Chapter Eight: The Second Son

Theo found the engagement contract waiting on his desk; beside the pistol, he had not fired the night before. Hester Fairchild’s name had been written in his father’s precise hand. The agreement granted her family a seat on the royal trade committee and secured Blackwood votes for the spring session.

“You are to marry her before Easter,” Alistair said. “The announcement goes out tomorrow.”

Theo read the document once. “Have you asked whether she wants me?”

“I have asked whether her father wants the alliance.”

“That isn’t the same thing.”

“It is the only thing that matters.”

At dinner, Hester sat opposite him in a pale blue gown and listened while their fathers discussed tariffs as though she and Theo were already portraits on the wall. When they were finally left alone in the conservatory, she spoke first.

“Do you intend to object?”

“I’m still deciding.”

“Then I’ll save you the trouble. I don’t want to marry you.”

Theo stared at her. She smiled without amusement. “You may tell your father I’m difficult. It will be the first useful thing either of us does tonight.”

He asked what she wanted instead. Hester said she wanted her family’s debts forgiven without being traded for a vote. He heard his own anger in the answer and hated that it sounded familiar.

At home, Alistair gave him a letter from Julian and ordered him to learn what the prince knew about the missing shipments. Theo opened the attached account page. The handwriting belonged to his father’s secretary, but the authorisation at the bottom was Alistair’s.

He had spent years telling himself that not knowing was a form of innocence. The page made that impossible.

When he went to confront his father, the study door was locked. From inside, he heard Alistair say, “The girl must be in the house before the king's condition becomes public.”

Hester walked him to the conservatory doors before the families rejoined them. “You look as if you’ve just discovered the floor beneath you is rotten.”

“Have you?”

“I have known for years.” She adjusted one glove. “My father thinks the marriage will save us. He doesn’t know; I’d rather sell the house stone by stone than let him trade me for a committee seat.”

Theo wanted to tell her he would refuse the contract. He wanted to promise he could protect her. Both would be empty words until he had the courage to act.

“I’ll speak to my father,” he said.

“Then speak to him because it’s right, not because you think I’ll thank you.”

She left him with that. In the carriage home, Theo opened Julian’s letter again. The prince had asked for help, not offered a bargain. Theo recognised how rare that was in a house where every kindness came with a price.

At the estate, he searched the account cabinet. The page bearing his father’s signature was not a forgery. A second ledger was missing from its place. Someone had taken it recently; dust outlined the book’s shape on the shelf.

Theo backed away before the footsteps reached the door. For the first time, he understood that the marriage arrangement and the stolen medicines were part of the same design.