“Yes, yes.” Laura held up a hand. “But we must consider, if Mr. Weatherwax maintains control, we shall go on—I assume—much in the same way we have been since Papa died. Things will be tight, but we shall rub along well enough as long as no catastrophe befalls us. If circumstances become too grim, we can always consider selling one of the properties.”

Aunt Charlotte’s lips thinned. “I cannot like it, Laura.”

“Nor I.” Teddy folded his arms. “What’s our second option?”

Magpie chose that moment to uncurl himself, stand up, and perform a languorous stretch. When he’d finished, he jumped from the bed, landing on the wood floor with a thump. The door creaked on its hinges as he let himself out of the room.

Laura rubbed her forehead. She could feel the beginnings of a megrim. “We can hire another solicitor to challenge Mr. Weatherwax. We’d have to borrow the money to pay him somehow. Perhaps from Henrietta? She’s never been tightfisted. And then…we’d just have to hope that the new solicitor would prevail. For if he didn’t…”

“If he didn’t,” Aunt Charlotte said grimly, “then we’d have made an enemy of Weatherwax to no good purpose.”

Laura nodded. “Exactly. And I don’t like to say so, but…I sense a vindictiveness in Mr. Weatherwax. If we fought him and lost, I suspect he would show us no mercy.”

Teddy’s narrow face had gone a shade paler, the blue shadows under his eyes becoming more pronounced. “And our third option?”

Laura’s stomach clenched into a knot. “That’s a bit trickier.” She hesitated, her mouth suddenly dry. “By rights, a half interest in Hayes’s Perfumes should be mine.”

“Only if you marry before your twenty-fifth birthday, my dear,” Aunt Charlotte said. “And even then, the half interest would belong to your husband, not to you. My brother didn’t believe in ladies involving themselves in the family business. Foolish man.”

“I daresay Papa thought he was being fair and equitable. He didn’t allow for the fact that I’d be a spinster, and Teddy would be an invalid.”

“It hardly matters now,” Aunt Charlotte replied. “With you unmarried, the whole of it goes to Teddy. And since Weatherwax is going to claim Teddy is too frail to take control—”

“But if you marry—” Teddy looked at Laura, his gaze burning with a new intensity. “You would have a half share.”

Laura gave her brother a rueful grimace. “My husband would, anyway.”

“Husband?” Aunt Charlotte looked between the two of them in confusion. “What husband?”

“And therein lies the difficulty.” Laura leaned back in her seat. “Who would I marry? Or—more to the point—who in the world could be prevailed upon to marry me?”