“Well, you’ll have to tell her something, to prepare her, for I cannot guarantee that Gilroy will not want her testimony.”
Lily nodded, but she looked toward the fire, her eyes filled bright with unshed tears. “It’s very hard, you see, because I’ve tried to shield her from it all. It’s Maggie who will suffer if I fail.”
I was not following. “What is it Archie wants from you, exactly?”
“He was very plain. He said he’d learned that I was living here under the name of Mrs. Graeme, and that he remembered well the letter Jamie gave to me—the one he made me throw upon the fire. He asked me whether I had married Jamie, and when I gave him no answer, he replied it did not matter, all that truly was of consequence was if the marriage could be proved. For if it could not…” Lily took a moment to collect herself, continuing more calmly, “Archie still has Maggie’s letters from her father. If I fail to prove to the commission I was Jamie’s wife, those letters will come out and Maggie’s future will be ruined. Her birth will be exposed as illegitimate, and her employers at the school are careful who they hire, because their parents demand teachers of a certain moral quality.”
I thought, I could not help it, of how Helen Turnbull had been quick to judge the poor wife of Lord Grange for having been the daughter of a criminal, and I knew well how any whisper that a person’s birth was illegitimate could close a door to them that might have otherwise stood open.
Her hand rested lightly in mine while I thoughtfully rubbed my thumb over the back of her knuckles. “Did he know you had the certificate?”
“No. He expected that I’d have to make one. It pleased him to learn I would not, for it saved him time and the cost of supplies.”
“This may seem an odd question,” I told her, “but I have my reasons for asking. Do you have the sense Archie’s aim is to simply collect any claim that he can? Or does he seem to have a particular interest in James Graeme?”
Lily frowned faintly. “He showed me an edict the Commissioners of the Equivalent put out, inviting Jamie’s spouse—and bairns, if any be—to come before them with a claim. I simply did assume he’d seen the edict posted, and on learning I was here had made a move of opportunity.”
I said, “You’re very likely right.”
“Why? What else could it be?”
“I don’t know.” Truth was always best, but there was no need to tell all of it. “It’s only that the claim does seem a small amount of money, for a man like Archie Browne to go to so much trouble over.”
Lily’s face cleared. “He’s not doing it for money. It is not his own idea. He does take his orders from a man above him. That was evident,” she said, “at our next meeting, when I gave him the certificate.”
“And where was this?”
“At Pat Steell’s tavern, in a private room upstairs.” She’d feared the worst, when Archie had escorted her upstairs to meet a stranger in that room, particularly when they’d found the stranger waiting for them, sitting up in bed with the bedcurtains partly drawn. But nothing more had happened than the other man had read the document, asked Lily some brief questions, and then given his approval. “Very good,” he’d said to Archie. “I shall tell His Grace, and we’ll proceed from there. With luck, it won’t take long.”
I stopped her there. “You’re sure he said ‘His Grace’？”
“I’m certain of it.”
I was not an expert on the forms of social address, but I did know that few people were raised high enough to merit being called “Your Grace,” a form most commonly reserved for dukes. And while I’d not accuse a man on nothing more than my suspicions, I knew of but one duke who had close ties to Steell’s tavern.
“This man you met at the Cross Keys,” I asked Lily, “what did he look like?”
“He stayed behind the bedcurtains. I never did see him directly. Except he was fat, and his manner was pleasant.”
He might be the same jovial man I had seen there myself tonight, who had been trying too hard to appear drunk, and sitting behind Captain Gordon. “And what happened after that?”
“He kept the marriage certificate, and we left. I was told he would see it was presented on my behalf to the Commissioners for the Equivalent. I did not see it again till the day I was summoned to meet your friend Gilroy. And you.”
That was a day I would always remember. “And have you been back to the Cross Keys since?”