“Yes.”
Selina read it twice.
“He means to say it publicly,” Nathaniel said.
“He has been careful not to write what he intends to say.”
“He has learnt something from Rowland, then.”
Nathaniel watched her. “We need not attend.”
Selina placed the card upon the table. “No.”
He waited.
“If he means to make the accusation before witnesses, then the answer must be available before the same witnesses. If I stay away, he tells the story in my absence and absence becomes guilt before I have opened my mouth.”
“So we attend.”
“We attend.”
Nathaniel sat back.
Selina looked down at Giles’s card. For the first time since it arrived, uncertainty entered her expression.
“Ask Mr Dunmore to write to Mrs Loxley,” she said. “Tell her exactly what Giles intends. Tell her that her name need never be mentioned if she wishes it kept out of this. If she is willing to speak to us, ask whether she will receive me.”
“And if she refuses?”
“Then she refuses. Petherick has the accounts. We will answer Giles without her.”
“And if she agrees?”
Selina was quiet for a moment. “Then, after all these years, I shall finally meet her.”
Mr Dunmore’s reply arrived before dinner. Mrs Loxley would receive the Duchess of Wexford the following afternoon. She made no promise beyond that.
Selina read the note twice before folding it.
“Will you come with me?” she asked.
“If you wish it.”
“I do.”
Nathaniel took the note from her and set it beside Giles’s card.
Tomorrow, then, they would ask Mrs Loxley for nothing she was unwilling to give.