In the four years since the marriage had taken place, the duke had been pleased to see that his son-in-law was always willing to fund improvements to the home farm or the tenants’ cottages, or to advise him of sound investment opportunities on ’Change (although, had his grace but known it, these last were offered so tactfully that the duke was left happy in the erroneous belief that they had been all his own idea), but he still deplored the fellow’s obvious vulgarity and unshakeable morality: while the plebeian weaver was more than ready to drop his blunt for causes he considered worthwhile, the duke might coax, wheedle, demand, and rage in vain for funds with which to repay gambling debts. That his son-in-law had recently been knighted for singlehandedly quelling a Luddite riot had altered the duke’s opinion not at all; it was just the sort of thing the fellow would do.
“Well, what are you standing there gawking at me for?” he demanded, as much as it is possible for a man to make demands in a near-whisper. “Have you never seen a dying man before? Sit down. Got a thing or two to tell you.”
Sir Ethan did not bother to defend himself against these unjust charges, but sat down in the chair his wife had recently vacated.
“Grant tells me I’m done for, and although the fellow’s a fool, I think he’s probably right.”
“I’m sorry to ’ear it, your grace.”
“Bah!” The duke gave a snort which turned into a cough. Sir Ethan made no attempt to offer assistance, since he knew this would be rebuffed, but waited patiently until his father-in-law regained his breath. “Don’t tell me you won’t be glad to see the last of a crotchety old bloodsucker, for I won’t believe you! Still, I hope you’ll oblige me in this. Well, you’ll have to, and there’s an end on it. Dying man’s last request, you know,” he added with a rather smug smile.
Sir Ethan shook his head. “If you’re thinking to leave me anything, sir, I don’t need it.”
“Me, leave you anything? That’s a rich one! Mind you, I’m leaving my late wife’s dower property to your elder boy, but Helen will tell you about that, or else you’ll hear all about it when my will is read. No, my business with you concerns my son.”
Sir Ethan was startled into unwise speech. “Tisdale?”
“If I’ve another son, I’m not aware of it,” retorted the duke. “Yes, Tisdale! He’s very young to be coming into the title. I was almost forty when my father died.”
“ ’e’s three-and-twenty,” Sir Ethan pointed out. “The same age I was when I in’erited the mill.”
The duke glared at him. “There’s a vast difference in inheriting a cotton mill and inheriting a dukedom.”
Sir Ethan bowed his head in acknowledgement. “There you ’ave me, sir.”
“Still, you don’t want for sense,” said his grace in what was, for him, high praise. “You’ll keep him from running himself to ground.”
“Oh?” Sir Ethan asked cautiously. “Just what are you asking me, your grace?”
“I’ve named you as executor of my will.”
“Me? Begging your pardon, sir, but why not Tisdale?”
“As I said, he’s very young. Depend upon it, when there’s an inheritance at stake, folks will come crawling out of the woodwork looking for a piece of it. You’ll keep the worst of ’em at bay.”
Overseeing the dispensation of a large estate at the exact same time as he was preparing to stand for a seat in the House of Commons was far from an ideal situation. Still, when he recalled his own experiences at the age of three-and-twenty—an age at which he’d not always possessed the wisdom to distinguish true friends from those who sought only to take advantage of him and his newfound wealth—Sir Ethan could not but agree. “I’ll do me best, your grace.”
“I’ll have your word on it that you’ll give Theodore any assistance he may require,” insisted the duke.
“You ’ave it, sir,” the weaver replied without hesitation, offering his hand in proof. His grace took it, his frail, fine-boned fingers all but lost in Sir Ethan’s coarser but strong ones.
“That’s all right, then,” the duke pronounced. His voice sounded steadier now; indeed, a fanciful observer might have been led to believe that he had drawn vigor from his son-in-law’s grasp. “You can go back to Helen now, and send Tisdale to me.”
Lady Helen, observing the crease in her husband’s brow as he emerged from her father’s room, immediately drew the worst possible conclusion. “Ethan! Papa—is he—?”
“ ’e’s not dead—leastways, not yet,” he assured her. “ ’e wants a word with you, Tisdale.”
Running a finger beneath a cravat that suddenly felt too tight, the viscount entered his father’s room. The duke had been too hard a parent for his children to regard him with affection, but even in his weakened state, the simple statement “Your father wants a word with you” still had the power to make a knot form in the pit of Theodore’s stomach.
“Yes, Papa?” he asked, tentatively approaching his father’s bedside. “Ethan said you had something to say to me. What is it?”
“That idiot Grant says I’ll be cocking up my toes before I’m much older,” the duke said. "You’ll be stepping into my shoes soon.”
“I’m in no hurry, Papa,” the young man assured him.
His grace plucked convulsively at the bedsheets. “Ha! What makes you think you have a choice in the matter? You don’t, any more than I have. Any more than I did when I inherited the title from your grandfather. You never knew him—he died when you were still in leading strings—devil of a fellow, though.”
“So I’ve always heard.”
“You’re not much
