CHAPTER 30
The vicarage was smaller than he had expected.
He did not know what he had expected precisely—some image assembled from the idea of a country vicar, a man of modest means and quiet life, but the reality of it was quieter still. A stone house at the edge of the village, a garden that had been carefully tended once.
James knocked.
The man who opened the door was perhaps sixty-five, with white hair and wary eyes. He was dressed plainly.
“Your Grace,” he greeted with a stiff bow.
“Reverend Bennett.” James removed his hat. “I am sorry to arrive without prior notice. The matter is urgent.”
“I know who you are,” the reverend said. “And I know why you’ve come.” He stepped back from the door. “You had better come in.”
James stepped inside and went to sit in the small chair the reverend indicated.
The reverend sat opposite and looked at him directly.
“You came to ask about the letters.” A statement, not a question.
“I want to know the truth about the letters Lord Mortimer has produced,” James said. “And I believe you are the person most likely to have it.”
The reverend was quiet for a long moment. He looked at the fire.
“The letters are false,” he revealed. “I will say that plainly, and I will say it first so that you do not have to sit here wondering whether I intend to say it at all.”
James went very still. “You know this.”
“I know my daughter.” The reverend’s voice was even, but underneath it was something older and more fragile. “I know the woman she was. Whatever those letters claim, whatever arrangement Lord Mortimer has constructed around them, Clara was faithful to the former Duke for the entirety of their relationship. There was no other man. There was never anotherman.” He paused. “The dates in those letters correspond to a period I can account for entirely.”
“Can you prove it?” James asked.
“I have letters.” The reverend said it with the resignation of a man who had been carrying something he had not yet known what to do with. “From the Duke himself, written to Clara during that same period… from London. They wrote to each other every week.” He let that sink in. “Dated letters, Your Grace. Addressed to this house. Received by me because Clara asked me to hold her correspondence when she could not.” He paused. “I have kept them. I did not know why I kept them, but now I know.”
“You’ve had them this whole time,” James said.
“Yes.”
“Since before Lord Mortimer filed the petition.”
“Yes.”
A pause.
“Why did you not come forward?” James asked softly, genuinely wanting to understand.
The reverend looked down at his hands. “Because I was not certain that coming forward was my right.”
James frowned. “Your right?”
“Then I suppose I should tell you about my daughter first. She was twenty-two when she went to work as a companion to Lady Ellington,” he began. “I had arranged it myself. I knew the Ellingtons—good family. Lady Ellington was a relation of a parishioner I had known for years. I thought it would be useful for Clara.” He paused. “She was a clever girl. Too clever sometimes for a vicar’s daughter in a village like this. She read everything. Argued with everything.” Something moved through his expression. “She reminded me of her mother, who died when Clara was twelve, and I had never entirely known what to do with that resemblance.”
“What happened at the Ellingtons’?” James probed.
“The Ellingtons were among the wealthiest families in the county—good people, generous employers, and well regarded by everyone who knew them.” The reverend paused. “They entertained frequently during the Season they spent in the country. Your cousin was often among their guests. It was in their drawing room that Clara first met him.”
He turned his hat in his hands. James had not noticed until now that he was holding it. “She wrote to me about him. Not immediately—she was always careful about what she told me, and I had given her reasons to be. But eventually, she wrote. She told me she had met someone. That it was complicated. That she wanted me to understand before I heard it from someone else.”
