Chapter 18
Eighteen
The matter of the marriage settlement was resolved a few days later at the offices of Mr. Williams’s solicitor. He was a tiny man with wire spectacles by the name of Mr. Filby, who wasted the first ten minutes of their meeting questioning the makeup of the group that came before him.
“There’s really no need for Miss and Mrs. Williams to be here,” he explained patiently. “I can arrange everything the gentlemen require.”
“Mrs. Williams most certainly does need to be here,” said Mrs. Williams herself, with a menacing glare that encompassed both her husband and the solicitor. The former only sat sullenly in his chair, while the latter blushed and tidied some papers to avoid her gaze.
“And I’d prefer that Miss Williams hear the terms of her settlement for herself,” Silas added.
“Yes, well, if you’re sure…” Mr. Filby cleared his throat. “What about your father, Mr. Corbyn? Mr. Williams informed me that you don’t have your own solicitor, but surely your family must want to—”
“He won’t be leaving me any property,” Silas interrupted. “My only possession of any value is the prize money I earned during my naval service, so I don’t see why he should be needed.”
“But your inheritance,” Mr. Filby protested. “It really is necessary to establish the intentions of both fathers of the parties to the marriage settlement, or it leaves the door open to a dispute between the heirs once someone passes on.”
“I’ve been disinherited. Pretend he’s dead if you like.”
Poor Mr. Filby looked overset by this frank pronouncement, but unlike Silas, he was too well bred to give free rein to his reactions with anything so gauche as words. Only his eyes betrayed his shock.
“L-let’s get straight to business, shall we?” He fussed with the same papers that he’d just tidied.
Mr. Williams was curiously silent as his solicitor took them through the essentials.
Whatever his wife had done to bring him into line seemed to be working, even if his beefy fists were clenched in a silent struggle.
As Mrs. Williams had promised, the amount of Hannah’s dowry was provided for in her own settlement, so there could be no dispute about it.
Silas informed the solicitor that he wanted the full amount reserved for Hannah’s sole use, although this provoked some debate from her mother about whether the funds should instead be settled on their future children.
“Miss Williams might wish to buy some property with the funds,” Silas explained, half to her mother and half to Mr. Filby. “We’ll need to keep the money accessible.”
“You understand it would be your property, Mr. Corbyn.” Mr. Filby forgot his timidity as he launched into an explanation. “Legally speaking, you become one person upon your marriage, and you would exercise Miss Williams’s rights for her.”
Silas wished there were some way to get the man to stop talking. He glanced at Hannah, trying to gauge whether this would be the thing that sent her racing out the door, but she kept her gaze fixed on her hands. She’d been difficult to read since his proposal.
She’d barely agreed to marry him as it was. If Mr. Filby began undoing all the promises Silas had made to secure her consent, who knew what she might do?
“There must be some way to arrange it.” Silas fixed Mr. Filby with a stern look. “Isn’t that the point of settlements? Why can’t you provide that the property would be for her sole use as well?”
“I suppose.” The little man polished his glasses on his shirt sleeve.
“It would certainly be far simpler if she were bringing the property with her into the marriage instead of planning for a hypothetical, but we could make a provision in the settlement that any property purchased with the funds from her dowry must also be for Miss Williams’s sole use during her lifetime. ”
“Do that, then,” Silas ordered. Honestly, why did this have to be complicated?
“But what about your commission, Mr. Corbyn?” Mrs. Williams chimed in. “I thought you needed some of the funds to purchase it. We wouldn’t want the settlement to interfere with your plans.” It was the last thing Silas wanted to think about now.
Mr. Williams couldn’t contain himself any longer. “It’s not enough that you’re giving this man our daughter without giving him our money as well? Why can’t he buy his own commission?”
Don’t react. Silas wasn’t going to start a row in the solicitor’s office. He wasn’t. But he could practically feel Hannah slipping away with every new obstacle.
“Mr. Corbyn only needs three hundred pounds,” Hannah explained calmly, though she’d tensed at her father’s tone. “It’s not much in the grand scheme of things.”
“Not much? You’d think you were marrying a duke, the way you’re prepared to throw away money.”
