Deadly Affair: A Georgian Historical Mystery (Alec Halsey Crimance) (19 page)

“More certain than I am that this frockcoat is the color of puce, my lord,” the lawyer declared emphatically.

“Did the Duke make any comment as to why he wished mention of Catherine Bourdon’s mamma removed from the will?” Alec asked with a thoughtful frown. “Aside from the obvious desire to erase reference to the child’s bastardy.”

“His Grace made no specific comment, but it was quite clear, even to me, a functionary, that the mere mention of the name Miranda Bourdon was enough to make His Grace exceedingly uncomfortable. Indeed, he made no secret of the fact that he found the whole interview repellent in the extreme.”

“Aha! There you have it!” declared the old man, though he said this with little conviction and was not exactly certain what he meant by such an outburst, adding belligerently when Alec and the lawyer looked at him expectantly, “Don’t tell me there ain’t some sinister intent behind Cleveley’s actions, because I’ll not believe it. He don’t squat without purpose. Who’s to say he wasn’t coverin’ up for his secretary’s abominable behavior in gettin’ with child and then abandonin’ this Miranda. Just the sort of sordid behavior right up His Grace’s noble alley!”

“I don’t disagree with you, Uncle, and I believe you may be closer to the mark than you realize, but the connection between Blackwell and Miranda Bourdon may be more tenuous than you imply. If, for argument’s sake, Charles Weir had fathered her child, then I believe Blackwell would have stated that fact, or at the very least the connection between his nephew and Catherine Bourdon, in his will. That he did not leads me to believe Weir is not the child’s father.”

“Then why leave a fortune to a stranger?”

“If Miranda Bourdon gave birth to her child in the parish of St. Judes, then she and her child were hardly strangers to their vicar. Perhaps her tragic circumstances pricked at Blackwell’s conscience? Perhaps he wanted to give her child an inheritance that she would not otherwise have been entitled had she been the legitimate offspring of her father…?”

The old man’s eyes narrowed. “There’s more to this than you’re lettin’ on. You got an idea as to the identity of this child’s father, my boy?”

Alec shot a warning glance at the lawyer, which closed his uncle’s mouth, and said calmly, “Other than removing mention of Catherine Bourdon’s illegitimacy and the name of her mamma, did Cleveley make any attempt to influence Blackwell to change his will in favor of his nephew Charles, rather than leave his estate to a child of his parish?”

“Indeed he did not, my lord!’ replied Thaddeus Fanshawe in shocked accents. “His Grace may not have agreed with Mr. Blackwell but he certainly did not attempt to influence his wishes beyond removal of the aforementioned references.”

“Then as much as I hate to admit it, Cleveley may have been acting purely in his role as executor to protect the privacy of the beneficiaries, by having a second will drawn up with such sensitive and potentially damaging information omitted,” Alec concluded. “As I pointed out earlier, Tam would not have been accepted into the Worshipful Company of Apothecaries had they come to hear that one of their apprentices was practicing his skills outside their guidance and without charging a fee for services rendered. And Charles was raised by his mother in the belief that his uncle, his father’s elder brother, had died a hero at sea. Imagine then if Charles was to discover through the reading of a will that in actuality the deceased was this same uncle; not a great seafaring hero at all but an ill-dressed cleric administering to the poor, who cared not a fig for wealth and even less for title. And to heap insult upon insult this uncle preferred to bequeath his entire fortune to a precocious four-year-old girl of indeterminate lineage. How utterly humiliating for Charles.”

“But nothin’ less than what that leech deserves,” muttered Plantagenet Halsey.

“Even you must admit, Uncle, that Cleveley did Tam and his long-suffering secretary a service by persuading Blackwell to keep his bequests short and to the point.”

“Well, no, I can’t argue with that,” grumbled the old man. “But I wish I could! I just can’t bring m’self to believe that an arrogant puff-adder like Cleveley, who hasn’t an ounce of feelin’ for the unparalleled human misery and sufferin’ those poor black wretches endure on His Majesty’s frigates, can have an ounce of feelin’ in his marrow for anythin’ or anyone else!”

