Page 14 of A Duchess of Mystery (The Mismatched Lovers #3)

This entailed a foray around his desk to remove yet more papers from the only other chair in the room. Richard sat down once this had been done. “Mr. Allsop, I presume.” For someone described as “young Mr. Allsop,” he seemed surprisingly aged. Surely he couldn’t be a day younger than fifty.

Mr. Allsop nodded, fighting his way back to his own seat. “I am indeed he, Your Grace.”

Richard was finding it hard to quell his desire to stare around himself at the state of the office.

Instead, he fixed his gaze on his own hands for a moment.

“I’m told by Philip Sanders, my land agent, that you still act as man of business for the estate—that you acted for my cousin while he was alive.

I assume you will have papers that need my signature. ”

Mr. Allsop nodded with vigor. “Please don’t think that because I am a little behind with my paperwork that my work for the seventh duke was anything but of the first quality.

I have just recently lost my most excellent young clerk to consumption, poor man, and have yet to employ, and perforce to train, his replacement.

It was his one of his jobs to file all the papers away where they belong.

I must admit to not having realized just how much work that entailed. ”

“I trust you will swiftly find another clerk,” Richard said.

“Or I might have to find myself a new man of business.” He didn’t know the fellow, so he felt no constraint in speaking his mind and risking offending him.

He needed a kick in the pants, and had he been one of his soldiers, Richard would have had no hesitation in doing so.

Best to start as he meant to go on, by expecting the best of service. He would be paying for it, after all.

Mr. Allsop blustered for a moment. “Of course, of course. Yes, I shall make it my priority, Your Grace.” His face brightened a fraction. “I assume you have come here to ascertain the extent of your inheritance?”

Richard nodded. “And for you to answer some questions for me.”

Mr. Allsop began to look a little less enthusiastic. What did he imagine Richard was about to ask him? “I am at your disposal, Your Grace.” His voice lacked a certain gusto now.

On his ride in, Richard had already decided the best plan was to be blunt.

“Firstly, I think it important that I should know the circumstances of my cousin’s demise, as it has led to my unexpected elevation.

As far as I knew, he was in robust good health when last I saw him.

Although I’ll grant that was nineteen years ago.

I assume you know the details?” He tapped his fingers on his knee, a feeling of impatience surfacing.

Mr. Allsop’s face paled a shade and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “I believe,” he said, with even less enthusiasm, “I believe His Grace died from a gunshot wound to the head.”

Richard couldn’t help his eyes widening and his breath catching in his throat. So not from natural causes. Still, he hadn’t really expected Marcus to have died in his bed of some illness, or the rumor mill would not be suggesting his wife had a hand in it. “Self inflicted?”

Mr. Allsop swallowed again and licked his lips. “As far as I know, Your Grace, that was the assumption.” This did not sound like a definitive answer.

“I would have thought it would have been glaringly obvious if he’d done it himself, don’t you?” Richard paused. “Where did this unfortunate event take place? Here or in his townhouse—I mean my townhouse?”

“Here. Or rather at Stourbridge Castle, Your Grace. I believe he was found in the library. In the middle of the night. By his wife. The duchess.”

So she’d been first on the scene to discover her husband dead. Or had she been the one to kill him, and then pretend she’d found him? No wonder she’d come under suspicion and was the subject of rumor.

“Could it have been a burglary gone wrong, that he disturbed?”

“As far as I know, nothing was taken and all the windows were still shut. If there’d been a burglar, one would have expected him to have made off with at least the money His Grace kept in his desk in the library, and to have left a trace of his presence behind.

But there was nothing. So I’ve heard. I was not there that day and did not see His Grace’s body.

I was not called until three days later. ”

“Where was the wound?”

“In his head.”

Richard scowled. Was the man being deliberately obtuse? “I assumed that, man. Where in the head?”

Mr. Allsop grimaced. “I am told he’d been shot with one of his dueling pistols. In the temple.”

That sounded self-inflicted to Richard, which made him wonder why the rumors had gained any credence.

As a soldier he’d seen one or two suicides by young men who’d been so traumatized by warfare they couldn’t keep going.

And they’d invariably set their pistols to their temples, or in their mouths.

Nevertheless, it would not have been a pretty sight.

A dueling pistol took a large ball, and, being lead, it would flatten on impact.

It would have made a relatively small hole where it had entered, but left the other side of his head along with most of his brains by a much more cavernous orifice.

And if Isabella hadn’t done it herself, she’d have had the horrifying experience of finding her husband lying so mutilated.

He made a mental note to go into the library and see where Marcus had met his end.

Someone, Atkins probably, would be able to fill him in on the details.

“Did my cousin have any enemies?” Silly question. Better to ask if he’d had any friends as the answer would probably have been a resounding no. Although no doubt he would have been surrounded by the usual crowd of sycophants he’d liked to encourage.

Mr. Allsop shrugged in apology. “I am afraid I was not party to His Grace’s social life. He visited me infrequently, being content to trust in me and in Mr. Sanders, his land agent, to run the estate and supply him with a sizeable income. Which is now yours, Your Grace, of course.”

So he was getting nothing from Allsop, who probably knew more than he was willing to divulge. The rumor mill in this town would have been working overtime after Marcus’s death and probably still was. The fellow must have heard all the speculation.

He tried again. “Did he have any creditors to whom he owed any outstanding amounts? I remember he was fond of a wager when we were boys together.” His brow furrowed. That made them sound as though they’d got on.

“His Grace was fond of horse racing, I gather.”

“And yet his finances are healthy?”

“Ah.” Allsop ran his hand across the top of his shiny bald pate as though he expected to find hair there. “There is something you should know.”

Richard’s ears pricked. “Which is?”

“When His Grace, the seventh duke, inherited Stourbridge and all it entails from his father, the sixth duke, back in ninety-five, he was himself but twenty-five years old. He rather ran up a few debts with his gambling. I had this from my own late father, who was much more in his confidence than I am. In view of these debts, he took it upon himself to seek out an heiress to marry.”

He licked his lips, plainly of the opinion that he was passing on salacious gossip and not all that happy about it.

“The richest he found happened to be the daughter of a nabob who’d made his fortune in the Indies.

His description, not mine. The girl had never been to India but had been educated in England and had all the mannerisms of the nobility, despite not being a part of it.

The father had aspirations, and she was his only child. She stood to inherit everything.”

He paused again, shifting uneasily in his seat. “His Grace’s eye lit upon her and he struck a bargain with her father for her hand.”

Richard could sniff out a problem at fifty yards distance. “And what kind of a bargain did my cousin make for this girl’s hand?”

Allsop squirmed. “The father, a Mr. Josiah Hope, very much wished to have a duke as a son-in-law and make his only child a duchess. He settled a substantial dowry on his daughter, with which your cousin was able to rid himself of all his creditors and set his finances on a more than healthy footing. You would perhaps have imagined the young lady was to inherit all her father’s wealth on his death, but you would be wrong.

His Grace insisted that it should be he who was named in Mr. Hope’s will.

He inherited the fortune that some might say should have been Her Grace’s.

Mr. Hope’s money now forms a part of the estate you have inherited. It is a part of the entail.”

“Do you mean to say my cousin pocketed the lot when the duchess’s father died? That now she’s his widow, she’s been left with not a penny to her name?”

Mr. Allsop gave an apologetic shrug. “I do indeed, and I must inform you that it is much to your advantage, for, as I said, you will inherit that fortune, most of which is still in existence. It was my father who drew up the agreement between His Grace and Mr. Hope, and made Mr. Hope’s will for him.

I can assure you there are no loopholes. The money is yours.”