That coaxed a very rare smile from Baldwin’s lips. His beloved younger sister had married one of his very best friends less than six months ago. A member of his duke club, a bonded set of friends who had come together to help each other with the weight of the responsibility they would one day each bear.
Of course, Baldwin hadn’t told any of them his troubles, not even Ewan, Duke of Donburrow and now his brother-in-law as well as in spirit. Nor had he told his sister. Too humiliating.
And what was the point of doing so? Charlotte would only fret, and now she was protected, at least, from the situation of their family.
He could not say the same for himself or for his mother. The worst part was she didn’t even know how truly bad it all was.
“How could your father leave us in this position?” she said, pressing her hands down on the pile of papers with a crunching of the vellum.
“We’ve been asking ourselves that for five years,” Baldwin said softly. “Father lost all our money, he left us with only the entail and its value is…greatly reduced by his poor decisions. Our position in untenable. I owe it to those who hold our debts and to those who live through the bounty of our title and lands to fix this.”
She sighed and picked up one of the papers, smoothing it reflexively as she said, “Well, marry a nice heiress and all will be well.”
She said it lightly, and Baldwin forced a flutter of a smile for her, but inside his stomach tied into yet another knot. His mother had convinced herself that the list of heiresses that comprised her copious papers would be their family’s saving grace, but Baldwin was less certain. He didn’t know if a young woman with a dowry of ten thousand or even thirty thousand would be enough to remedy the situation he now found himself in.
After all, even he didn’t know about all the outstanding debts. His father had kept terrible books—purposefully, it seemed, to hide the massive obligations he had incurred. To hide the promises he’d made ten times over for the same rights or horse or piece of unentailed property.
Baldwin had been swimming through it for half a decade. He had only recently become aware of at least five thousand additional pounds worth of debt that he had no idea who owned or how to resolve. That had been the breaking point for him. He had been balancing everything on a knife’s edge and now…well, now there was no more balancing. No more triage. This was an emergency.
His mother knew none of it, of course. She was aware of the generalities of their financial state, not the minutia that kept Baldwin staring at the ceiling at night.
“Who do you have to present to me today, Mama?” Baldwin asked, shaking off the dark and dour truth of their situation and focusing on the main opportunity he had to solve it.
She held up her stack of papers with a grim look. “We’ve talked about half a dozen possibilities already, of course. Here are a few more. Lady Winifred, the Earl of Snodgrass’s eldest. She has fifteen thousand and a prize racehorse.”
Baldwin flinched. He was finished with racehorses, but he could sell the beast, of course, and bring in a thousand more, perhaps. If only Lady Winifred weren’t so very dull.
“Very well,” he drawled. “And?”
“I’ve heard Lady Richards is reentering Society this Season. Now she’s a widow, of course, but she was settled very well by both her father and the late viscount.”
Baldwin nodded. Indeed, the lady had been. She’d earned her money, as it was widely believed in his circles that she had murdered her poor husband. Of course, it wasn’t fact, and the ladies did not speak of it, so he wasn’t certain they were aware. Still, Baldwin remembered the viscount’s hangdog expression every time he was forced to go home to his wife, and shuddered.
“She would not necessarily add her coffers to ours,” he suggested. “It isn’t the same as a dowry.”
“Still, we cannot dismiss twenty thousand out of hand,” his mother said, making a mark on the paper that had Lady Richards’ name on it.
“No, we cannot,” he agreed. “And who else?”
She sorted into another stack and came up with a single sheet of paper. “Ah, here is one! The American. Her father, Peter Shephard, is some sort of…shipping person out of Boston, I think it is. He has brought his daughter for a Season and they say he’s shopping for a title.”
“They say, do they?” Baldwin said softly. “Do they also have a reason why an American would come here to do his shopping when there is so much tension between his country and ours at present?”
His mother shrugged. “Not really. I’ve heard whispers he may sympathize a bit more with our side in the current environment.”
Baldwin scrunched up his nose. Although he was certainly a good British subject and supported his government in all their endeavors, he didn’t like the idea of a traitor. Even one from the other side.
“An American?” he groaned, pacing the room and running a hand through his hair. “Have we really sunk so far?”
She set her papers aside. “I don’t know, Baldwin, because I am aware you keep secrets from me. But I think you know the answer, don’t you?”
He pursed his lips and refused to answer one way or another.
When he had been silent for too long, she got up. “This man is rumored to have fifty thousand to settle onto his daughter, and he is wild about the idea of marrying into a title. What better title is there than that of Sheffield? You are twenty-seventh in line for the throne. That may not mean anything to you or to your friends, but to this man and his very new money, it means a great deal.”
“Fifty thousand,” he repeated, the words sounding and tasting very bitter. With fifty thousand he could hold off the creditors and invest…not gamble…invest. “All right,” he whispered. “All right. I will consider your American.”
His mother’s face lit up, and she pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. She opened her mouth as if to say something more, but before she could, there was the sound of thundering hooves from the drive. Both turned toward the window to see the Duke of Dunburrow’s carriage coming to a stop in the round.
“Oh, Charlotte and Ewan are here!” his mother gasped, clapping her hands together.
“Let’s greet them,” Baldwin said, motioning to the door. She scurried out and he followed, relieved to leave the talk of blunt and heiresses and everything else behind. It was necessary, he knew that, but that fact made it no less oppressive.
More oppressive, actually.
He stepped onto the stone front steps just as one of his oldest and dearest friends, Ewan, Duke of Dunborrow, stepped down. He turned back and held out a hand for his bride. As Baldwin’s sister stepped into view, Baldwin caught his breath. There was no denying the happiness she felt. It was written all over her beautiful face as she leaned up to touch her husband’s cheek and whisper something to him.