Chapter Three Evangeline’s Letter #2
Marianne had been in the little office off the hall, sorting receipts, when the front bell rang too late for a social call and too fiercely for a servant’s errand.
Mrs Finch had gone herself. There had been voices.
One low, one high with panic held barely in check.
Lady Theodosia had descended the stairs in a robe of purple silk and a cap set crookedly upon her grey curls, looking less like a woman disturbed from bed than a general grateful the battle had at last arrived.
Then Marianne had seen her.
Lady Evangeline Rookwood.
At twenty-one, Marianne had still believed beauty belonged to certain women in a way that put them almost in another species.
Lady Evangeline had been such a woman, even drenched, even shaking, even with her gown torn at the hem and mud spattered up the pale silk.
Her hair, dark gold where the rain had loosened it, clung to her temples.
One slipper was stained beyond saving. She wore no cloak.
Around one wrist was a bruise shaped not by a fall but by fingers.
There was ink on her cuff, a dark smear against white lace.
And held against her body with both arms was a small leather ledger, no larger than a prayer book, bound in brown, its corners worn.
Lady Theodosia had said, “My dear child.”
Lady Evangeline had replied, with terrible composure, “I am not mad.”
No one had accused her of it in that hall. Not aloud. Yet the denial had come first, as if she had been saying it for hours and had begun to fear the words would not be believed anywhere.
Lady Theodosia had not asked for proof. She had not told the girl to sit before she fell. She had not exclaimed over the ruined gown. She had simply held out her hand.
“Then come in where sanity is not decided by gentlemen in waistcoats.”
Evangeline had made a sound that might have been a laugh if grief had not broken it. Then she had crossed the threshold.
Marianne had brought tea because Mrs Finch was occupied with blankets and hot bricks.
She remembered the tray in her hands, the rattle of china she could not quite still, the smell of wet silk and fear in the study.
Lady Theodosia had taken the chair near the fire.
Evangeline had refused to sit at first, standing with the ledger clutched to her.
Marianne had seen how badly her hands shook.
The cup, when offered, had nearly fallen.
Lady Theodosia took it from her gently and placed it on the table.
“They will say I signed,” Evangeline had whispered.
“Who will?” Lady Theodosia asked.
“All of them.”
“Names, my dear. Panic deals in shadows. We shall require names.”
At that, Evangeline’s gaze had darted to Marianne. Not unkindly. Fearfully. She did not know whether the quiet girl with the tray could be trusted.
Lady Theodosia had followed the look. “Miss Vale hears many things in this house, Lady Evangeline, and repeats what I instruct her to repeat. At present, that is nothing.”
It had been the first time Lady Theodosia placed such trust in her before another person. Marianne had felt it like a weight and a warming hand both.
Evangeline had looked at her then. Truly looked. “Brothers are permitted to stop loving their sisters, I think, if the sisters become inconvenient.”
Marianne remembered the shame of being young enough to answer from principle instead of experience.
“No,” she had said. “No, surely not.”
Evangeline’s mouth had trembled. “Then mine has forgotten he is my brother.”
After that, Lady Theodosia had sent Marianne out.
By morning, Evangeline was gone from the main rooms. Hidden, perhaps, or removed elsewhere.
The small leather ledger had vanished. Lady Theodosia had been in a temper of such magnitude that even Mrs Finch avoided unnecessary speech.
Three letters were sent before breakfast. Two were burned after dinner.
And Marianne, still new enough to think every question might be answered if asked respectfully, had received her first lesson in the patience of secrets.
“Not yet,” Lady Theodosia had said when Marianne gathered the courage to ask. “Some truths must ripen, my dear. Forced too early, they sour and poison the wrong mouths.”
At the time, Marianne had not understood.
Now, years later, with Lady Theodosia dead and Evangeline’s letter awake again, she wondered whether the truth had ripened too late.
At dawn, she gave up even the pretence of sleep, dressed in a plain grey gown, twisted her hair into a knot tighter than fashion required, and went downstairs before Mrs Finch could come up and prove herself right.
The house was watchful. Threat altered even familiar rooms. The boarded rear window in the passage was an ugly square of fresh wood against old paint.
Tom had positioned himself near the hall with the air of a man determined that no duke, villain, creditor or distressed relation should pass him without a moral struggle.
