Chapter 17
Chapter
Seventeen
The letter from Everton arrived shortly after breakfast, folded into a plain sheet and sealed without any identifying mark. Selby dismissed the footman who brought it to his study and waited until the door had closed before breaking the wax.
Crandell’s hand was small and precise, each line written as carefully as if the letter contained nothing more dangerous than a household account.
My position remains secure, but greater caution will be required.
Lord Everton encountered me in the upper passage at an hour when I could offer no entirely satisfactory reason for being there.
He accepted my explanation, though I do not believe he was convinced by it.
I shall not risk another such encounter until his suspicions have eased.
Selby read the paragraph twice, displeased by the caution it advised and more displeased still that Crandell had given Benedict any cause to doubt him.
The man had not been placed at Everton to creep through corridors like a common thief.
A butler required no excuse for knowing what occurred beneath his employer’s roof.
He had only to listen while others spoke and observe what the household could not fully conceal.
The remainder of the letter proved he had done precisely that.
There may, however, be some truth to your suspicions regarding the marriage.
Two of the maids spoke yesterday while sorting the household linen.
They remarked upon the condition of her ladyship’s bed and the absence of anything which might indicate that Lord Everton shares it.
Household gossip indicates that his lordship visits her chamber in the evenings, but because there is a private passage between them it is unknown how long he remains with her or what occurs within.
Last evening, there was insufficient time from the point he retired to the point he left his chambers to indicate any sort of marital congress.
I cannot swear the marriage remains unconsummated.
It is equally possible that the couple has quarreled or that her ladyship’s indisposition is of a temporary nature.
I will learn more when I may do so without attracting notice.
Selby lowered the letter.
So Benedict visited Harriet’s chamber each night and left it again. The pretense was clever enough to deceive servants who had no reason to question what they saw. It was less clever when one of those servants had been instructed to question everything.
Selby had never believed Harriet would submit meekly to the marriage.
She had accepted Benedict because her father left her no other means of saving Alderley, but acceptance was not desire.
Her pride would have demanded terms. Separate rooms, perhaps.
A marriage in name only. Benedict, forever pleased with his own honor, might even have agreed to them.
The possibility gave Selby the first true satisfaction he had experienced since learning the marriage would take place.
An unconsummated marriage was vulnerable.
Not so easily dissolved as the ignorant might suppose, but vulnerability did not require certainty.
If Harriet had refused Benedict and the marriage remained a bargain in name only, Selby could challenge the settlement founded upon it.
He could claim that Denham had discharged the debt and taken possession of the mortgaged land through fraud—that the marriage had never been intended as a true joining of the families at all.
Would he prevail? Perhaps not. The Earl of Denham possessed wealth, influence and friends who would be eager to protect his heir. Selby had no expectation that a dispute carried before the Lords would be judged without regard for rank or connection.
But victory in law was not his only means of winning.
The allegation alone would create scandal.
Harriet’s marriage would be discussed in every drawing room from the county to London.
The intimate details of her bedchamber would become a matter for servants, lawyers and strangers.
Lord Alderley could not afford another protracted dispute, and Denham would not welcome his family’s name dragged through it.
Faced with that prospect, they might return the land rather than risk the consequences of refusing him.
First, Selby required proof.
The condition of a counterpane would not be enough.
Nor would the speculation of maids, however eagerly repeated.
Benedict could claim that he and Harriet shared her chamber and slept apart only upon occasion.
Harriet would support him. She had already shown how readily she would lie by standing before God and promising herself to a man she had previously given every indication she despised.
Selby rose and carried the letter to the fire. The paper curled as the flame caught one corner, then blackened and collapsed upon the coals. He watched until Crandell’s careful script had disappeared.
There was one means of establishing Harriet’s continued innocence which neither Benedict nor Denham could easily explain away. A physician could examine her. And should that physician not find what Selby wished for him to, then perhaps financial inducement might sway the man to his way of thinking.
The difficulty of course would be getting Harriet to submit.
She would never do so willingly, and approaching her with such a demand would alert Benedict before Selby obtained the evidence he needed.
Once Benedict understood the risk, the remedy was simple and readily available to him.
Selby could not rely upon the present estrangement lasting another day.
Then he would have to act before Benedict did.
Harriet traveled frequently between Everton and Alderley.
She knew the roads and had spent her entire life believing herself safe upon them.
Marriage had not yet taught her caution, and Benedict could not accompany her everywhere without making a prisoner of her.
He would simply have to know when. To that end, he dashed off his own note to Crandell with instructions and called a footman to deliver it—discreetly, of course.
After, Selby went to the window. Beyond the glass, the road curved away from the house and vanished behind a stand of trees.
The route from Alderley to Everton crossed a narrow stretch bordered by open fields on one side and woodland on the other.
There were no cottages nearby, no tenants working close enough to hear a woman call out.
A carriage stopped there would remain unseen from either estate.
It would not be difficult.
Once Harriet was in his keeping, a doctor could be brought to examine her and put his findings into writing.
She would protest. She might fight. Neither would alter what was required.
Selby had tolerated her temper when he believed she would one day become his wife, but indulgence had accomplished nothing.
She had mistaken his patience for weakness and repaid it by marrying Benedict.
He would not make that error again.
If the examination proved she remained untouched, Selby would possess what he needed to challenge the marriage and the settlement. If it did not—if Benedict had already exercised the rights Harriet had denied him—then Selby would know there was no purpose in proceeding through the Lords.
That did not mean there would be no purpose in taking her.
Selby rested one hand against the cold glass and considered the road again.
Benedict had deprived him of Alderley, of Denham and of the woman Selby had already fitted into his plans.
It was time the future viscount learned that taking something from another man did not ensure he would be permitted to keep it.