“They are but savages after all,” Alec quoted, and when his uncle gave a questioning start, added, “An opinion expressed to me at the opera, and one I fear the majority of our fellows sincerely believe. You and I know that even decent-minded men prefer not to know what goes on aboard His Majesty’s frigates, just as they turn a blind eye to the deprivation that occurs here on our doorsteps.” He looked to the lawyer, saying casually as he helped himself to a heaped spoonful of ragout of mushrooms, “You failed to mention the fourth and final beneficiary, Lord George Stanton, who was willed a gold snuffbox and a small miniature portrait.”

“Odd choice of bequest,” opinioned Plantagenet Halsey, taking up his mug of ale. “And to a man so opposite in every way to the good vicar as to be bafflin’. Wouldn’t you say, Fanshawe?”

“I did wonder at it myself, sir,” agreed the lawyer without looking up, preoccupied with rummaging in a deep, frayed pocket of his frockcoat. He pulled out and dumped on the table by his dirty plate a crumpled handkerchief with torn lace, a tarnished etui, a large key, and a handful of folded papers, before finding the object of his search, a rolled, crushed parchment tied up with a frayed black ribbon. “Particularly when there was no elaboration for such a bequest in the first will.”

“Pshaw! There’s more to this than that will, damme!” Plantagenet Halsey interrupted, frowning at the assortment of odds and ends from the lawyer’s pocket now littering the table. “Come on, man,
think
. Blackwell named me as executor for a damned good reason and then he permitted that pompous windbag Cleveley to remove m’name just like that? It don’t wash. By your own admission, Blackwell wanted me to be aware of his will, even after I’d been removed as executor, so there’s somethin’ about this business that smells as putrid as a cod’s head rottin’ in the summer sun!”

“I don’t disagree with you, sir,” the lawyer replied respectfully, talking into his deep pocket as he thrust back the odd assortment just produced. But the parchment tied up with ribbon he passed to Alec. “As I was about to add, while neither the first or second wills provide illumination as to the small bequest to Lord George Stanton, this document, written as a codicil to the first will, and one Mr. Blackwell did not wish to make known to the Duke, undoubtedly offers an explanation. I’m sure you’ll agree, once you have digested the information contained within it, that it is a most startling piece of prose.”

“
Codicil
? Why in Hades didn’t you slap it down when you first put your knees under the table?” wondered Plantagenet Halsey.

The lawyer looked baffled. “Sir, you questioned me about Mr. Blackwell’s will and I obliged you.”

The old man was too flabbergasted to offer a reply and a long silence followed while Alec read the unrolled parchment. When he had finished he looked over the rims of his gold spectacles, considerable surprise in his deep voice as he handed his uncle the codicil. “You had best read this for yourself. You are unlikely to believe me otherwise.”

In his eagerness, the old man snatched the document from his nephew’s grasp.

I, Kenneth Blackwell,
this, that and the other,
Plantagenet Halsey read to himself, skimming over the sloping handwriting, then slowing as he absorbed words that required more careful consideration
,

wish it to be known that I secretly married Ellen Sophia Dewalter at Hawkshurst Church in Kent on Sept–
^th
1738, three days prior to my departure for Barbados, where I was sent to manage my father’s sugar plantations. It was agreed with my bride that once established in the colony, I would send for her. Tragically, fate conspired against us.

Through a series of misfortunes, I was shipwrecked, marooned and ultimately imprisoned on a Portuguese colonial outpost, accused of being a spy for my country. After a year of wretched confinement, I was permitted to make my way to my original destination, whereupon I obtained news of home. Upon discovering my wife was now Her Grace the Duchess of Cleveley, I preferred to be “given up for dead” by my family.

