Grace can’t stand unaided, he doesn’t seem to recognize friend from foe, and I have it on good authority that he will soon be dwelling at the Hall without his brother to coddle him.”
Phoebe really should have been an intelligence officer, for she missed nothing and saw connections others were blind to.
“Lord Nathaniel is off to join the navy, is he?”
“He’s getting married, and he plans to dwell with his bride at Crofton Ford, twenty miles distant from Rothhaven Hall.”
“The moment I file this petition, Lord Nathaniel will scrap those plans, and his bride will have nothing to say to it.”
“Let him, for that will only put Rothhaven under the thumb of the same sibling who all but imprisoned him at the Hall in the first place. Our case becomes that much stronger.” Phoebe had made that point too. “Lord Nathaniel stands to benefit the most by exacerbating Rothhaven’s malady. Epileptic fits can be fatal, you know.”
“Now you’re a physician, Philpot?”
The waiter came with a pitcher and refilled both tankards.
“You can leave that pitcher here, boy,” Neville said, “and a plate of buttered crab legs wouldn’t go amiss.”
The waiter tossed them a bow and moved away. Neville detested the untidiness of buttered crab legs, but Phoebe claimed Weatherby was partial to them.
“I am not a physician,” Neville said. “Dr. Warner is prepared to serve in his usual role.” Warner looked like a physician—dark-haired, tall, lean, handsome, and articulate, with a canny balance of a younger man’s charm and a mature fellow’s professional confidence. The judges liked him, as did the aging females he tended to collect as patients.
“And how many cases of epilepsy has Warner treated?”
“That hardly matters. The course of the disease is notorious enough.”
Weatherby let out a slow, rumbling belch. “You don’t anticipate any trouble from Cranmouth? He’s at least the fourth generation in his family to serve the Rothmere interests. Even to Ebenezer, that ought to mean something. He must put on a case for the defense, and a case that holds up to scrutiny. Declaring a duke mentally incompetent ain’t for the faint of heart.”
Phoebe always said one mustn’t be too patient or too understanding with the lower orders lest they take advantage of their betters.
“Scruples at this late date do not become you, Weatherby.”
Weatherby smiled. “I bend rules, Philpot, as we all do. The solicitor who breaks rules can soon find himself without a practice. The prior cases you’ve brought to me were all heading for a guardianship eventually. My petitions might have been a few years premature, but I’ve also kept an eye on your management of the clients and their wealth. You bend rules too, but you’ve yet to actually break them—as far as the available evidence suggests.”
A threat for a threat, because evidence could be manufactured, taken out of context, and twisted to assure a particular judicial outcome.
Neville fortified himself with another long drink from his tankard. Damned fine stuff, if he did say so himself.
“If you win this case,” he said, “I will never ask you to bring another petition before a board of competency examiners. Cranmouth won’t be a problem. I established that much before I even thought of approaching you. Cranmouth said he’d be joining us today, in fact.”
“Then he’s a fool. I can be seen having a meal with you—we occasionally share a table in the ordinary course—but I do not regularly break bread with Ebenezer Cranmouth. His clientele is too exalted for him to sit at the same table with a lowly squire’s son from west of town. If the three of us are seen together, it will be remarked.”
“When the dining room is this crowded, nobody will remark anything save whether their steak was properly cooked.”
The crab legs arrived, adding their characteristic fishy odor to the scent of cooked beef and baked potatoes.
“These fellows ain’t stupid,” Weatherby said, glancing around the room. “The usual run of solicitor has worked hard, studied hard, and means to do good while doing well. You and Cranmouth have airs above your station. That catches up with a man.”
Neville pushed the plate of crab toward Weatherby. “Is Ebenezer Cranmouth begrudging his daughters their every hair ribbon? Does he have to borrow the funds to keep his wine cellar stocked? Is his coach nearly as old as his firstborn?”
Weatherby seized the largest of the crab legs. “No need to be petty, Philpot. It’s the damned marriage settlements that keep me up at night. My girls are lovely young women, but they haven’t