Chapter 18
The day after the assembly, Adrian was in his study attending to matters of the estate when the butler appeared with news of a visitor in the parlor.
“Mrs. Seraphina Vane,” the older man said with distinguished courtesy. “I showed her into the parlor, if you wish to speak with her.”
Adrian took a deep breath and stood. He had avoided this moment long enough. It was time to face his demons head on.
He walked quietly down the hall and into the parlor. Honoria and Oliver were nowhere in sight. He would be meeting with Seraphina on his own, with a whole wealth of history between them as baggage.
She stood as soon as he entered. She had dressed in a navy riding habit tailored perfectly to her slim form, a navy cap tipped forward across her raven curls, a handkerchief clutched in slim fingers.
She looked different than she had the night before—then, she had been all elegance and social confidence, now he noted a tear in her eye and a tremble in her lip.
“So you agreed to see me after all,” she said, coming to him and catching up his hand in hers. “I am glad of it, even if it took you some time to let down your guard. After last night, I feared a trip here would be fruitless.”
“And yet you attempted it anyway,” he said quietly, pulling his hand free. “Please have a seat, Mrs. Vane.”
“You may call me Seraphina, here in the privacy of your own parlor,” she said softly. “As was your wont in past days.”
He shook his head. “In past days I called you Miss Everett, because that is who you were. After you chose to marry that man, you chose his name as well. I shall give him the honor of continuing his legacy by referring to you properly.”
She frowned. “Did I really hurt you that badly, my dear? You hold it over my head as though it was some grand betrayal, but that cannot be true. I told you when you first started courting me that I wanted security and happiness. You were incapable of offering either when you were merely a soldier.”
“The argument could be made that I was willing to offer the latter,” he said, eying her carefully. “Mrs. Vane, I loved you once. I thought you loved me too. Your actions were a betrayal, I confess, and I am ashamed how long it took me to look past them towards a greater future. Now, I think I can.”
“You forgive me?” she asked, hopeful.
He looked at her long and hard. If forgiveness was releasing the hold of bitterness her actions held on him, he could do that. Trust, no. Forget, no. But forgive and move on? “I do,” he said gravely.
“Oh, how relieved I am to hear it,” she said, tears springing into her eyes again. “We can put the past behind us and move forwards as friends, at least.”
“I do not think you suffer for friends, Mrs. Vane,” he said. “Let us consider the past behind us, but there is no need for us to share a future.”
“Adrian,” she interjected, her voice pained. “You cannot say that you feel nothing for me—not when I have risked your wrath to come here and warn you…”
“Warn me?” he turned. “Of what?”
She sighed an exaggerated sound. “Oh, that was not how I meant to begin all this… but I suppose I have started now.”
She stepped forwards, her arms out as though in petition.
“I heard it from my own maid, who is also employed at Thornefield, a woman I believe entirely… She told me that your friends at Thornefield are running some sort of gathering, weekly. I know this will shock you, but I believe you should be warned before news gets out: it is a school of sorts, for poor girls. They are teaching them things no woman at a low station should learn—reading, sciences, arithmetic.”
She paused and winced, as though the thought of girls knowing such things was a painful smell in her atmosphere. “If it were not so dangerous, I would laugh at the absurdity of a milkmaid quoting Aristotle.”
Adrian sat stock still, barely moving; barely breathing.
Seraphina must have taken his silence as agreement, for she plunged on.
“I cannot in good conscience let you be taken in by that woman. You danced with her last night—quite intimately, I might add—and multiple people from the village report that you make a habit of visiting Thornefield throughout the week. People will believe that you know of this scandalous school, and your family name will be ruined.”
She paused once more, and then reached out and laid her slender fingers on his arm.
“I am sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, Adrian. According to my servant, the school teaches all manner of ideas that the lower classes should not be forced to endure, and books no court would countenance. You must break with Miss Thorne before her ruination ruins you by proximity.”
