“My pleasure, Miss Nightingale,” he said as he reclaimed his chair behind his desk, adjusting the rims of his spectacles upon his nose. “I’ll admit I was not expecting you. Have you reconsidered your retirement? You have had some offers, which I have declined on your behalf per your last instructions. But I have the documents filed away should you care to peruse them.”
She had always liked Mr. Fortescue, for the judgment he had never once cast upon her. Whatever his private feelings might have been, he had never once let a negative thought show upon his face, had always worked in her interests alone whenever she had received an offer from a prospective new patron. It was because of his attentiveness to detail and his ruthless negotiation on her behalf that she had ended up in such a plumb financial position.
“No,” she said. “Rather, I have come with a—a legal inquiry. From a friend.” It reeked of the lie it was, owing to the unsteadiness of her voice.
“Oh?” Mr. Fortescue paused, his tea cup halfway to his lips. “Of course, if I might provide advice, I will be happy to do so.”
Charity nodded, braced herself with a sip of tea. “This—this friend,” she said, “was, many years ago, an assistant beneath a military surgeon at Waterloo. She was quite young at the time, you understand, and under a great deal of strain given the situation.”
“I can only imagine,” Mr. Fortescue said. “Bit too young myself to have joined the war effort.”
Yes. But then so had she been. Just eighteen, far from home, struggling against the odds to save lives that were destined to be lost anyway. “This friend,” she said, “married a young soldier there. One who had been terribly wounded in battle. Grievously wounded, one might say.”
He’s dying, Charity. He’ll not last the night.
She took a swift breath, exhaled through her nose to rid herself of the phantom scent of suppurating flesh that had assailed her once more. “The marriage was meant to protect her,” she continued. “He knew he was dying. Everyone knew he was dying. But she had been kind to him, and he—he wished to offer her some security in the world. And she saw no reason to refuse, given that she was shortly to be made a widow. She thought it a kindness on her part not to refuse a dying man’s last noble gesture.”
Mr. Fortescue’s brows drew together. “I’m not certain I understand,” he said. “Do you wish me to make inquiries as to whether there might be an inheritance to support her?”
“No,” Charity said. “No, no—nothing like that. She is not in need of funds.” Charity balanced her tea cup on her knee, pursed her lips. “This friend shortly became ill herself. Cholera.” An unfortunate consequence of the often-deplorable conditions on a military campaign. Diseases had run rampant—cholera, typhus, dysentery. She’d known more than a few who had fallen to them. She had been lucky to survive herself. “Her recovery required several months. She did not witness her husband’s death.”
“I am sorry for her, this friend of yours,” Mr. Fortescue said. “But if she is not in want of funds, I’m afraid I am at a loss as to what I can do for her.”
“She wishes to know if the marriage was legal,” Charity blurted out, rattling the tea cup balanced upon her knee. “It has recently come to her attention that her husband has, in fact, survived. But it has been some sixteen years since they were married, so you see—”
“Regrettably for your friend,” Mr. Fortescue said, with the slightest sardonic twist to his lips, “excepting in cases of one party’s death, marriages have no date of expiry.”
“But a battlefield marriage,” Charity said, with a tinge of desperation.
“Just as legal as any other, provided her husband had permission from his commanding officer and it was appropriately witnessed. Was it?”
“Yes,” Charity grumbled, shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “But she was just eighteen,” she said. “Well below the ageof majority.”
“Which might be of some relevance, had the marriage taken place in England,” Mr. Fortescue allowed. “You did say Waterloo?”
Charity gave a tight nod.
“Belgium, then. A marriage overseas would not fall afoul of the Hardewick Act. If everything is as you have said, then there is no reason to suspect that the marriage is less than legal.”
“But itisunconsummated,” Charity insisted. “They were married for hardly more than a day before they were parted. Surely there could be an—an annulment.”
“Non-consummation is not, strictly speaking, a reason in and of itself to invalidate a marriage. Oftentimes, one must prove not only that consummation has not occurred, but that it is notpossible. That is to say, that one spouse is—er, unable to perform the act.” Mr. Fortescue spread his fingers out in a gesture of contrition. “I don’t suppose I need to tell you how vanishingly small the likelihood is of obtaining a divorce instead.”
For the average person, perhaps. If she were to petition for one, no doubt she would be summarily rejected in her pursuit. But he was a damneddukewith a courtesan for a wife. It would make no difference that she had thought herself a widow for nearly half her life.
She had hoped, not only for her own sake, to leave her scandalous days in the past. While there was no chance of repairing her reputation, which had been beyond sullied for years now, still the thought of a quiet, comfortable life had been appealing.
But a divorce from aduke? It would vault her once more straight into the notoriety she had hoped to escape. The quiet, secure, peaceful life for which she had longed seemed now well beyond her reach.
∞∞∞
Always the damned whispers. As if he’d lost his hearing rather than half his sight.
Anthony cast back the last dregs of his gin, scowling over his empty glass, already regretting his rash decision to spend the evening at his club. It wasn’treallyhis, to his mind—but it had been his brothers’ and his father’s. Perhaps it would have been his, had he done as his family had expected and gone into some other profession rather than purchasing a commission andgoing to war instead.
There were so few dukes to be had that every club of any renown wished to claim one. He’d been extended an offer of membership practically the moment he’d come into the title. Now, he suspected, he was less a feather in their cap than an object of speculation and curiosity amongst the other members.
He’d only accepted the extension of membership because he’d done so many other things entirely wrong that he’d been determined to get at least one of them right, and carrying on the family tradition had seemed a reasonable course of action.
