"Then nobody would have known," said Frances. "And nobody would have forbidden them. And it would hold."
The room was very quiet. Somewhere above them, in the house, a bell rang and stopped.
"Rendle was born in December," said the Duke. "You told me so yesterday. December 'eighty-five."
"The tenth of December."
"And I was born in March of 'eighty-nine. My father married my mother in the summer of 'eighty-seven, in St. George's, Hanover Square, by special licence of the Archbishop, with the consent of both families and a settlement that took two lawyers a year to draw." He was speaking quite calmly. "Rendle's mother died when he was born, you said."
"Yes. In childbed."
"So my father's marriage to my mother was perfectly good. I am not a bastard. I am merely," said the Duke of Halvergate, "the younger son."
Frances said, "Your Grace—"
"The younger son," he said again, as though he were translating it from some language he had learned badly. "If this is true. If it's in the book. Then Rendle was my father's eldest son, born in wedlock, and when my father died last November, Rendle was the fifth Duke of Halvergate, lying in a lodging in St. Giles in Norwich with a hole in his side, and he never knew. And when he died in February—" He stopped. He looked at her, and she saw him see it. "When he died in February, his son succeeded him."
Frances stood up. She did not know that she was going to; she found that she had, and that the chair had gone over behind her on the flags with a noise like a shot.