Chapter Fourteen
“Sit down, Sir Peregrine.” Victoria remained standing. “You wrote that you had information to sell. I have come to hear it, and I have no time to spend watching you observe manners for which you were never noted.”
Crayle sat.
Cole had chosen the room above his clerk’s coffee house: plain, public below, and entered by a stair his own men controlled.
Crayle had objected to the place and the hour, then accepted both, which told Victoria how badly he required the bargain.
A man once devoted to his club now startled at every foot upon the stair.
“You came alone,” he said, looking from Victoria to the door. “I had asked for Harwood.”
“The earl will not attend, as you were informed before the meeting. You may deal with me or leave without a bargain.”
His gaze shifted towards Cole.
“And the solicitor?”
“Remains,” Victoria said. “Mr Cole cannot be provoked, forgets nothing, and writes a very clear hand.”
Victoria drew off her gloves, finger by finger, and laid them beside her upon the table.
“You are frightened, Sir Peregrine. You were not frightened of me at Ashcombe. Under other circumstances, I might have found the change gratifying. Today, I find it merely useful.” She met his eyes. “Tell me what you have, name your price, and let us both be elsewhere before nightfall.”
It was a strange thing to sit across from the man who had once caught her wrist in a dark room, certain she would neither resist nor be believed, and watch him start at every sound upon the stair.
She had imagined she might savour such a meeting. She savoured nothing. Crayle had diminished too far to make hatred satisfying, and Sophy was forty miles away. Victoria had room for nothing that did not lead towards bringing her home.
“You are very cold,” Crayle said.
“I am pressed for time.”
“Hemsworth said you would be frightened. A widow with more nerves than sense.”
“Roland has mistaken me before.” Victoria folded her hands before her. “Name your price.”
“I want passage out of England and enough money to begin again when I reach the other end. I want Harwood’s written assurance that he will neither pursue me nor bring proceedings against me.”
“You may have passage and money if the information justifies them. You may not have my husband’s assurance before he knows what you offer, and you will receive nothing before you speak.
” Her gaze did not leave his. “I have paid too often for promises delivered without the goods. I shall not do so again.”
Crayle wet his lips. His eyes moved from Cole’s pen to the door and back again. Then the last of his resistance gave way.
“It was Hemsworth from the beginning,” he said. “All of it. He came to me in the spring, when I had nothing left that was not already pledged. Within a fortnight, every note I owed had been acquired through men whose names meant nothing to me. Hemsworth held them all.”
“Directly?” Cole asked.
“Not in his own name. Through others. But he showed me enough to make the matter plain. He could call the debts when he pleased.”
“And what did he require?” Victoria asked.
“That I ruin you.”
The words fell into the small room without emphasis.
“He wanted you forced into marriage with me. Once you were my wife, he believed he could govern the matter of the child through me. A husband such as I would have been easier to influence than a widow who opposed him.”
“His purpose was Sophy.”
“Yes.”
Crayle’s hands had begun to shake.
“At first I thought he wanted control of your money. I understood the rest later. By then he held every debt I had, and refusal would have meant ruin at once.”
“You were already ruined,” Victoria said.
“Yes. But there are degrees of ruin, Lady Harwood, and a man at the bottom still discovers farther to fall.”
Victoria let the admission pass.
“What were you instructed to do at Ashcombe?”
“Follow you when you left the ballroom. Prevent you from returning until someone found us. If no one came soon enough, I was to call attention to the room myself. Hemsworth believed the appearance would be sufficient.”
“And the second time?”
“To provoke Harwood. Dabney had arranged witnesses. If the earl struck me, they were to swear that his household was governed by violence and that the child ought not to remain beneath his roof.”
Cole’s pen continued steadily.
“When I married Lord Harwood instead of you,” Victoria said, “what did Hemsworth do?”
“He kept me in readiness. I was to swear, if required, that your conduct at Ashcombe had been willing.”
“You would have sworn that?”
Crayle looked at her.
“Yes.”
The answer was quiet and without disguise.
“I would have lied about you in open court if it preserved me. I do not offer you remorse now. I have none worth purchasing.”
