The French Admiral (53 page)

“So I am really a Willoughby.” Alan sighed.

“A lot more than Gerald and Belinda are.” Cheatham grinned. “You see, you are the only living issue from your father's loins. That he may wish to claim, that is.”

“I don't understand.”

“Let me settle up the Lewrie part, and then I shall touch on the later events, in strict chronological order, so that it shall all be of a piece. Spousals being exchanged, love letters and gifts also being exchanged—‘I give my love a packet of pins, and this is how our love begins,' remember that one?— your parents took up lodgings together as man and wife, and you were conceived shortly thereafter in 1762. But the Lewrie family, who reside in Wheddon Cross, Devon, just north of Exeter—”

“How terrible for them,” Alan commented, never a fan of the rustic life.

“The father, a Mister Dudley Lewrie, Esquire, was, as the Lewrie family solicitor for many years, a Mister Kittredge, assures us, a most strict religionist and somewhat of a Tartar to deal with. He had hated his only living daughter going off to London for a season, but the mother had cozened him into it to assure Elizabeth a chance to meet a better sort of husband than she could locally, or be assured of bonafides better than the moonshine one hears at Bath or another resort, when a footman with the chink may appear as grand as his master, and the rules of society in a resort town allow perfect freedom between classes.”

“Yes, yes, get on with it, I beg you, Mister Cheatham.”

“Well, there's your father and mother cohabiting, she pregnant with you, and the parents descending on the town to snatch her back. The happy couple flee to Holland after having a quick marriage performed to make it legally binding. The only problem was that the officiant was not certified as a recognized cleric able to celebrate a nuptial, just some hedge-priest that one of Sir Hugo's fellow officers found for them at short notice, obviously not understanding the need for
real
clergy. So Sir Hugo never got true coverture over the Lewrie estate, or that share of it that Elizabeth Willoughby
née
Lewrie would have inherited. And Sir Hugo was not well off at all, his own estate almost an empty shell by his profligate spending and the cost of his commission to remove him from some scandalous doings in '58. She was beautiful, and one of two heirs to a sizable estate, so the temptation must have been the very devil on him.”

“I can understand that,” Alan said wryly. “So far, sir.”

“Well, Sir Hugo abandoned your mother in Holland, taking off with her cash and jewels, quite a valuable prize to purloin, I'm told.”

“The sorry bastard!”

“Well, according to this Kittredge fellow, your grandfather Dudley washed his hands of his daughter Elizabeth after that, allowing her to lay in the bed she made for herself. I told you he was a Tartar. But your grandmother, Barbara Lewrie, was made of more charitable stuff. She had borne her husband ten children, but only two were living, and the only son due to inherit was a sickly sort, a man in his twenties named Phillip who was at Oxford, and when he wasn't deathly ill with some disease, he was suffering from either the pox or barrel fever. Barbara Lewrie sent money to pay Elizabeth's way back from Holland, enough to set her up in decent lodgings in London once home, so that her only grandson would be amply provided for. Phillip was showing no signs of giving her grandchildren, or signs of living long enough to wed formally, so you were the only hope for the family name, you see.”

Alan smiled greedily at that. It sounded suspiciously as if there would be some “yellow boys” in his future, but he put his questions in abeyance, letting Cheatham get on at his own slow pace.

“Your mother evidently took ill on passage, and never regained her health,” Cheatham said somberly. “She passed on just before the turn of the year, in late 1763. Her last parish was St. Martin in the Fields, and with no one to claim you, you were consigned to the parish. There you languished, until 1766, when you were three. Dudley Lewrie died in 1766, and this rescue of you is more than a coincidence. There is record that your father, Sir Hugo, and his solicitor, Pilchard even then, claimed you under your mother's maiden name of Lewrie, and took you in as his son at that time.”

“So there would be on record a male heir to the Lewrie estate, a legitimate one,” Alan said, suddenly understanding. “If he'd claimed me as a Willoughby I would have been harder to prove. God, what a scheming hound he is. All this time, all these years he told me I was the son of a whore, a poor bastard of no account. I could kill him for that!”

