Page 45 of When the Scoundrel Sins

Quinn wasn’t surprised. But if Bletchley was that far in debt, it was worse than he and Robert suspected. He forced a scoff of disbelief to lure more information from the solicitor. “On whose authority?”

Bartleby leaned forward across the desk to confide, “I’m not just the resident lawyer but also a district officer for the Bank of England, per recognized right of the crown.” He raised his glass in toast. “To King George!”

“King George,” Quinn toasted back, starkly reminded that he sat in the middle of the borderlands where allegiance to the English king was still questionable.

Bartleby held up a finger for dramatic effect, and Quinn fought to keep from rolling his eyes. Then he reached down to his desk drawer, riffled through it, and withdrew a sheet of paper. He placed it onto a pile of ledgers covering the desk.

“What’s this?” Quinn frowned.

“An advertisement.” Bartleby grinned at it as if sharing a secret prize. “For Kinnybroch!”

Quinn lowered his eyes to the small sketch of the house and description of the property, followed by details of how to make contact to…Mr. John Bartleby, Esquire, Official Conveyancer for County Cumbria.

He crooked a brow. Apparently, BartlebywasBraeburn Village.

The solicitor leaned forward across the desk and tapped a finger on the paper. “The bank gave notice of foreclosure last year,” Bartleby confided, “but as the accountant for Kinnybroch and the Crown’s official conveyancer—”

“Also the bank agent,” Quinn reminded. “And the solicitor.”

Bartleby’s eyes shined with pride at his arrangement. “As all four, I agreed with myself to give Sir Harold a reprieve from the auction block, confident that he would marry Miss Greene and gain the money to repay his debt.” He finished off his glass. “So there you are. The perfect match!”

Quinn blinked, having lost the thread of this churning, whisky-confused conversation. Yet he was just as certain that the man would talk in the same broad leaps of thought if he were sober. “Pardon?”

“The perfect match,” he repeated, as if it were obvious. “Marry each other, and all is right. But if she doesn’t marry Sir Harold, they both lose their estates!”

“Sounds more like the perfect irony,” Quinn muttered, glancing down at the advertisement.

“But of course they will marry,” the eccentric man hurried on, kicking his feet up onto the corner of his desk. He waved his hand in the air. “She’ll marry him, he’ll marry her…and we’ll all have a grand time dancing at their wedding!”

“Yes,” Quinn forced out. “A grand time.”

“And if they don’t…Well, make an offer to pay the mortgage, and you can have your own estate.” He picked up the advertisement and tucked it safely back into the desk drawer, then shook his head. “Ah, but you’re bound for America, aren’t you? What would you want with a place like Kinnybroch?”

What, indeed? Except that Glenarvon’s worth was similar to Kinnybroch’s, and if Belle didn’t marry, the Church might very well offer it up on the auction block next to Kinnybroch.

That stirred a desperate idea. “I’m curious. What amount do you expect the winning bid to fetch?”

“Twenty thousand pounds.” He reached for the bottle and refilled his own glass. “Of course, that’s only if it goes to auction, you understand.”

“Of course,” Quinn repeated, trying to hide his stunned reaction at the sizable amount. Twenty thousand pounds…Good Lord.The momentary fantasy he had of buying back Glenarvon for Belle vanished like smoke.

Even if he wasn’t set on America, buying Glenarvon would still take every penny he had—and ten thousand more. He knew only one person with that kind of money. And turning to Sebastian for help when he’d made such a point of leaving to become his own man, free from his brother’s duke-shaped shadow, was almost as distasteful as letting Belle marry Bletchley.

Quinn tossed down the rest of his scotch in a gasping swallow to chase away the helpless frustration nipping at his heels.

“To Castle Glenarvon.” Bartleby lifted his glass in a belated toast to follow Quinn’s lead in finishing off his glass. But he stopped himself, his hand raised halfway to his lips. A melancholy expression flitted across his face. “Although only for a few short weeks more, I’m afraid.”

“Miss Greene plans on keeping the estate.” One way or another, he thought grimly. “If she marries”—and he was doing his damnedest to make certainthatwouldn’t happen—“under the law, her husband cannot mortgage nor sell any land held as part of the dower.” He was certain that Aunt Agatha would have a marriage contract drawn up to keep it safely away from both her husband and any heir of his who might turn on her.

“You are correct, sir.” Bartleby raised a finger for emphasis as he noted, “Post hoc, ergo propter hocis fallacious, of course, yetergo hoc sequitur quoddoes occur, indeed!”

Quinn blinked blankly as the man laughed half-drunkenly at his own play on words. For the only time in his life, he wished he would have paid more attention to Latin lessons at Oxford. “Thus then,” he translated from the far dark corners of his brain, “after something…follows something…”

“Therefore, this follows that!” He lifted his glass in a happy toast to Latin, then caught Quinn’s bewildered stare. “Under the law, as well as Church doctrine,” he explained patiently, “the wife becomes the property of her husband.Ergo hoc sequitur quod…her property becomes his.”

“Not if she doesn’t give her permission.” He knew Belle well enough to know that she would rather die than sign over her home.

“Inconsequential, in my experience.” Bartleby waved away his argument. “Even the most independent-minded woman eventually sees the folly of her ways and succumbs to her husband’s wishes.”