Chapter Seventeen Sins of Mary Beth Blackthorn
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Sins of Mary Beth Blackthorn
On Friday afternoon, Mary Beth invited half the county to watch her ruin what remained of her reputation.
She did not phrase it that way.
The notes that left Blackthorn after luncheon were brief, formal, and almost offensively respectable.
They went to the bank manager, to two men whose families sat on the county hospital committee, to the household that had hosted the earlier county dinner, to several women who had resumed calling after Lady Sablehurst received her, and to others who had lately discovered urgent reasons not to know her.
The York merchant received a separate letter asking that someone empowered to speak for the firm attend if convenient.
Mary Beth expected refusals.
By dusk, she had seven acceptances.
By breakfast on Saturday, there were nineteen.
Scandal, she reflected, remained one of the few social entertainments that improved when announced at short notice.
Benedict’s note had been different from the others.
You asked for an answer. Come to Blackthorn at three tomorrow and I will give it where there can be no misunderstanding.
He replied within two hours.
I shall be there.
He did not say that he expected her to accept him, but she could imagine the conclusion he had drawn: a night alone with shrinking credit, a frightened tenant, and an absent lover had finally taught Mary Beth Blackthorn the value of sensible protection.
She hoped he arrived confident.
At eleven, a groom brought no word from Leeds.
At noon, none came.
Mary Beth ate a boiled egg, half a slice of toast, and enough marmalade to make the housekeeper suspicious of her judgment. Then she went to the small study and checked the papers again.
The copied gamekeeper pages remained tied in one bundle.
She had no intention of showing their intimate passages to a room full of people.
She needed only to prove that the letters existed and had been obtained; no one in that room needed their intimate contents.
Beside them lay the broadsheet clipping, the York merchant’s altered terms, her own notes from Thursday’s bank meeting, Ambrose’s original estimate, and the copied fragments that had been arranged to make his contract resemble payment for sex.
The final packet was the one from Leeds.
An office clerk had admitted copying Ambrose’s estimate and two private letters. The money had passed through a solicitor. The account notation was plain enough to survive even a respectable gentleman’s explanation.
Sablehurst Estate Inquiry.
Mary Beth read it once more, then closed the folder.
She had spent years listening to men describe her sins with astonishing confidence: desire, pride, bad judgment, independence, the gamekeeper, the gentleman in York, and even a gardener who had never touched her.
Benedict had chosen quieter methods, the sort that came with signatures, intermediaries, and excellent stationery.
At half past two, carriages began arriving.
The drawing room was too small for everyone, which pleased Mary Beth more than it should have.
She had the doors opened into the adjoining morning room and ordered chairs brought in without attempting a dinner-party arrangement.
People stood where they found space. A few spoke to her warmly.
A few managed stiff bows. Several wore the bright, careful expressions of people who had come to witness a disaster and feared being caught enjoying it.
The elderly widow from that earlier county dinner arrived with a cane she did not appear to need and stationed herself near the fireplace.
“You have improved my Saturday considerably,” she told Mary Beth.
“I haven’t begun yet.”
“Then I shall conserve my strength.”
Mary Beth nearly laughed.
The bank manager came. So did a representative from the York merchant, carrying the strained courtesy of a man who wished his employer had sent someone else.
Two hospital-committee women arrived together and separated immediately after entering, perhaps so neither could be accused of having encouraged the other.
At ten minutes before three, Benedict Sablehurst walked into Blackthorn Manor.
He wore dark grey, immaculate gloves, and the expression of a man prepared to be gracious in victory.
Mary Beth met him beneath the drawing-room arch.
“Mrs. Blackthorn.”
“Lord Sablehurst.”
His attention moved across the crowd. The satisfaction in his face did not disappear, but it altered.
“You have assembled quite an audience.”
“You told me the county was watching. I thought it courteous to save them the trouble of doing it through hedges.”
A faint line appeared beside his mouth.
“May I speak with you privately before this begins?”
“No.”
“Mary Beth.”
“You may call me Mrs. Blackthorn today.”
For a moment his courtesy looked less effortless.
He recovered quickly. “As you wish.”
Three o’clock passed.
Ambrose had not come.
Mary Beth did not permit herself to glance at the front door again.
