Page 4 of The Colonist’s Petition (Heirs & Heroes #2)

Three

T he earl entered the room. Johnathan made to stand, and the man waved him down.

“I apologize. I needed to see to my guests first. Many of them are making preparations to leave. A footman will let me know if I need to give more farewells. I am Sir John Ryeland, the sixth Earl of Whitstone, as I assume you have guessed. And you are Johnathan Whitstone, correct?”

“Johnathan Whittaker. My grandpa is Nathaniel Whittaker. I thought he said he was in line to be the sixth Earl.” Which meant Grandpa was not an earl—or was he?

“Nathaniel would have been fifth. My father took that title. The numbers can become confusing.”

“Admittedly until last spring, I never thought of any titles beyond King.” He tried to keep emotion out of his voice. King was akin to taking the Lord’s name in vain. That men were given the title of lord, was barely short of blasphemy.

“Understandable. The colonists haven’t held with titles for decades. Will calling me Lord Whitstone be difficult for you? Nathaniel refuses to use the title in his letters.”

“I know I am expected to.” Johnathan tried to keep his face from showing his discomfort, and failed.

The earl chuckled. “Call me what you will then. My peers call me Whitstone or Ryeland. Since you are a cousin, John is also acceptable. I am assuming you have letters of introduction with you?”

Johnathan pulled a packet of letters, including a sealed letter sent by his grandpa, from his breast pocket and handed them to the earl.

The earl set the papers on the polished desktop.

“Your grandfather was my father's cousin. I was two years old when he left for America and have very little memory of the man, although we have corresponded off and on through the years. Most of my knowledge of him is what I heard rather than what I recall.”

“Grandpa said you wished one of his grandsons here. Preferably the eldest, which I am not, as my eldest brother is happily wed and has no desire to leave Massachusetts, as did my elder cousins.” He need not mention that his younger brother had also recently married.

“That will not matter.” The earl waved the facts away. “Are you married?”

He would have been if—that tale was not one he needed to discuss with this stranger, cousin or not—“No, I am not, nor am I engaged. Grandpa surmised you wanted me to marry one of your granddaughters, although for what reason, he could not fathom.”

“I will admit when I wrote to your grandfather of my plan for one of his grandsons to return to England, my initial hope was for a marriage to one of my granddaughters. However, recent events have changed my mind about asking you to wed anyone you do not wish to, or, more importantly, asking my granddaughters to wed anyone they do not wish to. Mind you, I will not be displeased if you were to fall in love with one of them, but it would have to be a love match on both sides.”

“So what is it you want me to do? Fall in love?” Could any man find love twice in his life? Admittedly, the first time must not have been love on her side since she absconded to New Hampshire with his brother.

“I would like you to challenge the lineage to the Whitstone Earldom and become the seventh earl upon my death.”

“I am American. How can I be an earl?”

“My understanding of the matter is you must pledge fidelity to the king, and then there is a lot of paperwork, persuading members of Parliament, and finally a vote. It will not be an easy battle. It shall take the better part of a year before we have an answer, assuming that I can get it brought up to the House of Lords this next spring.”

“If I were to take such a position, would it be permanent?” Johnathan was not sure he liked the idea of not returning to America.

“You would have to swear you would hold the title of Earl of Whitstone until your death. The fact that your grandfather abdicated his post in the first place will not play in our favor. You did not fight against us in this current conflict, did you?”

“Keeping a promise to my mother, I did not. Yet I wished to.”

“We will leave that last particular out. If you fought against our troops, it would have made things most difficult.”

“You will excuse me for saying so, but I do not even know if I like England yet. Nor do you know if I would be a fit heir.” Granted, his ride atop the overfilled post chaise did little to recommend the country.

Nor did London, with all its soot and filth.

The few days he spent in the Netherlands were much more pleasant.

This house, if such a large residence could be called that, had much to recommend it.

But he must know more before making England his home.

“You are blunt.”

“It is better than beating about the bush when my entire future is in the balance.”

“Yes, much better. I may not know you, but I can, without impunity, say that you would make a much better earl than my current heir.”

“And what do you base that on?”

“Other than your unabashed honesty? You were raised in America and therefore have no expectation of earning anything which you have not attempted to earn by your own sweat and toil. Therefore, you would not be reckless with your stewardship.”

“Even so, you do not know me. How do you know I would make a good earl?”

“Honestly, I do not, but I have letters, not a few over the past years, from your grandfather, and I have been able to sketch what kind of man he is, and I hope that any grandson he would have chosen to send over here would take after him. Do you?”

Johnathan thought. It was not a simple thing to answer.

