"Your solicitor, Your Grace?"
"Yes. Before the sun sets."
He mounted without looking toward the workshop again. Eleanor had asked him to do nothing for which he expected her return as payment. He would begin by untangling the disaster he had helped create, whether she ever crossed his threshold again or not.
By late afternoon, the study at Ashkam Hall was crowded with papers. Mr. Bell, a spare gentleman with silver spectacles, examined the correspondence while Julian stood beside the fireplace. Margaret sat opposite them, her hands clasped tightly in her lap.
"You have made this unnecessarily dramatic," she said.
Mr. Bell lifted one sheet. "Lady Margaret, did you sign this undertaking?"
She glanced at it. "I did."
Julian stepped forward. "Read it aloud, please."
The solicitor adjusted his spectacles: "Lady Margaret Blackwood undertakes to procure the necessary consent for the transfer of the workshop property and the adjoining right of passage, failing which she agrees to reimburse Mr. Grant for the deposit received and such documented preliminary expenses as may properly be established under this agreement."
The clock ticked twice.
"You promised to reimburse him yourself?" Julian asked.
Margaret's lips tightened. "I was certain Eleanor would agree once you spoke to her."
"You placed your personal fortune at risk on that certainty."
"I did it for you."
Julian shook his head. "You did it without telling me, and you made my wife the obstacle when she refused something she had never promised."
Margaret looked toward the window. For a moment, she seemed older than he remembered.
Mr. Bell laid the undertaking beside the solicitor's demand. "The deposit entered the estate account, Your Grace, but this document appears to place the repayment obligation upon Lady Margaret. We must examine the original and the correspondence before determining the full extent of any liability."
"The estate has not spent the money," Julian said. "Then the principal can be returned promptly with appropriate accounting."
"And the expenses?"
"Mr. Grant must establish which are recoverable under the undertaking. His demand alone does not determine the amount." Julian nodded. "Prepare a reply refusing to confirm the sale. State plainly that the Duchess has not consented, and that neither my mother nor I possessed authority to dispose of her property."
Margaret stood abruptly. "You will humiliate this family."
Julian turned toward her. "I humiliated my wife at breakfast. I will not compound it by allowing a false promise to stand."