgenbotham, but I’m sure he won’t do me any harm.”
He wouldn’t dare!
she thought. But a shiver of foreboding froze her in place.

Her first impression of the duke as he had swept through the front door last night was of a very tall, very dangerous man. Then there were those disturbing rumors about how he had killed so many men in some godforsaken place called Texas. To be
honest, she wasn’t sure what a man who had grown up in the American wilderness would dare. After all, he had actually drawn a gun on the solicitor who had been sent to find him. Or so Phipps had claimed.

“I shall be right here, Your Grace,” Higgenbotham reassured her. “You need only call for me, and I shall be instantly at your side.”

Daisy wanted to hug the old retainer for his support, but knew he would expire in a fit of apoplexy if she did anything so impulsive. Higgenbotham was every inch a duke’s footman, which was to say, as much on his dignity as the man he served. They both knew that duchesses did not hug the servants.

Nevertheless, she gave him a warm smile before she squared her shoulders and said, “You may open the door, Higgenbotham. I’m ready to meet His Grace.”

With an impassive face the old man opened the paneled mahogany door and closed it with a solid
thunk
behind her as she entered the library.

The room smelled of leather and, even after a year, of the tobacco Tony had smoked. Daisy felt a pang of self-pity at being left a childless widow at six and twenty. She remorselessly snuffed it. Tony might have left this world before his time, but she was still here, and there was business she must conduct.

Her eyes were drawn to Nicholas, eighth Duke of Severn, who stood with his back to her, staring out a window through which the sun streamed in twelve golden shafts that exactly matched the window-panes. Tony had often lingered in the same spot, perusing the vast rolling green lawn that ended at the edge of a pond bordered by poplar and elm.

As her gaze focused on the duke, she had an impression
of strength, of barely leashed energy. She fought a sudden urge to flee as she waited for him to turn and make his bow to her. Instead, he demonstrated his crude lack of manners by neither turning nor bowing before he spoke.

“I understand you’ve been managing things since my cousin’s—since Tony’s death,” he said.

“I have, Your Grace.” Daisy was mortified that her voice broke between the first two words, and that she had to choke out his title. She wasn’t going to let that broad, imposing back intimidate her. The Duchess of Severn was entitled to courtesy, and before he left the room, this boorish brute would acknowledge it!

The duke turned to face her at last, and it took all her courage to stand her ground. For if she had thought his shoulders impressive, they were nothing compared to the sight of the man himself. His face wore the most awful frown, but the rest of him was simply awesome.

The collarless white linen shirt beneath his frock coat was open at the throat, revealing a great deal of sun-browned skin. She could even detect the hint of black curls on his chest! It was unforgivable for a gentleman to appear undressed before a lady. The man had just confirmed her belief that he wasn’t the least bit civilized.

He radiated an aura of savage power totally unlike the well-bred gentility of his cousins, Tony and Stephen. Stephen had been killed in a hunting accident four years before, but sportsman that he was, Daisy could never remember Stephen looking quite so predatory as the man standing before her now.

In appearance as well as manners the latest duke
was nothing like his cousins. Both Tony and Stephen had been blue-eyed and blond. This man had coal-black hair that hung down over his nape and hooded gray eyes that reminded her of a bleak winter night.

Where Tony and Stephen had possessed the hooked nose, full lips, and thrusting chin of past generations of Windermeres, this man’s profile was markedly different. His nose was straight, his chin strong—but hardly jutting—his lips thinned by annoyance or disdain, she wasn’t sure which. However, she was forced to admit he was a striking—all right, she conceded in disgust—a handsome man.

He smiled suddenly, revealing a wolfish mouthful of irritatingly straight white teeth.

She flushed, chagrined to discover that he had caught her staring. Color skated across her aristocratic cheekbones as she realized from the improper look of masculine approval in his eyes that he had been giving her an equally thorough appraisal.

“Have you looked your fill, ma’am?” he drawled, lifting a supercilious black brow. Daisy was startled by how much the arrogant gesture reminded her of the old duke, Tony’s father.

She stiffened as it dawned on her that the insolent American had failed to accord her the title due her rank. As the previous duke’s widow, and until the new duke married,
she
was the Duchess of Severn. How dare he call her
ma’am
! Such address might be allowed between equally ranked friends, but they were strangers and, in her mind, not the least bit equal. She was tempted to address him as
sir
, but forbore to stoop to his level. Maybe it was only ignorance that had made him address her so rudely.

“I am properly referred to as
Your Grace
,” she instructed him.

The duke arched one of those devilish black brows. “Oh? I had heard you were called Daisy. Although dressed in those stripes you look more like a bee than a flower.”

She couldn’t mistake the way his lip curled in mocking amusement. He was laughing at her! She bit back the cutting retort that sought voice, drew herself up proudly, and said instead, “I apologize for staring. However, you must admit,
Your Grace
, that you bear little resemblance to your cousins.”

“That is easily explained,
ma’am
,” he replied curtly. “I am not my father’s son.”

Daisy knew the story. She had heard it from several sources, including Nicholas’s spinster aunt, Lady Celeste Calloway. Lady Celeste had been a governess for Tony and Stephen and had stayed on in the Windermere household when her duties were completed because she had nowhere else to go. Most recently, Lady Celeste had been a companion to Daisy, since a single woman, even a widowed one, couldn’t live alone without opening herself to gossip from the neighborhood.

According to Lady Celeste, Nicholas had been banished at the age of eight from Severn Manor. A hunting crony had nudged Nicholas’s father, Lord Philip, in the ribs at the sight of the dark-haired boy, winked, and said, “Your wife has been out hunting a bit of sport for herself, eh, my lord?”

Until that moment, Lord Philip, the old duke’s second son, had been unaware of, or had simply ignored, the startling difference in appearance between his son and the rest of the Windermeres. It
was only when it had been brought so uncomfortably to his attention that he had confronted his wife. She had denied being unfaithful, of course, but the damage had been done. Thereafter, Lord Philip could never look at Nicholas without seeing his wife in another man’s arms. Apparently there had been some evidence—Lady Celeste had been vague about what it was—to corroborate Lord Philip’s suspicions.