Without making a conscious decision she went back into the house, her steps taking her into the library.
The earl's book room was a small corner office adjoining the library at the side of the house. Sometime long ago in the history of the manor, presumably during one of the many religious and political persecutions that had raged across the country, a Belmont had blocked the inglenook in the library fireplace, creating a small but adequate hiding place that abutted the book-room fireplace.
Theo had discovered it as a child when playing hide-and-seek with her sisters and Edward one Christmas Eve. She'd never expected to put it to such good use.
She pressed the catch in the granite slab inside the vast empty fireplace, and the stone swung creakily inward. It was dark and musty, the air smelling thickly of soot and wood smoke. It was an insane thing for the Countess of Stoneridge to be doing, she thought, but it didn't prevent her from slipping into the cramped cavity. She was going to come out black as a sweep.
She left the slab a little ajar, seeing no reason to enclose herself in blackness. It was her house and she wasn't doing anything illegal – merely somewhat disreputable.
Lawyer Crighton's voice came clearly through the stone, pedantic and ponderous, joined by Sylvester's deep tones full of impatience at the lawyerly long-winded precision.
They were talking about the will.
"Now that you've satisfied the late earl's conditions, my lord, I have pleasure in handing over to you the documents relating to the estate," Crighton said.
Conditions? What the devil was he talking about?
"I now have title, free and clear, to the entire estate?"
"As of your wedding day, my lord."
Cold crept up Theo's spine. A graveyard coldness. She pressed closer to the stone.
"The late Lord Stoneridge's private fortune passes into your hands since you've complied with his condition, but under the terms of the will, you must set up trust funds for the three remaining Belmont girls."
"It's understood."
"I have the papers here, my lord. If you'd sign each one… on the line at the bottom. Thank you… and I'll witness your signature."
"The estate is to provide them each with a dowry of twenty thousand pounds." Stoneridge's voice was reflective, as if he was reading the fine print. "A generous dowry."
"Indeed, my lord, but one easily afforded by an estate as wealthy as Stoneridge." The lawyer sounded a little bristly.
"Quite so," the earl responded in his level tones. "With such a dowry Clarissa should have no difficulty finding a husband. And I daresay Edward Fairfax will welcome Emily with even more enthusiasm. They're personable girls… Even young Rosie behind those spectacles hides a certain charm." There was a hint of laughter in his voice as he said this.
Theo was feeling sick, her hands tightly clenched, the nails biting into her palms. She wasn't sure she understood what she was hearing, and yet she knew she did.
"Now, for Lady Stoneridge's jointure," the lawyer was continuing. He cleared his throat in his irritating fashion, and Theo could imagine his glancing around the room in search of inspiration. "Perhaps her ladyship should be a party to this aspect of the discussion, my lord?" It was a diffident suggestion.
"There's not the slightest need for her ladyship's participation," Stoneridge declared curtly. "Anything she needs to know, I will explain to her myself."
Theo was submerged in a deadly rage. Still, she couldn't put words to what she suspected – it seemed impossible.
As of your wedding day. Free and clear title to the estate, as of your wedding day.
She continued to listen as the lawyer enumerated the statistics of her jointure. It was generous in the extreme. If she outlived her husband, she would be a wealthy woman in her own right. And when she had children, they would be the beneficiaries of that wealth. But Stoneridge wasn't laying down these terms out of his own generosity; Mr. Crighton was dictating the terms to him.
This was her grandfather's doing.
She was the currency for Stoneridge to inherit the estate, but by doing so he had to accept obligations that her grandfather had laid upon him.
Her grandfather hadn't abandoned them.
But what had he done to her? What had he done to his favorite granddaughter? He'd tied her body and soul to a man she now loathed with a repugnance beyond description. A man who'd deceived and manipulated her. A man who'd trapped her into a marriage that ended her independence, that destroyed all possibility of other choices for the future. With his smooth serpent's tongue, the Gilbraith had persuaded her mother that he was a generous and honorable man who would fulfill obligations to his wife's family for family and duty's sake.
But he didn't have an honorable bone in his body. He was a liar. A greedy liar.
Numbed but fascinated like the rabbit circled by the fox, Theo listened to the end of the discussion, although nothing more illuminating was said. But she had the picture, and she was convulsed with rage that blinded her to anything but the need to bring this repulsive sham of a marriage to an end, to tell that loathsome, deceiving manipulator what she thought of him.
And through her rage she heard his voice from days past promising that he would never take advantage of her passion. That she could trust him to share her passion and lose himself in lust as she lost herself. And he'd been lying through his teeth. She'd given herself to him in all honesty and trust, and he'd possessed her with cold-blooded greed… using her, using her passion.
It was all she could do to slide quietly from her hiding place, close the slab, and go to her room to wash the traces of soot from her hands. Her face was deathly pale in the looking glass, her eyes blank with a pain so deep, it was like a knife in her vitals. For the first time in twenty years her sense of who and what she was, of her own worth in her own world, was destroyed. All her life she'd been indulged and praised. She knew herself to be useful; she knew her talents. But now it was gone, trampled into the dust by a stranger who'd walked into her life and taken everything meaningful from her.
Chapter Fourteen
"When you have business with me in the future, Mr. Crighton, we will conduct it in town," Stoneridge said, rising from his desk to indicate the interview was over. "A letter to me requesting a meeting will be sufficient. I anticipate being in London quite frequently, so there will be no difficulty in dealing with these matters in your own offices."
Lawyer Crighton looked uncomfortable. "I trust I haven't intruded, my lord. But it's always been my custom to make these quarterly visits in person… to pay my respects…"
"No… no." Sylvester waved him impatiently into silence. "I appreciate the courtesy, but it will not be necessary to repeat it, you understand."
"Yes, my lord… of course, my lord," the lawyer muttered unhappily as the earl pulled the bell rope.
"Have Mr. Crighton's gig brought around, Foster," the earl instructed when the butler appeared.
So there was to be no invitation to dinner, and he'd been offered only a glass of claret – a glass, moreover, that had not been refilled. Circumstances had certainly changed at Stoneridge Manor, and not for the better, the disgruntled lawyer decided, picking up his hat and gloves from the table in the hall.
The earl accompanied him to the front door, where he shook hands briskly, and then turned back to his book room without waiting to see Lawyer Crighton into his gig. He was aware he'd dealt somewhat brusquely with the man, but he was too anxious to get him out of the house before Theo reappeared.
He paced the small room for a few minutes, considering his next move. Theo was bound to be annoyed at her unceremonious exclusion from the interview, but now the danger was past, and Crighton wouldn't drop in unexpectedly another time; he could afford to be as conciliatory as necessary to smooth her ruffled feathers.