“We do,” she said. She did not take his hand. “We need Mr. Mortimer’s legal assistance. And I—”
She had always thought Spencer ought to tell his sisters the truth. But now that she knew him—knew his care and decency, his fears that he would let them down—she could not bear for him to do otherwise. She would not be the cause of a rift between them.
“Sit,” she said instead. “Let’s all sit down.”
They took their seats in broad wingback chairs by the fire. She could see her blindingly white petticoat under Spencer’s desk from this vantage, and she maintained a vague and desperate hope that his sister would not notice.
Carefully, thoroughly, she and Spencer related everything that had happened since his arrival in Llanreithan. Margo’s face was an open book—horror at the tale of Winnie’s brief incarceration, utter shock at the description of the forged marriage record. She looked amazed at the description of their schemes to return the necklaces and then rather exuberant at the story of the opera box escapade.
“Spence,” Margo said, when he finally ran down, “I cannot believe this. Matilda and I spent the last month mourning the end of the Halifax Hellions, and now it turns out you’ve taken up the mantle in our absence.”
Spencer blinked. “HowisMatilda? She says she’s well, but she’s sent you quite a lot of letters.”
“Ah,” Margo said, “perhaps we might discuss that later.”
“Spencer,” Henry broke in, “this is a hell of a mess.”
“I’m sorry,” Winnie said. Her remark rang over-loud in the quiet library, and she winced at the sound of her own voice. “I’m so sorry. I never intended any of this.”
Henry gazed at her. His mouth was set in a sober line. “You’ve acted—”
“Rashly,” she said. “I know. I’ve erred. I—”
“Logically, I was going to say.”
She quite gaped at him before she remembered to shut her mouth.
“I can understand why you chose to invent a husband,” Henry went on. “Our society does not give way easily for women with independent spirits. It takes audacity to make the world bend for you.”
Winnie did not have the faintest idea what to say. She had not presumed…
She ought to have guessed, she supposed. She should have known that Spencer would surround himself with people as generous and kindhearted as he was.
“As Lord Warren’s solicitor,” Henry went on, “I might have preferred for you to choose another name for your counterfeit husband, but I see that it was unconsciously done.” His gaze flicked from Winnie’s face to Spencer’s, and his stern mouth went sterner. “With only the forged banns to go on, we might easily have put into place precautions against any legal claim by either of you upon the other. A written-out confession in Mrs. Halifax’s hand, to be stored in a secured repository at your bank, perhaps. Or a writ of error signed by a discreet bishop.”
Henry’s gaze drifted as he spun out juridical fantasies—and then he refocused abruptly on Spencer. “Be that as it may, it’s too late now. You have trotted Mrs. Halifax about town on your arm and displayed her to all and sundry as your wife. If you mean to separate now, it will require more decisive legal action.”
Winnie chanced a glance at Spencer. His jaw was tight, his fingers clamped on the arm of the chair. He made no other move; he did not look back at her.
“What do you propose?” he said finally.
“The easiest grounds for an annulment are fraud. If we can show in the Ecclesiastical Court that Winnie forged the banns—or that you were unaware of the event entirely—the annulment should be granted without issue.”
“That is not an option.”
“It would be by far the simplest—”
“No,” Spencer said. “Such an action would open Winnie up to public infamy at best or prosecution at worst. She—” He hesitated. Swallowed. “She has her business to consider. What else, Henry?”
Henry took a breath. “Divorce, I suppose, is also out, then. The requisite Parliamentary proceedings for such an event would be both expensive and defamatory. The only remaining option is to prove your—ah—failure to engage in subagitation.”
Though Henry’s voice was even, his face had gone quite red.
Winnie stared at him in baffled bemusement. Spencer did likewise. For a moment, no one spoke.
Finally, Margo broke the silence. “Marital relations,” she clarified. “He means you’ll have to prove you haven’t been shagging Mrs. Halifax up against the bookshelves three times a day.”
“Good Christ, Margo.” Spencer looked as though he might welcome a lightning strike.
