for being disconcerted by such a small advance.” She glanced down at the hand Phillip had held. The pleasant memory of Chase’s gentle pressure had now been ruined.
“I think you sensed a bigger danger than you had to confront, fortunately. I’m sure he would not have . . . Still, you are too vulnerable here. You should not return tomorrow.” He spoke it like a command. She had calmed enough to dislike that, but not enough to argue.
“If not me, one of the others. He is that kind of man,” she murmured. “Trust me on this.”
“Then let it be one of the others,” he snapped. Then he inhaled deeply. “I will tell the housekeeper to warn all the women. You, however—”
“I will never be far from a poker or other weapon.”
“That is one hell of an answer. Stay home. You will learn nothing here.”
His manner raised her pique, and her spirits. “I assure you that I have already learned plenty. I appreciate your stopping your cousin, but do not think to command me.”
He ran his fingers through his hair in exasperation. He stood. “I must join the others. The fires there are built already, so your work is done.” He held out his hand to help her up.
She accepted it, using the hand violated by Phillip. The texture of Chase’s warm skin salved the insult more than she expected.
“Go down to the kitchen now.” He herded her to the door, and parted near the stairs to the cellar.
She did not descend those steps. Instead she took the servant stairs up one level, to the service passageway that ran alongside the big drawing room. She found a door and cracked it ajar, so she might watch.
* * *
“The choice is simple,” Nicholas said loudly, his voice crashing through the arguments filling the drawing room. Those other conversations dwindled in the face of his annoyance until silence faced him.
Chase hoped Nicholas would not rush to continue, because the interval of peace felt delicious. He surveyed the large chamber while the last of the voices died out. A panel on one wall that hid an access to the servants’ corridor stood ajar. He strolled over and shut it.
“Choice one. The bequests are challenged by someone. Anyone. And nothing gets disbursed until Chancery rules. That means no one gets anything until that time. Except me, because the entailments are a separate indenture, as are the servants’ pensions which are in trusts funded by the ducal holdings.”
“At least we might get a respectable sum eventually,” Dolores said before a disdainful sniff.
“Choice two. We listen to what the solicitor says tomorrow afternoon regarding the accounting done thus far. There is the possibility that at least something can be paid out soon, even if the final figures are not secure yet. I have asked him to consider if half the estimated remaining funds can be divided among us.”
“It will be half a pittance then,” Phillip muttered. “It is tempting to go for more.”
“Easy for you to say, Phillip,” Agnes said. “You are such a pup that you might still be alive when it is all finished. However, I doubt your creditors will like to wait that long.”
Phillip colored until his ears were red. At twenty-two, and the youngest cousin by five years, he did not like being called a pup. He also would not care to have his aunt mention the precarious nature of his debts. He had shown no mercy to the tradesmen of London in abusing his credit, all on unfounded expectations. Once word of this will’s provisions got out, Phillip would probably be dodging bailiffs.
At the moment Chase hoped Phillip landed in debtors’ prison. His youngest cousin had little to recommend him. There were a dozen reasons why Phillip had grown into a man without good character, but even a hundred reasons would not excuse his behavior with Minerva today.
“Yet if we accept even half a pittance, we have accepted the bequests as written,” Kevin said. “Anyone who takes the money has given up the first choice. How good of Uncle to include a bribe in his will. For most of you it should hold appeal, since he owed you nothing.”
“He owed you nothing too,” Nicholas said, kindly.
Kevin’s tight expression revealed his reaction to that.
“I say we take what we can get while we are still young enough to enjoy it.” Claudine, wife of Cousin Douglas, spoke with emotional emphasis. “We have expenses now, and I don’t think it will be a pittance at