The Eve
Chapter four
Henry
The road to Thornwick took the same hour it had taken before, but the rain had stopped some hours ago and the lanes lay heavy with the afterthought of it.
The trees were as he had left them. The brass plate was still green.
There was, this time, a single candle lit in the window of the lower drawing room, making a small yellow square upon the wet gravel.
Mr Brigg, who had occupied the seat opposite Henry these past forty minutes in a conversation Henry could not now recall, gathered up his case.
He had been Henry’s solicitor twelve years.
He had drawn up two of the three previous marriage contracts.
He did not, this evening, ask his client whether he was certain.
He had asked it twice in the past week and twice received the same answer.
The special licence had been procured from the Archbishop’s office three days ago. The ceremony was arranged for ten o’clock tomorrow morning at St George’s, Hanover Square. There was nothing left to do but sign.
The door was opened on the first knock, this time, by the same man in a clean shirt.
He still did not bow. But he stepped back from the door and held it for them, which was, Henry suspected, the most he was willing to offer.
“They’re in the drawing room,” the man said.
The corridor was as cold as before. The drawing room had been lit by three candles and a fire that burned beyond its usual modesty.
Violet stood by the window in a grey day dress.
Mr Wickham of Wickham & Brown sat at a small writing table that had been moved into the room for the purpose of this meeting.
The four sisters were not in the doorway across, but Henry could hear the murmur of young women who were unhappy about the banishment behind the door.
By the fire sat the Baroness Thornwick. She was small. Her grey hair had not been put up. Her dress of a pale colour had no ornament whatever. Her feet were bare beneath the hem. She did not rise when Henry entered. She tracked his movements with unnaturally intense attention.
“Your Grace,” Violet said, “may I present my mother, the Baroness Thornwick. Mama. His Grace.”
“Lady Thornwick.” Henry bowed.
The baroness did not speak. She inclined her head a fraction. The fraction was small enough to be almost an insult and large enough to constitute an acknowledgement.
Mr Brigg took the small chair at the writing table beside Mr Wickham. The two solicitors exchanged a greeting and a cautious smile. The reading commenced.
Henry stood by the mantel through the reading. He had read the document himself the night before. He listened now not to the terms but to the room, which was an old habit of his, and to the silence in which the baroness sat.
When Mr Wickham came to the clause concerning the irrevocability of the trust, the baroness shifted in her chair.
“Wickham.”
“My lady.”
“Is there a clause for my daughter?”
“For Miss Linton, my lady? The trust is constituted in your name with the remaining daughters as residual beneficiaries.”
“No, the trust. For her. Should she wish to come home.”
Wickham opened his mouth, but nothing came out. His eyes flicked to Violet.
“There is no such clause, my lady.”
“Add one.” Her voice broke. “If my daughter chooses to return to Thornwick, the funds shall be returned in full to His Grace. The trust shall unwind upon her crossing my threshold. I shall not see her held in a house she cannot leave, and I shall not have my comfort be the price of her keeping.”
Henry’s hand found the edge of the mantel and gripped it.
“Mama. No.” Violet stepped from the window, went to her mother, and placed her hands on her shoulders.
“Mr Wickham. The trust shall not unwind. The funds are settled upon consummation of the marriage. After that hour, they are my mother’s and after my mother’s my sisters’. What becomes of me thereafter is not a charge upon the trust.”
The baroness’s hand came up to grip her daughter’s shoulder.
Henry had not moved from the mantel through any of it. He stared into the fire as though the conversation were about someone else entirely.
“There is an alternative.”
Three faces turned to him.
“Miss Linton may return to Thornwick if she wishes. After the birth of an heir. The trust shall stand irrevocable from the day of the wedding regardless of where she resides. But the child remains at Iredell in my keeping.”
The baroness drew in a sharp breath.
Violet shook her head slowly. “No, Your Grace. I shall not be parted from any child of mine. Not for the trust. Not for Thornwick. Not for any consideration you can name.”
“I suppose you’ll be staying, then.”
“I shall be yours as long as you will have me.”
He held himself still. A knot formed behind his ribs.
“As the lady has stated it, Wickham,” he said. “Irrevocable from the day of the wedding. No contingency upon residence. No contingency upon issue.”
“Violet—” The baroness looked over her shoulder at her daughter.
“I am in agreement with His Grace’s statement, Mr Wickham.”
The solicitor wrote. Lady Thornwick exhaled a shaky breath.
Henry and Violet signed followed by the baroness who signed the trust deed on a small lapboard.
Mr Wickham and Mr Brigg gathered the papers and went out together.
Henry was alone now in the drawing room with Miss Linton and Lady Thornwick. Standing there with a woman’s satchel at the door and her mother’s grief in the air, it was difficult not to feel the name they had given him.
“Miss Linton,” he said.
She looked at him with wide eyes, her throat moving with emotion. She picked up a satchel from the corner of the room. “I am ready.”
“You only have a satchel.”
“Yes.” She went around the chair and knelt in front of her mother. “Mama.”
“You do not have to do this.” Her mother dabbed at her eyes.
“I do, and I have made up my mind. I shall see you tomorrow at the ceremony.”
The baroness nodded.
