Archie nodded, his blood heating. He’d be a fool to alienate a member of the aristocracy, even if he couldn’t take her case. He had associates in various practices around England who could assist, but all he felt was the sharp, juvenile need to hurt in return clawing at his insides.
“Ah, I see,” he said in a tone that lacked all empathy. “Now, as a hypothetical, we should consider if your husband were to seek a divorce from you. What cause might he find?”
Her eyes widened.
“Mr. Grant,” Jasper hissed, but Archie couldn’t stop.
“Again, abandonment is irrelevant, and I assume someone of your stature isn’t regularly bloodying the marquess.”
Her brows furrowed and lips parted, and deep in Archie’s chest, something shifted and pressed, reminding him he’d gone too far.
But he kept talking. “Which leaves adultery.”
Her pale mien was now a ghastly color, as though she might cast up her accounts on the rug at Jasper’s feet.
“Which would be particularly dangerous for you, as the law states if you were to have an affair, you would lose custody of your children to your husband.”
Lady Croydon stood and pressed the butter yellow glove to her lips. “I need t-t-to g-go. Excuse me,” she mumbled as she rushed out.
Jasper popped to his feet to follow her, but Archie heard nothing that passed between them through the roaring in his ears. He fell back into his chair and pressed his fingers to his temples, throwing his spectacles down on the desk. They skittered across the surface and tumbled to the floor, landing near the chair she’d abandoned.
A moment passed before Jasper stormed into the room, a tempest of barely contained fury. “What in the blazes was that?”
Archie gave up and laid his forehead on his desk. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You’ll forgive me for being blunt, but I’ve never heard you so rude, let alone with someone so well poised in society. What if she tells others how you acted?”
“She won’t.”
The vibrations from Jasper’s quick, pacing footsteps reverberated through the desk and into his cheek. “She might. And we’re barely holding on. You know that, I don’t have to remind you, and even if we don’t find a windfall case soon—”
“We won’t win that case.” His voice was muffled by a complaint he’d just received from a recent widow who wanted her daughter-in-law to stop claiming the widow’s blueberry scone recipe as her own.
“But we could try. We can getpaidfor trying, Archie. That’s how this business works.”
“We can’t even take it.” Archie lifted his head. “We can’t go anywhere near it, Jasper.”
His assistant paused. “Why not? What aren’t you telling me?”
“Lady Croydon. LadyMarigoldCroydon. Mari.”
Jasper gasped and dropped his notebook to clasp both hands over his mouth. “She’syourMary? Oh, dear God.” He slumped into his chair. “Did you know?”
“Did I know?” Archie gave a hysterical bark of laughter. “Of course not! I never would have dallied with amarried marchioness!”
Jasper tented his fingers and pressed them to the center of his forehead. “This is terrible. She could tell everyone what the two of you did and destroy your reputation.”
“She won’t. That’s why I said what I did.” His stomach lurched at the memory of her wounded expression. “If anyone finds out what we did, the marquess could divorce her with cause and take the children away.”
“Poor thing.” Jasper shook his head and tsked. “She’s in a hopeless situation, and her status makes it harder. She has no legal recourse unless he hits her or the children, and even then it’s nigh on impossible to prove.”
Memories of his mother and sisters cowering in the closet of their farmhouse while his father raged at him, welcoming the blows so they wouldn’t fall on the hiding women, flooded backto him. They never wore the bruises, but they felt the impact all the same. “Threats can be just as damaging as fists.”
“But does the law believe that?”
As a young boy, Archie had thought his father’s behavior to be normal, but as he grew older, he realized his peers never told similar stories, were eager to be with their sires instead of shying away in their presence. By the time he was a teen, Archie was acutely aware of the injustice of it, wondering what horrible lottery he’d won to have a father who believed his own flesh and blood caused all the ill fate in his life.
He’d begged his mother to leave him behind, pleaded with his sisters to flee, to find somewhere safe.Your father never hit me or the girls,she’d said, again and again. She didn’t know that Archibald Grant Sr. dragged his son and namesake outside to beat him, careful to place the wounds where they wouldn’t be visible. And Archie kept that secret, ashamed that he didn’t flee the abuse.
