The stage was set. Haverford sat behind his massive desk, the light from the window streaming over his shoulders. Other chairs in the room had been removed or pushed to the wall. These visitors would not be invited to sit. He had offered to retain a chair for David Wakefield, the only other person who would witness the encounter, but he preferred to lean against the wall, almost out of line of sight for those who would be focused on the duke.
"Ready?" he asked, with a silent lift of a brow, and Wakefield nodded.
The butler read his master's command and slipped out the door. They would need to keep this to half an hour, to be sure of concluding before Cherry arrived back from the strategy meeting she and the ladies of the family were holding at Chirbury House. He had not told Cherry about the coming interview, because she would have told Bella, and Bella and Nick would have insisted on being present, tying his hands should it come to threats. And it undoubtedly would. Which meant his wife and friends would be cross with him. Again.
In the next room, Penchley awaited him with an updated list of possible replacements for Lord Bortham. They'd begun the list in Paris, and each day, weeded out those who would not be acceptable to one faction or another on the island or here in England, and those who were unable or unwilling to take up the post. They had to decide among those remaining in very short order. Rather, they had to decide on a firm short list of candidates to present to the Colonial Secretary.
He rubbed a tired hand from his eyes over the top of his head, then straightened again, smoothing his hair back into its accustomed fall and setting his face in the impassive ducal stare.
Lady Athol entered the room already talking, her husband trailing behind her. "This is unconscionable. How dare you send servants to drag us here when we had already explained we could not accept your invitation."
Behind the mask he wore, Haverford tried to detect traces of the sweet child he had often met at Nick's and Bella's, and for whom he'd once purchased ices at Gunter's. The sour lines engraved into this harpy's face left no hint of the innocent she had been. The foolish lecher she had wed tried to silence her. All rapacious lust and false bonhomie had drained from his expression, leaving it vacant.
"'Your Grace,'" Haverford said.
Lady Athol's mouth stopped mid-flow.
"You will address me as 'Your Grace.' 'This is unconscionable, Your Grace.' Lord Athol. Lady Athol. I have called you here to answer to some very serious charges before I deliver the case to your brother, Lord Athol, and your father and uncle, Lady Athol."
"Fetch me a chair, Athol," Lady Athol demanded.
"Have you no manners? You have not been invited to sit in my presence." Haverford's voice stopped Lord Athol's movement, and Lady Athol began another protest. "Nor will you speak, except in answer to a direct question."
Lord Athol had been jumpy from the start, in his twitchy face, his hesitant movements, in the defensive slump of his shoulders before he remembered to brace them again. Lady Athol had masked her fear with defiance, but it was there, in the anxious glance she cast from him to Wakefield, in the white clench of her jaw and her knuckles on her reticule. She opened her lips once more. Brave or stupid?
No, apparently, neither brave nor stupid enough to defy a direct order. She closed them without a word.
Haverford looked down at the stack of papers on his desk, patting the already straight edges as if to tidy them. Without lifting his head, he raised his eyes, glaring at Lady Athol across the top of his glasses. He kept his voice bland as he said, "I seek an explanation of a curious fact that has emerged from my investigation into the scurrilous attacks on my daughter's reputation."
Lady Athol opened her mouth again but shut it at a poke from her husband. Haverford waited, but she remained silent.
"My investigators have traced every rumour back to its source, sometimes—and this surprised me—for years. Since my little girl was still in the schoolroom."
Wakefield's wife, Prue, employed a vast army of companions, governesses, housekeepers, and other women who moved on the fringes of the ton, and had set them to work collecting the stories flying around Society about Sally and Abersham, finding out who had whispered what to whom, and continuing to dig until the story seed was recovered. That's what Prue called it. The story seed, often an innocent act misinterpreted, frequently a lie made up out of whole cloth, provably wrong once the facts were laid out in one of the meticulous charts drawn up by one of Prue's able assistants.
"For nearly five years, in fact," Haverford added, his voice dropping to the low purr, almost a growl, of anger on the edge of release. "And almost every rumour, every nasty assumption, every lying story, first made its appearance with one or both of you, Lord and Lady Athol."
"I say," Lord Athol protested. Lady Athol gripped her reticule convulsively and lifted her chin, biting her upper lip.