Violet reached up and kissed her mother on the forehead. She got to her feet.
In the corridor, the four sisters had emerged from their room and were standing in a row. Violet stopped before them.
“Your Grace. My sister Primrose, the second oldest out of the five of us.”
Primrose curtsied. She held Violet’s gloves and did not take her eyes off Henry’s face.
“Miss Primrose.”
Violet moved down the line. “You already met my sister who is the third oldest.” Poppy held her bonnet and curtsied lightly. “Good to see you again, Miss Poppy.”
The twins, who looked to be around fifteen, held each other’s hand. “My sisters Daffy and Daisy.”
“Miss Daffy, Miss Daisy.”
The leaving did not take long.
The unknown man closed the front door behind them.
The carriage door closed. Henry sat opposite his bride and her satchel. The satchel was small and brown and had been mended along one seam with thread of a colour that nearly matched the leather.
She had her hands folded in her lap. They were trembling.
The streets of London came up around them. The carriage made the turn into Cavendish Square and stopped at a townhouse of moderate size that had been Henry’s mother’s once and was now empty and staffed and lit.
The door opened.
In the entrance hall, in a row of respectful presentation, stood Mrs Taylor the housekeeper, Mr Williams the butler, two footmen, and Sarah, who had been sent ahead from Iredell two days before to serve as lady’s maid to the new duchess.
Henry stepped down from the carriage and handed Violet down. She took his hand, her fingers thin through the worn gloves.
“Your Grace.” Mrs Taylor stepped outside and curtsied.
“Miss Linton,” he turned slightly toward the housekeeper, “this is Mrs Taylor. She is at your service and will help you settle for the evening.”
“Miss Linton, welcome.” Mrs Taylor curtsied.
Violet smiled weakly. “Mrs Taylor.”
“Your room is prepared, Miss Linton.”
“Thank you, Mrs Taylor.”
“Miss Linton, I shall not stay.” His bride looked at him, her expression one of surprise and relief. “I shall send the carriage in the morning.”
“Good night, Your Grace.”
He turned for the carriage and embarked. He did not look back at the house as the carriage moved off.
Iredell House was the house his great-grandfather had built when his great-grandfather had been told that the Duke of Iredell ought to be seen to live grandly in London.
It had thirty-eight rooms. It had been redecorated since.
Most of it was kept under dust covers. Henry had a small suite of rooms on the second floor and used them during the Season.
Tomorrow, he would bring his wife into this house.
Tonight, he stood in the entrance hall while the night porter took his coat and his hat.
“Will Your Grace want supper?”
“No.”
“A fire in the morning room?”
“No.”
“In Your Grace’s chamber?”
“Yes.”
“Very good, Your Grace.”
He went up the stairs.
At the top of the stairs, the long gallery of the second floor turned to the right and led to his small suite. To the left it led to the master suite and the mistress’s suite that had been Margaret’s, his third wife, whom he had barely known.
He turned left.
He had not, in twenty months, turned left at the top of these stairs.
The corridor was unlit. He took up a candle from a side table. The sconces on the walls had been left unfilled for almost two years. He walked it.
Margaret’s door was unlocked. He had given no order to lock it, and no one in this house since her death had presumed to do anything with her rooms that he had not asked for.
He pushed the door open.
The room was cold. It smelled of dust and the faint remains of whatever scent she had worn, which he had never been able to name and which he had never asked about.
Her powder and brush sat on the dressing table.
The bed was made. The hangings were as she had left them.
On the small table beside the bed, a book lay face down with its spine cracked open at the page she had reached. He crossed to it and looked.
He had married three women. He had buried them in the cathedral church at Iredell, first when he was almost three and twenty, the second at six and twenty, the third at three and thirty.
He had told himself, after Margaret died, that he would not marry again. He had written, in his own hand, a letter to his cousin naming Edmund his heir for the entirety of his estate, and he had sent it round to Mr Brigg.
He was risking it again.
He sat upon the edge of the bed. The mattress gave under him the way an old mattress does, with a sigh.
He sat there for some time. He could not recall Margaret’s face. He had met her only a few times and been married to her for eleven months. He remembered her voice being thin, timid.
Elizabeth, he remembered better despite the years.
His first wife. He recalled the way she’d laughed with her whole body, the flush that spread across her chest when she was angry.
The night she had told him she was carrying a child, he had lifted her off the ground at the supper table, and she had said, put me down, Henry, you ridiculous man, and he had not put her down.
She had died a few months later.
He stood, left the room, and found a footman on the landing.
“Have Mrs Greer clear the mistress’s chambers tomorrow. Everything out. The furniture and personal effects to storage. Nothing is to be discarded. The new mistress will need a temporary bed.”
“Very good, Your Grace.”
“And prepare the master’s suite. I shall reside there starting tomorrow.”
“I will inform Mrs Greer, Your Grace.”
In his own chamber, the fire had been built up. The bed had been turned down. He sent his valet away. He did not undress but poured himself a brandy and sat in the chair by the fire. He watched the light move through the crystal glass.
The clock on the landing marked the half hours through the night. He hadn’t slept well since Elizabeth’s death.
Half past one.
Two.
Half past two.
At some hour past three, he found himself wondering whether Violet Linton was awake.