Page 40 of The Secret Word (Twist Upon a Regency Tale #10)

The messenger was one of Father’s clerks, looking highly uncomfortable. He handed Chris a letter, and stood, shuffling his feet, while Chris read it. Chris passed the letter to Clem and waited while she read it.

In essence, along with threats and complaints, the letter said that Father was dismissing Chris, and wanted him to give the messenger all material Chris held that pertained to his business.

“It is late,” Clem said. “Shall we give poor Mr. Samuels a bed for the night and send him off in the morning?”

“Why not?” Chris commented. “It is not his fault that your father is throwing a tantrum.”

Chris spoke to the clerk while Clem went to the door to send for the housekeeper. “I will pack up the papers Mr. Wright wants, and you can return for them in the morning. Did he send you in a carriage, Samuels?”

“On a horse, sir. It is outside.”

Chris sighed. “My stable will look after the beast, and in the morning, we shall see about some transportation for the boxes of papers.”

“If you go with my housekeeper, Mr. Samuels,” Clem said, “she will see you settled.” She went to Chris as soon as the door shut behind the housekeeper and the clerk. “He is cutting off his nose to spite his face,” she said.

“He is giving me a holiday,” Chris commented, “and enough time to find out what secrets he is hiding. I think I should send someone to Sheffield to dig around in your father’s past, Clem.

If he has been up to anything illegal in London, Billy should be able to uncover it, but I will go into town with Mr. Samuels and hire an investigator.

Also, I expect him to keep trying the legal route, so I need to set a lawyer of our own up to knocking down every reason he gives a magistrate for stealing our child. ”

“I want to go with you,” Clem said, “But I don’t want Will anywhere near my father. Chris, I’m afraid.”

Chris took her into his arms. “I promise you, Clem. I won’t let the old fraud take our son. We have the earls on our side, and Aunt Fern, and Billy—who has an army at his back. A ragtag army, but an effective one. And if all else fails, we’ll take ship for France or even Canada.”

For the moment at least, the determination and conviction in his voice soothed her troubled soul.

*

Chris left for London in the morning, and for the next few weeks, he came home for only one night a week.

Between his visits, Clem lived for his daily letters, though in them, he reported mostly frustrations.

Father was continuing to push for custody of Will, and Chris’s lawyer—Richard Anderson—kept knocking down all the arguments he put up.

Both Lord Crosby and Lord Halton had made it known that they supported Chris and Clem as Will’s parents and so had Billy, so London’s magistrates and constabulary were being very careful to toe the line of the law, whatever Father offered them.

As for evidence of wrongdoing, Chris’s investigators had discovered plenty of shady dealings and outright meanness, but nothing illegal.

Father didn’t even have a mistress. He gambled within his means.

He didn’t use brothels, or at least not the ones that Billy owned.

He did spend nights away from home, as Clem already knew, but he must spend them in his offices, for no one could be found who had seen him out whoring or drinking.

The word from Yorkshire was more of the same.

Whispers that Father had cheated his first partner out of his share of their coal mine.

Grumbles about short-changed wage packets and stand-over tactics in contract negotiations.

Mutterings about corrupt practices. But no evidence that would stand up in court.

The people Chris hired to provide guards for the estate, the house, and the school prevented three attempts to breach the defenses, two covert and one a full-on assault, but the men who were captured would not say who was behind the attacks. Perhaps they did not know.

Then Wright had a break-through. He found himself a magistrate with a mighty chip on his shoulder about aristocrats and a black-and-white approach to morality. Chris was at home when his lawyer arrived from London to show him the papers that had just been delivered.

Chris read them, with Clem hovering to take each page as he finished.

“This says that Will is to be handed into the care of an independent person while charges against us are being investigated,” Chris said. “What person, and what charges?”

Richard Anderson gave him two more sheets of paper. “The charges,” he said.

Chris scanned them. “These are nonsense.”

“Then we’ll fight them,” Clem said, relieved.

“Yes,” Chris agreed, but Richard was shaking his head.

“But meanwhile, Mr. Wright’s appointee will have your son,” he said.

“No,” said Clem. “That cannot be allowed to happen. I will run away with him first.”

“That would be taken by the courts as an admission of guilt,” Richard warned them.

“What do we have on Wright?” Chris asked. “Perhaps altogether it is enough.”

The lawyer shook his head, and began to list everything they had found: morally suspect, legally dubious, humanly appalling . None of it able to be proved illegal.

Clem told Martha and Mrs. Westbridge what was going on, and Chris mentioned it to Partridge.

All three insisted that they had told no-one, but by the following morning, word had spread through the house and the school, as Clem discovered that when her housekeeper stopped her on her way to the nursery to say, “The whole house is with you, Mrs. Satterthwaite. If you need us to hide you and the little ones, not a single person here will give you away. And nor will the school.”

She was cheered by their support, but she still pushed her food around her plate, and Chris had no appetite, either. Richard had already eaten and set out for town to see what else he might do.

“I’m frightened,” Clem said to Chris.

“We’ll find a way,” Chris promised. “And if we have no success in the next few days, we’ll defy the court order and run.”

At that moment, a footman came back into the room. “Mrs. Satterthwaite, ma’am. There are two boys here from the school. Mr. Fuller and Master Arthur Stone. They say they need to talk to you, ma’am. About Mr. Wright.”

