Page 171 of The Ladies Least Likely
Froggart swept him with a freezing stare. “You are not to speak. Your barrister will argue your case before the Master. What little case you have,” he added with a sneer.
Mal stepped toward the bench, beckoning to a surprised Rosenfeld to join him. “Your Honor. If you will permit me. New evidence has recently come to light that has a substantial impact upon my case.”
He withdrew the precious bit of parchment from the pocket inside his coat and handed it to Rosenfeld. “I have discoveredthe existence of a valid marriage between my mother and Hugh Langston Delaval, third Duke of Hunsdon.” He glanced from the judge to Popplewell, whose eyes were huge behind his glasses, and Sybil, whose mouth hung open in shock.
“These marriage lines make me their legitimate firstborn son,” Mal said quietly. “I am not the guardian of my father’s children or his estate. By terms of the entail, I am his heir.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Everyone in the courtroom surged to their feet. Amaranthe stood, too, so she could see over their heads. She strained to hear over the blood pounding in her head. Sybil was the first to find her voice.
“He’s a bastard! He’s lying!” she shrieked.
“Your Honor.” Froggart recovered himself from this facer and scrambled to think of an intervention. “This documentation was not properly submitted during the pleadings and has not been entered into the rolls. It cannot be admitted.”
“You are not in a court of common law,” Oliver answered sharply. He reached down from his bench to indicate he should be given the document Mal’s barrister was perusing. Once he had it in hand, the judge stared sternly at Mal. “This evidence has not been submitted during the pleadings, nor entered into the rolls.”
“Your Honor, we could all withdraw back to the plea stage, and continue with deposition,” Mal’s barrister said.
Amaranthe liked him; he was slender, his manner unassuming, but he had a richly timbred voice larger than his frame and a gleam of intelligence in his eyes. “Or,” Rosenfeld went on, “Your Honor could consider the new evidence andmake a judgment now, as it is within your power as a Master in Chancery to do.”
“That document is counterfeit.” Sybil’s voice carried across the room. “My husband never married that commoner. His father, the second duke, rescued him from her clutches and brought him to his senses.”
“My grandfather, the second duke, separated my father and mother as soon as he learned of their union,” Mal answered. “But they were married in a church with a special license, with the blessing of a priest and the signature of witnesses. That makes their marriage valid in any court.”
“It was after you were born,” Sybil said swiftly. “So you’re still a bastard.”
“We can consult my baptismal record if the court has a doubt,” Mal said. “It resides in the parish of St. Phillip and St. James in Bristol.”
Amaranthe kicked herself that she had not thought to hunt up a copy of Mal’s records while she was in Bristol as well. Would Marguerite have entered her married name, Lady Vernay, as the mother? Would she have properly named his father? It could take any length of time to produce this record, thus delaying the case further. What would Mal do while they waited, his fate in limbo? This was what he had feared: that he could produce Marguerite’s marriage lines and he would still not be believed, just as Marguerite had not been believed.
She hugged her Book of Hours closer to her chest, protecting the document within it.
“I happen to have recently reviewed the record begun on Mr. Grey when he entered the Middle Temple,” Oliver said. “His birth year was given as 1748. This marriage record is dated 1747.”
Sybil’s mouth worked soundlessly. Even in her distress, she looked fetching. The barrister representing her, on the otherhand, looked like he’d swallowed a toad. And the nondescript, gaudily dressed man sitting next to Sybil, who must be the steward Popplewell, looked about to faint. Sybil snapped open a box of smelling salts and impatiently thrust it at him.
The large blond man in the witness box, who’d identified himself as Mr. Thorkelson, watched Amaranthe.
“The document could have been forged, as Her Grace suggests,” Thorkelson said. “By someone experienced in such things. Someone who perhaps took an interest in advancing Mr. Grey’s position.”
Here it was: what she’d feared most. Mal wouldn’t be believed because of his association with her. Amaranthe willed herself to stay silent though everything in her wanted to cry out.
“It would take someone very expert to produce something this authentic looking,” Mal’s barrister said. “I find that accusation unlikely.”
“And yet,” Mr. Thorkelson mused, “the very person with whom Mr. Grey has taken up is known to be an extremely skilled copyist. I understand she can reproduce any hand and make it appear convincing. She has developed quite a reputation among the booksellers and book binders about town. If you ask anywhere for the best person to make a fair, true copy of an antique manuscript, they will direct you to one Miss Illingworth.”
Amaranthe hadn’t known she was so well regarded. She wished she could take pride in Thorkelson’s words, instead of finding them damning. Oliver looked at her with speculation. The barristers, forbidding in their black silk robes and wigs of office, watched her as well.
“Forged?” Sybil sniffed. “Of course it’s forged. But byher?” She swiveled to stare at Amaranthe and, like a pale shadow, the steward beside her did also.
Everyone stared at Amaranthe.
Mal looked resigned. He hadn’t any other proof. All his life, since birth, he had been regarded as less than, insufficient. He didn’t expect anything to change about that now.
And despite public opinion, he’d done his best to forge a life for himself. So what if there had been missteps along the way—what man did not have them in his past? He was doing his best to establish himself in a career, and now that his siblings had been cast upon Sybil’s less than tender mercy, he was trying to do right by them as well. How she loved him for it.
He’d already done the worst thing he could do to her, casting her out and telling her not to seek out him or the children. He could wound her no worse. And he needed her. Amaranthe stood.