"I do not ask you to confirm or deny. The evidence is incontrovertible and will be presented to your relatives at the proper time. I wish only to know why you have declared war on the House of Haverford. Yes, and on the House of Wellbridge, too, make no mistake. It seems a curious decision for people living on the fringes of Society, relying upon the goodwill of your more powerful relations. What on earth drove you? What did you hope to gain?"
More to the point, could he use the knowledge he now had to save his daughter? Wakefield thought it possible. Evidence would never trump rumour, but one set of nasty stories could be replaced by another. He would need the Soddenfelds' cooperation and the combined wisdom of the duchesses and their colleagues. The end would see the Soddenfelds exiled forever from Society, and Sally restored. Abersham, too, if the man deserved it.
"That was a question to which you may respond," he told the tongue-tied pair.
Lady Athol burst into speech. "Before she made her debut, no later than five years ago, Lady Sarah had been thoroughly corrupted by my cousin, and I have proof." She pulled something from her reticule, and avoided her husband's reaching hand to place it on the desk in front of Haverford. A pack of cards wrapped in paper.
He looked down at the package, reluctant to touch it. Anything from this harridan would be poison.
"My cousin sent her this. I—I happened to open a letter from him to her, sent after his parents took him overseas to escape the shame of his scandalous behaviour at Eton. Of course, I saw straightaway it was not suitable for a schoolgirl. Not suitable for a schoolboy, either, except that you and my Uncle Wellbridge saw fit to..."
She trailed off at another poke from Lord Athol and a whispered, "Shut your mouth, woman."
With his eyes, Haverford asked Wakefield to examine the objects. The room was silent as the investigator crossed to the desk and unwrapped the package, glancing quickly through the five or six cards in the stack then perusing the note that wrapped them.
"Some mildly naughty postcards and an innocuous enough letter," he reported.
Now it was Lord Athol's turn to speak when silence would have served him better. "See?" he said. "As soon as Lady Athol showed me, I knew the girl would grow into a lightskirt, and I've been waiting ever since. And I was right!"
"Bindle!" Haverford's convulsive rise and his shout silenced the evil bastard. Just as well, because Haverford's fist itched to drive the man's teeth down his lying throat.
When the butler rushed in, Haverford forced words through his teeth: "Lord and Lady Athol will be our guests until further notice. You and three footmen will escort them to a suitable suite, lock them in, and ensure they are guarded at all times."
Over the Soddenfelds' protests, the pair were bundled out of the room.
"How bad?" Haverford asked Wakefield.
"Very mild," Wakefield said. "Schoolboy stuff. The letter is in their code. I'll have to remember what all the symbols in the margins mean, but I can decode it for you."
"She was fifteen, Wakefield. Fifteen! What was he doing sending her such vile things?"
Wakefield shrugged. "You never thought them vile before, Haverford. Your daughter and Abersham have always been good friends. Who else was she going to go to with her curiosity? And she has always wanted to know how things work."
That eased Haverford's pain a little, but then another thought intruded. "But was there more? What if there is more? Will you help me search her suite? If he sent her anything, she will have kept it."
Wakefield frowned. "Are you sure? Would it not be better to leave it alone?"
"Could you?" Haverford retorted. "If Abersham has been sending her such pictures since she was a child, I... I need to know."
And I need to kill him.
***
An hour later, Haverford stormed back downstairs. The jewellery case had given up its secrets, sending him blind with rage and deaf to any arguments Wakefield might make on behalf of the young couple.
Penchley was still waiting in the annex to his study, the connecting door open. Had it been open all along? Not that it mattered. Penchley was reliable enough, if boring. The man rose to his feet and started to speak, then thought better of it.
Good. Haverford had nothing to say.
He snatched the list Penchley had been working on from out of the man's pudgy little hand, and filled his pen with ink, striking out all the names on the list, then writing for a moment, focusing with all his might on keeping his hand steady, trying to avoid the strength of his anger forcing the nib into the page.
His voice tight with strain, he said, "Here is your new governor, Penchley. See to it."
Penchley picked up the paper he had dropped.
"Sir?"
Haverford turned to leave. He needed Cherry. Surely, she must be home soon?
"No one better, sir, of course," Penchley hastened to add. "You will be an excellent governor, sir."
"See to it," Haverford threw over his shoulder, his mind already ranging over the next few days. Sarah would object. The Wellbridges, too. But he would take his family safely out of England.