“Indeed, he did,” Mr. Benedict replied.
“And did he speak to you of me, Mr. Benedict?” Pierce asked, his tone mild but his face intent.
The arrested expression on the solicitor’s face was his answer.
Pity stirred for Pierce. Asher knew what it felt like to be overlooked by their father. The man had purposely forgotten him for years. But it seemed to him, in this moment seeing Pierce, that being ignored by someone you saw every day was likely worse.
With a clearing of his throat, Mr. Benedict opened the leather case he was holding, rose to his feet, and placed a series of news sheets in front of Asher.
Asher looked down, picked one up, and scanned it, surprised to see it was about him and when he’d opened his first distillery. Each paper he looked at was another write up about him. There was one from when he’d opened his second distillery and another from the third distillery being opened. Then there was an article that mentioned that he was the son of an English duke. He’d hated that article.
Asher set the papers down and met Mr. Benedict’s frank gaze. “What’s all this about?”
“After you left England with your wife, your father followed your progress.”
Asher’s frown deepened. “Do ye mean to say he had someone watching me?”
“Exactly so. He had a man under his employ to watch you from the day you departed.”
“What the devil for?” Pierce demanded before Asher could voice the same question.
“I believe,” Mr. Benedict said, “he wanted to ensure that you were getting along with ease, given you refused to take any of the funds he’d offered you. I speculate here, as your father was not a man to share his innermost thoughts. However, in my observations from our meetings, I think he felt partly to blame for your being forced to wed Lady Elizabeth. Pardon, I refer to her as I did when she was unwed. Your father mentioned on several occasions that if you had been under his care, he could have guided you more, molded you better to be the duke you were meant to be, and then you might not have found yourself in such a compromising position.”
“Knowing the old devil as I did, however briefly, I’d say it was more that he wanted to control me and was irritated when I left England and hoped to see me fall on my face.”
“I’m obliged to disagree, Your Grace, even if you become angry with me. Your father was a complicated man, and I grant that he was upset when you left England and would not return or communicate with him, but he was beside himself with pride every time you had an accomplishment. He would call me to the house to save the article so that one day you would know he cared. He was proud. Those were his words.”
“Ye will have to pardon me,” Asher said, “if I find that difficult to believe given the circumstances.”
“The man was impossible to please,” Pierce slurred, tipping up his drink to consume every last drop. As he got up and made his way to the sideboard to pour another finger, Asher and Mr. Benedict exchanged a knowing look. Pierce needed to get himself in hand, whether he was enraged at his lot or not. But that was not a discussion to have in Pierce’s current state, nor in front of Mr. Benedict.
“Your Grace, I find myself yet again in the difficult position of being forced to point a few things out to you that you may not wish to hear.” Mr. Benedict gave Asher an uncertain look.
Was the man concerned he would lose Asher as a client if he dared to disagree with him or tell him something he might not want to hear?
“I’m half-Scot, Mr. Benedict. We pride ourselves on plain speaking and disagreeing. There’s no need to concern yerself with repercussions in relation to either with me.”
“Excellent. Consider these things, then, if you will. Your father was ordered to divorce your mother before you were born. He defied his father so you would be born legitimate and, therefore, risked his fortune.”
“Are ye suggesting I should be grateful that he did not make me a bastard, just fatherless?” Asher asked, feeling a tic begin at his right eye.
“No, I’m suggesting you might want to think upon these things. As I said, he was complicated. No man is all good or all evil, Your Grace. I suggest that your father was capable of both, as we all are.”
“Point taken, Mr. Benedict. Continue.”
“He did, unfortunately, agree to divorce your mother on the grounds of infidelity, which he later confessed to me had been false, but he also made certain to say the infidelity happened after your birth, thereby ensuring you were his legal heir.”
“I feel so fortunate,” Asher said dryly. “My father abandoned me but not quite fully. He was a weak man, not strong enough to defy his father’s command and not brave enough to face years of hardship when my grandfather threatened to pull back the purse strings. And yet—”
Asher did not finish the thought. He wasn’t even sure how to finish it. He didn’t quite despise his father as much as he once had since learning the man had not completely forsaken him. Yet not totally despising him somehow felt disloyal to his mother.
“He was a devil.” Pierce dropped back into his chair. “I know it. Carrington here knows it. And you know it, Benedict. So can we just move along to the will?”
It dawned on Asher that Pierce hated their father with the same ferociousness Asher had when he’d left England wed to a woman for whom he did not care rather than the woman who affected him in a way no woman ever had. He had blamed his father for his predicament until he’d had a chance to cool off. It was then that Asher had admitted that his father had not forced him into the library with Elizabeth the night he’d been thought to compromise her. He’d been driven there by the desire to rid himself of the memory of Guinevere kissing another man mere moments earlier. Yes, Elizabeth had beseeched him to follow her there, but he never would have if he’d not seen Guinevere in Kilgore’s arms. He’d wanted to hurt Guinevere as she had hurt him. Instead, he’d put an unwanted marriage noose around his neck and hung himself.
Asher shifted restlessly. The blame for returning Elizabeth’s kiss that night lay solely on him. And Guinevere. He was not so chivalrous as to dismiss the part she had played. Pierce needed to realize that whatever he’d made of his life thus far, or hadn’t, was his own doing, not their father’s.
“Your Grace,” Mr. Benedict said, politely clearing his throat and yanking Asher from his musings. “Would you like me to simply proceed to the will, as Lord Pierce has suggested?”
“Aye,” Asher replied.
“It’s about sodding time,” Pierce grumbled. “I tire of waiting to see how Father likely cut me out.”
Asher motioned to Mr. Benedict to proceed.
“Do either of you gentlemen have a weapon on you?” Mr. Benedict asked.
Asher and Pierce frowned, first at each other and then at the solicitor. “Nay,” and “No,” they answered in unison.
“Excellent.” Mr. Benedict tapped the papers he now held in his hands against the gleaming mahogany of Asher’s desk, then looked from Asher to Pierce and back again. “Please, do try to remember that your father was, as I mentioned earlier, a complicated man.”
The laugh Pierce let loose was full of bitterness. “What has the old devil done?”