Chapter Sixteen
The next day brought no communication from Rowland or Giles.
Nothing arrived by the morning post. No card was brought to the door, no message came through an intermediary, and by evening the silence had acquired the uncomfortable quality of something that could mean either retreat or preparation.
There was no useful way to distinguish between the two.
On the Tuesday morning, however, Sowerby sent word identifying the printer to whom the copies of Georgiana’s letters had been offered.
The message reached Nathaniel while Petherick was already in the house. Within a quarter of an hour the solicitor had read it twice, asked for his hat and announced his intention of going directly to Fetter Lane.
Petherick went before noon.
Nathaniel went with him.
Neither suggested waiting.
The printing house occupied a narrow building off the lane, close with the smell of ink and crowded with compositors and pressmen who took no particular interest in the Duke of Wexford until Petherick gave his name.
Then interest moved through the room without anyone admitting to it.
One man looked up from his work and immediately looked down again.
Another carried a stack of paper past them with exaggerated concentration.
Nathaniel had spent enough time in committee rooms to recognise the effect of a title upon men who wished to appear unaffected by one. He left the speaking to Petherick.
The solicitor did not begin with threats of prosecution. He asked to speak privately with the proprietor and laid the matter before him in the dry, methodical fashion which made unpleasant possibilities sound already documented.
The proprietor listened from behind a desk crowded with proofs, invoices and loose sheets. Petherick placed nothing upon it at first. He simply opened his notebook.
The correspondence, he explained, belonged to an unmarried young lady.
It had been obtained and retained as part of a demand for money.
The Duke was prepared to pursue every remedy available should copies be published with knowledge of those circumstances.
Petherick did not speculate aloud upon which remedy would ultimately succeed.
He merely observed that establishing the answer could occupy solicitors, courts and considerable sums of money for a very long time.
He said it without emphasis.
The printer listened.
At first his expression suggested the professional patience of a man accustomed to being told that something committed to paper ought not to have been. By the time Petherick finished, the patience had become attention.
Then he looked at Nathaniel.
Nathaniel had contributed nothing to the conversation. He did not need to.
He stood beside the window with his gloves in one hand and allowed Petherick’s argument to remain exactly where the solicitor had placed it.
“I was told the matter was authorised,” the printer said.
“By whom?” Petherick asked.
“A gentleman acting for another gentleman.”
“Names.”
The printer hesitated.
Petherick opened his notebook to a clean page.
The small sound of the pencil being readied appeared to settle the matter.
Within half an hour they had the name of the intermediary.
There followed a further interval in which a clerk was summoned, a cupboard opened and several packets brought from another room.
Petherick examined each without haste. Nathaniel stood through all of it and resisted the impulse to demand speed from men who were already moving as quickly as prudence allowed.
Within the hour, the fair copies of Georgiana’s letters were upon the table.
The originals were not.
Nathaniel looked at the pages for several seconds. They were only paper. That was the absurdity of the whole affair: so much fear reduced, in the room where the copies had been prepared for use, to ink, folds and a handful of sheets upon a printer’s desk.
He did not touch them.
“Are there other copies?”
“Not made here.”
“That was not my question.”
The printer swallowed.
“Not to my knowledge, Your Grace.”
Nathaniel held his gaze a moment longer. It was not certainty. He had learnt to recognise the difference.
Petherick did too. He made another note and asked the printer to repeat the answer while he wrote it down.
Then he collected the papers and obtained a written account of how they had arrived at the shop. The proprietor read the account before signing it. Petherick read it after he had signed it. Only then did he close his case.
They left shortly thereafter.
Outside, the ordinary traffic of the lane seemed disproportionately loud after the close air of the printing house. Nathaniel drew on his gloves while Petherick tucked the case beneath his arm.
Neither described the visit as a victory.
They had recovered one set of copies. That was all they knew.
Nathaniel told Selina that evening.
She was in the study when he came in, reading one of Sowerby’s earlier reports. Several pages were spread before her in the order she preferred, with enough space between them to make clear that she was comparing rather than merely reading them.
Nathaniel entered carrying the packet.
Selina looked up.
He placed the recovered copies upon the desk.
She looked at the packet and then at him.
“What is that?”
“The copies intended for the printer.”
Her eyes lifted fully to his.
“You found him.”
“Sowerby did.”
Selina closed the report.
“You did not tell me.”
“No.”
Her face became very still.
Nathaniel remained where he was.
