Chapter 3 #4
Dyer gathered his papers into order. “That question exceeds the present trust calculation.”
“No,” Margaret said. “It exposes it.”
Henry looked at her as though she had reached beneath armor he had not granted permission to touch.
She continued more quietly. “If the title fails, the marriage may no longer save the House.”
“No.”
“Then what would you be asking me to marry?”
“A man who had involved you in his public disgrace.”
“That is not an identity.”
“It may become one.”
His shame contained no theatrical ruin. It was specific: a name disputed, parents scrutinized, authority withdrawn while twenty-six people watched. Margaret recognized the instinct to make oneself useful before others could decide usefulness had ended.
It resembled her own too closely to be comfortable.
“What do you fear I will do?” she asked.
Dyer rose. “I believe the remaining exchange is not improved by legal attendance.”
Margaret almost objected, then saw that he had already placed the notes in separate groups. He tied the preliminary settlement outline and took it into his case. A clean copy of the practical terms remained on the table beside Margaret.
“I will prepare no binding draft until Mrs. Ellison has chosen independent counsel and instructed me through that adviser,” he said. “Mrs. Ellison, you may retain these notes. His Grace will receive his own copy. Nothing said today constitutes acceptance.”
“Thank you, Mr. Dyer.”
He turned to Henry. “I shall be in the map room reviewing the trust deadlines.”
Henry nodded.
Dyer left, closing the door behind him. His departure removed the legal structure from the room without making the questions less real.
Margaret and Henry remained opposite one another at the round table. Her damp gloves lay between them. Smoke drifted above the mantel. The cold current from the open window touched the papers and lifted one corner of Dyer’s notes.
Henry reached toward it, then stopped before his hand crossed into her side of the table.
Margaret placed two fingers upon the page.
“What do you fear I will do?” she asked again.
He looked at the notes rather than her. “Accept because the residents need you to.”
“That is the argument for the marriage.”
“It is the argument for considering it. It is not enough for choosing it.”
“What else would make the choice acceptable to you?”
“Knowing you could refuse me and remain secure.”
“I cannot remain secure. If I refuse, I may lose my employment, this house, and the people who have become my household.”
“I know.”
“Then do not describe the choice as free.”
“I did not.”
She studied him. “Most men would.”
“Most men have not spent the morning discovering that their authority may be invalid and their solution depends upon a woman who has reason to distrust both marriage and dukes.”
“You do not yet know my reasons.”
“No.”
Margaret looked toward the smoking grate. “My husband admired my management.”
Henry remained silent.
“He admired it when it saved money, soothed an officer, or repaired an error before it reached his colonel. When I objected to a purchase, he reminded me that the money was his. When I asked to see an account, he said I worried unnecessarily. He was generous when generosity confirmed his authority.”
She had not intended to say so much. Practical facts were safer when kept in columns. The trouble with Henry was that he listened as though silence did not entitle him to fill the space.
“He never struck me,” she continued. “He never locked a door. He merely arranged the marriage so that every refusal became evidence that I did not trust him, and every agreement became proof that he was right to decide.”
Henry’s face had gone still. “I am sorry.”
“I do not require sorrow.”
“No. You require me to understand the pattern.”
“Yes.”
“And you fear I will praise your competence while absorbing your authority.”
The accuracy of it stung.
Margaret folded the edge of one note beneath her thumb. “A duke can consume a woman’s work while announcing that he has elevated her.”
“I could.”
“You continue to agree too easily.”
“Would denial make it less true?”
“No.”
His gaze lifted to hers. “I fear you will see my need and mistake it for a claim.”
“What need?”
“To stop Croft before he empties the House. To prove the title is mine. To avoid failing my aunt, the residents, and every man who will believe I abandoned this place when my name became inconvenient.”
“That is several needs.”
“They have arrived together.”
“And you expect to meet them by paying every cost yourself.”
His expression sharpened.
Margaret knew she had struck something because he answered with greater care. “I expect to meet the costs I create.”
“You did not create Croft.”
“I inherited him.”
“You did not create Christopher’s claim.”
“I am its subject.”
“You did not create the deed.”
“My family did.”
“Then perhaps your difficulty is not guilt but ownership. You prefer every danger to belong to you because then every decision may belong to you also.”
The room held the words without mercy.
Henry sat back. His left hand remained open upon the table. The right had closed once before he deliberately relaxed it.
“That is possible,” he said.
Margaret had expected resistance. His acceptance did not absolve him. It made further attack feel less like defense and more like cruelty, which was irritating in its own manner.
“You asked for a marriage,” she said.
“I asked you to consider one.”
“Do you want it?”
“I want the House protected.”
“That is not what I asked.”
His blue-gray eyes held hers with an attention that made the shabby green salon feel more private than a closed room had any right to be.
“I want you beside me in the trust,” he said. “I want the person who found Croft’s false account within minutes to possess the standing to challenge him. I want the residents to look toward someone whose authority comes from more than my permission.”
“And as a wife?”
“I do not know you well enough to claim a private want without turning urgency into seduction.”
The answer was plain, disciplined, and not entirely devoid of want.