Page 71 of The Duke’s Hidden Duchess

Nathaniel went with him.

Neither suggested waiting.

The printing house occupied a narrow building off the lane, close with the smell of ink and crowded with compositors and pressmen who took no particular interest in the Duke of Wexford until Petherick gave his name. Then interest moved through the room without anyone admitting to it. One man looked up from his work and immediately looked down again. Another carried a stack of paper past them with exaggerated concentration.

Nathaniel had spent enough time in committee rooms to recognise the effect of a title upon men who wished to appear unaffected by one. He left the speaking to Petherick.

The solicitor did not begin with threats of prosecution. He asked to speak privately with the proprietor and laid the matter before him in the dry, methodical fashion which made unpleasant possibilities sound already documented.

The proprietor listened from behind a desk crowded with proofs, invoices and loose sheets. Petherick placed nothing upon it at first. He simply opened his notebook.

The correspondence, he explained, belonged to an unmarried young lady. It had been obtained and retained as part of a demand for money. The Duke was prepared to pursue every remedy available should copies be published with knowledge of those circumstances. Petherick did not speculate aloud upon which remedy would ultimately succeed. He merely observed that establishing the answer could occupy solicitors, courts and considerable sums of money for a very long time.

He said it without emphasis.

The printer listened.

At first his expression suggested the professional patience of a man accustomed to being told that something committed to paper ought not to have been. By the time Petherick finished, the patience had become attention.

Then he looked at Nathaniel.

Nathaniel had contributed nothing to the conversation. He did not need to.

He stood beside the window with his gloves in one hand and allowed Petherick’s argument to remain exactly where the solicitor had placed it.

“I was told the matter was authorised,” the printer said.

“By whom?” Petherick asked.

“A gentleman acting for another gentleman.”

“Names.”

The printer hesitated.

Petherick opened his notebook to a clean page.

The small sound of the pencil being readied appeared to settle the matter.

Within half an hour they had the name of the intermediary.

There followed a further interval in which a clerk was summoned, a cupboard opened and several packets brought from another room. Petherick examined each without haste. Nathaniel stood through all of it and resisted the impulse to demand speed from men who were already moving as quickly as prudence allowed.

Within the hour, the fair copies of Georgiana’s letters were upon the table.

The originals were not.

Nathaniel looked at the pages for several seconds. They were only paper. That was the absurdity of the whole affair: so much fear reduced, in the room where the copies had been prepared for use, to ink, folds and a handful of sheets upon a printer’s desk.

He did not touch them.

“Are there other copies?”

“Not made here.”

“That was not my question.”

The printer swallowed.