Alana glanced up from her perusal of the letter. “Do you think it has something to do with Michael?” she asked, doubt stretching her voice.
He seemed almost appalled by the suggestion. “Surely not. I may not have seen much of him in the past two years, but I doubt the man has changed so much in that time.” He contemplated the matter for a moment and then shook his head. “No. I can’t believe there is anything objectionable to be discovered about Michael Dalmay.”
I had to agree with him. Michael had been one of Philip’s closest friends since attending Cambridge, but Alana and I had known him even longer. We had grown up with Michael and his siblings, running through the forests and meadows of the Borders region, and rowing our boats back and forth across the River Tweed. The meandering river was all that divided our families’ properties, much as it divided Scotland from England. Blakelaw House, my childhood home, was located just outside of Elwick, England, while Swinton Lodge stood across the river in Scotland.
The Dalmay family’s residence at Swinton Lodge was only supposed to be temporary, while the new manor Michael’s father had commissioned to be built on the Dalmay estate to replace their old, drafty castle could be completed. However, numerous delays had dragged the project out longer than expected, and it wasn’t until late 1817 that the majority of the family had decamped to Dalmay House along the Firth of Forth, north of Edinburgh.
It had been many years since I had seen Michael Dalmay, but, knowing the young man he had been, I had a difficult time believing Lady Hollingsworth could find any great fault with him.
“What could it be?” Alana asked, biting her lip. “Surely it can’t be anything with the marriage contracts. There wouldn’t have been time to draw them up. And, in any case, such matters would be conducted between Michael and the head of the family, her eldest son, the current Lord Hollingsworth, not Aunt Jane herself.”
Philip shook his head. “No. It can’t be that.”
We ate in silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts.
“Do you think it has to do with the title?” Alana suggested.
He glanced up at her from his contemplation of his mutton. Her eyebrows arched, urging him to consider the matter. “Possibly,” he hedged, and then sighed. “Likely.”
“What do you mean?” My gaze darted back and forth between them. “What title?”
“The barony of Dalmay,” Philip replied.
“What about it?” I asked.
Philip and Alana both stared at me as if I was the one who wasn’t making any sense. “Aunt Jane is probably pushing Michael to petition the Court of Chancery to have his brother declared dead so that the title can be legally passed on to him,” he explained.
I was stunned. “He hasn’t already done so? But William . . .” I felt an odd pang in my heart at speaking his name after so much time. “He’s been missing for, well . . . it must be nearly a decade now.”
“Aye. And Michael’s been urged to do so since his older brother’s disappearance passed the seven-year mark. But Michael refuses. Or, at least, he still was very much against it the last time I spoke to him.” He stabbed his fork into his pile of string beans and twirled it around. “He insists that William is alive, and he won’t rob him of his inheritance.”
I stared morosely down at my own plate, wondering if I would do the same should my brother or sister go missing. How did one accept a loved one’s death without proof of it, or at the very least, word of where, when, and how it had happened?
“He’s acting in his brother’s stead.”
Philip nodded. “Yes, but that’s not the same as his holding the title outright.”
“And Lady Hollingsworth would certainly see the difference,” Alana pointed out with a wry twist to her lips. “I can’t imagine her being happy with such a circumstance when her daughter could be made a baroness instead.”
Neither of us argued with such an assertion, for we both knew it to be true. Lady Hollingsworth was nothing if not calculating. She had likely agreed to the betrothal thinking she could convince her future son-in-law to petition for the title, and now that he was proving difficult she wanted assistance from Philip in doing so. The dowager did not know her nephew very well if she thought he would simply bend to her demands. Philip would speak to Michael about it, but he would never threaten or force his friend to do such a thing.
Philip frowned and sat back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “Aunt Jane is placing me in a difficult position. I do not want to show up at Dalmay House uninvited, no matter my aunt’s assurances of our welcome, but I also cannot justify ignoring her summons. Not when her oldest son, James, has only recently seen the birth of his son and heir. I would hate to see him called away from his wife and child at such a time, and I know Aunt Jane will send for him if I do not rush to her aid.”