Chapter 27
“Lord Redmont is below, Your Grace. He says he is in the area on business and requests a brief word.”
Henry set down his pen and looked at the butler for a moment.
“Show him to the blue sitting room,” he said. “I shall be there in five minutes.”
The butler withdrew. Henry sat for a moment longer. Then he stood and straightened his coat.
Redmont was standing at the window when Henry came in. He turned with a smile that had been assembled in advance.
“Sappherton.” He bowed. “Good of you to receive me. I was passing through—some business nearby—and I thought, while I’m in the neighborhood.”
Henry inclined his head. “Redmont. Sit down.”
Redmont sat, then looked around the room. “A fine room. I had not been to Sappherton House in some years.” He crossed one leg over the other. “You have your ward with you, I understand? The Scottish boy.”
“My cousin’s son. Yes.”
“How is he settling?”
“Well,” Henry said.
Redmont nodded, as though this was deeply interesting. “And the Duchess?” He said it with feigned warmth. “Such a swift marriage. It was a surprise to everyone, naturally. But she seems to be managing?”
Henry looked at him. “My wife is entirely well. Thank you.”
“Of course, of course.” Redmont leaned back, his expression turning calculating.
“I only bring it up because…well, you see my position, Sappherton. By your hasty intervention, I missed out on a most lucrative alliance and the substantial commercial advantages that would have come with Lady Charlotte’s dowry.
I consider myself due some manner of compensation. ”
Henry’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Get to the point, Redmont.”
“My private agents tracking the northern post roads have turned up something rather significant regarding your family,” Redmont said smoothly.
“A credible trace of your missing cousin, Nathan Drummond, and his wife. My men know the exact crofting community where they took shelter three weeks north.”
Henry went completely still. “And why bring this to me?” He already knew the answer, but he wanted to hear the marquess say it.
“Because business is business,” Redmont replied, leaning forward.
“I want to take advantage of the extensive shipping connections and mercantile consortiums you command. Give me a vested partnership in your northern shipping lines and priority access to your trade networks, and my men will hand over the exact notes of where Nathan Drummond can be found.”
Henry sat in silence, carefully weighing the proposal. The temptation to find Nathan and put Ian's heart at ease was immense, but as he studied Redmont’s placid, opportunistic expression, cold pragmatism took over.
He knew the man’s reputation too well; Redmont was thoroughly untrustworthy, driven solely by profit and underhanded leverage.
If there truly was a valid lead to be found in the north, Henry was entirely capable of uncovering it through his own trusted channels without binding his trade house to a man like Redmont.
“No,” Henry said flatly.
Redmont blinked, his smile faltering a fraction. “You refuse actionable intelligence concerning your own flesh and blood over business pride?”
“I refuse to barter with a man whose word carries no weight,” Henry replied, rising from his chair. “If my cousin is to be found, I will find him myself. Our business is concluded.”
Redmont was not pleased. His eyes turned sharp as if he was stung by the rejection. Standing up unhurriedly to mask his irritation, he let out a dry, pointed laugh.
“A pity,” Redmont murmured, adjusting his cuffs.
“Though perhaps impulsiveness runs in the family. One cannot help but wonder at the sheer haste of your wedding, Sappherton. It has certainly given the ton plenty of fodder. Tell me, are you managing the endless whispers and questions about the legitimacy of your sudden match?”
Henry stood tall, his voice dropping into a dangerous, icy register.
“I will be direct with you, Redmont. My wife’s choices are her own.
They were her own before she married me, and they are her own now.
I do not discuss her decisions with other men, nor do I tolerate malicious insinuations about my household. We have covered everything.”
Redmont met his gaze for a long, tense moment, then inclined his head mockingly and reached for his hat and gloves. “As you say. I meant no offense. Merely concern for her sake.”
“I am certain of that,” Henry said, and it landed exactly as he intended.
Henry followed him into the hall.
Redmont was already at the foot of the stairs when Charlotte came down them. She stopped on the third step. Her face did not change—she was better at this than most people gave her credit for—but her hand had gone to the banister.
“Your Grace.” Redmont looked up at her with that smile.
“Lord Redmont.” Her voice was even. “I was not aware you had called.”
“A brief visit.” He settled his hat atop his head. “Sappherton has been most hospitable.” He tilted his head at her, the way he had in the ballroom corridor, the studied warmth that went nowhere. “You look well.”
“Thank you.” She came down the last three steps. She kept herself very straight. “I hope your business nearby has been productive.”
“Reasonably so.” A beat. “Your father is still incredibly angry, you know. I thought you ought to hear it plainly rather than through rumor.”
Charlotte’s chin came up a quarter inch.
