“Chelsea, where has Darius gone?”
“To the Doctors’ Commons.”
“The Doctors’ Commons?” she echoed. “Why is he bound there?”
“To apply for a special marriage license from the ecclesiastical courts. I believe he seeks an audience with the Archbishop of Canterbury to approve the application for the license.”
Meredith swallowed hard. He had left to get a marriage license, which meant he hadn’t listened to a word she said. No, he had seduced her into compliance.
“Thank you, Mr. Chelsea,” she murmured and walked with dragging steps up to the bedchamber with a fresh sense of dread weighing her down.
Mrs. Petersham was coming down the corridor, adjusting a dark gold shawl over her dark brown silk gown that made her glow with warmth. She smiled at Meredith, but when Meredith didn’t return it, the smile slipped away.
“Whatever is the matter, my dear?” She put an arm around Meredith’s shoulders as they entered her bedchamber.
Meredith sank onto the chair facing her elegant vanity table and buried her face in her hands. “Darius is seeking a special license to marry me.”
“I thought that’s what you hoped for?” Mrs. Petersham placed her hands on Meredith’s shoulders as she stood behind her chair, trying to soothe her.
“Yes, but not like this. He is only doing it because he feels it is his duty after we—” she halted, not wanting to admit what happened last night.
“If he has a reason to marry you, then it must be a good one.”
Meredith lowered her hands from her face and met Mrs. Petersham’s gaze in the mirror.
“Last night…at the ball…We were alone in the gardens…and…” She swallowed hard, mortified to admit what she’d done. “I allowed him to compromise me…fully.”
Her chaperone did not seem as surprised as Meredith expected her to be.
“Unfortunately, I believed that was bound to happen, even with me watching you closely. You two are drawn to each other like a pair of cabbage butterflies. I knew it from the first moment I saw you together. The way you both dance around one another, drawing ever closer in a way neither of you even realized was a courtship. You are made for one another. What does it matter how you come together?”
Meredith thought of the beautiful pairs of white butterflies she often saw in Darius’s gardens around dusk, swirling in circles around each other. It made her want to smile, but nothing erased the ache in her chest.
“What if a marriage is built upon duty alone and never flowers into love? That is what I fear. I will be a burden to him, a thing he was forced to deal with, not the woman his heart chose.”
Mrs. Petersham gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze. “If there is anything that I have learned about love, it is this … the most wonderful journeys are sometimes the hardest ones. Love, once achieved, may be easy, but the path toward it sometimes is not. Give yourself a chance to trust Darius. I know of few men on this earth who would let duty make them do something they truly did not wish to do, and Darius is not among them. You need to put this out of your mind for the time being. If you worry about it, you’ll only find yourself turning in circles.”
Mrs. Petersham was right. She should not worry about the situation with Darius, or she’d make herself even more anxious. Meredith’s gaze drifted toward the window as she let out a heavy sigh. Her focus fell upon the Crell house. Mrs. Petersham joined her at the window.
“Have you given any more thought about how to catch that dreaded Mr. Crell? I’ve been pondering over it myself.”
Meredith sat up a little straighter as she remembered something else from last evening she wished to share with her chaperone.
“I never had the chance to tell you what I came up with last night about how to catch Mr. Crell.”
“Oh?” Mrs. Petersham drew up a chair to sit beside her.
“I think I should write Mr. Crell a letter. I will tell him to meet me at his home in the gardens at a certain day and time. Then, I will have Mr. Doyle come to listen to my conversation with Crell. He should be able to overhear what we say if he stands by the heart-shaped window in the garden wall. I will trick Mr. Crell into confessing his crimes.”
Mrs. Petersham’s eyes glowed. “Oh yes, that could work. But it will be dangerous. If what you fear is true about what this man has done to his wife, he may try to harm you.”
“That is why I plan to have Warren ready to come to my defense, and Mr. Doyle will also be there to render aid if I need it. He will hide in the gardens and watch us in case I fall into some sort of trouble.”
“Not Darius?”
“Lord, no. He must never find out. He wouldn’t let me do this. Felix is going to tempt him away to the countryside for a shooting expedition for a few days. It will give me time to meet with Mr. Crell and catch him.”
“I will agree to help you, so long as we take measures to ensure your safety.”
