Chapter Nineteen
Geoffrey had considered going over to Grosvenor Square a hundred times in the past four days. But he’d been busy reassessing his situation. Thanks to Diana, he’d started thinking of possibilities beyond the horrible box he’d built for himself, the one that cut him off from every person he cared about.
Between the ongoing social events Rosy was attending now that she had so many invitations and the daily visits from suitors whom he felt honor-bound to scowl at, he hadn’t had much of a chance to pay Diana a visit. Especially because he’d been working up the courage to tell his mother and sister what had really happened to Father. And why he hadn’t told them before.
Indeed, now that they were past the time for callers and his sister and mother miraculously had no social affairs for the evening, they sat in his study, with the door closed and locked, and he still scarcely knew how or where to begin.
The letter. That had worked for Diana. He would let his father tell his own story. That was what Geoffrey should have done in the first place with Mother and Rosy. He truly believed he’d done the right thing by waiting to tell Diana until he was surer of her. But not to tell his mother and his sister? That was unforgivable.
Now he realized it was a betrayal of the deepest kind. It may have been his father’s wish, but Diana was right when she’d said, No one gets to keep making choices for their families from beyond the grave.
Diana was right about a lot of things.
With a sigh, he took the letter from his desk. “I should have done this a long time ago. You both had the right to know. I had hoped to keep from causing you pain, but I think I may have just mucked things up even more.” He dragged in a heavy breath, then handed over the letter. “This is what Father wrote and gave to me right before he died. He already knew he was dying because he ensured it himself by drinking two bottles of laudanum along with his usual brandies.”
His mother’s eyes went wide and she seized the letter as if it were the key to a vault of jewels. As they both began to read, Rosy started to weep. But his mother just became angrier with every word.
When she was finished, she tossed the letter down on the desk without even waiting for Rosy to be done. “If he weren’t already dead, I’d kill him myself. How dare he? Now he will never get to see Rosy marry well or his grandchildren grow up or . . . or his son become the greatest duke in all of England!”
“I’m not sure he would have seen that last one, anyway, Mother, but I take your meaning. And I share your outrage.”
Rosy lifted her head from reading. “That’s why he had me run all those errands on that day?”
“I’m afraid so, poppet,” Geoffrey said. The expression of betrayal on her face cut him to the bone.
“Why did he tell you and not me?” Rosy asked plaintively.
“Because he knew I would protect the two of you from the consequences of his actions if anyone else should happen to find out. He wanted it to remain a secret.”
His mother snorted. “The truth is your father didn’t want to be declared non compos mentis. He was always worried people would think him mad.”
Geoffrey stared at her, stunned. When Diana had told him about Rosy’s question concerning laudanum, he’d begun to figure out that there were pieces of the story he was missing, but his mother’s pieces were particularly sobering.
She rose to go stare out the window at the garden. “I suppose he had no trouble at all with being declared a suicide and losing all his family’s money and property to the Crown.”
“He was trying to avoid that, Mother,” Geoffrey said. “That’s why he wrote the letter only to me in the first place.”
“What’s non compos mentis?” Rosy asked.
For the next hour he had to explain what it meant. It took much longer to lay out the laws for his sister than for Diana. Rosy simply couldn’t imagine why someone choosing to kill himself could translate into a choice either to allow the Crown to take all the worldly goods of his family or to be publicly declared insane.
Seen through her eyes, it did seem unfair. Putting aside the religious strictures against it, it hardly seemed right to punish people posthumously for committing suicide by punishing their families financially. It wasn’t as if it would have any effect on the dead person’s behavior.
And once his explanations to Rosy did sink in, she had a moment of panic. “Oh, no! I told Diana about Papa and the laudanum!”
“How did you know?” their mother asked. “About the laudanum, I mean. From the gossip?”
“Not . . . exactly,” Rosy said sheepishly.
Questions and answers like those meant it took a while to explain Father’s complicated plot to kill himself while protecting their finances. Then, of course, Geoffrey had to reassure Rosy that she’d chosen the right person to ask about the laudanum.
“But you didn’t tell anyone else, did you?” Geoffrey asked sternly.
“Who would I tell? My suitors? I know better than that. And my only two female friends are in Newcastle.”
Their mother sat down again to put her arm around his sister’s shoulders. “Haven’t you made new friends here?”
“I suppose.” Rosy brightened. “The ladies at Elegant Occasions have assured me that they consider me a friend. So that’s three right there.”