“There is also some talk,” Redmont continued pleasantly, “about the suddenness of the match. People will draw their own conclusions. I’m sure you are aware of it. Some question whether—”
“I am aware of what people say,” Charlotte said. “I have been aware of it since the Caldwell ball.”
“Of course.” Redmont picked at a glove seam. “I only think it worth considering. Your father’s connections. The legal questions that have been raised.” He glanced at Henry, then back. “These things have a way of becoming inconvenient.”
“I have no regrets,” Charlotte said.
“No.” Redmont looked at her. “I imagine you believe that.”
“I do not merely believe it,” she said. “It is a fact.”
Redmont smiled. It was a different smile from the one he’d worn in the sitting room.
Smaller. More private. “You were always very certain, Charlotte. It was one of the things I most—” He stopped himself.
“Well.” He inclined his head. “One day you may think differently.” He turned toward the door.
The butler opened it. “Good day, Sappherton. Your Grace.”
He went, and the door closed. Henry looked at Charlotte.
She was standing at the foot of the stairs with her hand still on the newel post, and she was looking at the door with the expression she used when she was making herself not feel something quickly. Her chin was still up. Her posture was entirely correct. She looked exactly as she always did.
Except for her hand. She was pressing her thumb hard against the carved wood.
“Charlotte,” Henry said.
“I am perfectly fine.” She turned. “He is simply a man who cannot bear to be refused. I knew that.” She moved toward the drawing room. “Shall I ring for tea?”
“In a moment.” He followed her in. “What did he say? Before I came out.”
“You heard the exchange.”
“I heard the end of it.”
She sat. She smoothed her skirts with one hand, an automatic gesture, the kind she made when she was settling down from the inside.
“He told me my father is still furious. People are questioning the marriage’s validity.
They say I acted on impulse and may come to regret it.
” She looked out of the window. “The usual catalogue.”
“And?”
“And nothing. I told him I had no regrets and he left.” She looked back at Henry. “It was nothing I had not already heard.”
“But it rattled you.”
She opened her mouth.
“Charlotte.”
She closed it. She looked at her hands for a moment.
“It is not Redmont,” she said at last. “Redmont I can manage. I have managed him twice now and I will manage him again if it comes to it.” She paused.
“It is my father. He mentioned my father.” She turned the cuff of her sleeve once, a small, tight motion.
“Every time someone mentions him, I go—smaller. I told you about that. I know I do it. I can see myself doing it.” She looked up. “I cannot seem to stop.”
Henry was quiet.
“He is not here,” she said. “My father is not in this room. He is at Ashford and I am here and nothing he wants has any legal standing in my life anymore. I know all of that.” She said it flatly, reciting it, the way you recited things you were trying to believe. “And still.”
Henry crossed to the chair nearest to her. He sat.
She looked at him. He looked back.
“I am not going to dissolve,” she said. “I am simply telling you the truth of it. Since you asked.”
“I know you are not going to dissolve,” he said.
“Good.” She straightened slightly. “Then we need not make a great thing of it.”
“No,” Henry agreed. “But I want you to hear something.”
She waited.
He looked at her directly. “Nobody,” he said. The word landed quiet and entirely complete. “Not your father. Not Redmont.” He paused. “Not even your husband.”
Charlotte frowned. “What?”
“Nobody,” Henry said again, “will ever force you into anything again. Not while I am alive to prevent it.”
She stared at him.
“Your father has no authority over you. Legally, practically, in any manner that counts. What Redmont said about the marriage’s validity is noise.
The documents are sound. The solicitors are satisfied.
There is nothing there.” He kept his voice level.
Not gentle, exactly. Something harder than gentle.
The kind of certainty that had nothing to prove.
“And as for the rest of it—the talk, the questions, the people in drawing rooms deciding what your marriage means—that is not your concern. It is mine. And I will deal with it.”
Charlotte was still looking at him. “You said not even your husband.”
“Yes.”
“You were including yourself in the list?”
“I was.”
Charlotte was quiet. She seemed to be working something out.
“Henry.” She leaned forward slightly. “You have never forced me into anything.”
“I know that.”
“Then why—”
“Because I wanted you to hear it.” He held her gaze.
“Because Redmont stands at the foot of your stairs and mentions your father’s name and your thumb goes white on the newel post, and I think someone ought to have told you a very long time ago that your wishes are the only ones that matter.
And I am telling you now.” He stopped. Something in his expression was doing the thing it did when he had said more than he had planned to. He did not take it back. “That is all.”
Charlotte sat very still.
She was not going to cry. He could see that. But she had gone very still. This conversation had struck her so hard that it was evident she would need a moment to recover. Charlotte did not typically leave her defenses so unguarded, but now, she looked lost and uncertain.
Henry glanced out the window. He was going to have to examine what he had just said at some point as well as what had moved in him when Redmont stood in his hall talking to Charlotte with that smile.
Later, he told himself.