Whilst living in Barbados, indeed while still a prisoner, I began studying for my true vocation, that of a priest in the Church of England. This worthy profession I had always aspired to but was denied me by my father. Deciding to dedicate my life to the poor, I returned to England in the spring of 1742 as the Reverend Blackwell, of no particular family or connections, and became the parish priest of St. Judes in the City.

Not many months after my return to England, I reunited with my dearest wife in the upmost secrecy and we passionately reaffirmed our love but agreed, most reluctantly, that the passage of years, our disparate circumstances and the ardent wish not to inflict pain and embarrassment on others, we would remain forever apart in this life to be reunited, with God’s good grace, in Heaven.

No blame is to be attached to my good wife for the sorry state of affairs which unfolded after I set sail at my father’s behest. The fault lies entirely with her parents who bullied and badgered her into accepting an offer of marriage from His Grace the noble Duke of Stanton two months after my departure, for what they deemed their daughter’s wanton malicious conduct in falling pregnant to the impecunious second son of a lowly Viscount. Although our union was lawful, my young wife, with no friends to confide in and parents who threatened to disown her and cast her adrift on the world should she disobey them, was persuaded in her distracted, sorry state to forsake me.

When His Grace of Stanton died only three months into this bigamous union, my wife was again threatened and abused by her parents until she agreed to form a bigamous attachment with His Grace the most noble Duke of Cleveley, all to secure the future of her unborn child. Thus the nobleman known as Lord George Lucius Stanton, believed to be fathered by one duke and born to another, is in truth my son and heir.

The marriage between myself and Ellen, Duchess of Cleveley, as she was known in her lifetime remained, until her last breath, lawful under the laws of Church and State. It is my earnest desire that this unalterable truth be set down in ink so that one day, long into the future, when those living cannot be hurt by such a revelation, the truth will out. I cannot, in clear conscience, as God is my witness, allow my marriage to a woman I loved and cherished all my life remain unacknowledged.

Therefore, I entrust this codicil to my good and honest friend Plantagenet Alec Halsey Esq. of St. James’s Place, and express the wish that he never divulge its contents to a living soul except to my son, so that he may understand why he was bequeathed a small gift of gold snuffbox and a miniature of his mother as a young woman that was in the possession of a poor old vicar who was called to his mother’s deathbed in her eleventh hour, so it seemed, without reason or explanation.

Should I predecease His Grace of Cleveley and His Grace expire without legal male issue, I request most humbly that Plantagenet Halsey, in the presence of Mr. Thaddeus Fanshawe and such legal representations as my son seeks to employ, make George Lucius Stanton aware of his true paternity and the tragic set of circumstances that led to his mother’s bigamous acts. I believe Plantagenet Halsey, whatever his prejudices, justified or otherwise, against His Grace of Cleveley and Lord George Stanton; and Mr. Thaddeus Fanshawe, a young lawyer of unimpeachable character who came to my aid, are both gentlemen beyond reproach who will respect my last wishes without question and I thank them. Words cannot express my gratitude.

Signed this–
^th
day of _ in the year of our Lord this, that and the other etc, your humble servant etc, Kenneth Blackwell Dempsey-Weir.

The old man’s mouth, which had dropped open with the reading of the first paragraph, placed the parchment on the table and watched it curl in on itself as if it had a life of its own. He was without words.

The lawyer took it upon himself to correctly roll up the parchment and secure it with the ribbon.

“Would I be correct in assuming this document is the only one in existence?” asked Alec.

“Most certainly, my lord,” Fanshawe confirmed. “Mr. Blackwell wrote it in some haste and gave it to me with the ink not quite dry, as you can see by the slight smudging to his handwriting on the final line. He desired that I be present to witness his signature, in the event that the codicil and its contents should be called into question. I then immediately took possession of the document some half an hour before the commencement of our meeting with His Grace.”

“To redraft the first will?”

“That is so, my lord.”

Alec removed his spectacles and met the lawyer’s open gaze squarely. “Did the Duke have any idea of Blackwell’s intention to write a codicil?”