Chapter Seven
“Do not rise. Young women are apt to spring to their feet from nervousness, and the movement tells me too much before they have spoken. Remain where you are and allow me to look at you.”
Lady Marwood was smaller than her reputation and, for that reason, somehow twice as formidable. She was a spare, upright woman of perhaps seventy, dressed in grey silk of such quality that Selina’s morning gown appeared decidedly modest beside it.
She had arrived at precisely three o’clock. Declining the more comfortable chair, she selected the harder one beside the window, where the light fell upon Selina rather than herself. She laid her cane across her knees as though it were an emblem of office.
“You have already looked at me a great deal, my lady,” Selina said, remaining seated as instructed. “You began at the door.”
“The door reveals carriage and posture. The rest requires conversation. Conversation is where clever people betray themselves, because they cannot resist displaying how clever they are.” Lady Marwood adjusted the cane beneath her hands. “Well? Do you intend to display yourself, or must I dig?”
“Neither, I hope. I shall answer what you ask, but I shall not perform. If that disappoints you, I regret it.”
Lady Marwood’s eyes, pale and undimmed, travelled over Selina’s face with the frank assessment of a woman long past pretending not to assess.
Afterwards, they examined the room and took rather longer over it: the darned place in the curtain, the handsome clock, the chair recently moved from the faded impression it had left upon the carpet, and the empty, well-swept hearth.
Lady Marwood had been reading rooms since before Selina’s mother married. She read this one as a farmer might read the sky.
“Those flowers are wrong,” she said. “Someone young selected them.”
“His Grace’s sister.”
“They have stood there for four days because no one has possessed the courage to remove them.” Her cane settled across her knees once more. “You know who I am.”
“You are the woman whose opinion travels furthest and fastest through London.” Selina met her gaze. “You have come to decide whether the new Duchess of Wexford is to be received or quietly excluded.”
“And whether the Duchess of Wexford intends to continue pretending that she was born Miss Gray.”
There it was. Lady Marwood had brought the name into the room, but Selina would determine how it remained there.
“Gray was my mother’s name, and one I used when my own had become impossible to carry.
My father was the Earl of Merrow. He was convicted of murder and hanged.
I had no part in his crime, yet I have spent much of my life bearing its punishment.
That is my history. Since you will hear it regardless, I prefer to give it to you plainly rather than allow gossip to arrange the particulars. ”
Lady Marwood remained silent for a moment. Then, to Selina’s surprise, she smiled. It was a small, dry movement which drew the deep lines of her face into a new and not altogether unfriendly arrangement.
“Most women in your position would gamble upon a flattering fiction. It might purchase them a Season.”
“I have seen what a false account can cost. I have no wish to entrust myself to another.”
Lady Marwood did not answer immediately. She lifted the tea which had stood untouched beside her, examined the cup and did not drink.
“You were employed as a companion.”
“For three years in Suffolk. I then spent six months seeking another position.”
“Under a name which was not your own.”
“Under my mother’s name, my lady. I do not consider the distinction insignificant, though I do not expect it to interest you.”
“It does not.”
Lady Marwood took a single swallow and settled the cup upon her knee.
“Your hands are not the hands society expects of a duchess. I noticed them at the door.”
Selina turned them over in her lap and allowed the older woman to examine them without attempting to hide the ink stain or the roughened place upon her finger.
“They are hands accustomed to earning their keep,” Lady Marwood said. “Do you blame your father for making that necessary?”
“I neither blame nor forgive him, my lady. I was seventeen. I loved him, and he was taken from me by a law I had no power to contest. I have allowed him to rest there ever since.” Her voice thinned slightly, and she made no effort to disguise it.
“I would prefer that you did not press me further upon the subject.”
The drawing room became very quiet. Somewhere below stairs, a door closed. Neither woman reached for the teapot at Selina’s elbow.
Lady Marwood inclined her head by a fraction, like a duellist acknowledging a touch.
“I shall leave your father where you have placed him.” She raised her cup and studied Selina over its rim. “What persuaded Wexford to act with such haste?”
“Practical considerations, my lady. He requires a wife and an heir, and he judged that my temperament might suit both his household and his sister. At Mrs Ottley’s, a gentleman publicly connected the name Gray with Calvert.
It was reasonable to expect that gossip would supply the rest, and that the consequences would fall most heavily upon me.
The incident lent urgency to a decision His Grace believed sensible for other reasons. ”
“You describe your marriage rather as one might describe a settlement of accounts.”
“It was considered with much the same care, my lady.” Selina set down her cup untasted. “I shall not claim that it was a love match. You would discover the truth soon enough, and then you would know me for a liar.”
A quiet knock sounded before the door opened.
