Alcott Hall: Chapter 4

Thirty minutes later, Madeline burst through the door of her cousin’s cramped little office. “Tell me about the will.”

“Christ—Madeline—” Patrick cried, dropping his quill and upsetting his pot of ink. “What the hell are you doing here? Did you—” His gaze trailed from her sodden skirts up to her flyaway hair. “Did you walk here all the way from Mayfair?”

“Walked and ran,” she said, panting for breath.

There was hardly any room within this glorified closet for more than a desk and chair. Even standing at the door, Madeline was all but in her cousin’s lap.

His mouth opened and closed like a confused cod. “Walked—it’s—Madeline, it’s freezing outside! Are you mad? You’ll catch your death!” Even as he spoke, he was on the move, slipping off his chair. He tugged a little folded bit of tartan off the back of the chair and wrapped it around her shivering shoulders. “Christ, you’re frozen solid,” he muttered, giving her shoulders a little rub.

“Patrick, please, just tell me the truth. Did Maude leave me her fortune?”

He groaned, leaning back against the opposite wall. The only light came from a narrow, dusty-paned window, and a three-pronged candelabra with half-melted waxes. A little coal brazier sat in the corner, letting off just enough warmth to keep the cramped space habitable.

“M, I really can’t get involved—”

“Stop it,” she rasped. “Mama just confessed. I know there’s a will, and I know I’m in it. I need someone to start telling me the bloody truth!”

Patrick blinked in surprise at her forcefulness. In a way, looking at him was like looking in a sort of mirror. He had the same fair blonde hair, the same big blue eyes, freckles dotting his cheeks and nose, a pointed chin. Even his frame was petite like hers.

The main difference between them was that Patrick was always at least a little bit disheveled. Even now, he had a blot of ink marring the side of his nose. Madeline could just imagine him sitting hunched over this rickety desk, scratching an itch with his quill tip, blithely unaware of the stain he’d left behind.

Well, perhaps today wasn’t right for making that distinction. She glanced down, taking in the state of her ruined skirts. She could feel an icy squelch between her toes. Her petticoats hung wet and heavy, slicked to her stockings. She shifted uncomfortably. “Patrick,” she murmured. “Please…”

He sighed again. “It’s not like this has been easy for me, M. But you’re asking me to defy Uncle Richard, a man who could squash me like a bug.”

Madeline’s sense of righteous anger flared at the sound of her father’s name. That was the knife that cut the deepest. How cruel to feel like now his love of money might eclipse his love of her.

She crossed her arms too, mirroring his stance. “You profess yourself to be a law clerk, do you not? Well, how is it legal to keep someone in the dark about their own affairs? How is it moral? How is it Christian? Please, Patrick, where is your heart—”

“Alright, fine,” he cried, throwing up a hand. “Stop looking at me with those doleful eyes, and I’ll tell you. Just…sit down.” He gestured at his chair.

“I don’t want to sit,” she snapped, holding herself tighter.

“Sit down.”

“No.”

“Goddamn it, M. Sit, or I’m leaving!”

With a huff she sat. Now he towered over her, the light casting odd shadows on his face. “Well? I’m sitting.”

He nodded, unfolding his arms to tuck them in his pockets. “You’re in the will, alright? You’re the sole claimant.”

She didn’t even realize she’d been holding her breath. “You’ve seen it?”

“Aye, I think we’ve all seen it at this point.”

Irritation burned inside her at that. “And?”

“And nothing. You won’t be able to actually claim the money. No one told you about it because there wasn’t any point—”

“But why can’t I claim it?” she cried.

“Well, because Aunt Maude put a condition on you earning the money, M.”

“What condition?”

He sighed, “You have to be married to claim it.”

Her heart dropped out of her chest. “What?”

“To claim the inheritance, you have to prove that you’re married by the end of your twentieth year.”

“But that’s three weeks away!”

“So, you see the problem.”

She positively quivered with indignation as all the pieces of the last two months fell together in her mind like some cruel puzzle. “Oh god,” she murmured. “Oh god, god!” She shot out of the chair, desperate to pace. But there was nowhere to go in this glorified broom cupboard. She turned at the door, pressing her weight against it. “Is that it then? Is that why my father has been so distant these last few months? Casually planning a trip to Cadiz, knowing he’ll soon have the money to pay for it? My money!”

Patrick winced but said nothing.

“And my mother,” she murmured. “I thought she’d finally given up all hope. Why else would she demand I waste my time courting men like Lord Everton and Barnaby Smythe? She’s been setting me up to fail! Only Lord Everton seems ready to make me an offer. But he’s suffering under the illusion that the Leary fortune is now part of my dowry. He thinks he can claim it!”

