“Take care? Is your solicitor rabid?”
“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I’m just afraid.”
Once again, he touched his fingers to her cheek. “Don’t be, Victoria.”
***
At precisely ten o’clock the following morning, Rafael entered the office of Mr. Abner Westover.
A black-coated clerk looked up as he came into the office and his eyes widened. He jumped to his feet. “My lord. You’re back again? Is something wrong?”
Rafael paused deliberately, knowing full well that the clerk thought him his brother. So, Damien had come to London as quickly as all that, had he? And immediately he’d come to the solicitor. Rafael wasn’t really surprised; it suited his own plans.
“I wish to see Mr. Westover,” he said easily.
“Certainly, my lord. Just a moment, if you please.”
Rafael stared around the outer office, noting the musty smell and the very few small windows. He shuddered, thinking of Victoria coming here.
“My lord, welcome. You bring good news, I hope?”
“Mr. Westover,” Rafael said, nodding as the man beamed him a fulsome, yet worried smile.
“Has the young lady, Miss Abermarle, been found as yet, my lord? The thought of ransom, it’s infamous. Do you have need of more funds?”
Rafael felt anger surge through him. How could his twin resort to such a thing? Well, if he’d tried to ravish Victoria, nothing was beyond him. So he’d gotten more money from Victoria’s estate, had he? For her ransom, curse him to hell.
“No, I have no more need of funds,” he said. “What I should like to have you tell me—again, if you please—are the exact terms of Miss Abermarle’s inheritance.”
“But the young lady—”
“She is safe now. I recovered her.” That, at least, was the truth.
“Thank God,” said Mr. Westover. “The terms of her inheritance, my lord? I thought you understood that—”
“Again, if you please, Mr. Westover.”
“Certainly,” Abner Westover said, his voice a bit uncertain at his lordship’s behavior. He looked briefly at his clerk whose chin quivered in excitement, and said abruptly, “Come into my office, my lord.”
Dignified, Rafael thought as he seated himself comfortably in a leather chair across from Mr. Westover. He watched the narrow-shouldered man search with prissy deliberation through a pile of folders on his desktop. “Ah, here it is.”
“Go ahead.”
Mr. Westover carefully placed a pair of spectacles on his nose. “As I told you, my lord, I’m concerned with your, er, use of Miss Abermarle’s funds. As I have indicated, the principal wasn’t to be touched—the interest, invested in the funds, providing sufficient money to provide for her upkeep. However, I have grown gravely concerned during the past six months, as I have written to you, that—”
“Mr. Westover,” Rafael interrupted smoothly, “I understand your concern. No more of the principal will be touched. How much is in the trust for Miss Abermarle?”
If Mr. Westover was surprised at the baron’s strange lapse of memory, he gave no sign of it, saying only, “Thirty-five thousand pounds, my lord. It was, of course, nearly fifty thousand pounds, until you removed the fifteen thousand for the ransom demand.”
“I see,” said Rafael, so furious with his brother that he could scarce think straight. Victoria was an heiress. But she wouldn’t be for much longer if Damien remained her guardian.
“When does the money come to Miss Abermarle?”
“Upon her twenty-fifth birthday or upon her marriage.” Mr. Westover fussed with some papers, not looking up. “Of course, any gentleman applying for her hand must have your permission as her guardian.”
Rafael could well imagine that no gentleman, no matter how innocuous or well-placed, would ever gain Damien’s permission to marry Victoria. He knew he couldn’t ask how his brother happened to become Victoria’s guardian. That would be going too far, even for Mr. Westover.
“Can you tell me how you managed to save Miss Abermarle?”