Adrian looked down at Seraphina’s hand on his arm, his heart thudding dully in his chest. There was a time when a touch from her would have lit his mind aflame, but he felt nothing except mild disgust, as though she was simply an invasion of his space. He pulled away, and took a step back.
“Thank you for your concern, Mrs. Vane,” he said quietly, “but this is not news to me, as you suspect. You are somewhat misguided in the way you present the school, but other than that I have already heard every word of your proclamation from Miss Thorne herself.”
He took a breath, watching Seraphina pale under his gaze. “And I will say I admire Miss Thorne the more for our courageous and compassionate nature, undertaking the schooling of these girls.”
Seraphina sucked in her breath sharply. “You cannot mean it.”
“If I was an asset, I would be teaching one of the classes myself,” he said firmly.
“That is how thoroughly in support of the school I am. Your view of education is growing outdated, Mrs. Vane. Perhaps you should get out of London society a bit more—it is turning into a circular place that breeds its own ideas again and again. It takes someone like Miss Thorne to see the foolishness of it all.”
“If she goes down,” Seraphina hissed, “she will take you down with her.”
“And what a beautiful ship to sink with,” he said coolly, his eyes on Seraphina. “I think I have had enough of your threats at present. Please depart at once, and if you return to this house on any pretext, I will have you escorted to the county boundary.”
“You have changed,” she snapped. “You are hard and cruel now.”
“If that is true,” he answered quietly, “take comfort in knowing you were at least partially responsible for the transformation.”
He showed her to the door and, when it had shut behind her, turned to see Honoria standing upon the stairs.
“How much of that did you hear?” he asked.
“Enough.” She walked down carefully, her eyes sober. “Aunt Brearley responded to my inquiries about Mrs. Vane. She said her original suspicions have been confirmed. Mrs. Vane is in debt for several thousand pounds that her late husband’s estate will not—and can not—cover.”
“To whom is she indebted?” he asked.
Honoria sighed and pulled a letter out of her pocket. “It is complicated. Let me read it again…” She scanned the paper and then shrugged. “Some London man who lends money to fashionable women on the strength of their husbands.”
“A pretty scam, I am sure,” Adrian said drily. “I suppose when the husbands of fashionable women fail in their financial duties, this London man collects in ways that do not involve the courts?”
Honoria bit her lip, and nodded. “Aunt Brearley thinks she is on the hunt for a husband. If she marries quickly, and marries well, then the man she chooses will pay her debts as a condition of the match.” She raised her eyebrows, and nodded at Adrian.
“You are likely the only man she knows who could fit that bill.”
“If she truly considers me a mark for her attentions, she is deluded.” He felt suddenly very, very tired. “I must ride to Thornefield at once.”
Honoria raised an eyebrow. “Are you certain the way to best process Seraphina’s betrayal is in the arms of Miss Thorne?”
“You know better than to malign Miss Thorne in such a fashion,” he said quickly. “Sister, there is something Mrs. Vane just told me that could mean disaster for Thornefield. I cannot hesitate a moment in bringing it to her attention.”
Honoria looked, for once, chastened. “I did not mean any insult to Miss Thorne,” she said. “I was teasing you, and I can see it is not the time. Just… walk carefully, brother. I worry about Mrs. Vane’s intentions, and I do not want to see you drawn into something harmful.”
He nodded. “I appreciate your care, Honoria, but I am walking into this with my eyes wide open.”
He rode to Thornefield at a full gallop. Drawing up to the estate, he scanned for signs of visitors. The school was not in session today, and the house seemed restful. He took the stairs quickly, and asked the butler if he could speak immediately to Rosalind.
The butler showed him to Rosalind’s study, where he found her in solitude, pouring over an account book. She looked up, and her face lit with a genuine smile that tugged at his heart.
“Lord Marwood.” She stood, and curtsied. “I had not expected to see you so soon after last night.” Evidently seeing something in his face, her own fell. “Is all well, my lord?”
“It is not, I am sad to say.” He drew a quick breath. “Mrs. Vane visited me this morning.”
“Ah.” She dropped her eyes to the desk. “I thought, after her manner last night, that she would not stay away much longer.”
