After the Wedding (The Worth Saga #2)(59)

But she could not let them down, not like this. Not anymore.

She returned to the prospect again and again, imagining the words she would say. Imagining the precise turn of her neck. Imagining how someone in the household might respond, and what she would do if they asked her this question or that.

The second time, she didn’t cry. The third, her hands scarcely shook. By the time she had done it fifty times, her determination had become a bonfire.

That evening, three weeks after they’d come to Adrian’s house, she sat with Adrian at dinner one night.

“We’d like to see what you say about designs,” he said. “They’re almost finished.”

“Good.” She looked down at her plate, then over at him. He was watching her with an intensity that prickled the palms of her hands, the soles of her feet.

“Tomorrow morning?” he asked.

“If you wish.” She inhaled, almost afraid to commit herself. But she’d promised herself—and him—and she’d promised Jane and Laney, so she swallowed her worries and moved forward.

“I know what we need to get our annulment,” she told him. “I know how to get it, and I’m prepared to do it.”





Chapter Sixteen





“Centralization, you said.” Theresa’s brother folded his arms and kicked his legs out impatiently from the seat where he had spent the last handful of weeks. “Less time in an office sitting around, you said.” He looked at the heavy volume in front of him. “We’ll do better than the man Christian paid a vast sum to, who does this for a living. Really, Tee?”

Admittedly, their quest had not run as smoothly as Theresa had imagined. In her mind, they would have arrived at the General Register Office on a Monday and discovered what they needed halfway through that afternoon, before they even had a chance to get hungry for tea.

In reality, it had been weeks. Theresa herself would have been bitterly indignant, except she had to pretend serenity for her brother’s sake.

Instead, she sniffed. “Have some patience, Corporal. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

Her brother frowned mulishly. “Everyone always says that, but it’s never because someone is complaining about an entire city not being constructed over the space of twenty-four hours! It’s always about something utterly stupid that should not take longer than fifteen seconds. And we asked last night at dinner and it turns out that of course the people who Christian hired did go through the General Register Office. Because they’re not idiots, that’s why. Your assumptions were wrong and you were wrong and I’m tired of sitting here.”

Theresa shot him a quelling look. “How am I supposed to be addressed again?”

A long sigh. “I’m tired of sitting here, sir,” he muttered.

“Well.” It was time to bring out her most fearsome weapon. Theresa fixed her brother with a look. “You are younger than me, after all. And everyone knows men haven’t the patience of women; they never have the chance to develop it. I suppose I have been remiss in not making allowances for your incapacity.”

“That’s—” Benedict bit off his complaint and glared at her. “That’s not fair.”

She waved a hand. “You’re free to go at any time.”

Theresa, on the other hand, was going to sit here and go through these damned records for the rest of her natural life if she needed to. The alternative would be that she would be wrong, and she refused to let that happen.

“Have it your way!” Benedict picked up a book. “I’m staying.”

She shot him another look. “Corporal Benedict.”

He let out a groan. “I’m staying, sir.”

“Your choice not to desert is commendable.” She flipped a page of her record book. “And you’re right—we did find out last night that Judith’s people had looked through the records. That was valuable information; it helps us expand our search, if we must. They were looking for a Camilla Worth. We’re looking for anything abnormal involving something that looks a little like her name. Let’s start by assuming that she’d make only a minimal change. She’s still called Camilla. If I were constructing a false identity, I would use a last name that starts with a W. Or maybe a Y.”

“Right.” Benedict just looked disgusted. “Do you know how many people there are named Camilla in Britain? How are we to pay attention to them all?”

Theresa set down her book, stood, and strode confidently down the hall, not waiting to see if her brother would follow. Luckily, he scampered after her. There was no point being anything other than confident.

“We should finish up the marriage registries today,” she said as he caught up to her. “If we don’t find anything there, we’ll get to look into birth records, and won’t that be a delightful change of pace?”

In all honesty, they should have started there. A child born out of wedlock was the most likely reason why Camilla would have changed her name. She wasn’t about to spring the notion on Benedict’s young, innocent ears unless she had no choice.

After that, there were penal records and death certificates—but those both sounded terrible, and she hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

Theresa marched up to the clerk at the marriage records desk as if she were not fifteen years of age. She hoped the hat she was wearing made her look older; it was ugly enough.