Page 99 of The Duke’s Hidden Duchess

Nathaniel looked down again.

The document was considerably shorter than anything Petherick usually produced. Giles Calvert, Earl of Merrow, acknowledged that the garnet jewels had been the lawful personal property of the late Countess of Merrow and had passed by valid bequest to her daughter; that he possessed no lawful claim against Selina arising from their sale; and that the allegations he had made concerning concealed estate property were unsupported by the records subsequently produced.

The final clause bound him to make no further claim concerning the administration of the Merrow estate unless he possessed evidence capable of being put before a solicitor in the ordinary way.

It was not exile. It was not a threat hanging over the rest of Giles’s life. It was something Nathaniel had come, after several long conversations with Petherick and one shorter one with his wife, to prefer.

It was Giles’s name beneath the truth.

“He objected to ‘unsupported,’” Petherick said.

“I imagine he did.”

“He preferred ‘mistaken.’ I explained that a mistake generally becomes apparent when one is shown the document disproving it, and that repeating the mistake afterwards introduces difficulties of vocabulary which he might find still less flattering.”

Nathaniel looked up.

“Did you actually say that?”

“In substance.”

“I should have liked to hear the precise version.”

“No, Your Grace. You should not.”

Nathaniel almost smiled.

“What persuaded him?”

“The prospect of continuing.”

Petherick said it with the dryness of a man discussing weather.

“Lord Merrow discovered at Lady Marwood’s ball that making an accusation is considerably easier than sustaining one. The codicil exists. Mr Dunmore’s accounts exist. Mr Aldingham’s record of the sale exists. Lady Carbery heard Mr Rowland speak of Lord Merrow’s knowledge of the matter. Lord Merrow may continue to tell London whatever story pleases him, but he now knows precisely what will be laid beside it every time.”

“And if he begins again?”

“Then he begins with this beneath his own signature.”

Petherick tapped the document once.

“That is not nothing.”

“No.”

Nathaniel ran his eye over Giles’s name.

He had expected to feel more upon seeing it there. Triumph, perhaps. Satisfaction at least. Instead, there was only a curious absence of urgency. Giles had made himself dangerous by keeping everything uncertain: what he knew, what he possessed, what he might say, what Rowland might do for him. Once brought into daylight, there had been remarkably little left.

“Has he left London?”

“Yesterday morning.”

“For good?”

“I did not ask him to make promises neither of us could enforce. He said that he intended to remain in the country for some time. I believe London has become less agreeable to him than formerly.”

“That will do.” Nathaniel folded the document along its existing crease. “And Rowland?”