“I did not come to purchase it.”
Cole glanced up. “What did Hemsworth expect to gain by securing the child?”
Crayle hesitated. “He spoke of the family name. Of his late cousin’s daughter being brought up among his people. I never believed that was the whole of it.”
“Why not?”
“Because family honour does not commonly require Dutch bankers, purchased debts, and months of preparation,” Crayle said.
“There was money attached to the girl, I knew that much. But he never told me its amount or how he meant to reach it. Whenever I asked, he reminded me that I was being paid to obey, not understand.”
Cole’s pen moved again. “Then tell us only what you know. Why did you turn against Hemsworth?”
Crayle was silent for a moment.
“He stopped answering my letters some days ago. Then one of Dabney’s men came to my rooms. He asked nothing and threatened nothing. He merely looked about as though considering what would remain after I was gone.”
“You believed Hemsworth meant to dispose of you,” Cole said.
“I believed he had begun to weigh whether I was worth keeping.” Crayle swallowed. “Once the child was in his keeping and the matter before the court, I had very little left to offer him.”
“And now?”
“Now I am the only man who can speak to the whole arrangement. Hemsworth knows it. I am not here because I have acquired a conscience. I am here because your side offers the only road upon which I may still be alive at the end.”
The room was silent except for Cole’s pen.
“Take down all of it,” Victoria said. “The acquisition of the notes, the instructions concerning Ashcombe, the proposed testimony, and the visit from Dabney’s man.”
“I have done so,” Cole replied. “Sir Peregrine, who arranged the purchase of your debts?”
“A Dutch banking house. Van der something. I do not recall the whole name.”
“Were there drafts?”
“Yes.”
“Do you possess any?”
Crayle looked down at the case beside his chair.
“Two. I kept them because I thought they might one day buy me room to bargain.”
He opened the case and worked his fingers beneath the lining. From it he drew two folded papers, thin and worn from having been concealed there.
“One bears a note in Hemsworth’s hand.”
Cole put down his pen.
“What note?”
Crayle passed him the papers.
Cole read the endorsement once, then again.
“‘The remainder upon completion,’” he said.
Victoria looked at the line. It was slight, almost careless. Yet the hand was familiar from letters written in Roland’s name and from the documents Gerald’s family had once sent her to sign.
“Can it be proved to be his?” she asked.
“With comparison specimens and testimony concerning the transaction, it may be very useful indeed.” Cole folded the papers carefully. “Not sufficient alone, but joined to Crayle’s statement and the financial trail, it alters the character of the whole case.”
“Buy him his passage,” Victoria said.
Crayle exhaled.
“The terms first,” Cole replied. “Passage and a reasonable sum after Sir Peregrine gives a full signed statement, submits to examination, and repeats the substance wherever the proceedings require. No departure before then.”
“I agree,” Crayle said hoarsely.
“You will also surrender every letter, draft, memorandum, or other paper relating to Hemsworth, Dabney, or the acquisition of your debts.”
“I have very little else.”
“You will surrender what you have.”
Crayle nodded.
Cole drew a fresh sheet towards him.
The terms were settled without delay. Crayle would receive passage from England and enough money to establish himself modestly abroad, but only after he had signed a complete statement, produced every document in his possession, and given such evidence as the proceedings required.
No promise was made that his own conduct would be concealed or excused.
When the final page had been signed and witnessed, Cole gathered the papers into his case.
“This is not concluded,” he told Crayle. “You will remain where my men can find you. When called, you will repeat what you have said here and answer every question put to you.”
“I shall.”
“If you disappear before then, the agreement ends.”
“I understand.”
Crayle stood. He looked smaller than the man who had blocked the conservatory door, though Victoria suspected he had always been this size and had merely relied upon other people’s fear to enlarge him.
At the door, he paused.
“I am sorry for what I did at Ashcombe.”
“Keep the apology, Sir Peregrine,” Victoria said. “I have no room to carry it today. Carry it yourself to your ship, and be a better man on the far side of the water, where it will cost me nothing.”
He inclined his head and left.
The door closed behind him.
Cole rested one hand upon the case containing the statement and the drafts.
