Arrange it?“Over my dead body!” Niall snapped.
“If you’re dead, no divorce would be necessary.”
“Is this what passes for humor among lawyers?”
“Mrs. Kemble laughs at my jokes.” The lawyer sat back. “If you ask me, it sounds like you wish to remain married.”
“Heather does not,” he said, quickly skipping over the painful truth. He did want to keep her. But she didn’t want to be kept. “And I won’t trap her with me if there’s a way out.”
“There are ways out. As mentioned before, one of you could die…I don’t recommend that. More practically, you could put her aside, give her a house somewhere and pay for her annual expenses while she pretends to be a widow…she wouldn’t be the first woman to cover up her past for the sake of a more peaceful future.”
Niall shook his head. Maybe if he’d been an ordinary man. But as earl? How could such a fact remain hidden? And he couldn’t marry again without risking the charge of bigamy, making any children illegitimate. Again, the clan would never stand for that.
“Not possible,” he said.
“Then you must divorce, which as I stated before, will be costly and messy and likely leave both of you far more miserable than the marriage would.”
“You can’t simply undo it? This femina thingummy—”
“Femina covert?”
“Yes that. It’s insane. It demotes Heather from a person to a possession.Mypossession. She can’t legally do a single thing without my approval. Do you know how she reacts when someone tells her she’s not permitted to do something?”
“It’s the traditional legal structure for marriages.”
“She isnottraditional. She hates me for the role I have in her life now. And I can’t live with her hating me.”
“Alas, I’m merely an attorney, not a wish-granting fairy.”
“So there’s nothing to be done?”
“Possibly there’s an exception, some case in the past that may give you leverage. It would take time to research the existing law to find it…if it’s there to be found.”
“Will you?” Niall leaned forward. “Will you do this for us? I have no idea how much the duchess allotted for your work, and I admit that I have very little to spare—less than that, actually.”
Kemble held up a hand. “Fear not. I am under strict instructions from the duke himself to do whatever I can. The cost is no obstacle.”
“I wish I could say that,” Niall muttered. “Well, shall we take this news to my unhappy wife?”
* * * *
Heather pretended to busy herself with other tasks, but she kept one eye on the door from where Niall and the attorney would emerge. She couldn’t pin her hopes to the meeting, but part of her very much wished that Mr. Kemble would know some obscure point of law that no one else had thought of, and she could walk away unfettered and able to do whatever she liked without any man telling her the shape of her life to come.
Finally, finally, the two men came into the great hall. Niall immediately walked over to Heather. He didn’t look triumphant, but he also didn’t seem crushed.
“What did you learn?” she asked anxiously.
“I learned that the law is a many-headed beast,” he said. “And that it’s a wee bit more difficult to unmarry than I thought. But Mr. Kemble here has graciously agreed to work on the matter, and see if there is any loophole we might slip through.”
Heather glanced at the lawyer’s face, and noticed the hesitation there.
“It’s a long shot, isn’t it?” she asked him.
“Yes. But there’s always a chance. The law has any number of dark alleys and forgotten corners. I may find something that may be of use to you—or I’ll point you to someone else who can.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Heather said warmly, sorry that she’d been so salty before.
“Her grace ordered me to move the earth if it would help you.” Kemble gave them both a little bow and excused himself.
