Page 42 of The Duke’s Hidden Duchess

“In carriages, after battles,” Nathaniel agreed gravely. “I shall remember the amendment. My solicitor will be distressed to learn how many new terms our marriage continues to acquire.”

She laughed once, tiredly but sincerely. Beneath his hand, she shifted her own until their palms met through her glove. Neither remarked upon the change.

The carriage carried them through the darkened streets, past the lamps, the linkboys and the occasional watchman making his rounds.

“Eleven hundred pounds,” Nathaniel said after a while.

“You possess it.”

“Yes.”

“And Rowland knows that you do. That is why he chose the sum: large enough to save him, but not large enough to wound you.”

“I could pay it tonight.”

Selina’s hand tensed beneath his, but Nathaniel continued before she could answer.

“I shall not. Not without speaking to you and Georgiana. The money may be mine to disburse, but the letters are hers, and any decision will determine what Rowland believes he may demand from this family hereafter.”

Relief moved through Selina so swiftly that she was glad of the darkness.

“If we pay him once, the letters will never reach the fire.”

“I know.”

“He will return when the money is gone.”

“I know that too.”

“Then we tell Georgiana in the morning and decide together.”

“Yes.”

His hand remained over hers for the rest of the journey.

The house was quiet when they entered shortly before midnight, but it was quiet in the wrong way. Selina sensed the wrongness before Bassett appeared.

“Lady Georgiana is waiting up, Your Grace.” He addressed Nathaniel, though his gaze moved towards Selina. “She is in the small parlour and would not go to bed. A man came to the kitchen door at nine with a letter. He would give no name. Lady Georgiana has had it open upon her knee for more than an hour, and she has asked twice whether your carriage had entered the square.”

His expression remained properly composed, but his concern did not.

“I did not like the look of her. I have known her since she was six, and I did not like it at all.”

“Thank you, Bassett.” Nathaniel was already removing his gloves. “You may retire. Whatever this is, it belongs to us now.”

Bassett bowed but made no movement towards the servants’ stairs. He remained beside the hall table, holding a candle he had not been asked to bring.

Selina did not remove her cloak. She crossed the hall with Nathaniel half a step behind her, and the exhausted triumph of the evening drained away as she approached the single candle burning beyond the parlour door.

A message delivered by a nameless man to the kitchen entrance at nine o’clock could not be dismissed as an ordinary communication. Rowland had timed his next threat to reach Georgiana while both Selina and Nathaniel were absent.

Georgiana sat before the fire with a folded paper open upon her knee. When they entered, she looked up. She appeared to have passed through fright and emerged beyond it into a cold, still fury Selina had never seen in her before.

“He wrote to me while you were at dinner. A man brought it to the kitchen door and refused to give his name. Bassett would not allow him beyond the step, but he did not wish to enter. He wanted only to place the letter inside the house with me.”

She held the paper flat against her knee with both hands, as though it might otherwise rise.

“It is very short. I am to meet him on Thursday at a place he names, or he will send my letters to the scandal sheets on Friday with my name printed in full.”