Chapter 6 #4
Margaret adjusted the fastening of one glove. “Then I shall judge it by the man carrying it.”
Christopher left before Henry could determine whether the words had been intended for either of them alone.
Harcourt and his clerk followed with the leather case between them. The outer doors closed, leaving the scent of cold air and street damp beneath the beeswax.
Dyer gathered his papers into three packets: the inspection record, Lady Georgiana’s recollection, and the account of Christopher’s offer. He tied each separately.
“We now possess motive,” Henry said.
“We possess evidence of a property motive,” Dyer corrected. “It does not prove Mr. Blackwood knew the extract was false when he advanced it.”
“No.”
“It does make his claim less suitable for private trust reliance without authentication.”
Margaret stood beside the table, reading Lady Georgiana’s written address. “The banking books may establish a lawful payment for the licence, the messenger’s identity, and a date.”
“They may,” Dyer said. “They may also establish only that money moved. We will not ask them to prove more than they contain.”
“I shall ask to inspect the daybook and correspondence record.”
“You will ask the bank to permit inspection in the presence of its proper officer. I will send notice before you arrive.”
Lady Georgiana reached into her reticule and produced a narrow calling card. On its reverse she wrote the location of the old record room, the former partnership name, and the senior clerk who had assisted her after her husband’s death.
“He dislikes titles before noon,” she said, handing the card to Margaret. “Use the account date first and the duchess afterward.”
Margaret read the name. “You believe he remains at the bank?”
“He was thirty when Methuselah was a child, but bankers are preserved by dust and disapproval. If he has retired, someone will know where the books were moved.”
Dyer placed his hat beneath his arm. “I shall write within the hour. The ledger fragment found at Waterloo House remains secured at my chambers. We will compare its travel payment against any entry the bank produces.”
“And the parish?” Henry asked.
“After the bank confirms what question we are entitled to put. Reverend Cole will be more useful if approached with dates and a lawful reason to protect his register’s credibility, not an accusation that his predecessor assisted fraud.”
Margaret folded Lady Georgiana’s card and placed it in her reticule. “Then the banker first.”
Lady Georgiana looked from her to Henry. Her gaze lingered with the impolite intelligence of a relation who had observed too much and intended to live long enough to use it.
“You conducted yourselves tolerably,” she said. “Do not become vain. The family portraits have managed it for generations, and none has improved.”
She kissed Margaret’s cheek, touched two fingers to Henry’s uninjured arm, and left through the outer doors with Dyer. His clerk followed carrying the tied records.
A footman entered to remove the unused ink and ask whether the gallery should be opened. Henry told him to leave the doors closed for ten minutes. He did not order them locked.
When the footman withdrew, the gallery became larger.
The inspection table remained beneath the portraits, cleared now except for one grain of sealing wax and the shallow marks where the leather case had rested.
Winter light had begun to fail beyond the windows.
Gilt frames caught the lamps in hard edges, and the beeswax scent seemed warmer without solicitors present to dispute it.
Margaret stood at the centre of the room with her gloved hands resting upon the reticule that held Lady Georgiana’s address.
Henry had been observed all morning: by Christopher, who looked for weakness; by Harcourt, who looked for admission; by Dyer, who looked for facts; and by Lady Georgiana, who looked for conduct. Margaret had looked for all of them and still seen when Christopher’s hand landed near his shoulder.
“You told them,” she said.
“The offer concerned the trust.”
“That has not always prevented men from calling information private.”
“No.”
“You could have refused him and said nothing.”
“Yes.”
Her gaze remained on him. “Why did you not?”
He could have said because they had agreed. It was true and insufficient.
“Because he expected me to obtain your signature without allowing you to hear the price,” Henry said. “If I concealed the offer to protect you from the insult, I would have used the same assumption in a more courteous coat.”
Margaret lowered her eyes to the table. “You understood that while he was speaking?”
“Not at first.”
“When?”
“When I wanted to end the matter before you heard it.”
Her mouth altered, though amusement did not quite arrive. “An efficient warning.”
“I have begun to distrust every decision that promises to spare you explanation.”
“That may make marriage time-consuming.”
“I had not understood it as a method of saving time.”
She looked up then, and the warmth in her hazel eyes disturbed every defensive arrangement he had maintained through the inspection.
Henry had wanted to prevent Christopher from treating her as the weak point.
He had imagined doing so by positioning her correctly, answering insults, and refusing to let another man use marriage against her.
Margaret had required none of those defenses.
She had stood beside the documents, asked the better questions, and made Christopher expose the bargain beneath his claim.
She had also watched Henry choose not to protect her through exclusion.
Desire entered only after the choice, which made it more dangerous than the involuntary awareness he had contained for days. He knew what he wanted now. Not a ceremonial touch, not her hand given for vows, and not the brief pressure at his back when he required help.
He wanted her mouth without a witness assigning meaning to it.
Margaret walked around the table.
She stopped an arm’s length away. Her gaze moved once to the closed gallery doors, then returned to his face.
“They are not locked,” Henry said.
“I know.”
“A servant may enter.”
“Not for ten minutes unless the house has developed a crisis involving ink.”
“It has developed stranger ones.”
“That is not a refusal.”
“No.”
Neither moved.
Margaret’s expression held calculation, but it was not the household arithmetic she used against suppliers or smoke. She was measuring him, herself, the empty room, and the distance between a marriage that required nothing and a desire that might ask.
“The settlement did not forbid kissing,” she said.
“No.”
“It forbade assumption.”
“Yes.”
“And a kiss after you have behaved well might resemble a reward.”
Henry felt the truth of that with humiliating force. “I do not want payment.”
“What do you want?”
“You.”
The word was too large for public speech and too plain for evasion. He did not improve it.
Margaret’s fingers tightened once upon her reticule before she set it upon the inspection table. “I am angry.”
“With Christopher?”
“With him, with Croft, with every man who believes twenty-six lives may be converted into the price of another man’s name.” She stepped nearer. “I am also angry that you repeating the offer before witnesses mattered to me as much as it did.”
Henry did not reach for her. “Why?”
“Because I believed you would refuse alone.”
“So did I.”
“And you did not.”
“No.”
Her gaze went to his mouth and returned. “I should like to kiss you.”
The gallery seemed to contract around the quiet declaration, though nothing moved except the lamp flame nearest the document room.
Henry said, “Because you are relieved?”
“In part.”
“Because Christopher insulted you?”
“That has rarely produced desire in the past.”
“Because I consulted you?”
Her expressive mouth curved without becoming a smile. “Do not make consultation an erotic accomplishment. The standard will become intolerably low.”
His private humor answered before caution could suppress it. “I have been married a week. I had hoped for an attainable standard.”
Margaret came within reach. “I want to know what it is like when no room expects it and no agreement requires it.”
Henry’s left hand remained open at his side. “Yes.”
She closed the final distance.
The first touch of her mouth was deliberate and almost formal, as if both had carried ceremony into the moment and needed to discover whether it belonged there. Her lips were warm. She tasted faintly of tea and the clove lozenge Lady Georgiana had offered halfway through the inspection.
Henry kept his hands still until Margaret placed one palm against the left side of his chest.
Then he touched her waist.