One of Halgrave’s men stood outside near the railings, pretending not to be a guard and failing because no ordinary loiterer was that clean.
Mrs Finch moved through breakfast with her usual severity, though she had made too much toast, which was one of her signs of fear.
Helena met Marianne in Lady Theodosia’s study at half past eight.
“You did not sleep,” Helena said.
“You cannot know that.”
“I can. Mrs Finch can. Beatrice can, though she has interpreted it romantically and believes you spent the night composing a challenge to the Duke in heroic couplets.”
“I am sorry to disappoint her.”
“Are you?”
“Not particularly.”
Helena’s face softened briefly. “Marianne.”
Marianne turned to the desk, where the japanned box already waited. “I made notes from memory. About Lady Evangeline’s visit.”
“Good.”
“And the rook mark.”
“Yes.”
“You saw it?”
“I saw enough to know you had seen more.”
Helena unlocked the box and removed the packet. “It may not mean what it appears to mean.”
“I know.”
“But it may.”
“I know that too.”
They worked for nearly an hour before the Duke arrived, though arrived was too gentle a word for the effect produced by his entrance into Lantern House.
He came earlier than agreed, as Marianne had expected and hoped not to expect, bringing with him a locked dispatch box, two leather portfolios, and the atmosphere of a man who had not rested either but would rather be shot than confess it.
Tom admitted him with visible reluctance.
Mrs Finch relieved him of his hat with the air of a woman temporarily accepting custody of enemy property.
Helena received him in the study, where Marianne had already laid out three sheets across Lady Theodosia’s desk: one for dates, one for names, one for sums.
The Duke’s gaze went first to the papers, then to Marianne.
“You began without me,” he said.
“You arrived before the appointed hour,” she replied.
“Nine.”
“Ten.”
“I said nine.”
“And were corrected.”
His eyes narrowed faintly. “I brought the records.”
“So I see.”
Helena, who had the useful gift of allowing two combative people to exhaust a first volley before intervening, extended one hand toward the dispatch box. “Your Grace.”
He set the box upon the desk but did not open it immediately.
“These are copies of the formal transfer, correspondence from Mordaunt’s office, my father’s notes concerning the Ashmont negotiations, and certain estate entries made before and after Evangeline’s removal from London.
The originals remain at Halgrave House.”
“Understandably,” Helena said.
Marianne did not say conveniently, though the word presented itself.
The Duke looked at her as if he had heard it anyway.
Helena produced the written agreement from the previous day. “These papers will be listed as well.”
“I anticipated as much.”
He withdrew a key from his waistcoat and unlocked the dispatch box.
Inside, everything was ordered with almost military precision.
Marianne disliked that she noticed and approved.
Bundles tied by date. Letters separated from legal copies.
Estate accounts marked with narrow slips.
This was not a man who had brought a jumble of family papers in a show of wounded dignity. He had prepared.
Sebastian saw her looking. “Is something wrong?”
“No.”
“You appear surprised.”
“I am.”
“At what?”
“That you did not merely bring what supported your own certainty.”
For a moment he did not answer. Then he removed a packet tied in black ribbon and placed it before her. “Certainty has served me poorly in this matter.”
The statement was too honest for comfort.
Marianne lowered her eyes to the packet. “Then we shall begin with dates.”
They worked.
It would have been easier had he been less competent.
Marianne had braced herself for ducal impatience, masculine vagueness, and the infuriating confidence of men who believed a title transformed recollection into fact.
Sebastian Rookwood did possess impatience.
He possessed confidence too, though not of a careless sort.
But he also possessed a memory for names, dates and legal phrases that made evasion more difficult.
He knew the date upon which Ashmont first dined at Halgrave House.
He knew when Mordaunt was retained to advise on the settlement.
He knew which letters had been sent under his father’s seal and which under his own.
He remembered the morning Evangeline was said to have refused him entry, and the afternoon he left London in anger after his father told him she had become “dangerously excitable.”
That phrase, when he repeated it, made Marianne’s pen bite through the paper.
Sebastian noticed.
“You object to the phrase.”
“I object to many phrases. That one has been useful to too many cowards.”
“It was my father’s.”
“That does not improve it.”
“No,” he said, after a pause. “It does not.”