“She came to tell me of your school. She thought she was warning me against your company—that I would be surprised and shocked by the scandal of it all.” He knew this was abrupt, but he could not think of words to soften the truth. Better that Rosalind could meet it full on.
She gasped. “How… Did she say how she knew?”
“A maid of hers, I think. The woman splits her time between the Vane cottage and Thornefield. I did not get the woman’s name.”
Rosalind paced out from behind the desk and rang the bell. “I do not think we have anyone working at both places, and nobody new that I have seen…” she looked up, her forehead wrinkled with worry. “What will she do with the information? What did she hope to achieve by telling you?”
Adrian shifted uncomfortably in place. “She seemed to think I was in danger by association with your house. I explained that I knew perfectly well about the school, and approved of it—and you—wholeheartedly. I also conveyed my desire for her to leave the premises and not return. It was not a cordial meeting in the least.”
She looked at him in quiet amazement. “That was likely unwise,” she said. “To stand by my side so clearly. She is right that you are guilty by association.”
“I beg to differ,” he said, almost vehemently.
“You need not become perturbed,” she said, “it is just that I do not often have people speaking on my behalf in such a fashion, and there is a reason—”
“Well, perhaps you should have someone,” he interjected with uncharacteristic passion. He wanted, suddenly, to step forwards and seize her close. “Perhaps it is a problem that people do not speak up in your defense. A problem I am happy to solve when the opportunity presents itself.”
Rosalind shut her lips tight together and looked at him for a long moment before speaking. “Thank you, my lord,” she said at last. “Thank you.”
The door opened, and a maid dipped her head in. Rosalind smiled weakly at the servant. “Please call Mrs. Hollis and the cook up immediately to my study. I have an urgent question.”
The girl disappeared at once. The room was quiet, filled by the ticking of a clock and the tension of waiting. Adrian watched Rosalind quietly as she paced back and forth, her mind clearly whirling.
After what felt like ages, she suddenly gasped and went to her desk, rifling through a drawer and pulling out a small slip of paper with a single sentence of warning scrawled across it: he is not what he seems.
“I nearly forgot,” she said. “Someone slipped this in my reticule last night. Do you think it could be connected?”
“Too much in your world has become strange and inconvenient as of late,” Adrian said, staring at the letter. There was something vaguely familiar about the writing. “Perhaps it is connected. Who do you think is the ‘he’ of which you are being warned?”
Rosalind blushed deeply and looked away, mumbling something he could not decipher.
When Mrs. Hollis appeared with the cook moments later, she shut the door and inquired immediately if any new staff had come into employ without her knowledge.
Her former governess was the first to speak, shaking her head.
“No, Miss Thorne. I would never agree to a new hire without asking you first, nor would the cook.”
The cook nodded, and smiled. “Exactly, Miss. Just the usual here…” suddenly, her voice trailed off.
“No new house staff, my lady, but remember—I spoke to you about a new garden girl who splits time between here and the Vane cottage. She is hardly ever inside…”
“Hardly ever?” Rosalind’s eyes widened and she said softly, “You never mentioned she worked at Vane cottage as well.”
“She came in for a meal a few days ago, but I watched over her and the other servants. They only gossiped and whispered as young people do,” the cook twisted her fingers nervously.
Rosalind let out a sigh and looked at Adrian. He nodded slowly. “Enough to gossip with a handsome footman or see the schoolbooks,” he said. “She may have even been working the gardens when the girls came in through the servants’ entrance one day and put the rest together through wit alone.”
Mrs. Hollis frowned. “I do not understand,” she murmured. “Are we found out?”
As if in answer to her question, the butler appeared suddenly in the doorway, flushed and out of sorts.
“Miss Thorne,” he said, stumbling over his words in an uncharacteristically undignified fashion.
“There is a magistrate at the door, with Mr. Crewe in attendance. He says he is here to read a petition, and requires your attention.”
Adrian looked at Rosalind and watched as her firm and steady demeanor began to crumble at last.