It vexed Phoebe that they both seemed to understand something she hadn’t yet grasped. She mulled over the information. House . . . coach . . . horse furnishings . . . domestic servants . . . “Edward set up a household somewhere,” she said in wonder. “With money he borrowed from my son’s inheritance.” A wobbly feeling came over her, and she needed ballast even though she was seated. She watched her slender white fingers creep over West’s coat sleeve as if they belonged to someone else. The solid muscle beneath her hand was familiar and comforting. “Is there more you can tell me?”
West spoke in a flat, resigned tone. “Out with it, Ransom.”
The other man nodded and leaned down to pull more papers from his bag. “Mr. Larson purchased a speculative house built not far from here, in Chipping Ongar. It has eight bedrooms, a conservatory and a veranda.” Ransom set the floor plans and elevations in front of them. “There’s also a walled garden and a small coach house occupied by a single-horse brougham.” Ransom paused to glance at her with a faint frown of concern, as if to evaluate her emotional state before continuing. “It’s been leased for the nominal sum of one pound a year to Mrs. Parrett, a woman of approximately twenty-two years of age.”
“Why such a large a house for only one person?” Phoebe asked.
“There seems to be a plan for the woman to turn it into a boardinghouse someday. Her true name is Ruth Parris. She’s the unmarried daughter of a button and comb maker who lives not far from here. The family is poor but respectable. About five years ago, Miss Parris left her family’s home when it was discovered she was with child. She went to stay with a distant cousin, gave birth, and eventually returned to Essex to take up residence at the Chipping Ongar house with her son. A boy of four.”
Almost Justin’s age, Phoebe thought numbly. “What is his name?” she asked.
A long hesitation followed. “Henry.”
Tears stung her eyes. She fumbled in her pocked for a handkerchief, pulled it out and blotted them.
“My lady,” she heard Ransom ask, “is it possible your husband—”
“No,” she said in a watery voice. “My husband and I were inseparable, and besides, he hadn’t the health or opportunity to carry on an affair. There’s no doubt it’s Edward’s.” She struggled to fit this new idea of Edward in with what she knew about him. It was like trying to push her heel into a punishingly tight shoe.
West remained silent, staring fixedly at the floor plans without really seeing them.
“Even if Larson isn’t the father,” Ransom said, “you still have ample proof of negligence on his part. He abused his position as executor and trustee by using your son’s inheritance as collateral for a loan and using the money to benefit himself. More to the back of that, the loan company is at fault in failing to provide oversight, since the money was designated only for land improvement.”
“Edward’s executorship must end immediately,” Phoebe said, her fist clenching around the handkerchief. “However, I want to proceed in a way that will cause the least amount of harm to Ruth and her child. They’ve suffered enough.”
“They’re living in an eight-bedroom house,” West pointed out sardonically.
Phoebe turned to him, her hand smoothing his sleeve. “The poor girl has been made an object of shame. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen years old when she and Edward . . . when their acquaintance began. Now she lives a half existence, unable to marry or meet with her family openly. And little Henry has no father. They deserve our compassion.”
West’s mouth twisted. “You and your sons are the ones who’ve been wronged,” he said flatly. “My compassion is all for you.”
Ransom’s face had gentled at Phoebe’s words, his eyes now warm blue. “You’ve a rare, good heart, my lady. I wish I could have brought better news today.”
“I appreciate your help more than I can express.” Phoebe felt inadequate and overwhelmed, thinking of all the emotional and legal tangles ahead of her. So many difficult decisions.
After studying her for a moment, Ransom spoke with encouraging gentleness. “As my Mam always told me, “If you can’t get rid of your troubles, take them easy.’”
Ransom left Clare Manor as swiftly as he had appeared, taking the financial documents with him. For some reason, West’s mood went rapidly downhill afterward. Turning grim and taciturn, he told Phoebe he needed some time to himself. He closed himself in the study for at least four hours.
