Chapter Eight
The letter lay upon the breakfast table between the coffee and the toast, its creases still visible where Georgiana had crushed it. Selina had been downstairs since six. She had smoothed the sheet flat, drunk one cup of coffee while standing and left her toast untouched.
Nathaniel had slept, which was more than he had managed upon their wedding night, though considerably less than he wished. He entered prepared for a difficult discussion and found Selina already waiting for it.
“Before you decide upon any action, you must see what this letter proves,” Selina said. “Whatever interest Rowland once professed in Georgiana, he is no longer attempting to persuade her.”
Nathaniel remained standing at the end of the table and read the letter again.
“No. He is threatening her now. He means to publish her letters unless she meets him.”
“Yes. But we should not assume that the meeting itself is his final object. He may still want access to Georgiana, or he may intend to use her to obtain something from this family. Money is the most likely possibility, but it is not the only one.”
Nathaniel read the letter once more. Selina’s conclusion was not complete, but its logic held. He placed the sheet upon the cloth and aligned it with the edge of the table.
“How was it delivered?”
“We do not yet know. Bassett is making enquiries among the servants.”
Georgiana appeared in the doorway before either could continue. She had dressed hastily, and one ribbon hung loose at her shoulder.
“Is it about me?”
“Yes,” Selina said. “Come in.”
Georgiana remained beside the door instead, keeping her gaze fixed upon the window rather than the letter.
“What are we to do?”
“I shall call upon him,” Nathaniel said. “This morning.”
“You should not,” Selina replied.
“He has threatened my sister.”
“And he expects the threat to provoke an immediate response. If you arrive at his lodgings angry and demanding, you will confirm that the letters possess precisely the value he hopes they do.”
“I do not intend to arrive angry.”
Selina looked at him.
“I do not intend to appear angry,” he amended.
“That is not the same thing.”
Nathaniel moved towards the window. “Then what do you propose?”
“That Georgiana neither meets him nor answers him today. Before we respond, we learn what remedies are available to us and as much as we can about Rowland’s circumstances.”
“You believe he may be under financial pressure?”
“Possibly. A man who uses private letters as leverage generally wants something more substantial than conversation. We should discover whether he owes money, to whom and how urgently it must be repaid. If money is not his object, those enquiries may reveal what is.”
“And meanwhile, we leave the threat unanswered.”
“For one day. We preserve the letter, speak to Mr Petherick and employ someone discreet to enquire into Rowland’s affairs. Then we answer from knowledge rather than temper.”
Nathaniel remained at the window for several moments.
“You have considered this carefully.”
“I have considered what we know and what we do not. At present, the second list is longer.”
From the doorway, Georgiana said, “And I am to do nothing at all.”
“For today,” Selina said.
“That feels very much like being carried out of the room while the two of you decide what becomes of me.”
Selina’s expression softened. “Then remain in the room. You will hear what Mr Petherick advises, and no answer will be sent without your agreement. But until we know more, you must neither meet Rowland nor write to him.”
Georgiana looked towards the letter at last.
“Doing nothing feels cowardly.”
“Waiting until you understand the danger is not cowardice,” Nathaniel said. “It is discipline. I have lately had cause to learn the difference.”
His sister glanced at him, surprised by the admission.
“Very well. I shall wait. But I wish to be present when we decide.”
“You will be,” Selina said.
Georgiana nodded once and left the room with more composure than she had brought into it.
Nathaniel looked at his wife. She had still not eaten. The toast had gone cold in its rack, and her chair had been turned slightly away from it.
“You have been considering this since last night.”
“I could hear you moving about in the small hours, so I know that I was not the only one awake.” She reached for the coffee pot, found it empty and replaced it. “A sleepless night ought to produce something useful.”
“I shall send for Petherick.”
“And someone capable of making discreet enquiries.”
“Yes.”
Nathaniel picked up Rowland’s letter by its edges.
This time, neither of them mistook immediate action for the same thing as progress.
***
Nathaniel engaged the man that afternoon: a confidential agent named Sowerby, recommended by his solicitor in the guarded language solicitors reserved for people they preferred not to be seen to know.
Sowerby was a small, damp and entirely forgettable man in a brown coat.
He resembled a clerk of the third rank in a shipping office, which Nathaniel supposed was the entire purpose of his appearance.
He asked few questions, and only useful ones.
He accepted the retainer, counted it twice without embarrassment, placed it in an inner pocket and undertook to uncover the structure of Mr Felix Rowland’s finances without disturbing a single brick of it.
Nathaniel gave him a fortnight and privately expected to wait every day of it. Afterwards, he sat in the study for some time with the receipt in his hand, considering that he had paid a stranger to execute his wife’s plan and finding that he minded the fact considerably less than he ought.
He took her to Hyde Park two days later, which was neither investigation nor strategy; or else was strategy of a less comfortable kind.
“We must be seen,” he had told her that morning.
“At the fashionable hour. A duke and his duchess taking the air like any settled couple.” He attended to his cuff rather than look at her.
“Lady Marwood’s dinner is on Thursday. Half the ton will visit the park before then.
I would rather their first sight of us be together and at ease than across her table, beneath her scrutiny. ”
“Yes. A marriage which hides itself resembles a scandal that has not yet been named.”
“That.” He abandoned the cuff. “You taught me as much. I am merely applying the lesson.”
“You are learning to fight in the open. I approve. It suits you better than brooding in your study.”
And so, at five o’clock, they walked the fashionable path in the thinning afternoon light, her gloved hand resting upon his arm.
The limes were in leaf, and the sunlight descended through them in shifting green patterns.