“That was most likely his motive. But, Sir Hugo had landed on his feet. Once your mother died, he was free of marriage in the strict legal sense, and though your grandmother sued him for return of your mother's jewelry, he presented a letter from Elizabeth proving she had given him her paraphernalia. This was obviously forged, but the court could find no fault with it, since it was your mother's hand to the letter, so he got off scot-free. He had remarried almost as soon as he set foot ashore in England. The jewelry must have been turned into cash, for he made a grand show the summer of '64 in Bath, where he legally wed one Agnes Cockspur, a widow of some means with two small children, one Gerald and a girl named Belinda.”

“They weren't his!” Alan exclaimed.

“Only in the sense that to make sure that he would have control over their portion of the Cockspur estate, he adopted them as Willoughbys. The widow became pregnant, but was carried off by childbed fever, along with the issue of their marriage,” Cheatham said, stopping to drain his glass and top both of them up. “This is dry work, and unsavory, too. In court, your father presented what surely must be another forgery, her conveyance of her entire estate to the care of her husband. You know that a husband only has coverture over the bride's portion of the wife's estate brought to marriage, and the management of her estate by coverture only for the life of the wife, unless she specifically signs it over to him so that after her death he retains possession. Pilchard figured into this again, so we may begin to discern his true skills other than the knowledge and practice of law. The other Cock-spur sisters, who had lost a sizable fortune at this conveyance, had no legal recourse, and got farmed out with small annuities to husbands less than what they had expected. I mention this because of their present interest. But, now we come to the meat of the matter, what transpired after you were shipped off aboard
Ariadne.
”

“For God's sake, yes, what happened?”

“Not a month after you were safely at sea, your father and this Pilchard creature went into court with a document you had signed, one giving Sir Hugo control over your estate.”

“But what happened to all that stuff I signed about giving up all inheritance from either side?” Alan asked. “What about the agreement that made me leave England and enter the Fleet and never go home?”

“No mention of it,” Cheatham said with a shrug. “You see, the grandfather had gone over to a higher reward in '66, the son Phillip had died without issue in '72, and at the last, Barbara Lewrie was reputed to be in ill health and of advanced years, and near her own deathbed in '79. Once again, we may see more than coincidence at work. You would be the only Lewrie still living in line to inherit, your father proved you as legitimate, could show his informal adoption of you as his son and had proof in your own hand that you wished him to administer your estate while you were in the Navy and overseas. There would be a good chance that if the grandmother passed on while you were away, and you were bound never to come home, he could have gotten it all and you none the wiser, fobbed off with one hundred guineas a year, while he got thousands. And should you die in naval service, a distinct possibility, he would be free to use it as his own.”

“The scheming dog!” Alan roared, rising to pace the small space of the spirit room. “I'll see him in hell for this.”

“It was a nacky plan, but there was only one bad part to it: he had to go to court to prove it, and the Lewrie family had to be informed that the long-lost male heir had resurfaced.”

“How did I get lost, then? Wouldn't my grandmother have searched for me? And what did she do when I was revealed?”

“She did, on the sly with her pin money, but your mother's last official parish was St. Clement Dane, and she died in St. Martin's, so after a year or so of searching, you were as good as lost, and few children survive more than a year in a poor-house or foster care, more's the pity, so you may understand why she abandoned hope for finding you. As to her reaction at your discovery, she immediately had this Kittredge claim you as the last male Lewrie heir. Your father had gotten what he wanted, and you were safely out of Barbara Lewrie's reach, so she could not help you or pass this knowledge on to you. She knew Sir Hugo from before, though, and felt that you would be cheated. There was little she could do when presented later with proof in your own signature that you had given up hope of inheritance and had been banished for the alleged rape of your sister. This was not in the courts, the last part, but part of a personal confrontation with her and Sir Hugo, so she never tried to write to you.”

“I sound most awesomely poor from all this, Mister Cheatham.”

