Page 53 of Brave New Earl (The Way to a Lord's Heart 1)

It was a good question. Benjamin wasn’t prepared at this moment to give the conventional answer—an offer of marriage. And he had no others ready. Yet this…void she proposed was deeply unsatisfying. “I don’t want you to be uneasy,” he began.

“I’m perfectly well,” she said. “There is no need to worry aboutme.”

And with that, she slipped past him and away, leaving Benjamin to wonder at her emphasis. Who or what was he supposed to worry about? Geoffrey, he supposed. Or himself?

Eleven

“I think we’ll be moving on from here soon,” Arthur said to his valet the following morning.

“Indeed, my lord.” Clayton helped the earl into his coat.

“I have a feeling matters will be resolved satisfactorily.” He couldn’t suppress a trace of smugness. He’d wanted to rouse his nephew from his grief, and he’d done so with a vengeance. Or, rather, Miss Saunders had. Arthur gave credit where it was due. That young lady had turned out to be a much larger personality than he’d realized when he met her in a London drawing room. There’d been moments when he felt like a man whose cat had grown into a tiger. Arthur smiled into the mirror as he adjusted his neckcloth. A most inappropriate comparison. Miss Saunders’s eyes would snap at him if she heard it. He’d keep it to himself. “There are several other visits I’m eager to make,” he added.

“Because of the letters you received, my lord?”

“Yes. There’ve been some interesting developments.” Arthur went over to the small writing desk and unfolded a recent missive to look at it again. “What would you do, Clayton, if you found that a total stranger had received a large legacy in your parents’ will?” His valet would know, of course, that Arthur wasn’t referring to the elder Claytons, who’d kept a tiny village shop and had little to leave anyone. He would instead consider a hypothetical situation. Over the years, Arthur had discovered a sharp mind and a deep well of common sense in his servitor. Clayton had become a valuable sounding board when he was working out a course of action. Arthur reasoned better by talking aloud than through introspection.

“Perhaps this would be a distant relative, my lord?”

“No. No familial connection whatsoever apparently. A complete stranger.”

“I would wonder,” Clayton said.

“As who would not?”

“I would inquire, investigate why this came about, and who this person was.”

Arthur nodded.

“The clerk who wrote the will might have information.”

The earl flicked the letter with one finger. “Instructed to reveal nothing. Part of the terms of the will. Viscount Whitfield is…perplexed.”

Clayton considered this piece of news. “The viscount was at the dinner you held at White’s.” He didn’t specifywhichdinner. There was only one they referred to in this tone.

“He was.” Arthur folded up the letter and tucked it away. “How would you feel about this mysterious heir, Clayton, if it was your parents’ will?”

“Suspicious,” replied the valet at once. “Resentful, I imagine, depending on the details.”

“Precisely.” The earl ran his fingers over other letters lined up in a cubbyhole of the desk. “How far are we to blame for others’ actions, do you think?”

Clayton took a moment to digest the change of subject. “Not far,” he said then. “In most circumstances.”

“If your sister—assuming you had a sister, Clayton—behaved very foolishly and suffered for it, would you feel responsible?”

“I don’t think I would, my lord. Unless I had told her to do the foolish thing. Or made her do it somehow.”

Arthur shook his head. “Not the case here. And yet people do blame themselves.”

“Claiming responsibility,” Clayton said slowly. “If a thing is your fault, that would mean you are, or might have been, in control.”

“Rather than the victim of a malign fate. A telling point, Clayton. You are as incisive as ever.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

“You ought to have been a barrister or a member of parliament. You know my offer to help you into another profession still stands.”

“I’m very happy where I am, my lord.”

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