Page 41 of The Matrimonial Advertisement

“Captain Thornhill,” he said.

“Hargreaves,” Justin said in reply.

George Hargreaves had been the magistrate since Justin was a boy. There was no love lost between the two of them. Indeed, upon entering the library, the man hadn’t even offered to shake Justin’s hand.

Not that Justin had been any more welcoming. He hadn’t asked either man to sit down. And he certainly had no intention of offering them something warm to drink.

“Bloody awful weather,” Hargreaves said.

“Not the best time to be paying a call,” Justin pointed out.

“Couldn’t be helped.” Hargreaves removed his hat. He was ruddy-faced and fleshy, with a balding pate and white side-whiskers curving down to a double chin. “A bad business, this.”

The fair-haired man who stood beside Hargreaves said not a word. He was a brawny brute of a fellow, the seams of his overcoat straining across the broad expanse of his back and shoulders. He was not as tall as Justin. Nowhere near it. But his neck was thick as a tree trunk and his gloved hands appeared to be the approximate size of dinner plates.

He was looking about the library, perusing the contents of the room with all the subtlety of a bailiff.

“The matter is straightforward enough,” Hargreaves continued. “If you would—”

“Where is Lady Helena?” the brutish gentleman asked.

Justin turned his gaze on the man, even as his heart slammed against his ribcage. Lady Helena? It was only through sheer force of will that he was able to keep his countenance. “And you are?”

“This is Mr. Horace Glyde,” Hargreaves said. “He represents the Earl of Castleton. His lordship is looking for his missing niece.”

“The Earl of Castleton!” Boothroyd exclaimed from his place in front of the closed library doors. “Do you mean to say that Miss Reynolds—”

“Lady Helena is his lordship’s niece,” Mr. Glyde said. “And I’m empowered by law to retrieve her. Even if I have to tear this place apart.”

Justin stood to his full height. Anger was rising steadily within him, coiling in his muscles and imparting a dangerous edge to his voice. “Are you indeed. And tell me, Hargreaves, since when does British law allow a stranger to come into a man’s home and threaten to lay hands on his wife?”

“She’s here, I knew it.” Mr. Glyde’s lifted his face to the ceiling, as if he could see straight through it to the floors above. “Do your duty, Hargreaves. Or I shall go up and fetch her myself?”

“I wouldn’t advise it,” Justin said.

Mr. Glyde’s eyes glittered. “Oh you wouldn’t, would you?”

Hargreaves stepped between them. “Now, now, gentlemen. Let’s handle ourselves like civilized human beings. I’ve no doubt that once Thornhill understands the ruse that’s been perpetrated, he’ll willingly cooperate.”

“Ruse? What ruse?” Boothroyd had been hanging back, listening, but at the mention of some deception lost no time in entering the fray. He crossed the floor to join Justin near the fireplace.

“Lady Helena disappeared from her uncle’s house in London three days ago,” Hargreaves explained. “Mr. Glyde traced her as far as King’s Abbot. It was there he learned of your impending marriage, Thornhill.”

“And I went straight to the magistrate,” Mr. Glyde said. “You’ll find that the law is on his lordship’s side in this matter.”

Hargreaves sighed. “I’ll say this, sir. We’ve traveled a mite too much for my taste today, with it raining as if the world’s about to end. First to Abbot’s Holcombe and then back here. That cliff road’s a menace, Thornhill.”

“It is,” Justin agreed. “Yet still you came.”

“Couldn’t be helped. After visiting the registrar’s office and learning of your marriage—”

“Such that it is,” Mr. Glyde interjected.

“What’s this?” Boothroyd jerked his head to the magistrate. “Is the marriage not valid, sir? And why not, pray? Is the lady not of age?”

“Lady Helena is of age,” Hargreaves said. “But Mr. Glyde possesses documents which appear to show that her ladyship hasn’t the capacity to consent to marriage.”

“Lord Castleton was in the process of having her committed to a private asylum,” Mr. Glyde said. “She’d be incarcerated there now, had she not fled in the night like the veriest criminal.”