“You might have been but for one thing, the deviousness of women.” Cheatham laughed, clapping him on the shoulder and bidding him sit once more. “Your grandmother did not die. In fact, at last report some six months ago she is still, surprisingly, with us. She rallied, sir! If I may paraphrase the noted lexicographer Dr. Johnson, one's impending death concentrates the mind most wonderfully. She not only rallied and left her deathbed, but she immediately was wed to an old friend of hers, a Mr. Thomas Nuttbush, Esquire, of the same parish in Devon.”

“But my father still has the estate,” Alan said miserably.

“One, not until she passes over, and two, not if the Lewrie estate is signed over to a husband by legal conveyance awarding him coverture after her death. To make matters even worse for Sir Hugo, Thomas Nuttbush is possessed of three fine, healthy sons, so if there is no Lewrie estate but a Nuttbush estate, you are no longer the eldest male issue of either side in line to inherit. He has guardianship over nothing, and when you reach your majority, there is nothing for him to steal from you at that time, or at the death of your grandmother. The legal paper which Kittredge saw informally at the meeting with Sir Hugo lists you as giving up inheritance in both Willoughby and Lewrie estates, assigning everything to your father. But it says nothing about the Nuttbush estate.”

“Holy God, am I part of it?” Alan yelled, hoping against hope.

“You are, sir. A codicil to the conveyance assigning Mr. Nuttbush lifetime coverture provides you an inheritance,” Cheatham told him with great glee. “Oh, your grandmother's a sly-boots, Lewrie, and I see which side of the family you get your own nackiness from. Your grandmother's paraphernalia does not come under coverture of a husband, so that is what shall be your portion upon your grandmother's passing. My brother Jemmy has been in touch with Mr. Kittredge, and he assures me that there is jewelry and plate to the value of four thousand pounds at present, and your grandmother has purchased more lately, all to be held at Coutts' Bank under her new name in the vault, so your father can never touch it or place lien on it in your name. And Mr. Kittredge has dealt with the bank to make sure that you shall receive the sum of two hundred pounds in annuity for life.”

“Holy shit on a biscuit,” Alan said, having trouble breathing for a moment. “I'm rich. I'm as rich as Croesus. Goddamme, but I'm rich!”

“Well, perhaps not strictly wealthy, but as well-off as a squire's son back home. With your prize certificates, your new naval pay, and the annuity, you shall get by more than comfortably, better than a post-captain, really,” Cheatham said. “There will be money enough to set yourself up in fashionable lodgings in London once the war is over. And still enough left to provide a house and some land when you find the perfect girl to make your wife, with enough money to assure you a comfortable existence, as long as your taste does not aspire to emulate a peer's son, or you let your pleasures rule your purse. It's more than a middling income, though. And should you marry well—and all this allows you entrance to a better sort of selection in young women—you could do very well indeed.”

“My God, it's a sight more than what I had half an hour ago.” Alan laughed in relief and joy. “To my lights, I'm rich.”

“Aye,” Cheatham agreed heartily.

“I'm legitimate. I'm not the sorry bastard I was always told.”

“True again,” Cheatham rejoined.

“And if this letter from Pilchard is correct, if my father doesn't honor his half of the agreement about my banishment, then I no longer have to honor mine,” Alan speculated. “By God, I'm free of the old fart. I
can
go home when the war ends.”

“Once again, true,” Cheatham said. “In fact, that is what your solicitor is suing your father for. Pay the annuity or you come home.”

“I'm suing my father?” Alan gaped, breaking into laughter once he saw the irony of it. “My God, this is lovely. I love it, I truly do!”

“Kittredge could not represent you, since you would be a plaintiff when your grandmother passes over, but he is paying your legal expenses. He found you a younger solicitor, a Matthew Mountjoy, to represent you. He has made presentation that you signed away all hopes to the Willoughby and Lewrie estates and cannot be considered a source of money for Sir Hugo's creditors to fall back on if he does not have enough to clear his debts.”