Page 4 of Much Ado About Margaret
“I will tell the housekeeper no more of those flowers,” said Bridger. It was another new housekeeper; none of them ever stayed long, for dealing with Mr. Darrow was overwhelming. Bridger never knew what to do when he witnessed one of his father’s episodes. They were frequent enough to be chained together, and it seemed his father was living in another world none of them could see. Time was fluid for Mr. Darrow, and he jumped between historical points with no warning. Bridger had seen men in the war take leave of their senses for different reasons, but this was something else.
It frustrated and terrified Bridger in equal measure. He hadfought insurmountable battles, but in this case, he couldn’t identify the enemy or the problem that needed fixing. His father was sliding away, and he couldn’t make it stop. Relations between Bridger and his father had been strained, to say the very least, since Captain Bridger Darrow had sold his commission and left the light dragoons before making major. After selling out his commission to the next in line, he took the money and rented a modest place in London, insisting that no one call him Captain ever after. He wanted that all behind him for good.
A fussy little muscle tightened in his jaw.
“Flowers,” Mr. Darrow muttered, and turned back toward the bottles on his desk. He began to rearrange them.
There was a short knock on the study door, and then a tall, older man with a smooth bald head and an eye-catching orange cravat stepped inside. Bridger breathed out a sigh of relief. His father’s solicitor, Harris, was who he had been waiting to see. Well, they had both been waiting, but he couldn’t say whether his father remembered Harris was coming or not.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Harris greeted, breezing over to where his father sat huddled like a sickly child. “How are you today, Mr. Darrow?”
Harris was, from Bridger’s observation, his father’s sole friend.Friendwas perhaps generous. Mr. Darrow had never met a person he couldn’t dress down, insult, and alienate. Harris just had the intestinal fortitude for it, and, of course, being a solicitor, he was paid to endure.
“Eh,” Mr. Darrow grunted, shrugging.
“His nurse is in the village,” said Bridger. “But he should be returning shortly. I’ll stay to dinner, my brother will be joining us, and then I’m afraid I must be on to Pressmore in the morning. I trust that’s enough time for us to discuss the current situation.”
Harris rested his hand on the back of Mr. Darrow’s chairand pivoted, frowning. “Your brother left in a hurry this morning. He claimed to have urgent business exactly there, at Pressmore.”
A crust of frost hardened around Bridger’s heart. “Did he, indeed?”
“A wedding, he said, and a negotiation with a friend, Lane Richmond.”
“I see.” Bridger tried not to sneer. “And did my brother at least have the courtesy to provide his ledgers for us to look over?”
“He did not.”
That block of ice in his chest melted, replaced by an inferno. Bridger had come from London to their home for the express purpose of having a meeting between him, his brother, and their father’s solicitor. Bridger sank back down into the chair near the window. “And how bad is it? Don’t spare my feelings.”
Harris turned a bleak, sad-eyed expression toward the back of his father’s head. He went to the desk and, reaching beyond the mess of empty medicine bottles, pulled a worn, brown leather book from the heaped shelf. Cracking open the ledger, he placed it on the desk, spinning it toward Bridger.
Mr. Darrow grumbled and retreated into the swaddle of blankets. “No reading, not today, your books are too fanciful, son. Full of nonsense.”
Harris cleared his throat softly. “To start, I would suggest dismissing half of the staff. The priority is keeping your father in good health for as long as possible, but I must be plain, Bridger, and admit that I fear what will happen when the estate’s management falls to your brother. He has already taken certain liberties with your father’s accounts, and I understand there are several debtors eager to collect.”
“Christ,” Bridger swore, closing his eyes. It was worse than he thought. He knew Pimm was out of control, but he thoughthe could at least handle staying at Fletcher, looking after their father, and keeping out of trouble. A child could manage it, but apparently not the Darrow heir, Paul, called Pimm since childhood. The figures washed over Bridger like a black tide, the pitiful income from the estate tenants nowhere near enough to patch the hemorrhage caused by Pimm’s wild spending.
I should have saved more of my own money. I should have returned sooner.
It would only get worse when their father was gone.
That black tide of ink changed to one of regret.
“This is my fault,” Bridger murmured, pinching the bridge of his nose, his other hand curling into a tight fist. Just a week earlier, at an overcrowded poetry salon in the West End, a friend had been kind enough to inform him of a rumor flying about town. His brother, Pimm, had gotten a young unmarried woman from Bath with child. When he had been in Bath—and for what reason, only God knew, but he had gone—he acted like an animal, and the woman’s family had been furious. Threats-of-bodily-harm furious. But it was patched up now, his friend told him; some kind benefactor had interceded, paid the family a generous sum, and allowed Pimm to live and philander another day.
There had been relief, of course, but part of him wished Pimm had received the full brunt of the consequences, been forced to marry and settle down. He never did, and if Bridger swooped in now to save the estate, he never would. Bridger’s gaze traveled to his father, who was whispering to himself.
“Steps from disaster, then,” Bridger said, shaking his head.
“That’s about the long and short of it, yes,” Harris replied, not without a sympathetic tone. Harris had been around for so long he was practically an uncle. Bridger trusted him, but what was one solicitor’s diligence pitted against a man hell-bent on self-destruction? Pimm was going to drag them all down if Bridger didn’t put a stop to it.
“There isn’t any mysterious fortune I should know about, is there?” Harris laughed.
“Certainly not.”
“A wealthy young lady in your very near future?”
“No, nothing like that, either.” Indeed, that delicate ship was blown clear across the ocean after his last bungling attempt at courtship. He would be lucky if the Applethwaite girl even acknowledged him the next time they were in proximity. Maybe he should not have been so quick to dismiss the young woman who approached him at the poetry salon. What was her name? Martha? Mary? Bridger had to admire her courage, for he, too, was a person who sometimes threw caution and propriety to the wind to pursue his desires. He also had to admire her beauty; he had never before seen a woman with such raw intelligence sparkling in her eyes. Ah well, such thoughts were a distraction; that audacious young woman was certainly not wealthy enough to tempt him into a hasty marriage. For if she had a fortune, she would have used it to publish her terrible novel.