“Yeah, you can blame Rory for that,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck with a tired sigh.

She blinked. “What does your brother have to do with any of this?”

Patrick just shrugged. “He was going off about it at White’s the other night.”

She shook her head in disbelief. “Well, isn’t that just perfect. So now, Lord Everton thinks he can have my twenty thousand pounds and the hunting lodge in Kerry. He’s ready to move his damn horses into the stables at Leary House!”

“We can set him straight, M—”

“That is not the point,” she cried. “All my life, I’ve done everything they’ve ever asked of me. I’ve twisted myself into knots, becoming a version of myself I neither recognize nor like. And I have done nothing but fail over and over again!”

She was sobbing now. “I’ve watched their esteem of me flicker and die, like the wick of an utterly spent candle. I have tolerated the ridicule of the entire ton. Poor little Madeline. Sweet little Madeline. Mu-mu-muttering Madeline!”

“M, stop—”

“I can’t stop,” she cried. “Don’t you understand, Patrick? I don’t know how to stop. For weeks, you’ve all known this was hanging over me, and not one of you said a word. You all didn’t just expect me to fail, you wanted me to fail. And I don’t know that I can ever forgive you.”

Patrick’s eyes were glassy now as he reached for her. “M, please—”

“No,” she cried, rattling back against the door. “Don’t touch me. Don’t offer your sympathy now.”

“What was I supposed to do? What were any of us supposed to do? How did you expect to get yourself married in two months when you’ve—” He fell silent immediately, biting his lip with a groan.

She raised a brow at him. “When I haven’t managed it for three years?”

“Madeline, don’t do this to yourself—”

“Is that what you were about to say? When I’m such a hopeless case? Well, thanks to all of you, I haven’t even been given the chance to try!”

He stepped forward, grabbing her shoulders. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. How can I help you through this?”

She looked around wildly, praying the answer might be written somewhere on the blank walls of this dimly lit office. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “What can I do?”

He loosened his hold on her shoulders. “You want the money? You want to put Uncle Richard in his place at last?”

She nodded, feeling her resolve strengthen. “I do. Patrick, for once in my life, I want to win. I—I want this.”

“Then you need to fulfill the conditions of Maude’s will,” he replied. “You need to marry by the end of the year. Prove you’re married, and the Leary fortune is yours.”

“As if it’s so easy.”

“You’ve got three weeks,” he said. “What are your options? Do you have a suitor in mind?”

“Of course, I don’t,” she said with a roll of her eyes.

“Well, all you need is someone kind, good humored…someone who won’t be a leech,” he said, letting her go and dropping into the chair at his desk. He shifted over the ruined page drenched in drying ink. Using the bottom of the next piece of parchment, he picked up his quill and scratched out a few words.

“And heaven help you, M, but don’t pick a gambler,” he added. “No horses, no boxing, and no wild speculations. I may be a lowly clerk, but just trust me on this.”

She nodded, peering over his shoulder as he kept scratching away.

“You need someone who will accept the dowry and leave you in peace,” he went on. “That’s what you want right? A business arrangement? A marriage of convenience?”

She nodded again. What other possible kind of marriage could she hope to expect?

He scratched out a few more lines on the paper before tearing it away from the ruined top. Then he handed it to her. Madeline glanced down and read the list of attributes for her future husband:

“Patrick, I…affairs should be kept quiet?” She raised a brow at him.

He chuckled. “You can’t expect a man to marry you and then join a monastery, M. If you’ll not be fulfilling your wifely duties, you can hardly expect him to not look elsewhere.”

Heavens, she hadn’t thought of that. Could she be married to a man knowing he was being unfaithful to her? Her knowledge on the subject of married life could fill a thimble, so she supposed she could accept what she didn’t know.

Patrick leaned forward. “And by the same token, any of your affairs should probably be kept quiet—”

“My affairs,” she cried, eyes wide.

Now he really was laughing at her. “Don’t write off romance so easily, M. You’re a pretty girl. You’re my cousin, so excuse me if I don’t wax poetic beyond that, but you could easily turn a man’s head if you’d work on the whole…you know…”

“Debilitating social anxiety?” she finished for him.

He just gave her a gentle smile. “Well?” He reached over and tapped at the paper. “Thoughts? Who fits the bill?”

She looked down at the list again. Kind. Not a leech. Not a gambler. No expectations of intimacy. Slowly, she felt a little kernel of hope bloom in her chest. She raised her eyes from the paper, settling her gaze on her cousin. Was it possible the answer was standing right before her?

He quirked a brow at her. “What? What is that face?”

“You could do it,” she murmured.

His smile fell. “What?”

She stepped forward, tartan slipping off her shoulders as she reached for his arm. “Oh, Patrick, will you marry me?”