George agreed with a grumble, and the papers were passed to Eliza for inspection, Henrietta observing them over her shoulder. They were both precisely as they were supposed to be. A deed for a London property, and the record of a marriage, signed by both parties and properly witnessed.
Eliza extended them to the requisite recipients. “If any mention of this gets out, we shall know the source, and make sure the earl does too.”
“It won’t.” Henrietta snatched the deed from her son’s hands, and the pair set about quarrelling over ownership of the paper. In comparison, Jane paled to the roots of her golden hair, prompting Eliza to catch her around the waist and hurry her from the room.
“Eliza, what am I to do? One only has to look at this to see that my marriage is void. He was already wed.” She tore at the soft skin of her face, leaving scratch marks across her brow. “Oh, Lord! I am ruined.”
“Burn it.”
Jane’s teary gaze met hers, and Eliza saw straight into the depths of her friend’s soul. Saw all her fears and the swirling maelstrom of anxieties. The belief that her own sin and folly had led her here and that perhaps she was deserving of the misfortune.
“That will not suffice. People know of it. There are witnesses out there.” Their names written in browning ink on the parchment she held onto so tightly. “There’s the priest too. What if they come forward? The notice of Linfield’s death is sure to appear in the newspapers, and they will see it and realise there is a story to be sold.”
“Jane, they won’t.” She drew her friend along the corridor, and downstairs to the Lady’s Parlour. The fire had burned out, but the room retained the heat. The curtains were drawn and someone had finally covered the mirror above the mantle.
Eliza urged Jane into a chair and settled on a footstool by her side. Ignoring the clamminess of Jane’s hands, she gave them a reassuring squeeze. “None of that will come to pass—”
“It will.”
“It won’t, Jane. Look again at the certificate. Mr Cluett may believe this a legitimate record, but it isn’t. It can’t be. The person here,”—she ran her finger under the woman’s name—“doesn’t exist. Never has, at least in accordance with the laws of the land. Janie Faintree is the name Mrs Honeyfield’s husband took when he went off with Lord Linfield. It’s therefore not a legal union, because two men can’t be wed. And even supposing they could, Janie died before you ever married Linfield. It was in the newspapers if you recall.”
Jane stopped her sobbing and wiped her face clean with the back of her hand. The palms were blistered. “I’m not going to pretend to understand all the revelations of this evening. Eliza, I couldn’t take in the half of what Mrs Honeyfield was saying to me. I just want to know that this bairn’s future is safe.”
“It’s safe, Jane. All is going to be well. Your marriage is legitimate, no one can say or prove otherwise, and while this paper if it got out certainly has the makings of a scandal, it’s not going to get out, because I’m putting it on the fire now.” She tugged it from Jane’s fingers, and did just that, using the bellows to persuade some fresh bits of kindling to catch, then chew on the edges of the parchment.
They watched as the tiny flames crawled across the vellum, slowly devouring one inked word after another, until the little slice of history that had recorded the union of Lord Eustace, Viscount Linfield and a spinster named Miss Janie Faintree was no more.
“I cannot be sad that he is gone,” Jane confessed, retreating from the hearth once the last curl of parchment had been consumed. “I realise that makes me seem horrid, but I was nothing but a nuisance to him. A yoke around his neck. I didn’t love him, and he didn’t love me. And the sort of love he didn’t feel was sure to bring us to ruin eventually. I’ll mourn him as society dictates, of course, and raise his son.”
“And bring his killer to justice,” Eliza prompted.
Jane kicked off her shoes and curled into the armchair as if she hadn’t heard.
“I expect I’m too overwrought to meddle in such things. I’ll leave that to Doctor Bell and my new father-in-law. Oh, don’t put on so. It suits me to have him think I’m a pea-brained imbecile incapable of anything but birthing his grandson. Men like that. They enjoy playing the grand protector, and thinking is dreadfully tiring. I don’t know why you’re so enamoured of it.”
“Because men are ninnies,” she retorted reflexively.
Except, that wasn’t entirely true. There was one, who for definite had his faults, but she wouldn’t be here now if not for him.
“What will you do now?” she asked Jane, putting thoughts of Jem aside, so that she didn’t give herself away with an involuntary grin.
“I’ll go to Bellingbrook,” Jane insisted, her pale bow-shaped lips barely moving to form the words. “Hopefully, they’ll welcome me. Whatever happens, I shan’t go back to my parents.”
Eliza nodded. She could see why Jane had no desire to do that.
“And Cedarton?”
Jane glanced around at the walls and windows before her gaze settled on the hearth. “I’ll see that it’s shuttered and left to rot as it ought to have been in the first place.”
“That might be for the best,” Eliza agreed. Now probably wasn’t the time to mention the castle happened to be the primary store of a local smuggling gang.
~?~
Sir Cyril arrived shortly after the Cluetts took their leave. They’d taken the hint about the prospect of having to provide testaments and relieved themselves of the bother of it. Dawn was still a long way off, but the dreadful mist that had swaddled Cedarton and its surroundings had finally lifted, leaving behind only a ghostly rime around the moon as the remainder of their party huddled together on the entryway steps to meet the magistrate.
Jane welcomed him and dropped a curtsey, but it was Doctor Bell who took charge of matters and imparted all the details of the case in his succinct and utterly dry way. The two men went off to examine the bodies of Lord Linfield and Mrs Honeyfield together, while the rest of them dallied in the hallway.
“I wonder if I might avail myself of your bed, Eliza,” Jane said, in between swallowing yawns. “I can barely keep my eyes open any more, and a swarm of angry bees are buzzing in my head. I’m sure if Sir Cyril desires to interview me, he might wait until I’m risen again. I’m not sure I could count past five right now, let alone get all that has happened straight enough not to sound like a complete lunatic.
