document almost savagely. “Behold your marriage settlement, young Viola. Thirty beastly articles! I pity the lawyer who must read it.”
Viola was on her feet. “How much money does he want?”
“Rather a lot, by the look of it,” said Dickon. “But you’re worth it, my dear.”
“I suppose he thinks he’s worth it!” said Viola, running down the room to him. “Don’t sign it, Dickon, whatever you do!”
“I’m not such a fool as you seem to think, young Viola,” he said indignantly. “I don’t sign anything without a solicitor’s advice, not since…Well, never mind about that,” he added hurriedly as Viola pored over the document. “The less said about that, the better. Now, don’t worry, my dear. The lawyers will sort everything.”
“That mumbling old fool!” Viola muttered, thinking very unkindly of their family solicitor. “Mr Peabody, Esquire, couldn’t sort his own socks. This isn’t a marriage settlement,” she complained. “It’s unconditional surrender! It’s slavery. He wants everything I possess or ever will possess. I do not accept his lordship’s terms.”
“He doesn’t want Lyons, does he?” cried Dickon, becoming alarmed. Lyons, pronounced simply “lions,” was the lone piece of property Viola had inherited from her mother, and Dickon was very attached to it.
Viola stalked over to the fire and tossed Lord Bamph’s proposal into the flames, stabbing it with the poker for good measure. “I told you I wouldn’t like him.”
The duke was almost as fired up as Lord Bamph’s proposal. “He’s not getting your hunting lodge, I can tell you that! Lyons has the best shooting in all Scotland. I may have to give him my sister, but I’ll be damned if I let him shoot your birds, Viola!”
“No, he won’t get Lyons,” Viola assured him. “I will not become one of those pathetic, pitiful little women who must go to their husbands once a week and beg for their pathetic, pitiful little allowances. I may have to marry this cretin to get my fortune, but it is my fortune, and I mean to keep it! I’ll just have to hide it somehow. He doesn’t know how much I have. I could give him, say, ten thousand pounds, and keep the rest for myself.”
“Perhaps he doesn’t know about Lyons,” said Dickon hopefully. “Maybe we could tell him it don’t exist.”
Viola walked up and down the room restlessly, following her own thoughts. “These old lawyers are too soft to be of any use,” she complained. “I need a ruthless man. For my sake, let him be entirely without scruples. Let him be cold, hard, and hungry. Dirty, too, if at all possible. Have we got anybody like that in our pay?” she asked her brother doubtfully.
Dickon thought for a moment while chewing. “There’s Dev.”
Viola stopped pacing. “Dev?” she repeated cautiously.
“Dev,” he clarified. “Devize. I don’t know if he’s hungry, but I’ve heard him called all those other things. In fact, I’ve heard him called a lot worse.”
“Well, don’t tease me,” said Viola, taking a chair. “Tell me all about this paragon.”
“Not much to tell.” Dickon shrugged. “Dev’s our man in London. He’s a stockjobber. He manages our money.”
Viola groaned in disgust. “Dickon, this is war,” she protested. “One doesn’t bring a blunt instrument to a war. I need a man so sharp he cuts himself getting out of bed.”
“What sort of an idiot cuts himself getting out of bed?” Dickon wanted to know.
“The point is, a stockjobber knows nothing of the law. Bamph will have many clever lawyers on the case.”
“What do you want a lawyer for?” Dickon retorted. “Everyone knows the law hates women. The law won’t help you cheat your husband. A wife is a man’s property, you know, and a wife’s property belongs to her husband. That’s the law.”
“You’re right,” Viola conceded. “But what do you suppose Mr Devize can do about it?”
Dickon shrugged. “Something underhanded and clever, I should imagine.”
“Oh, undoubtedly! But would he willing to, say, bend the law?”
“He’ll do better than that—he’ll break it,” Dickon said proudly. “I told you he was a stockjobber, didn’t I? The authorities keep trying to put him in gaol, but they can never prove anything. The law can’t touch him, you see. He’s too clever.”
“Really?” said Viola, suitably impressed.
“It takes a toll, however,” Dickon said sadly. “It takes a toll. When I met Dev, he was fat and brown. I thought him a handsome fellow. However, he’s grown so pale of late, I hardly know him. A shadow of his former! Skin like library paste!”
“I don’t care what he looks like,” Viola interrupted. “Do you trust him? If I’m going to embark on a campaign of unlawful deception with this person, I must be assured of his integrity.”
“Integrity!” Dickon spluttered. “I’ll have you know his father’s a baron!”
“Mr Devize, your stockjobber, is a gentleman?” she said incredulously.
“I just told you his father’s a peer of the realm.”
Viola sighed. “A gentleman won’t help me, Dickon! A gentleman is bound by a code of honor. Your Mr Devize would be far more likely to help Bamph.”
“Not Dev,” Dickon insisted. “You wrong him, Viola. He ain’t bound by a code of honor. He hates Society, and Society hates him. They say he’s sold his soul to the devil, but that’s probably just superstitious nonsense. I think they’re all afraid of him.”
Viola was intrigued. She had a low opinion of her brother’s intelligence in general, but he did occasionally stumble across a good idea. “Very well. Send for him,” she decided. “If he can help me, I’ll make it worth his while. Will he care to bring his wife and children with him to Fanshawe, do you think?”
Dickon shook his head. “It’s no good. He won’t come. I’ve invited him to Fanshawe heaps of times, but he’s always too busy to leave London. As for a wife, he can’t afford one.”
She smiled incredulously. “Can’t afford a wife? What? In spite of all his shady, unlawful dealings? Where does his money go?”
“It goes to us, of course,” Dickon answered. “Well, I suppose he takes what he needs to live on, and I don’t begrudge him that. He told me once, he does it for the excitement, although what he finds exciting about speculating on the Royal Exchange, I can’t tell you. To each his own. He gets all the excitement, and we get all the profits. Everyone’s happy, except, of course, the poor fools who get in his way, but that’s their lookout.”
“Dickon,” Viola said sternly, “if Mr Devize is dependent on us for his livelihood, he is ours to command. Command him to come to Yorkshire at once.”
Dickon stirred uncomfortably.
“Would it be an act of courage?” Viola asked, amused. “Are you afraid
