Chapter Eight #2
Cole’s expression remained grave. “The timing is difficult to dismiss. Crayle was already indebted to the person who stood to benefit most from a scandal attaching to you. He followed you into that room, pressed marriage upon you, and behaved in precisely the manner required to create the appearance Sir Roland now proposes to use against you.”
“He arranged it,” Victoria said slowly. “Or meant to.”
“I believe there was an arrangement,” Cole replied. “Whether Crayle was told exactly what to do, or merely encouraged and placed where his worst instincts might serve, I cannot yet say. I would rather give you an incomplete truth than a complete accusation I cannot support.”
“And the purpose was Sophy.”
“Her guardianship, certainly. Her portion may also be material. Until I have seen the will, the trust instruments, and the estate accounts together, I will not pretend to know which mattered more.”
The quiet that followed was heavier than the one Roland had left behind.
Victoria had thought herself unlucky. A drunken man had followed her into an empty room, and society had drawn the conclusion it always preferred to draw about a woman. To learn that even the accident might have been prepared for her should have revived the old fear.
Instead, it made her coldly angry.
“Roland came here to use the scandal against me,” she said. “A scandal he may have arranged himself.”
“That is how it appears,” Cole said.
“You are certain of the financial trail?” Elias asked.
“Of Crayle’s ruin, yes. Of the purchase of the debts, yes.
Of their connection to Hemsworth, sufficiently certain to continue.
Of conspiracy, not yet sufficiently certain to plead it.
” Cole rested one hand upon the case. “Ledgers are more candid than men, but courts require them to speak in complete sentences.”
“What happens now?” Victoria asked.
“I continue tracing the money. I obtain the testamentary papers Dabney means to rely upon. Until then, neither of you writes to Hemsworth, accuses him publicly, or gives him reason to destroy what remains.”
Elias looked at Victoria rather than answering.
Cole noticed and gave the faintest sign of approval.
“I shall leave copies of what I have,” he said. “The originals remain with me. Dabney will almost certainly write after a visit of this sort. When he does, send the letter unopened to my office.”
“You expect me not to read it?” Victoria asked.
“I expect you to read it after I have made a copy and before anyone answers it. There is a distinction.”
He departed with the same abrupt economy with which he had arrived, taking his case and leaving the room altered behind him.
For a while, neither Victoria nor Elias spoke. The pony and the easy warmth of the morning seemed to belong to another day.
“You are quiet,” she said at last.
“I am angry.”
“I had gathered as much.”
“I am attempting not to make my anger another difficulty for you to manage.” Elias remained across the room, his hands loose at his sides. “It has done that once already.”
Victoria looked down at Cole’s papers.
“I do not require calm from you. I require to know what you intend before you act.”
“Then I intend to do nothing today beyond what Cole advised. He will establish what can be proved. We will obtain Gerald’s will and every instrument concerning Sophy’s property. When we know what Roland can lawfully attempt, and what may be shown against him, we decide together how to answer.”
“And if he files first?”
“We answer it. If the evidence permits, we ask the court to examine why a man claiming concern for a child purchased influence over the man who compromised her mother. But we do not make that accusation until Cole can support it.”
“You would not make the whole affair public?”
“Not merely to punish him. Publicity may injure Sophy as readily as it injures Roland. I will not spend her peace to satisfy my temper.”
The answer steadied something in her.
“And if concealment serves him?”
“Then we use the truth as openly as necessity requires. No further.”
Victoria studied him across the table. “You have already considered all this.”
“I began considering it when Cole said Dabney’s name. I have not mistaken consideration for permission.”
“No,” she said. “You have not.”
He came to the table and sat opposite her, leaving the papers between them.
“There is one decision I should like from you now. Until this is settled, do you wish the household told anything?”
“Only that Roland is not to see Sophy or correspond with her without my knowledge.”
“Agreed.”
“And nothing changes for her. No guarded passages, no whispers when she enters a room, and no servants watching her as though someone may carry her off between breakfast and dinner.”
“I shall speak to Mrs Whitlock. Quietly.”
Victoria laid one hand over the papers.
“He meant to frighten me into surrendering her.”
“Yes.”
“He very nearly chose the correct weapon.”
Elias said nothing to soften it.
“But he has made one mistake,” she continued. “He still believes I am the woman Gerald left behind.”
“What would you have him learn instead?”
“That I shall not give him my daughter merely to avoid being discussed. And that this time, when he threatens me with the law, I shall have read it before he arrives.”
A restrained satisfaction touched Elias’s face.
“Cole will be delighted. He has long believed the law improves when used against the people most fond of invoking it.”
Victoria looked towards the door through which Roland had gone.
“Tell Cole to continue.”
“I shall.”
“And tell him I want every paper. Not a softened account prepared for my comfort.”
“He would not know how to prepare one.”
Elias rose, but she stopped him before he reached the door.
“Elias.”
He turned.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For asking me before, and not after. For the pony. For sitting on your temper when I know what it is costing you.”
For a moment, the darker business upon the table receded, leaving between them the quiet fact of that answer.
Then Elias inclined his head.
“I have one or two matters to settle first. After that, if you still approve, I believe there is a pony waiting to be judged.”
Victoria gathered the papers into order.
“By Sophy.”
“Entirely by Sophy.”
“And if she dislikes it?”
“Then I shall suffer the rejection with dignity and see it placed with someone less particular.”
The warmth did not return to the morning. Not entirely. But when Victoria rose to follow him, she did so knowing what awaited them and what had not yet been decided.
For once, both knowledge and decision were to be hers as well.