She had summoned him. She had not chained him to a railway carriage. If he chose to stay in Leeds because he believed leaving her was noble, she would deal with that after she dealt with Benedict.
She stepped into the space between the drawing room and morning room.
Conversation thinned and stopped.
There were more than thirty people now. Enough to carry a story through Yorkshire before supper.
“Thank you for coming on very little notice,” Mary Beth said.
“Some of you have received letters about me during the past fortnight. Others have heard stories. A few of you have changed business arrangements with Blackthorn because of them. I am not going to ask anyone to pretend the stories never existed. I am going to explain why several of them appeared when they did.”
Benedict remained beside the mantel.
Mary Beth opened the folder on the table.
“Years ago I had an affair with a widowed gamekeeper employed here. It began after my husband died. No wife was deceived. No promise was broken. I have never denied it when asked directly. Someone recently paid for access to surviving private letters from that affair. Copies were marked and circulated so that old facts could be made to serve a new purpose.”
A stir moved through the room.
Mary Beth laid one tied bundle on the table without opening it.
“I will not read those letters to you. The man who wrote them did not consent to entertain a county drawing room, and neither did I.”
The elderly widow gave one approving tap of her cane against the carpet.
Benedict said nothing.
“There was also a gardener,” Mary Beth continued. “According to the newspapers, at least. That story is false. Lord Sablehurst knew it was false before a York broadsheet repeated it.”
Heads turned.
Benedict’s voice remained measured. “If you intend to accuse me, Mrs. Blackthorn, I suggest you do so plainly.”
“I intend to.”
The silence changed. This was what they had come for.
Mary Beth picked up the broadsheet clipping.
“Lord Sablehurst told me on Thursday that a man acting through his solicitor investigated my former gamekeeper. He admitted that money was paid for access to copies of the correspondence. He also admitted allowing a man connected with this broadsheet to understand that there was reason to discuss my conduct, although he knew at least one of the rumors being circulated was untrue.”
Benedict took one step forward.
“I admitted that inquiries were made while I was considering marriage. Any man in my position would have done the same. I did not instruct a newspaper to print a falsehood.”
“No. You were more careful than that.”
His jaw tightened.
Mary Beth turned toward the bank manager.
“On Thursday you told me that someone connected with Sablehurst had raised questions about Blackthorn’s future management, my recent expenditure, and Mr. Tavener. Have I misstated our conversation?”
The poor man seemed to age several years while everyone watched him.
“No, Mrs. Blackthorn.”
“Did Blackthorn miss a payment before those questions were raised?”
“No.”
“Was the estate insolvent?”
“No.”
“Thank you.”
Benedict’s color had risen slightly.
“A bank has a duty to assess risk,” he said. “An inquiry is not coercion.”
“Taken by itself, perhaps not.”
Mary Beth indicated the York representative.
“Your firm restored ordinary credit to Blackthorn after I was received at Sablehurst. It tightened those terms again when the rumors began. I do not accuse you of inventing them. I asked you here because your employer should know that one of the men creating uncertainty about Blackthorn was at the same time offering to marry its owner and make the uncertainty disappear.”
The representative swallowed. “I will report exactly what has been said.”
“That is all I ask.”
Benedict gave a short exhale through his nose.
“This is theatre.”
“Of course it is. You arranged the audience before I did. Mine simply has chairs.”
A few people laughed before remembering they were respectable.
Mary Beth did not let the laugh carry her. She reached for the Leeds packet.
“The next part concerns Ambrose Tavener.”
Saying his name in that room changed something in her chest.
The hall beyond remained quiet.
“Mr. Tavener was hired to repair the failed north retaining wall, drainage, culvert, and related damage at Blackthorn. His work was necessary. His charges were fair. The wall is standing, the cottages are occupied, and the water is moving where it should. After our relationship became the subject of gossip, portions of his legitimate estimate were copied and placed beside fragments of my private correspondence. The arrangement made it appear that I had paid him from estate funds in exchange for intimacy.”
One hospital woman lowered her eyes.
Mary Beth opened the clerk’s statement.
“A clerk in Mr. Tavener’s Leeds office has admitted copying the estimate and two private letters for payment. The payment passed through a solicitor. The account notation was ’Sablehurst Estate Inquiry.’”
Instead of erupting, the room went very still.
Benedict’s face lost its practiced ease.
“May I see that?”