Page 71 of Cosy & Chill
Intervention
To Roisin, open windows held as much appeal as locked doors. Even the weather couldn’t deter her. Despite the chilly mist that blanketed London and made people huddle into their scarves and hats, the paths crisscrossing the Inns of Court weren’t empty. Smartly dressed men and women passed by, locked in intense, quiet conversation. Pupils in more relaxed styles of dress loudly argued arcane bits of law. A worried-looking family—father, mother, and two almost-grown children—walked first one path and then another, seemingly lost between the rows of buildings filled with barristers’ chambers.
An expensively suited fae sitting on a bench with her head bent over a portfolio on her lap didn’t stand out one little bit.
She’d chosen this particular seat to eavesdrop on the conversation in the chambers behind her, though those passing would have dismissed the very notion as ludicrous. To a human, the bench was too far from the half-open window of the ground-floor office to allow any conversation to be overheard.
A fae’s keen hearing had no trouble following the demands of one of the men, and the quiet representations of the other. Nor was it difficult to work out that the man making the demands—voice harsh and a touch too loud in the way of a bully bolstering his own spirits while trying to cow others—was Leo’s father.
Leo had given her little more than bare facts when she’d made him talk about his troubles. Only that his grandmother had named him in her will, and that his father couldn’t accept that. The slur to his grandmother’s memory had bothered him far more than his father’s attempt to nab Leo’s inheritance, and Roisin had had to stop herself from hugging him.
Fae didn’t hug.
Fae weren’t sentimental, either.
“My mother wasn’t capable of making a considered will. She had cancer for fuck’s sake! Mind addled by drugs and all that,” Leo’s father insisted.
Roisin didn’t like his tone. Neither did the man he spoke to, judging from his icily restrained reply.
“If you’d read the actual will as I’d asked you to, you’d have noticed that it was written and signed well before your mother started chemotherapy. There’s no way a judge would accept a claim that the cancer treatment impaired her reasoning.”
“She had a screw loose, surely you must see that. She can’t just cut her family out of her will.”
“She can and she did. Besides, your son—her grandson—is family.”
The man—Roisin had to remind herself again that she was listening to Leo’s father, improbable as it seemed—didn’t hide his sneer. “Fucking pansy. It’s just like him to walk out in the middle of an argument.”
“Is it? I had the impression that his reaction was a surprise to you.”
“Well, that’s neither here nor there. I object to him having all my mother’s money!”
“So you’ve said. Objections and bluster won’t convince a judge. Your mother left her estate to her grandson—”
“She didn’t leave a penny to my daughter. How’s that fair?”
“Wills aren’t taxes, Mr Wetherall. They’re an individual’s—”
“Yes, yes. Spare me. How do we fight this? My mother’s money doesn’t belong to Leo. It belongs to me. I’m her son. Her only son. I want that will overturned.”
“Then give me something to work with. If you want to challenge your mother’s will, you need to bring proof that she either wasn’t capable of making rational decisions at the time she made the will, or that she was coerced or tricked into making it.” He sighed, the first real sign of frustration he’d let escape since the conversation began. “I’ve told you all this several times already. Making me repeat myself every week does not change reality.”
“You’re my lawyer and—”
“You can rant at me as much as you want while you pay me, I know. It still doesn’t move your case further forward. I’ve yet to see any evidence that your mother wasn’t of sound mind when she made this will.”
“I want to contest it anyway. They’re all in cahoots. My mother. My son. Her solicitor.”
“I wouldnotrecommend accusing a solicitor of misconduct without bringing iron-clad evidence, Mr Wetherall.”
The quiet, refined voice grew sharp and cutting, and Roisin couldn’t help but smile. She hadn’t expected to like a man who was party to causing Leo distress, but Leo’s father’s solicitor wasn’t a pushover. He knew his client was grasping at straws and kept his opinion clear of the man’s malice.
“Getting on the wrong side of Mr Griffin is… also not wise. He’s the head of a highly respected, long-established law firm, and he’ll take no prisoners if you challenge him.”
Leo’s father grumbled and muttered. Roisin had to sharpen her focus to make out his words.
“I don’t fucking care. I want that will overturned.”
The solicitor sighed. “It’s your call. Keep in mind that you and any evidence you present will come under scrutiny. I doubt Mr Griffin will accept your representations without making enquiries of his own. Be very sure that there’s nothing in your past you have to worry about anyone else knowing….”
