Read Chapter 18: The Broker's Offer

The letter from Aldous Crane arrived on a Thursday, wrapped in oilskin against the damp and sealed with a blob of green wax that smelled faintly of sandalwood. Maeve broke it open in the kitchen while Bridget ladled porridge into bowls, and she read it twice before the meaning fully settled.

Ashworth found her an hour later in the study, the letter spread flat on the desk beside her husband's ledger. The morning light caught the tremor in her hands.

"He wants to buy," she said without looking up. "The entire claim. All three hundred acres in Ohio."

Ashworth closed the door behind him and crossed to the desk. "How much?"

She turned the letter so he could read it. Crane's hand was neat, almost feminine, the ink a faded blue. He offered one thousand eight hundred pounds—enough to clear the Galway debt, settle the Dublin moneylender, and leave a surplus of nearly four hundred. He required only confirmation of the deed's authenticity and a witnessed signature before remitting the sum to a bank in Cork.

"Nearly two thousand pounds," Ashworth breathed. He pulled the chair opposite her and sat heavily. "That's more than the estate is worth on paper."

"Because it's land in America, not a burnt-out estate in Connacht." Maeve pressed her fingers to her temples. "He wants an answer within the fortnight."

"And you intend to accept."

The words hung between them, not quite a question. Maeve looked past him, through the window where the rain had finally eased and the first weak sun of the season was drawing steam from the wet fields. Her tenants were out there, their faces pinched with hunger, their children's ribs showing through ragged shirts.

"The debt is strangling us," she said. "Every shilling we earn goes to Galway. The tenants pay rent they cannot afford, and the landlord—" She stopped, correcting herself. "I am the landlord. And I am failing them."

Ashworth said nothing. His gaze had drifted to the ledger, still open to the page where Niall had recorded his dealings with Godfrey—the loan, the interest, the escalating threat.

"You think he would want this," Ashworth said quietly. "Your husband."

Maeve's throat tightened. "My husband hid gold beneath a chapel floor to protect this land. He would have sold his own teeth to keep the roof over our heads." She met Ashworth's eyes. "But he's gone. And I am the one who must choose now."

Ashworth nodded slowly. "Then we accept. I'll draft the reply today." He reached for the letter, but Maeve's hand shot out and caught his wrist.

"There's something else." She lifted the deed from beside the ledger, the paper creased and yellowed from its years in the chapel floor. "Crane requires proof this is genuine. He says the registry in Dublin has no record of the claim, and he's heard whispers of forgeries circulating since the fire."

Ashworth's face tightened. "The same fire Sir Godfrey cited in his inquiry."

"The same." Maeve set the deed down. "I can prove it came from my father's hand. But that alone isn't enough for a broker in Melbourne dealing in thousands of pounds."

"He'll want a witness." Ashworth's voice was flat. "Someone who saw your father sign it."

Maeve rose from the chair and walked to the window. The sun had strengthened, casting long shadows across the yard where the stable hand was mending a harness. Seamus O'Clery, sixty-three years old, bent-backed and loyal, who had served her father since before she was born.

"He was there," she said. "The day my father signed the deed. I remember being told the story—Seamus rode with him to the solicitor's office in Galway." She turned back to Ashworth. "He can swear to it."

"Can he also swear to it before a magistrate?" Ashworth asked. "Because that's what this will require. A sworn statement, not just a nod across the dinner table."

The door of the study burst open before Maeve could answer. Padraig stood in the threshold, his face flushed, his breath coming in short bursts.

"Begging your pardon, ma'am," he said, "but Sir Godfrey's carriage has just turned onto the lane. He's got two men with him—the magistrate and another I don't recognize. Look like solicitors."

Maeve's blood went cold. She looked at Ashworth, who had gone still as stone.

"He knows," Ashworth said. "About the deed, about the broker. He's come to contest your title before you can sell the claim."

"How could he know?" Maeve demanded. "We told no one but—" She stopped. The priest. Mr. O'Flaherty had seen their excavation. He had spoken to Godfrey afterward.

"The old fool," she whispered. "He must have mentioned it in confession or in passing. Godfrey twists everything to his own ends."

Padraig shifted in the doorway. "Should I tell them you're not home, ma'am?"

Maeve straightened her shoulders and smoothed her skirt. "No. If he's brought the magistrate, hiding will only make us look guilty." She crossed to the desk and folded Crane's letter, tucking it into her bodice. "Show them to the parlor. I'll receive them directly."

Padraig hesitated, then nodded and disappeared down the hall.

Ashworth was on his feet, his face pale beneath his English complexion. "Maeve, if he raises the issue of forgery before the magistrate, the sale could be frozen. We'll need to produce witnesses and documents within days, not weeks."

"Then we produce them." Maeve moved toward the door, then paused, glancing at the window where Seamus still worked in the yard. "Send for him. Quietly. I want him in the house before Godfrey finishes his first glass of sherry."

Ashworth caught her arm. "If the magistrate rules against you—if he can't verify the deed's authenticity—you lose the claim, the sale, and whatever hope the tenants have of escaping this starvation."

Maeve looked down at his hand on her sleeve. His grip was firm, warmer than she expected.

"Then we make certain he rules in my favor," she said.

She pulled free and walked to the parlor, her heart hammering against her ribs. Sir Godfrey stood by the fireplace, his silver-tipped cane resting against the mantel, his narrow face arranged in an expression of counterfeit concern. Beside him, the magistrate—a gray little man named Hennessy whose spectacles sat crooked on his nose—clutched a leather folio to his chest.

"Mrs. Kelly," Godfrey said, his voice smooth as oil. "Forgive the unannounced call. I come bearing news that distresses me to deliver."

Maeve inclined her head. "Then perhaps you needn't deliver it at all."

Godfrey's smile thinned. "Ah, but my duty to the Crown requires it. Mr. Hennessy has received a formal complaint regarding the title to this estate—a complaint that raises serious questions about the authenticity of certain documents. I'm afraid, Mrs. Kelly, that your claim to this land may rest on papers that never existed in Dublin's registry."

Maeve kept her face impassive. From the window, she caught the motion of Seamus crossing the yard toward the kitchen door.

"The deed was signed by my father in Galway, witnessed by his solicitor and his groom," she said. "I have the witnesses, and I have the document itself. If Mr. Hennessy requires proof, he shall have it—here, today, in my home."

Godfrey's eyes narrowed. "Today?"

"Today," Maeve said. She smoothed her hands over her skirt, feeling the folded letter against her bodice—the offer that could save them all. "If you've come to see me fail, Sir Godfrey, you'll be disappointed. I am not so easily lost as my husband."

Something flickered in Godfrey's gaze—not anger, but something quieter. Something almost like fear.

"I wonder," he said slowly, "if that will prove true."