Mira brushed them off with a wave of her hand. "Well?"
Aldingbourne nodded. "He tried to push through a divorce as a private act in Parliament, but failed, because Atherton was vehemently against it. Since adultery is the only ground for divorce, it stands to reason that it cannot be done if the husband himself adamantly claims that there was never any adultery. I also would have made sure the act never passed anyhow."
"Zounds," Mira breathed.
Atherton watched with interest as she put two and two together.
A young maid and a blacksmith got married in Cornwall.
The day after the wedding, the groom mysteriously disappeared, kidnapped right off the road.
The bride set out to find him… and found him seven years later, having come into a title, wealth, and land.
"So the old marquess had a fit when he discovered that his heir was already married. Not only that, he’d married, alas, a lower-class commoner," Mira mused aloud, completely forgetting her surroundings. "A misalliance. That must have been an embarrassment."
"Misalliance, nonsense. But it's an understatement that he was embarrassed." Atherton knelt beside her and took her hands. "The old devil nearly had an apoplexy. Lindenstein's right, by the way, your hands are icy." He proceeded to rub them. "The thing is, having failed to find a legal solution, he turned to other, uglier means." His face was suddenly grim. "He told me that you and Miss Pearson had died in a fire. I believed him. Only much later did I learn that he was responsible for all of it."
For a moment, the world stopped rotating. "Are you saying he was behind… he caused… he burned down our cottage and the school?"
He gripped her hands tighter and nodded. "I was too bull-headed and wouldn't cooperate, you see. He threatened to harm you, but even then I wouldn't listen. When he said you had died in a fire, I did not believe him. He said I was free to go and see for myself." He rubbed his forehead.
Aldingbourne nodded. "I am here to attest to the truth of his words. He was ordered to sever all ties with his old life. Including his wife. Atherton predictably refused. He made thirty-seven attempts in all to return to his wife, each of which was thwarted. Then the old marquess unexpectedly changed his tactics and allowed him to leave, and Atherton asked me to accompany him to Cornwall. We left the same day, and we found your cottage burnt. And three new gravestones in the cemetery."
Atherton gripped Mira's hands tightly, his face haunted by the memory.
"Three gravestones?" Mira frowned.
"Yours. And Miss Pearson's."
Mira shook her head in confusion. "And the third?"
"Our child," Kit whispered.
ChapterFifteen
Kit had gonewild with grief.
Aldingbourne had had a difficult time prying him away from the graves, where he'd collapsed, sobbing, and ordered him to leave him there to die.
Later, at the inn, Aldingbourne had arrived in the nick of time to wrestle the pistol from his hands. They'd struggled on the floor, and Aldingbourne had smashed a fist into his face.
"You must pull yourself together," he'd said, shaking him. "You must keep on living. She would have wanted that."
"What do you know?" Kit had howled, "and how dare you tell me what to do?"
Aldingbourne had dragged Kit to the wall where they lay breathing heavily. "I know and I dare. I know because I, too, lost my wife. I know the excruciating pain and agony that tears your heart apart. I know that a part of you died with her. And I know it will never, ever stop, the grieving. And I know that the only thing you can do is pick yourself up and carry on. Somehow you have to do the impossible, and through sheer force of will, you can. Because the alternative is to blow your brains out, which is the cowardly solution. You must find the strength to carry on. It is the only thing to do, and it is your bloody duty to do it."
"Go to blazes, Aldingbourne," Kit had replied. "I have lost my wife and my child, a child I had no idea I even had until we came here. I have no duty to anyone."
But in the end, he had done it. He had pulled himself together and done the impossible and dragged himself up and kept on going.
Somehow, he'd kept on going.
Evie sobbed into her handkerchief."The story is not new to me, but I can't help crying every time I hear it. Poor Atherton."
All the ladies sniffled, including Princess Florentina, who discreetly dabbed at the corner of her eye.
Mira rubbed her forehead, dazed.
