“Normally it would all pass to the next Lord Danbury.”
“I do have a son, you know.”
Mr. Margate acknowledged this with the briefest of nods. “But nowhere was it clarified whether these new peerages pass to a new generation. It’s quite possible they revert to the Crown.”
“Leaving me Lady Nothing. With nothing but my husband’s old house and money.”
Mr. Margate made that expression again.
“Oh no,” Agatha said. “Now what?”
“It is only . . .” He sighed heavily. “When your husband accepted the new estate, he used a sizable amount of his holdings to support your new life. Tailors, club payments, horses, extra staff . . .”
Agatha shook her head. There was no way she believed what she was hearing. “My husband had one of the greatest fortunes in all the Continent. Have you heard of Sierra Leone, Mr. Margate? Do you know the riches there? The diamond mines?”
“I am afraid your husband may have exaggerated his wealth to you. He also spent quite a bit to maintain a life worthy of a lord.”
“He had not possessed the title for long.”
“But even before. His clothing. Your clothing . . .” He eyed her black bombazine as if that were somehow responsible for her current downfall.
Agatha wanted to scream. She wanted to leap across the desk and wring this man’s throat. But she didn’t. She held on to her dignity, because apparently that was all she had to hang on to.
“You say he spent more freely once he was made a lord,” she said.
Mr. Margate nodded.
“So, due to this peerage, which we may not even be able to keep, I am to be left . . . what? Penniless? What about our old house?” They had not been in this new estate long.
“It was leased. The owners have already let it to new tenants.”
“I am not just penniless. I am homeless, too.”
Mr. Margate grimaced again. Agatha was starting to wonder if they taught that particular expression as a part of law studies. One could not be certified as a solicitor until one learned the bad news grimace. It needed just a touch of false sympathy to truly qualify.
“What am I to do?” she asked.
“Why, what all impoverished widows do. Seek the kindness of a male relative. Or remarry.”
Danbury House
The Front Hall
Two days later
Mr. Margate was right. Agatha did need to seek the help of a male relative. The galling part, though, was that this male relative was her four-year-old son.
“Dominic, please,” she said as she waited by the door. “Let Nanny tie your cravat.”
“Come, scamp,” Nanny said. “It is just a neckerchief.”
“More like a hangman’s noose!” Dominic howled.
Agatha rolled her eyes. He had no idea.
“Oh ho,” Nanny scolded. “Such impertinence.”
He grinned at her. It was a smile he never gave to his own parents. Agatha felt a twinge of regret. She would do something about that. She would be a better mother than she had been, but today was not the day for her to tease out his smiles.
“Dominic, stop that at once,” she said sternly. “This is an important day, and you must behave.”
He looked to Nanny for guidance. She gave him a little nod. “Be a good boy,” she said. “Listen to your mother.”
Agatha took his hand and led him out to the waiting carriage.
“When are we returning to Nanny?” he asked.
Agatha swallowed. “Dominic,” she said, her voice softer than it had been for weeks, “I am sorry you do not know me. I did not know my parents well, either, and I know it must be very frightening to leave Nanny like this. But I am your mother, and your father is gone to the angels, and now you are the man of the family.”
He looked at her with solemn four-year-old eyes. “The man of the family.”
God help them.
Agatha soldiered on. “Your family needs you to do your duty.”
“All right, then.” He thought about that for a moment, then brightened. “We are going to meet a princess?”
“We are.”
“A real one?”
“Very real.”
“Will she be wearing a crown?”
Agatha thought about that. She didn’t think she had ever seen Princess Augusta without a tiara. “Probably.”
“Will she like me?”
“I do not see how she could not.”
Dominic smiled. He peered out the window as they began their journey. It would not take long. The new Danbury House was exceedingly well located, barely a mile away from St. James’s Palace.
“Did you know I can count, Mother?” Dominic asked.
Agatha had not known this, but she lied and said, “Of course.”
“One. Two. Three.”
His little head nodded with each number.
“Four.” He paused. “I am four.”
“I know.”
“The next is five,” he said. “That is what I will be soon.”
“Perhaps we shall have a party.”
“With cake and biscuits?”
“Absolutely with cake and biscuits.”
Dominic clapped his hands together and resumed his count. “Six comes next,” he said. “Then seven. Eight.” He looked back up. “I’ll need help after nineteen.”
“I can help you,” Agatha said.
And thus it was that they found themselves at one hundred and forty-three when they stepped down from the carriage.
She took Dominic’s hand. “Just remember to do as I told you.”
Agatha handed her calling card to the butler even though he knew very well who she was.
“Is the Princess expecting you?” he asked.
“She is not,” Agatha replied. “But she will receive me.”
The butler motioned for them to wait on a bench in one of the grand hallways. A few moments later, he returned.
Again, Agatha took her son’s hand. It felt small, and yet, he was already older than she was when her fate had been sealed with her betrothal to Herman Danbury.
They followed the butler to Princess Augusta’s sitting room. She was in her customary spot on her sofa, her wide skirts taking up almost the entire cushion. As usual, Lord Bute and Earl Harcourt stood behind her, one on each side. Agatha ignored them, instead directing her words directly to the Princess.
“I thought it high time, Your Royal Highness, that you met my son, Lord Danbury.”
She gave Dominic’s shoulder a little squeeze of encouragement, and he executed a darling bow before saying, “Lovely to meet you, Your Highness.”
Princess Augusta smiled, obviously charmed by this display of cuteness. “A pleasure to meet you, Lord—”
Lord Bute let out a violent cough.
Augusta turned away from Agatha and Dominic. “Are you quite all right?” she asked Bute.
“The question of inheritance,” he whispered.
Agatha had to pretend not to hear.
“It is far from decided,” Earl Harcourt said.
“The concerns involved—”
Agatha wasn’t able to get the end of that sentence, but she did hear Earl Harcourt quite clearly when he said to Princess Augusta, “Do you understand the implications?”
Silence.
Princess Augusta turned back to her guests. “Such a handsome boy,” she said. “Pray, both of you call on us again soon.”
With a flick of her wrist, she bid them gone.
There was nothing more Agatha could say, not right there in front of Bute, Harcourt, and Dominic, so she curtsied and backed out of the room.
“Did I do my duty, Mother?” Dominic asked once they were back in the hall.