“Bring them in,” Clem said, although what Tom Fuller and Arthur might know about her father was a mystery. They arrived, and stood just inside the door. Fuller was determined and Arthur was white and trembling.

“Is it true, ma’am, that your father has found a way to take your baby?” Fuller demanded.

Clem nodded, and Chris said, “We will stop him, Mr. Fuller. We shall find a way.”

“See?” Fuller said to Arthur.

“Don’t let him do it,” Arthur commanded. “He must not be allowed.”

Something important was being said.

“What has my father done?” Clem said, in the gentlest voice she could manage. Arthur burst into tears and fell to his knees, burying his face against her gown so that she could only hear his story in mumbled words.

She could hear enough, however.

*

Chris, with Billy and his lawyer, met with Wright at the magistrate’s chambers. The magistrate had refused to allow Clem into the room, but had reluctantly agreed that she could sit in the next room with Will, Bel, and their nursemaids.

Also, Tiny and several of the guards Chris had hired. Chris was confident that he had the knowledge to make Wright—and if not him, the magistrate—back down, but he was taking no chances.

“Hand over the boy,” Wright growled.

“I have new evidence to present,” said Chris.

“Evidence that counters your claims against us, and evidence that you are not a fit guardian for my son. I am prepared to negotiate to put things back the way they were, Wright, with you having supervised access to your grandson. Or, I can present my evidence.”

“I’ll have the boy, and you shall have nothing,” Wright insisted. “I’m taking Morton’s son in to learn the company, and you are out on your ear. And I’ll break you, boy, for defying me. You, and the earls who supported you.”

“Very well,” said Chris. “Here is what I have… What I am prepared to make public if you continue to demand my child. I have evidence that you cheated your first partner, Caleb Horner, and stole his share of the business.”

Wright sneered. “Horner’s family has tried to prove that in court before. They’ve failed.”

“You also short debtors and creditors alike in your business. For example, of ten large sacks of coal weighed at your Limehouse depot, marked as being two hundredweight, all were short by at least twenty pounds. And barge owners can attest you regularly underpay them for what they deliver.”

“All nonsense. I am a careful businessman. That is all.”

“I have one more,” Chris said.

Wright sneered. “You have nothing.”

“Let me whisper it to you. One word, Wright. You don’t want your solicitor or the magistrate to hear this, I assure you. But the whole world will hear if I walk out of here without the agreement I am seeking.”

For the first time, Wright looked alarmed. “Perhaps I won’t let you walk out of here,” he said.

“Mr. Wright!” the magistrate admonished.

“I could have him arrested, could I not? For maligning my good name?” Wright asked.

The magistrate pressed his lips together.

Chris ignored the by-play, and continued to address Wright. “If I do not cancel my instructions to a man I will not name, the information I have will be delivered to Bow Street and to all the major newsletters. One word, Wright.”

He stepped closer and leaned to whisper in the man’s ear. As promised, it was one word, and then he stepped back to see the effect.

The older man rose to his feet. He had turned white. “Nonsense. It is a lie. Hearsay.”

Chris was inexorable. “I have witnesses. Names. Dates. Places. One of your victims.”

“No. It isn’t possible.” Wright was shaking his head, his eyes wild.

“Give the man a drink,” Billy suggested to the magistrate. “He has had a shock.”

Indeed, Wright looked as if he had suffered a blow with something heavy. A mallet, perhaps. His knees buckled and he fell back into his chair. He was still shaking his head. His face was white.

The magistrate nodded to Wright’s solicitor, who hurried to the decanters on a sideboard across the room.

“It will have to stop, of course. As part of our new agreement.”

Wright rallied. “You are not fit to raise my grandson!”

“You are, demonstrably, not fit to be anywhere near my son—or any other boy,” Chris hissed. “As I will tell his Honor, here, if you insist. As I will prove in court, if that is what you wish.”

The solicitor returned with a glass, which he gave to Wright, who took a gulp.

The eyes he raised to Chris burned with hate.

“You have won. Much joy may it bring you. You’ll not work for me.

You and Clem will not see another penny of my money.

I’ll appoint someone else to run the company and be the boy’s trustee. ”

Chris inclined his head. “My solicitor will leave a copy of the new agreement with yours. I will expect it to be returned to my solicitor, signed by you, tomorrow at noon.”

“Not so fast,” said the magistrate. I need to hear that word before I will dismiss the case.”

Wright argued, but the magistrate insisted, and in the end, the magistrate ordered the whole room cleared of all but him, Wright, and Chris. He then looked expectantly at Chris while Wright buried his face in his hands.

“For the sake of my wife and children, your honor,” Chris said, “I must ask you to keep this information in confidence, and take no action unless Wright goes back on his word to stop.”

The judge frowned, but his curiosity must have overcome his reluctance, for he said, “In confidence, then.”

Chris nodded, and Wright shrank further into his chair. “The secret word is ‘pederast’. I have evidence going back twenty years, and I dare say I could find more in Yorkshire. I will not let that man, unsupervised, anywhere near my son.”

The judge screwed his mouth up in disgust. “I do not blame you, Mr. Satterthwaite. Case dismissed. Now get this piece of filth out of my office.”