Chapter 36

Selina watched Marcus endure the questioning that unpicked the story that he had built around himself. He endured it stoically, though Mr. Beveridge showed the trauma on his face that Selina believed that Marcus must be feeling. After being driven out of his home by a brutal father, to be offered reconciliation, only to arrive too late, and now for his birthright to be threatened. She wanted to strike Captain Hamilton on the nose just as she had done to her father. It seemed so unfair.

I do not believe there is a genuine claimant who feels his birthright has been taken away. This is someone acting for their own agenda. I can feel it. It may not be my father but there is someone behind all of this.

When Hamilton was satisfied with the information he had gathered, he took his leave, ever maddeningly polite and professional. Marcus slumped against a pillar of the Great Hall as the ancient doors swung shut on the Bow Street Runner.

"Your Grace?" Beveridge asked in a wavering voice.

"All will be well, Thomas," Marcus said kindly, "the fight has not yet begun."

Selina saw the strength and confidence pass from her husband to the butler who nodded, raising his chin, a new strength in his face. That was the behavior of a true Duke, a true leader of men. Marcus could give strength to those who relied upon him. He recognized their needs and his duty to them. But, he could not give himself strength by the same means. That was her responsibility, her duty.

I am the Duchess. Truly. It is my duty to give strength to my husband so that he may give it to his people. To our people. How my life has changed since that stormy night that I was brought to his door! How it has changed even from the first suggestion of marriage as nothing more than a transaction to protect me and to save Marcus' honor.

"We will begin searching my father's papers again. Anything, no matter how small that proves my identity and my lineage. I will write to Luke and Samuel in Penrith," Marcus said.

"Of course, Your Grace. And I will begin with the earliest of my records."

With Marcus' consent, he hurried away. Selina put her arms around Marcus' waist, holding him close and looking up into his pensive face.

"And what are your orders for me, husband?" she asked,

Marcus chuckled. "No task for a Duchess, I'm afraid," he said, "the papers belonging to my father that I have not already examined are all stored in the attic. It is a dark, dusty job but I think we must attempt it before I am required to stand before the Regent. I never imagined that it would come to this. To think that once upon a time, my biggest worry was how to raise my reputation among the ton."

"I have brought this upon you," Selina said, burying her face in his chest.

"It was on its way long before Arthur brought you to Valebridge," Marcus reassured her, "if you had not come here, then I would be facing this alone, which is not an attractive prospect. Will you help me search?"

"Of course," Selina said.

Marcus led her through the ancient halls, rising on staircase after staircase. The higher they ascended, the smaller the halls became, as though the building was constricting around them. Selina noticed that the halls were becoming progressively dustier and with a greater air of disuse. The final floor was a succession of dark spaces beneath sloping roofs, requiring constant stooping beneath fissured, iron-hard beams. Mice scurried from the light of the lanterns that Marcus had picked up from a storeroom, using his coat sleeve to clean the glass. Dust formed a carpet on the bare wooden boards. They negotiated their way around wooden crates and rolled carpets. Stacked paintings and broken statues occupied one space with wooden steps leading up to another which was filled with old furniture. The air beneath the castle's roof was warm. Selina had expected it to be drafty, damp, and cold. She supposed that the warm air from the lived-in rooms far below would rise and eventually make its way here to be trapped by the roof.

The accumulated bric-a-brac must also play a part in insulating this space. She thought that it would soon become uncomfortably warm if they worked for any length of time here. All sense of direction was gone by the time Marcus led them to a section in which the roof was higher than any other. A row of chests had been placed against one wall, each large enough for both Marcus and Selina to climb inside and lie, stretched out to their full height. Each was secured with a padlock that was gleaming and new, if dusty. Marcus reached into a pocket and produced a key.

"Every scrap of paper with my father's handwriting on it that we haven't yet looked through is contained here. Beveridge and I assembled this library ourselves in secret. No other, bar my father and possibly Arthur, have set eyes on these papers since my father died. They may be useless. But the answer may be hidden in them," Marcus said.

"Pray that it is the latter," Selina mused.

Marcus hesitated before unlocking the chest. He shook his head.

"Being up here brings back such memories. It happened when Beveridge and I brought these chests up here. Nothing specific, just a sense of having been here before, as a boy."

She walked to the first chest in the line, crouching and holding the lock. Marcus crouched next to her and fitted the key. It turned smoothly and he removed the lock. Selina was dismayed by the quantity of papers contained within. In this chest, there seemed to be loose pages and letters bound together with string. There were no books or diaries, ledgers, or accounts.

"His correspondence. We tried to keep different types of documents together. This was clearly for letters."

"I will begin looking through them. Why don't you take the next chest? That way we will get through them quicker," Selina suggested.

Marcus agreed and moved to the next chest, unlocking it to reveal an assortment of large volumes in various states of repair. Selina lifted out the first bundle of letters and untied the string. Then she began to read. Periodically they were visited by Beveridge to bring food and drink. The butler took one, fastidious look at the state of the attic room and returned later with blankets and cushions. Selina smiled at the man's thoughtfulness. He was a devoted servant who had served Marcus for his entire life. That said a lot about the character of both men. Nothing was revealed in the letters she read through. Jeffrey Roy corresponded frequently with his bankers and others on the subject of money and business but did not mention his heirs or, for that matter, anyone in his family.

Marcus moved from one chest to another, having discarded most of the contents of the first as being ledgers, referencing nothing more than columns of figures, tracking the movement of money and goods. Selina could feel her spirits falling with each failure to find anything that would help. Marcus was becoming irritated, throwing aside useless account books with grunts of disgust before picking up the next. As she watched, his temper broke. With a yell, he threw a ledger across the room where it struck a beam and fell apart in a shower of loose leaves. Marcus sat back on the floor, head falling into his hands. Selina went to him, putting her arms around him and running her fingers through his hair.

"Don't lose hope. There must be something here," Selina said, "in all of this, there must be one document that references his sons."

"If there is, I have never seen it. Not where I am concerned. He erased me from existence, believing that Arthur was the heir he wanted. And how wrong he was proved to be," Marcus laughed bitterly, "Arthur proved to be weak and my father decided to change his mind at the eleventh hour. Too late as it happens."

"But if he had decided that he wanted you to inherit, then he must have set something down in writing, especially if he knew he was dying," Selina insisted.

"Or perhaps it was all another cruel trick. Perhaps his summons was sent after his death, so that I would never be able to inherit. A last torture."

"We must not lose hope," Selina insisted.

She got up and retrieved the ledger, gathering up its pages.

"We can't predict where we will find what we need so we must look through everything… what is that?"

She had been crouching beneath the low eaves of the roof to gather up a stray page. On the edge of their combined lantern light, she could see that something had been carved into the beam. But the light was too dim to make out exactly what it said. Marcus raised his head, looking over. At first, he frowned and remained where he was. Then recognition dawned on his face and he scrambled to her side, bringing a lantern with him. Under the bright light, it leaped into sharp relief. Someone had carved into the beam two inscriptions. One was the name Arthur Roy followed by a date including the day, month, and year. Beneath it and bearing a date one day later was the name Marcus Roy.