Eventually Phoebe took it upon herself to see how he was. She knocked lightly on the door, let herself inside, and approached the table where West was writing. He had filled at least ten pages with lines of small, meticulous notes.
“What’s all that?” she asked, coming to stand beside him.
Setting down the ink pen, West rubbed the back of his neck wearily. “A list of recommendations for the estate, including immediate needs and long-term goals. I want you to have a good idea of what the most pressing concerns are and what information you’ll still need to find out. This plan will show you how to proceed after I’m gone.”
“For heaven’s sake, is your luggage already packed? You sound as though you’re leaving tomorrow.”
“Not tomorrow, but soon. I can’t stay forever.” He neatened the stack of pages and set a glass paperweight on top. “You’ll need to hire a qualified assistant—I expect your father will know someone. Whoever he is, he’ll have to build a relationship with your tenants and at least pretend to give a damn about their problems.”
Phoebe stared at him quizzically. “Are you angry with me?”
“No, with myself.”
“Why?”
A scowl darkened his expression. “Just a dash of habitual self-loathing. Don’t worry about it.”
This irritable melancholy was completely unlike him. “Come for a walk?” she suggested. “You’ve closed yourself in this room for too long.”
He shook his head.
She dared to broach the subject that was preoccupying both of them. “West, if you were in Edward’s place, would you have—”
“Don’t,” he said testily. “That’s not fair to him or me.”
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need to hear the answer.”
“You already know the answer,” he growled. “The boy’s welfare is the only thing that matters. He’s the only one who didn’t have a choice in any of this. After what I endured in my childhood, I would never cast my own son and his defenseless mother on the world’s mercy. Yes, I would have married her.”
“That’s what I expected you to say,” Phoebe murmured, loving him even more than before, if that were possible. “You have no illegitimate children, then.”
“No. At least, I’m reasonably sure. But there’s no ironclad guarantee. For a woman who doesn’t like nasty surprises leaping up, you’ve a knack for choosing the wrong companions.”
“I would hardly put you in the same category as Edward,” Phoebe protested. “He borrowed money against my son’s inheritance. You would never do anything to hurt Justin or Stephen.”
“I already have. They just won’t feel it until they’re older.”
“What on earth do you mean?”
“Too often in the past, I made a public spectacle of myself on the worst possible occasions, in front of the worst possible people. I was an absolute swine. Brawling at parties. Pissing in fountains and vomiting in potted plants. I’ve slept with other men’s wives, I’ve ruined marriages. It takes years of dedicated effort to discredit one’s own name as thoroughly as I did, but by God, I set the bar. There will always be rumors and ugly gossip, and I can’t contradict most of it because I was always too drunk to know whether it happened or not. Someday your sons will hear some of it, and any affection they feel for me will turn to ashes. I won’t let my shame become their shame.”
Phoebe knew if she tried to argue with him point by point, it would only lead to frustration on her part and wallowing on his. She certainly couldn’t deny that upper-class society was monstrously judgmental. Some people would perch ostentatiously on their moral pedestals, loudly accusing West while ignoring their own sins. Some people might overlook his blemished reputation if there was any advantage to them in doing so. None of that could be changed. But she would teach Justin and Stephen not to be influenced by hypocritical braying. Kindness and humanity—the values her mother had imparted—would guide them.
“Trust us,” she said quietly. “Trust me and my sons to love you.”
West was silent for so long that she thought he didn’t intend to respond. But then he spoke without looking at her, in a flat and unemotional tone. “How could I ever count on anyone to do that?”
To Phoebe’s relief, West’s dark mood seemed to have been dispelled by that evening. He romped with the boys after dinner, tossing and wrestling and flipping them, eliciting squeals, grunts, shrieks, and endless giggling. At one point, he was crawling on his hands and knees through the parlor like a tiger with both of them riding on his back. When they were all happily exhausted, they piled onto the settee.