London—Friday, July 13th, 1855
Sutton Keynes considered himself a man of science, for whom all occurrences had a logical reason. There was little room in his well-ordered life for superstition. And what room did exist for such a novelty was quickly being filled to capacity as his uncle’s ancient fossil of a solicitor, one Mr Barnes Esquire, leaned forward, joints creaking from the effort, and uttered thirteen of the unluckiest words ever spoken in succession to a bachelor who was quite happy with his single state.
‘You have four weeks to wed if you want to claim the fortune.’
Four weeks to wed.
The words seemed to suck the very air out of the cramped little office in Poppins Court. Damn it all to hell. He thought he’d headed off such madness when he’d visited his uncle this spring. He’d made it very plain he didn’t want his uncle’s money. He’d even gone as far as to suggest that if his uncle wanted to keep the money out of his own son’s hands he should tie it up in charitable annuities. His uncle had given it to him anyway. Sutton had not been nearly as persuasive as he’d thought.
Sutton reached for his teacup, wishing it held something stronger, and took a long swallow. He tried to appear neutral, as if his world hadn’t just been upended. He was a man of reason. He should stay calm until he had all the details. Perhaps the pronouncement only seemed dire on the surface.
‘Four weeks? That seems an exceptionally short amount of time in which to find a wife.’ A partner for life. It was an enormous commitment, one he’d managed to put off because of its enormity, until now. These things, like any decently run experiment, could not be rushed. There would be specimens to collect, variables to account for, observations to make, information to collect and analyse, hypotheses to test and eliminate as he winnowed down the field. ‘It would take at least a year to find a suitable bride.’ Sutton put his cup down and Mr Barnes quickly refilled it, perhaps hoping to make up in quantity of drink what the tea lacked in quality—mainly that it wasn’t brandy. ‘Is there any significance to that deadline?’ Sutton asked with a demeanour of equanimity, not wanting to give away his hand. He wasn’t opposed to marriage, in theory, but he was opposed to undue haste. Haste increased one’s margin for error exponentially. Surely he could argue for an extension unless there was a predetermined reason for such immediate action.
His mind was already searching for a rationale behind his uncle’s decision. His uncle liked to play with numerology among his many eccentricities. Four—the four archangels, the four gospels, the four sides of New Jerusalem in Revelation. Those things would appeal to his uncle, but Sutton couldn’t see any relevance to this situation. Four, of which the square root was two, his scientific mind put forward. The four elements, the four phases of the moon, the four seasons, the four divisions of the day.
‘It’s the bank’s provision, Mr Keynes,’ Barnes explained. ‘The bank your uncle’s funds are invested with requires that all accounts be resolved within four weeks of the account holder’s death.’ But the rest of it, the marriage condition, was all his uncle’s. In order to be a legitimate beneficiary of those funds, his uncle, not the bank, required him to be married first. It made sense now. Four. The square of two. Husband and wife. Completion. Two parts of a whole.
‘And if I refuse to follow my uncle’s dictates?’ He watched Barnes’s bushy grey eyebrows go up. It wasn’t every day a man considered turning away a fortune handed to him.
‘Then the fortune reverts to your cousin, Baxter Keynes.’ Mr Barnes peered over his thick-rimmed glasses meaningfully.
‘Of course. Bax.’ Sutton gave a derisive chuckle. Bax was the one factor that could compel him to take up his uncle’s challenge. There was much he would do to keep that amount of money out of Bax’s control. What an unreasonable game this was becoming. He wasn’t only being forced to marry, he was being forced to step into the metaphoric ring and compete against his cousin, his uncle’s only child. ‘Are you acquainted with my cousin, Mr Barnes?’
Barnes fixed Sutton with a strong stare. ‘Yes, indeed I am, Mr Keynes. He was here this morning, in fact. He didn’t stay long enough to have tea.’ The man’s tone was sharp, his gaze intuitive. For the first time since Sutton had entered the dingy office, the solicitor appeared to be more intelligent, more sane than Sutton had given him credit for. Most sane people struggled to do business with his uncle.
Baxter knew, then. That would make things interesting in a dangerous sort of way. Sutton picked up his tea and pondered that piece of information. ‘Angry, was he?’ His cousin had been left with nothing, although it couldn’t have come as a surprise. Sutton’s uncle had been threatening for years to pull something of this nature. The old man’s title wasn’t hereditary. The only thing he could leave Bax was his fortune and he hadn’t. Instead, he’d left it to his nephew.
‘Positively furious.’ Barnes grimaced, nodding towards the cracked window pane.
Sutton offered a tight smile. ‘If you’ve met him, you know there’s not a choice. It’s not a question of if I want to claim the fortune. I must. Baxter is not the sort of man to whom a fortune of that magnitude can be entrusted.’ His cousin wasn’t just reckless, spending money frivolously, although some of the fortune would indeed be squandered on harmless pursuits. Bax liked a good silk waistcoat and a fast horse as much as the next man. It wasn’t the harmless pursuits Sutton was worried about. It was the more harmful ones; Bax was mixed up with slavers, the type that sold white women into the harems of the east in order to gain the favour of the Ottoman pashas, and arms dealers who sold guns for profit regardless of the cause, regardless of the side. In short, Bax played a deep game with powerful men. His involvement, of course, was most certainly not well known. For all intents and purposes, Bax, son of the eccentric Sir Leland, was a typical gentleman. But only on the surface. Beneath that surface, Bax inhabited a dark, dangerous world.
Barnes’s old eyes sharpened for a moment over the rims of his glasses. ‘We see each other plain, Mr Keynes. I assume you’ll be marrying shortly, then.’ It was not a question. Barnes tapped his papers into place and reached for another set of documents.
‘I suppose I shall be.’ Shortly. Quickly. Without the study necessary to make a quality decision. It was antithetical to his nature. Anabeth Morely had taught him that in his youth. He’d jumped into love with her head first only to find shallow water and grave disappointment. He’d not ventured forth since.
As a result, marriage was the last thing on his mind, right there at the bottom of the list of his priorities including his uncle’s fortune. Whenever he thought about marriage, and that was hardly often enough to even qualify as seldom, it was