“Is there a clause for my daughter?”
“For Miss Linton, my lady? The trust is constituted in your name with the remaining daughters as residual beneficiaries.”
“No, the trust. For her. Should she wish to come home.”
Wickham opened his mouth, but nothing came out. His eyes flicked to Violet.
“There is no such clause, my lady.”
“Add one.” Her voice broke. “If my daughter chooses to return to Thornwick, the funds shall be returned in full to His Grace. The trust shall unwind upon her crossing my threshold. I shall not see her held in a house she cannot leave, and I shall not have my comfort be the price of her keeping.”
Henry’s hand found the edge of the mantel and gripped it.
“Mama. No.” Violet stepped from the window, went to her mother, and placed her hands on her shoulders.
“Mr Wickham. The trust shall not unwind. The funds are settled upon consummation of the marriage. After that hour, they are my mother’s and after my mother’s my sisters’. What becomes of me thereafter is not a charge upon the trust.”
The baroness’s hand came up to grip her daughter’s shoulder.
Henry had not moved from the mantel through any of it. He stared into the fire as though the conversation were about someone else entirely.
“There is an alternative.”
Three faces turned to him.
“Miss Linton may return to Thornwick if she wishes. After the birth of an heir. The trust shall stand irrevocable from the day of the wedding regardless of where she resides. But the child remains at Iredell in my keeping.”
The baroness drew in a sharp breath.
Violet shook her head slowly. “No, Your Grace. I shall not be parted from any child of mine. Not for the trust. Not for Thornwick. Not for any consideration you can name.”
“I suppose you’ll be staying, then.”
“I shall be yours as long as you will have me.”
He held himself still. A knot formed behind his ribs.
“As the lady has stated it, Wickham,” he said. “Irrevocable from the day of the wedding. No contingency upon residence. No contingency upon issue.”
“Violet—” The baroness looked over her shoulder at her daughter.
“I am in agreement with His Grace’s statement, Mr Wickham.”
The solicitor wrote. Lady Thornwick exhaled a shaky breath.
Henry and Violet signed followed by the baroness who signed the trust deed on a small lapboard.
Mr Wickham and Mr Brigg gathered the papers and went out together.
Henry was alone now in the drawing room with Miss Linton and Lady Thornwick. Standing there with a woman’s satchel at the door and her mother’s grief in the air, it was difficult not to feel the name they had given him.
“Miss Linton,” he said.
She looked at him with wide eyes, her throat moving with emotion. She picked up a satchel from the corner of the room. “I am ready.”
“You only have a satchel.”
“Yes.” She went around the chair and knelt in front of her mother. “Mama.”