Chapter Nineteen
“Certain property?” Selina repeated.
Giles had positioned himself well. The people nearest them had already fallen silent, and the silence was beginning to spread towards the edges of the room.
“Name it plainly, cousin.”
Giles smiled.
“The garnets, for a beginning. Your mother’s garnets. Jewels which ought to have passed with the remaining property of the Merrow estate and which instead disappeared into your possession and were sold privately.”
Nathaniel felt the old anger rise before Giles had finished. Petherick stood at the edge of the gathering with the documents that would answer the lie in less time than Giles had required to tell it. Nathaniel could have ended the accusation himself.
Two fingers touched his sleeve.
Selina kept her eyes upon her cousin.
Not yet.
Nathaniel remained where he was.
“You are accusing me of theft,” Selina said.
“I am asking what became of property to which others had a lawful claim.”
“No. If you have brought half this room to silence in order to accuse me, you may at least have the courage to use the word.”
Something shifted in the faces around Giles.
He heard it.
“Very well. Theft.” The word carried. “The jewels were sold, and that is not the only question the administration of Merrow left unanswered. There are records of regular sums passing through an attorney in your name after the estate had supposedly left you almost penniless. Payments made quarter after quarter from money whose source has never been satisfactorily explained.”
That was better constructed. Selina had expected it to be.
Giles turned sufficiently to address the listeners gathering around them.
“My cousin would have this company believe that she emerged from her father’s disgrace with nothing.
Yet she sold valuable family jewels and continued for years afterwards to command funds which were never disclosed during the administration of the estate.
I ask a simple question: where did that money come from? ”
He had gone no further than the facts allowed. Not yet. That was the danger of it. A garnet set sold after a ruined estate; regular payments made by a woman reputed to possess almost nothing. Set beside one another without explanation, the two facts could be made to resemble a third.
Selina felt Nathaniel beside her and did not look towards him.
“My father’s crime is known to every person in this room,” she said. “I have never denied it. Nor have I denied who I am. You are not exposing Lady Selina Calvert tonight, Giles. She has been standing before you all along.”
A fan closed somewhere behind him.
“You have accused me of a crime of my own. That is another matter.”
“I have asked you to account for money.”
“And I shall.”
Giles’s confidence faltered by a degree.
Selina continued.
“But before I do, I should like this room to understand the accusation precisely. You say my mother’s garnets belonged to the Merrow estate. You say I had no right to sell them.”
“I do.”
“And you suggest that the money I sent through Mr Dunmore in later years came from property concealed during the administration of that estate.”
“I suggest that a woman who professed herself destitute might reasonably be asked how she continued to command it.”
“That was not my question.”
His mouth tightened.
Selina waited.
“Yes,” he said. “That is what I suggest.”
“Good.”
The word unsettled him more than denial would have done.
At Giles’s shoulder, Felix Rowland shifted. Nathaniel noticed. So did Selina.
Rowland had been admitted that evening only because Lady Marwood had instructed her servants to permit it. Since his humiliation in her garden he had disappeared from the houses which once tolerated him. Tonight he stood beside Giles openly, the connection between them no longer disguised.
His attention moved towards Georgiana.
“There is another matter which perhaps ought not be forgotten,” he said.
His voice was quieter than Giles’s, but the room was silent enough to carry it.
“Lady Georgiana and I conducted a correspondence earlier this Season. I had understood that certain discretion regarding it was in everyone’s interest.”
Georgiana went pale. She did not move.
Selina’s fingers remained against Nathaniel’s sleeve for one second longer, then fell away.
Rowland smiled faintly.
Nathaniel understood then why Georgiana had needed to be here. Not because Selina required another weapon. Because Georgiana had chosen not to let the threat be spoken around her again as though she were absent.
Selina looked at Rowland.
“If you intend to accuse Lady Georgiana of something, Mr Rowland, you may wait your turn.”
A few people laughed before remembering that the occasion was serious.
Colour rose along Rowland’s collar.
Selina returned her attention to Giles.
“My cousin has made two assertions. Both can be answered.”
She did not raise her voice.
“Mr Petherick.”
The solicitor came forward from the edge of the gathering carrying a plain document case. His appearance was so entirely devoid of drama that the room seemed to settle around him.
He bowed to Lady Marwood, then to Selina and Nathaniel.
