Chapter 30 #2
“No,” Loretta whispered.
Atlas’s voice sharpened. “Say nothing.”
The senior constable looked between them. “Mrs. Sullyard?”
Loretta pressed herself against the wall as though she could somehow retreat through it. “I thought she was only to be frightened.”
Atlas closed his eyes, and Adelaide crossed her arms. “There appears to be your willing invitation.”
Loretta’s face crumpled. “He told me the duchess had deceived Wolverton. That she was carrying on with Mr. Holbrook and meant to take control of the estate.”
Theodore, still breathing hard from the struggle, looked almost insulted. “With me?”
Loretta would not meet his eyes. “He said you were always together.”
“Because she is practically my sister.”
“I know that now.”
“No,” Atlas said. “You know nothing.”
Loretta flinched, and the constable turned to her. “Begin at the start.”
Atlas laughed coldly. “You cannot possibly mean to interrogate my wife in an abandoned cottage.”
“I mean to understand whether she assisted in taking Her Grace from Wolverton.”
Loretta looked toward Adelaide, but she did not rescue her from the question.
After a long silence, Loretta answered. “I told Adelaide I had news about Eric. I brought her to the carriage.”
“Knowing men would seize her?”
Loretta’s eyes filled. “I knew they would put her inside.”
Adelaide’s stomach turned. “But you did not expect violence.”
“No.”
“You saw them force me into the carriage.”
“Yes.”
“And you continued with them.”
Loretta began crying. “Yes.”
The constable’s face remained impassive. “What were you told would happen here?”
“That Adelaide would be kept until Eric returned. Atlas said the letter would convince him she had fled because of the scandal.”
Adelaide glanced at Eric.
“The letter implied suicide,” he said.
Loretta stared. “What?”
Atlas swore under his breath, but Eric continued. “It said there would be nothing left to find.”
Loretta looked at her husband. “You said she was leaving him.”
“She was.”
“You were going to kill her?”
Atlas said nothing, and the silence answered better than words.
Loretta’s hand rose to her mouth. “Oh God.”
Atlas turned on her. “Do not become theatrical.”
Something changed in Loretta then. Not enough to absolve her, but enough that Adelaide saw the first fracture in whatever loyalty Atlas had spent years demanding. Loretta lowered her hand. “You lied to me.”
“You obeyed me.”
“I helped you abduct someone.”
“Yes.”
“And you never thought I deserved to know you meant to murder her?”
Atlas’s lip curled. “That is precisely why you did not need to know.”
Olivia, standing beside Theodore, went very still. Adelaide remembered Atlas saying women were happier once they ceased confusing obedience with oppression. Apparently Loretta remembered something similar.
Her voice became quieter. “What else?” Atlas looked at her. “What else have you made me do?”
“Loretta.”
“The rumors about Adelaide?”
He said nothing.
Loretta stared. “You told me they were true.”
Adelaide felt Eric shift beside her.
The constable asked, “What rumors?”
Loretta swallowed.
“That Her Grace was unfaithful. That she married Wolverton for his fortune. Atlas told me to repeat them whenever opportunity allowed.”
Adelaide looked at Atlas. “So that was yours too.”
His smile had lost all charm. “You were remarkably difficult to discourage.”
“And the accidents?” Eric asked.
Atlas looked toward him. “What accidents?”
“The horse.”
Silence.
“The loosened tack,” Eric continued. “The disturbances around Wolverton. The little incidents that were always inconvenient enough to be dismissed.”
Atlas shrugged. “I cannot be responsible for every incompetent servant on your estate.”
Eric’s voice dropped. “You arranged them as the estate steward.”
“You abandoned the place for five years. Someone had to manage it.”
Olivia stepped forward. “By keeping him frightened?”
Atlas looked at her. “You are hardly in a position to preach morality.”
Olivia’s face paled, but Theodore moved closer without touching her. She did not retreat.
The constable addressed Eric. “You mentioned financial matters as well, Your Grace?”
“Yes.”
Eric reached into his coat and removed the folded notes he had brought from London. “My solicitor has records of transactions Atlas authorized without my consent. Loans secured against holdings, payments routed through intermediaries connected to him, charges made against this property.”
The constable glanced around the ruined cottage. “This property?”
“Greymere.”
So di d Eric.
“The very place he brought my wife.”
The constable took the papers.
“These will be examined.”
“There are copies on their way to Wolverton.”
Atlas laughed again, but it sounded hollow now.
“And what exactly do you imagine this proves?”
Eric looked at him. “That I trusted you.”
Atlas’s smile vanished. “And you used it.”
For a moment, neither man spoke.
Then the constable pulled Atlas toward the door.
“You will have opportunity to explain everything elsewhere.”
Atlas resisted.
“Eric.”
Eric did not answer.
“Cousin.”
That word did it. Eric looked at him.
Atlas’s face had changed again. The arrogance remained, but beneath it was something almost desperate. “We can settle this.”
“No.”
“You know what scandal will do to the family.”
Eric glanced toward Adelaide. “I think you have misunderstood which people I consider my family.”
Atlas went white.
The constables took him out.
Loretta followed separately under another constable’s supervision, not restrained but no longer free to leave. She stopped beside Adelaide.
“I am sorry.”
Adelaide looked at her. “You should be.”
Loretta flinched. “I did not know.”
“You knew enough to lure me outside.”
“Yes.”
Adelaide held her gaze. “What you did after not knowing matters. What you did before it matters too.”
Loretta nodded once, and then she was gone. Theodore murmured something to Olivia and guided her toward the door. Olivia hesitated, looking at Eric.
For once, no one interrupted.
Adelaide remained where she was as she watched Eric turn toward her.
For several seconds they merely looked at one another.
Then he crossed the room.
She reached for him before he could retreat into whatever terrible thought had followed.
“I knew you would come.”
Eric looked around the ruined room. “This is not how I intended to finish our conversation from yesterday.”
“I should hope not.”
“I had pictured fewer constables.”
“And fewer knives.”
“That too.”
Adelaide laughed, which came out shakier than she intended. Eric lifted her hands to his chest. “I meant what I said.”
She knew exactly what he meant. Still, she wanted to hear it. “What did you say?”
His eyes narrowed.
“Humor me.”
Eric stepped closer, and the world seemed to shrink around them. “I love you.”
She put both hands against his face. “I love you too.”
He stopped breathing, and Adelaide smiled. “I was attempting to tell you that before your cousin developed such terrible timing.”
“You love me.”
“Yes.”
“Are you certain?”
“No. I frequently allow myself to be abducted for men I find tolerable.”
Eric laughed.
Then his eyes closed, and he pulled her against him.
Adelaide went willingly.
His arms closed around her with enough force to make breathing mildly inconvenient, and she buried her face against his coat, smelling horse, wind, dust, and Eric.
She was safe and loved.
The marriage had begun with obligation, negotiated into rules and tolerable companionship. Somewhere along the way came laughter, horses, arguments, jealousy, grief, friendship, and all the inconvenient tenderness neither of them had planned.
Adelaide drew back enough to look at him. “Our arrangement appears to have become rather complicated.”
Eric’s hand settled against her cheek. “I would like to renegotiate terms.”
“Oh?”
“One condition—no more marriages of convenience.”
Adelaide pretended to consider it. “I suppose I could agree to that.”
His smile was small and exhausted and entirely hers. She drew up to her tiptoes and kissed her husband because she loved him, and when his arms tightened around her again, Adelaide knew with perfect certainty that he was holding her for precisely the same reason.