There were several answers available to him. None improved the fact.
“I thought we had settled this.”
“We had.”
“Apparently not.”
“I should have told you.”
The immediate admission checked whatever answer she had prepared.
For a moment she only looked at him.
Nathaniel continued.
“Sowerby’s information arrived this morning. Petherick believed we should act before the printer had reason to move the material elsewhere. I agreed.”
“And there was no time to send a note upstairs?”
“There was.”
“Then urgency is not the answer.”
“No.”
Selina pushed back her chair. It made a small sound against the carpet and stopped.
“Why?”
Nathaniel considered giving her the comfortable explanation.
He could have spoken of speed, of Georgiana, of the danger of allowing the copies to remain where they were for another hour. Every part of it would have been reasonable.
It had the additional disadvantage of being false.
“Because the letters were Georgiana’s, and I saw a chance to put them back beyond Rowland’s immediate reach. I acted before I considered that doing so concerned you as well.”
Selina’s expression altered, though not enough to call it forgiveness.
“That is at least an honest answer.”
“It is not a good one.”
“No.”
He accepted that.
The old instinct to explain further remained. Nathaniel let it pass.
Selina looked down at the packet.
“Did you recover the originals?”
“No. Only the copies delivered to that printer. We cannot know whether others exist.”
“Good.”
Nathaniel frowned.
“Good?”
“Not that others may exist. Good that you know recovering one packet is not the same thing as solving the problem.”
He looked at the papers.
“I have been exposed to a woman who objects to premature conclusions.”
“I hear she is exhausting.”
“She is.”
Selina almost smiled and prevented herself. She rose and came around the desk.
“I am not angry because you and Petherick went to the printer. He ought to have gone. Had you told me this morning, I should have told him to go faster.”
“I suspected as much.”
“Then you might have saved yourself the suspense.”
“I am beginning to understand that.”
She stopped in front of him.
“I spent eight years having choices made for me by people who were quite certain they knew what was necessary. Some of them were even right. I did not marry you in order to acquire a kinder version of the same arrangement.”
Nathaniel’s expression changed.
The distinction was not new to him. Hearing how precisely he had failed it was.
“I know.”
“No. You are learning.”
He took the correction.
“Yes.”
Selina let the silence remain between them a moment. She did not soften what she had said, and Nathaniel did not ask her to.
Then she looked at the packet once more.
“What did you learn?”
He began with Sowerby’s message, then the printer, the intermediary, the recovered copies and the written account. Selina listened without interrupting except when she wanted something made precise. Nathaniel answered precisely.
The anger did not disappear while he spoke.
Neither did she sharpen it merely because she possessed it.
By the time he had finished, she was standing beside him at the desk rather than opposite him.
The packet lay between them.
“The intermediary matters,” she said.
“Yes.”
“And Rowland still has the originals.”
“Yes.”
“And Giles still has whatever papers he means to use concerning the payments.”
Nathaniel turned his head towards her.
She had gone pale.
The change was slight, but after the conversation they had just had he was in no mood to pretend he had not seen it.
“You know what those payments are.”
Selina was quiet.
“Yes.”
Nathaniel waited.
The answer was there. So was the question that would have drawn it out.
He did not ask it.
Selina looked at him, perhaps expecting the question.
It did not come.
For several seconds they stood beside the desk with the recovered letters between them and Sowerby’s report still open where she had left it.
After a moment she placed one hand upon the back of the chair.
“I will tell you.”
“When you are ready.”
“No.”
She drew a breath.
“That answer has protected me long enough. Rowland knows enough to make the matter dangerous, and Giles knows more. If we are to answer what comes next, you and Petherick must know the truth before they choose how to distort it.”
Nathaniel did not move.
This, too, was a choice. Hers.
“Very well.”
“Not tonight.”
He inclined his head.
“Tomorrow, then.”
“Tomorrow.”
The word appeared to settle something, though not everything.
Selina gathered Sowerby’s report and the packet of recovered letters into one pile. She squared the edges automatically, aligning one sheet and then another until the packet sat exactly upon the report.
Nathaniel watched her do it.
He had spent the morning acting because action had been available to him. Now there was nothing useful to do but let her leave with the time she had asked for.
She took the papers and walked towards the door.
“Selina.”
She turned.
“I am sorry.”
Her expression softened.
Not entirely. Enough.
“I know. Next time, tell me before you do the sensible thing.”
“I shall.”
She left him with that.