THE DUKE CHOSE THE PLAIN GIRL AT A MAYFAIR AUCTION — THEN THE VEIL CAME OFF

Chapter 13

Mr. Finch arrived from London on Tuesday morning with a leather case, three clerks and the expression of a man who had not slept.

“It is not, strictly, a writ,” he said, spreading papers across the library table. “There is no statute by which a woman committed by her husband may be released on habeas corpus, because a wife is not, in law, a person who can be unlawfully detained — she is her husband’s to detain. Which is precisely the difficulty.”

Sebastian looked at him. “Then what do we have?”

“We have lunacy,” said Mr. Finch. “Two elements. First, a certificate of unsoundness may be set aside where the subscribing physician acted in fraud, or without examination, or in conspiracy with the person seeking the committal. The Act of 1774 bound the physicians; it did not bind them well, but it bound them. Second—” he tapped the paper “—the 1828 and 1830 amendments require annual visitation, sworn returns, and a register of every patient’s admission and removal. Marlbrook House is a licensed house. It must keep a book.”

“The ledger,” said Evelyn.

“The ledger.” Mr. Finch nodded at her with a flicker of surprise that she had got there first. “If the register shows she remains, she is there. If it shows she was removed, the register will name the party who removed her and the house she was removed to. Either way, we will know.”

“Then we apply for the register.”

“We apply for the register.” He hesitated. “My lord.”

“Say it.”

“Marlbrook is owned, in part, by a syndicate. Three of the four proprietors are… known to you. Lord Merton, Sir John Wray, and a Mr. Aldous Kerr, whose connexions in the City are, ah—”

Sebastian’s face did not change. “Railway.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“It is the same men,” said Evelyn quietly.

Every head turned to her.

“The railway debts,” she said. “Sixteen thousand pounds in railway paper that my father could not possibly have raised himself. He is a baronet with a mortgaged house and eleven hundred acres. He was not speculating — he was lent. Somebody gave him paper and then called it in, and when he could not pay, they took his wife out of his house as easily as closing a door.” She looked at Sebastian. “Why would a man who wanted my father ruined take his wife first?”

The room was silent.

“Because she saw something,” said Sebastian.

“Because she saw something,” Evelyn agreed, “and what she saw was worth imprisoning a woman for fifteen years, and it was not an affair and it was not pride, whatever he tells himself. It was a ledger of another kind.”

Mr. Finch was writing very fast.

“Mr. Finch,” said Sebastian, “you will apply for the register today. You will also apply for judicial visitation of the house itself under the 1830 amendment, naming Aldous Kerr as a defendant.”

“That will make enemies, my lord.”

“I have been making enemies since I was twelve years old,” said Sebastian. “It is not a talent, it is a habit, and I have never once lost money at it.”

Mr. Finch left at noon.

At four o’clock, Mrs. Craddock brought word that a carriage had come up the drive from the direction of the village, unannounced, and that the gentleman said he expected to be received.

“My father,” said Evelyn.

Sebastian rose and set down his glass and glanced at his wife. It was not a question. It was the small, wordless check of a man who had promised to do a thing her way.

“Receive him,” she said. “In the long gallery. Where the portraits are.” She smoothed her skirt. “There is one on the wall just behind the fireplace chair.”

Sebastian looked at her for a moment.

“Whose?”

“Lady Marguerite’s,” she said, and went to meet her father at the door.