A knock sounded at the door. They glanced at each other. Stuart rose, expecting that it was Mr. Bessler, impatient for the good news. But it was the butler.
“There is someone waiting to see you, sir. A Mr. Marvin, from Locke, Marvin, and Sons. He says it’s urgent. I have him in the morning room.”
Stuart forwned. Locke, Marvin, & Sons were Bertie’s solicitors. What could Bertie possibly want of him?
“If you’ll excuse me,” he said to his new fiancée.
Stuart’s first reaction upon seeing Mr. Marvin was that the years had not been kind: The solicitor had deteriorated from the rather eminent-looking individual Stuart remembered to this nondescript little old man. Then he realized, no, he’d never met Mr. Marvin. He was thinking of Mr. Locke, with whom he’d conferred twice early in ’82, to see if they could come to some sort of mutually acceptable agreement that would allow Stuart, bankrupt from Bertie’s five years of relentless legal maneuvers, to bring an end to the nightmare and still hold on to a fig leaf of dignity.
“Mr. Marvin, an unexpected pleasure,” he said, offering his hand.
“My apologies, Mr. Somerset, for disturbing you in your hour of leisure,” answered Mr. Marvin.
“I assume it’s a matter of some importance that brought you here today,” Stuart said.
“It is, sir,” said Mr. Marvin. “My condolences. Your brother passed away earlier this evening.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Mr. Bertram Somerset passed away earlier this evening. I called on you as soon as I received the news myself. Your man was kind enough to give me directions to Mr. Bessler’s house.”
Whether Bertie lived or died made little difference to Stuart, except—
“You mean to tell me I’m his heir?”
“Indeed, sir,” affirmed the lawyer. “As he never married and sired no children, all his worldly possessions have devolved to you: Fairleigh Park, land in Manchester, Leeds, and Liverpool, a house in Torquay—”
“Excuse me,” said Stuart. He didn’t need an enumeration of Bertie’s properties. They’d fought over every last rock and brick that hadn’t been part of Fairleigh Park. “How did he die?”
“The doctor believes it to have been a catastrophic failure of the heart.”
“A catastrophic failure of the heart,” echoed Stuart. Frankly he was surprised. He thought Bertie’s heart had withered long ago.
He asked the questions expected of him—Would there be an inquest? Who was responsible for funeral arrangements? Did the staff at Fairleigh Park require immediate directions from him?—and thanked the solicitor for his trouble.
Mr. Marvin showed himself out. Stuart returned to the drawing room. Mr. Bessler had joined his daughter. They must have guessed—both waited solemnly for him to speak.
“My brother is no longer with us,” said Stuart. “He passed away several hours ago.”
“My condolences,” said Mr. Bessler.
“I’m sorry,” said Lizzy.
“We will have to delay the engagement announcement until after his funeral,” Stuart said.
“Of course,” said both the Besslers.
“And you’ll have your hands full after we are married, Lizzy, for I have inherited Fairleigh Park.”
“That is not a problem,” she answered. “You know I like to lord over houses, the bigger the better.”
He smiled briefly. “Shall we toast our engagement, then? I’m afraid I must leave soon, much sooner than I’d like.”
He had a case that would come up before the Master of Rolls in a fortnight. And the necessity of attending Bertie’s funeral and seeing to the estate in the meanwhile meant he must start final preparations for the case right away.
Champagne was brought out and consumed. Stuart took his leave, but Lizzy followed him to the vestibule.
“Are you quite all right?” she asked. “About your brother, that is.”
“I couldn’t be more all right if I tried,” he said in all honesty. “He and I haven’t spoken in twenty years.”
“It’s just that, when I first met you, there were times when you seemed disconsolate. I’d always wondered if it was because of your brother.”
He shook his head. “I wasn’t disconsolate.” Then, more truthfully, “And it wasn’t because of my brother.”
Stuart lived not in his constituency of South Hackney, but in the elegant enclaves of Belgravia. From the Bessler house, he returned directly home and worked ’til quarter past two, when he judged he’d done enough for the night.
He poured himself some whiskey and took an intemperate swallow. The news of Bertie’s death affected him more now than it had earlier—there was a numbness in his head that had nothing to do with fatigue.
It was the shock of it, he supposed. He hadn’t expected Mortality, ever present though it was, to strike Bertie, of all people.
Two shelves up from the whiskey decanter was a framed photograph of Bertie and himself, taken when Bertie had been eighteen and he seventeen, shortly after he’d been legitimized by both an Act of Parliament and the marriage of his parents