Nathaniel entered, and Selina knew from the brief movement of Lady Marwood’s eyes that he had heard at least the end of her answer. He paused behind Selina’s chair, one hand resting briefly upon its back, then crossed to bow over their visitor’s hand.
“Lady Marwood. You are welcome.”
“Your wife has been explaining the reasoning behind your marriage, Wexford. With greater candour than most brides would consider prudent.”
“My wife generally prefers accuracy to prudence.”
“So I have gathered.” Lady Marwood studied him. “She tells me that the match was founded upon practical considerations. Do you disagree?”
“No.”
“No?”
“The duchess has described its beginnings correctly.”
Lady Marwood looked from him to Selina. “Neither of you appears inclined to make the story prettier for my benefit.”
“You would detect the attempt,” Nathaniel said, “and think less of us both for making it.”
“Certainly. But one likes to know whether people will try.”
She replaced her cup upon its saucer.
“You will dine with me on Thursday at eight. I keep a small table and have grown weary of guests who agree with me merely because they believe it advantageous. Plain speaking may improve the evening.”
Nathaniel drew breath.
“Thursday at eight,” Selina said. “We shall be pleased to attend.”
She answered before he could speak. At the time, the decision cost her nothing. She was already considering the dinner, the guests Lady Marwood might assemble and the questions with which they would test her. For several minutes, she was pleased with herself.
Lady Marwood remained for the correct three-quarters of an hour. Then she rose, took up her cane and crossed the room without assistance. In the hall, she paused before a portrait of Nathaniel’s mother, then permitted the footman to open the door.
Her carriage rolled away.
After seeing Lady Marwood out, Selina returned to the drawing room. Nathaniel remained by the window.
“You handled that very well,” he said.
“Thank you.”
Before either could say more, Georgiana entered.
She came in too quickly, pale and visibly distressed, with a folded sheet of paper crushed in one hand. She stopped when she saw them together.
“He has written again. Mr Rowland.” The words came unevenly. “I did not answer his first letter. I swear that I did not. I have kept my word, Selina. I have not spoken to him or even acknowledged him in the street. But this letter is different. It does not ask me to… I cannot explain it.”
Selina crossed to her and gently removed the paper from her clenched hand.
“Sit down.”
“I would rather stand.”
“Then stand. But take a breath before you attempt to tell us anything more.”
Selina unfolded the letter.
It did not ask Georgiana to meet Rowland. It informed her that she would meet him. If she refused, the letters she had written during the spring would appear in a scandal sheet under her full name: every foolish, intimate confidence entrusted to a man she had believed understood her.
Selina read it twice. The paper was cheap and the hand accomplished, though several letters appeared unnaturally formed, as if the writer had attempted to disguise them. The reverse was blank.
Georgiana watched her face. Nathaniel had moved to the middle of the room but came no nearer.
“This is no longer a private correspondence,” Selina said. “Whatever Mr Rowland’s original intentions may have been, he is now attempting to frighten you into obeying him. He is using your letters because they are the only means of influence he has left.”
Georgiana wiped her face with the heel of one hand. “What am I to do?”
“Nothing tonight. You will not answer him, destroy anything or attempt to meet him.”
“I had no intention of meeting him.”
“Good. Then you have already made the most important decision.”
Some of the panic left Georgiana’s expression, though the hurt remained.
“May I see it?” Nathaniel asked.
Selina carried the letter to him. “Read it, but we shall not question Georgiana further tonight. Whatever answer we make can wait until we have considered it properly.”
Nathaniel read the letter in silence. His expression did not change, but the paper became very still between his hands.
“At least he was foolish enough to put the threat in writing,” Selina said.
“Yes.” Nathaniel folded it carefully along its existing creases. “That was a mistake.”
Georgiana looked from one to the other. “You believe we can answer it?”
“I believe he has given us evidence,” Nathaniel said. “And I believe you did precisely the right thing by bringing it to us.”
The words appeared to steady her more than reassurance would have done. She drew herself upright.
“Then tell me what I must do.”
“For tonight, nothing,” Selina said. “Tomorrow, the three of us will decide how best to proceed. Nothing will be done without your knowledge or consent.”
Georgiana looked between them. “The three of us?”
“Together,” Nathaniel said.
He placed one hand briefly upon his sister’s shoulder. The gesture was slightly awkward, as though he had fallen out of practice with offering comfort and knew it. Georgiana covered his hand with hers before he could withdraw it.
The hall clock struck the hour.
Nathaniel looked down at Rowland’s letter, still folded in his other hand.
Rowland had intended it to force a way back to Georgiana. Instead, he had put his threat in writing and delivered the proof into Nathaniel’s hands.