His grandpa was a pillar of a man who had seen so much of life, and possessed more wisdom than Johnathan could ever hope for.

“Grandpa stresses we must have integrity in all things, and that we must follow God in our conscience. In that, I am trying to follow in his footsteps.”

“That is noble enough. We will spend the next weeks touring my properties. I only have two entailed estates, The Willows, and Kellmore Manor, plus the house in London, so we shall not have to make an extensive tour, and obviously we will start here. Then we shall move on to Kellmore so we can celebrate the harvest fair with my granddaughters.”

A tap came to the door. A footman entered. “Your granddaughters are departing, your lordship.”

“Thank you. See Mr. Whittaker to his rooms. Johnathan, we will continue this discussion later.”

On the way upstairs, the footman pointed out the portrait gallery and suggested that Johnathan might find enjoyment in seeing the earls that came before him.

The assigned room was half the size of Johnathan’s child home.

Over the years several additions were made to the house his father built.

Still, the papered bedroom with its thick rug and carved fireplace was more opulent than anything Johnathan imagined a guest could receive.

He gave the footman directions to retrieve his trunk from the inn and cleaned up the best he could without a change of clothing.

He thought over the clothing in the trunk.

The finest he owned, still it was not as nice as the butler’s suit.

With nothing else to occupy him, Johnathan set out for the gallery. Paintings of men in powdered wigs and large collars lined the walls. Brass plates affixed to the bottom of each frame named the various earls.

He found the man who he assumed to be his grandfather's father, the Fourth Earl of Whitstone.

The painting did not reflect the stern man Johnathan created in his imagination.

This was the man, his great-grandfather, who came to blows with his grandpa, pushing him to escape his earldom and heritage, and sail to Boston.

The elderly man in the painting did not look physically strong, but then grandpa never said who won their fight.

There was an unlabeled painting with a man, who looked like his great-grandfather, seated with his wife and three children.

Then there was another painting of his great-grandfather and a younger wife.

The next painting was of his great-great-grandfather's father painted along with his wife.

Followed by every earl back to the first Earl of Whitstone.

It was rather astonishing, really, to see so many generations.

Johnathan hoped for a painting of his grandfather as a young man.

The only portraits in grandpa's possession were small miniatures of his wives.

It came as quite a shock to the family to discover that grandpa had two more wives than anybody knew of.

Johnathan's own grandma died long before his birth, and he only remembered the Widow Black, as she was called fondly by all who knew her.

Grandpa did not remarry after her death, likely supposing his death should not long follow.

But at ninety-six, he was now determined to live to be a hundred—a wish which no one could be sure would come to fruition or not.

The earl joined him. “Ah, you have found the portrait gallery. Good. You will need to learn the history of the earldom. This is me, my two daughters, and my wife.”

The daughters dressed alike in white, their hair in fancy bows with well tamed curls, sat on either side of their? mother who had powdered hair and wore a blue dress, with the earl standing proudly behind his wife.

The daughters, with their fair skin and luminous eyes, favored some of the women he had seen among the wedding party.

“Which daughter is which?”

“That is my youngest, Mrs. Healand. You will meet her at dinner, as she is staying the week.” He pointed to a woman who could not have been older than fifteen at the time of the painting, then to the sister.

“My eldest, Hannah. She married Felton Lightwood. Sadly, Hannah died in a tragic accident four years ago. It was her second daughter, Philippa, who married today.”

“My apologies again for interrupting such an occasion.”

“None needed. It is not as if you could have known.”

“Do you have a portrait of my grandfather?” asked Johnathan.

“Oh, yes, but it is not in here. His father banished the painting. It was located in the attic a few years ago. Come, I will show it to you.”

The earl entered a side chamber where a portrait of a young man hung. A young man who resembled Johnathan so closely that he gasped. “I feel as though I am looking in a mirror. If such a mirror had a powdered wig attached to it.”

“Remarkable likeness. It was painted less than a year before your grandfather left England.”

“From what he said about how angry his father was, I am surprised it was not destroyed.”

“According to my father, the fourth earl was angered beyond measure by his son's disobedience and choice of a woman of, and I quote, 'inferior birth,' and subsequent abandonment of the family to go to the Americas. He would have destroyed it but for the love of his wife, who could not bear to part with it.”

Johnathan studied the man in the painting.

Did he have it within himself to be the earl his grandfather could not be?

Did he even want such a thing? For the life of him he wasn’t even sure what an earl was besides being a titled land owner who likely could vote in the House of Lords and was given his position by the luck of birth.

Luck, that the Sixth Earl of Whitstone believed Johnathan possessed.