“For those who do not know him,” Selina said, “Mr Petherick is solicitor to the Duke of Wexford. He has also examined the surviving documents relating to the Merrow estate.”
Petherick opened the case.
“The first question concerns a set of garnet jewellery formerly belonging to the late Countess of Merrow.”
He withdrew a folded document.
“This is a proved copy of the codicil to Her Ladyship’s will. The relevant provision is brief.”
He adjusted his spectacles.
“The garnet necklace, earrings and brooch were bequeathed to Lady Selina Calvert by name as the countess’s personal property. They did not form part of the settled goods of the Merrow estate.”
A different silence followed.
Giles’s face had begun to change.
Petherick continued before he could interrupt.
“I also hold the account of the broker who purchased those jewels from Lady Selina four winters ago. The seller is identified, as are the articles, the date and the sum paid. Since the jewels belonged absolutely to Lady Selina, she was entitled to dispose of them.”
He folded the codicil again.
“On that point, Lord Merrow’s allegation is false.”
Giles found his voice.
“That proves only the jewels. It does not account for the later money.”
“No,” Selina said. “It does not.”
He looked almost relieved.
She let him have the relief for a moment.
“The later money has its own account.”
Petherick placed another set of papers upon the open case.
“These are copies of the accounts kept by Mr Dunmore, through whom Her Grace made the remittances Lord Merrow has described. They begin four years ago, after the administration of the Merrow estate was complete.”
He laid the pages beside the codicil.
“The earliest sums derive from the lawful proceeds of the garnet sale. The later remittances correspond to Her Grace’s own income and personal funds. I have found no payment originating in the Merrow estate and no evidence that Her Grace concealed estate property.”
Giles gave a short laugh.
“You expect this room to take a duke’s solicitor at his word?”
“No,” Petherick said. “That is why I brought the records.”
A few people smiled. Giles did not.
Selina stepped forward.
“There is one part of the account Mr Dunmore’s figures cannot explain by themselves. They show where the money came from. They do not tell you why I sent it.”
Her eyes moved towards the side door.
“Mrs Loxley.”
The door opened.
Mrs Loxley stood upon the threshold.
For four years, Selina had known her only as a name in Mr Dunmore’s accounts and a destination for money sent every quarter. The woman herself was a stranger.
For a moment they looked at one another across the ballroom.
Selina did not beckon.
Mrs Loxley hesitated, then crossed the floor of her own accord and came to stand beside her.
“This is Mrs Anne Loxley,” Selina said. “Widow of Mr Thomas Loxley, the man my father was convicted of murdering.”
Recognition moved slowly through the room.
“The money my cousin finds so suspicious was sent to her. Every quarter, through Mr Dunmore, from funds that were lawfully mine.”
She turned towards the widow.
“Mrs Loxley, will you tell them only what you wish them to know?”
Mrs Loxley looked around the ballroom. Her hands closed upon one another.
“My husband was a good man,” she said.
The room quieted further.
“I should like that said first. Thomas Loxley was a good husband to me, and whatever else is spoken of tonight, I will not have him reduced to the man somebody was hanged for killing.”
Selina lowered her eyes.
“The money came,” Mrs Loxley continued. “Every quarter, as Her Grace has said. When I first received it, I did not know who had sent it. I asked Mr Dunmore, and after a time I learnt the name.” Her gaze moved briefly to Selina. “I nearly sent it back.”
A few heads lifted.
“I did not. I needed it. There were quarters when it kept my rooms, and winters when it bought coal, and I will not pretend pride would have served me better.”
Her voice shook, but she went on.
“I knew whose daughter she was. I knew what her father had done to my family. I also knew that she was seventeen when it happened and had done none of it herself.”
Selina’s composure tightened.
Mrs Loxley looked at Giles.
“The money was not hidden for her profit, Lord Merrow. It came to me. She asked nothing for it and received nothing back. I am here because you have called those payments evidence of theft, and I will not allow what reached my hands to be described as though it filled hers.”
Nothing followed immediately. There was no need.
Giles looked towards Rowland. Rowland looked elsewhere.
Selina waited until the silence had settled. “Georgiana.”
Georgiana stepped forward. She was pale. Her reticule trembled once in her hands before she opened it and removed a folded letter.
Then she looked directly at Rowland.
“He sent this letter to me.”
Six words. Nothing more.
She placed the letter in Petherick’s hand.
The solicitor unfolded it.