“This may be enough to break Hemsworth’s claim.”
“May be?”
“I do not promise certainty where the law has supplied none. But it is more than we possessed an hour ago, and considerably more than Hemsworth believes we possess.”
Victoria put on her gloves.
“Then let us make use of it before he learns otherwise.”
***
Elias was waiting in the coach at the end of the street. He had the door open before Victoria reached it and read the answer in her face.
“You have it?”
“We have his statement and two drafts. One bears a direction in Roland’s own hand: ‘The remainder upon completion.’ Cole believes the Dutch banking house can confirm the course of the money.”
She entered, Cole following her, and the coach moved off before the door had fully closed. There was no longer a minute that did not belong to Sophy.
The city passed beyond the windows, indifferent and busy. Upon the solicitor’s knees lay a ruined man’s confession and the first evidence that might undo the authority by which her daughter had been taken.
“Tell me about the order,” she said. “Tell me there is a way through it.”
“There is,” Cole answered. He kept the case upon his knees, one hand over its clasp.
“Dabney obtained it without notice to you, upon sworn representations that the child was in immediate danger of removal and that her present household was unfit. The court heard only their account because they alleged there was no time to hear yours.”
“And now?”
“Now we can show that the alleged danger was manufactured by the very man seeking custody. Crayle’s statement, the drafts, and the financial trail do not undo the order merely by existing, but they give us substantial grounds to ask that it be discharged at once and the child restored pending a full hearing. ”
“Then we have won.”
“It seems to me that we have the means to challenge it,” Elias said quietly. “That is not yet the same thing.”
Victoria looked at him.
“Roland still has her,” he continued. “The evidence must be put before someone with authority to act upon it, and until that is done, arriving at Hemsworth House with nothing but anger would serve him better than us.”
“Cole?” she asked.
“I have arranged for the matter to be heard tonight,” he said.
“The judge who granted the order is not within reach, but another judge sitting in chambers may suspend its operation if satisfied that it was obtained upon material falsehoods. Crayle must swear his statement formally, and the drafts must be produced.”
“And if he does?”
“Then I shall ask for an order directing Sophy’s immediate return and restraining Hemsworth from removing her again.”
“Tonight?”
“If the judge is persuaded.”
The qualification struck harder than a refusal might have done.
“She is to spend the night in that house while a judge is persuaded.”
Elias took her cold hands in his.
“She may. I will not tell you otherwise merely because the truth is cruel.”
Victoria looked down at their joined hands.
“I want to go there now. I want to pull down every door between her and me and take her home before she has time to believe I am not coming.” Her voice remained low.
“I know why we cannot. I know that going without authority may leave us turned away and give Roland another scene to use against us. But I need to say what I want somewhere, and you are the only person to whom I can say it without being told to become reasonable.”
“I will not ask you to be reasonable about wanting your child.”
His hands tightened slightly around hers.
“I can only promise that we shall waste nothing. Cole takes the evidence before the judge. Crayle swears to it. The instant we have the order, we leave for Hertfordshire.”
“I am coming before the judge.”
Cole glanced up. “Lady Harwood…”
“No. Roland obtained the first order by ensuring that no one heard me. He will not keep the advantage of my silence a second time. I shall be present, and if the judge wishes to know what sort of mother’s care Sophy was removed from, he may look at the mother while he asks.”
Cole considered her for a moment.
“That may be… surprisingly useful.”
“It will be necessary.”
Elias watched her across the dim coach. There was fear in his face, but no surprise. He had come to know her too well to mistake resolve for desperation, or strength for the absence of fear. What remained beneath it was not pity, but recognition.
She turned towards Cole.
“Tell the coachman where we are going.”
Cole lowered the front glass and gave the direction to the coachman.
The horses quickened, carrying them deeper into the early dusk.
Victoria sat with Elias’s hands still around hers and the evidence secured in the case upon Cole’s knees.
She did not know whether the judge would grant what they sought, whether the order would reach Hertfordshire before Roland moved again, or what awaited them behind the grey house’s gates.
She knew only that she would be heard this time.
For the present, it was enough to keep her upright.