Now Mrs. Williams joined the fray. “They’re not throwing it away; they’re making provisions for Mr. Corbyn’s future. You should be happy you’ll have a son-in-law in the army.”
Silas winced. How was she going to react once she realized that he had no intention of buying a commission?
He hadn’t had a chance to discuss the timing of this revelation with Hannah before her mother had come back into the room the other day.
Silas wanted to be done with lies, but if he said something now, it was sure to spark another argument.
Silas was suddenly more than a little angry at the pair of them.
If they’d been able to control their quarreling, he might not have needed to offer Hannah her own cottage or to live separately or to never have children in order to persuade her that marriage wasn’t a trap.
She might have trusted Silas to care for her. Might have wanted it.
More than any dowry, the inheritance the Williamses had passed down to their daughter was the terror of their mistakes.
If it makes her feel safe, it’s a small price to pay, Silas told himself. He didn’t mind what Hannah did with her own money. If a cottage would give her the security she needed to marry him, then let her have her cottage. It didn’t mean she had to live there.
There was real passion between them. In time, Hannah might learn to see their alliance as a gift, instead of a mutual necessity. He just needed a chance to prove that she could trust him.
So for once in his life, Silas held his tongue long enough to get what he wanted. He let Mr. and Mrs. Williams bicker their way through the next hour of the meeting until the question of pin money and jointure and all the rest was settled, and Mr. Filby released them with an exhausted farewell.
“Are you all right?” he murmured to Hannah on their way out. Her parents were heading safely to their separate carriages, her father having brought his own from Devon.
Hannah had been quiet through most of the meeting, particularly when her parents had argued. There was a tension in her shoulders that he would have liked to brush away, had they been alone.
“They’re always like that,” she whispered without meeting his eye. “I don’t know why I thought I could change things. It was stupid of me.”
“It’s not stupid,” he assured her. “It’s natural to want harmony, but you don’t have the power to decide your parents’ lives. Only your own.”
When Hannah looked up at him, the sadness on her face seemed to spring from deep within. It wasn’t the sort of emotion one could erase. He couldn’t tell if she truly understood him.
“Does it bother you that your family won’t be here for the wedding?” she asked delicately. “Did you write to them?”
“I wrote my mother, but I doubt she’ll ever see it.
My father will likely take the letter when it arrives, and she won’t go behind his back.
” It pained Silas, but he suspected that it was easier for him to let go of hope for change than it was for Hannah.
Perhaps it came from having spent so much time apart from them.
He’d learned from a young age that he could manage on his own.
“I’m grateful to have Marian and James with me.
That’s more than I expected, and they’re good people. ”
Hannah nodded gravely. “I’m glad too. I hope that you’ll be very happy with them once I can give you the funds to start your brewery.”
“You could be happy with us too.” Silas almost didn’t say the words.
It was a delicate balance, trying to coax Hannah to let go of her fears without pushing her too far.
But now that he’d risked it, he had to press on.
“I know that you probably didn’t imagine yourself married to a man in trade, but there’s good profit to be made in Burton.
If things go well, we could be living quite comfortably in a few years.
You’d get on well with Marian, I think. You both have an independent spirit. ”
Hannah looked flustered. “I thought we agreed—”
“We did,” he assured her quickly. “I won’t force you into anything. I just want you to know that you’d be welcome, if you wanted to join us.”
It was too soon. He shouldn’t have pressed his luck. Hannah’s father was calling her impatiently from his carriage, waiting to depart.
“I’ll see you in a few days.” Silas pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead and took his leave.
* * *
The third and final banns were read on Sunday, and Hannah married Mr. Corbyn the following Wednesday.
She wore a white silk gown with lace flounces, and Molly wove a crown of flowers to set above the pins that held her veil in place. It felt like a dream.
But not the kind of dream one waited their whole life to see come true. It mostly felt unreal, as if she might put her hand out to turn a doorknob and have it dissolve into thin air or step forward to fall into an endless hole.
Even Mama was acting strangely, sniffing and dabbing at her eyes as they made ready to leave for the church.
“The wedding hasn’t even started yet,” Hannah complained. “You’re not supposed to cry until we say our vows.”