Beyond the rails, the dust of the ride hung golden in the air as the horses passed.
Selina remarked upon the ridiculous hats and upon a spaniel which had escaped its mistress to conduct a private war against the ducks.
Nathaniel laughed twice, publicly, where anyone might witness the Duke of Wexford doing so.
He had not laughed in Hyde Park within living memory, and the occurrence would undoubtedly be reported before nightfall.
Twice, Selina paused to allow a child with a hoop to pass. The second time, she watched the child disappear around the bend in the path. Nathaniel did not ask what she was thinking, and she did not tell him.
They had gone perhaps halfway along the path when he noticed the woman.
She stood near the rail with two companions, thin and sharp-faced beneath an expensive pelisse.
She had turned fully to stare; not with the fleeting glance of ordinary curiosity, but with the fixed, hungry attention of someone assembling a story.
Her gaze moved from Selina’s face to the hand resting upon Nathaniel’s arm.
She leant towards her companion and spoke behind a raised glove.
The other woman looked as well, though they stood scarcely six feet away in the midst of the fashionable hour.
Nathaniel did not alter his pace.
He raised his free hand, placed it over Selina’s where it rested upon his arm and held it there, plainly visible to the woman by the rail, her companions and the entire indifferent park.
His hand was bare. At some point, he had removed his glove and placed it in his pocket, though afterwards he could not remember having done so.
Selina continued walking. Her hand remained motionless beneath his, but she turned her head a fraction so that only he could hear her.
“Is this permitted?”
“In public?” Nathaniel asked, matching her quiet tone.
“By you.”
He walked six or seven paces before answering. A phaeton passed along the road, its wheels grinding over the gravel while a boy called after it. Dust rose from the ride and remained suspended in the air. Near the rail, a woman laughed at a joke which had nothing to do with them.
“By me,” he said after a moment. “Entirely. But if it is not permitted by you, say so and I shall move my hand.”
His hold eased, leaving her free to withdraw, though he did not lift his hand.
“The woman by the rail gave me a reason to place it there,” he continued. “She is not the reason I have left it.”
Selina looked ahead, towards the path and the shifting green light beneath the limes. She did not withdraw her hand.
They passed the woman by the rail and continued beyond the reach of her attention.
Some distance later, Nathaniel said, “You have not asked me to remove it.”
“No. I am considering what that signifies, and I should be obliged if you did not assist me towards a conclusion. The matter is difficult enough without your hand making an argument of its own.”
“I had intended to remain silent.”
“Your hand is less disciplined than the rest of you.”
He looked down at it. “So it would appear.”
He did not move it, and she did not ask him to.
They continued beneath the limes in a silence that was no longer merely companionable. Acquaintances bowed and Nathaniel returned their greetings, though he afterwards recalled none of them. Beside him, Selina devoted an improbable degree of attention to the ducks.
At the gate, she withdrew her hand so that he might assist her into the carriage. The separation was ordinary, necessary and more keenly felt than the touch had been.
Once they were seated and the carriage had begun to move, Selina turned one glove over in her lap.
“Well,” she said, “you have shown the ton a convincing marriage. By supper, the woman at the rail will have carried it through three drawing rooms: the Duke of Wexford laughing in the park, his hand covering his wife’s.
Lady Marwood will hear a version of us before Thursday which we did not need to arrange ourselves. ”
“She will have the particulars correctly,” Nathaniel said. “What of their meaning?”
Her fingers stilled upon the glove.
For once, no answer stood ready. She studied the seam for several moments before turning towards the window.
“Ask me again when I have decided,” she said.
Nathaniel sat back. “I shall.”
Neither spoke again on the journey home, but the silence travelled with them like something newly shared.
***
Sowerby’s preliminary report arrived before the week was out, enclosed in a plain sealed packet and delivered by an equally unremarkable man who did not wait for a reply. Nathaniel read it in the study with the door closed.
Mr Felix Rowland’s finances proved to be precisely the precarious structure Selina had predicted.
Debts rested upon other debts. He maintained lodgings far beyond his means, had left his tailor unpaid for two years and was being threatened by his wine merchant.
His entire existence as a gentleman was supported by nothing sturdier than the appearance of being one.
Sowerby wrote in a dry clerk’s hand which lent the ruin no drama and thereby made it worse. The figures described a man who could not survive another quarter without acquiring a considerable sum he had no prospect of earning.
The final line of the report brought Nathaniel to his feet.
The largest of Rowland’s obligations, the debt upon which all the others appeared to depend, was held by a single creditor. Sowerby had supplied the name.
Nathaniel read it twice to ensure that the ink had not deceived him. Then he sat down slowly. The connection might conceivably be a coincidence, but it was not one he could safely dismiss.
Felix Rowland’s ruin rested largely in the hands of a man who might also possess reason to take an interest in Selina: a man of her own blood, who had known her when her name was worth a fortune, watched that name fall and never once extended a hand to catch her.
The Earl of Merrow. His wife’s cousin.
Nathaniel remained with the report upon his knee and the fire unlit before him.
The pieces shifted and began to form a different picture: the masquerade, the corridor, Selina’s true name spoken deliberately in a hall full of attentive ears.
He could not yet prove design, but he could no longer regard each incident as chance.
If Lord Merrow held Rowland’s debts, he might also hold Rowland’s obedience. Georgiana’s letters could have provided the means of entering the Wexford household, and Selina’s disgraced name some further purpose Nathaniel could not yet see.
Upstairs, somewhere above him, he heard his wife walking, the household keys moving softly with her.