He came back on a Tuesday, with a lawyer this time. The lawyer was young and thin and carried his briefcase with the specific quality of alertness that meant he was being paid well to be useful and was anxious to justify it.
Ella received them in the entrance hall. She had been crossing through on her way to the kitchen accounts, and she was not, she decided, going to pretend she hadn't seen them.
"Mr. Fischer can let Lord Blackwood know you're here," she said. "Will you be waiting long?"
Lawrence looked at her—the inventory look she'd noted the first time, quick and dismissive—and then, when the dismissal had been performed, looked again. More carefully. She had the impression of a man revising an assessment.
"We'll wait," he said.
She settled them in the east sitting room. She sent Lucy for tea. Then she went upstairs.
She knocked on the study door and told Samuel, precisely, what was below: Lawrence Blackwood, one lawyer, a briefcase, no prior notice.
He listened. He stood.
"I'll come with you," she said.
He looked at her. Some calculation moved through his expression—she wasn't sure what he was weighing. Then: "Yes," he said, simply.
In the sitting room, Lawrence was on his feet before they were fully through the door. "Samuel." The warmth was already out, already deployed. "And—" his gaze went to Ella—"what a pleasure. I wasn't sure I'd have the chance to speak with you properly at Warwick's."
"You had the chance," she said, pleasantly. "You were busy."
A fractional pause. Not long enough to be read as a stumble, but she registered it.
"The entailment," Lawrence said, redirecting to Samuel. "I've asked Geoffrey here to pull the original terms again—just to clarify something that I wanted to be sure about, for everyone's benefit." Geoffrey opened his briefcase. "There's a provision regarding the assets brought to the marriage by the spouse. A minimum threshold."
Samuel sat. Ella sat. Neither of them reached for the papers Geoffrey was extracting.
"There's no such provision," Samuel said.
"I believe if you read the original—"
"I've read the original," Ella said. Not aggressively. Informatively. "Twice. Once when I found the memorandum in the document archive, and once when Lord Blackwood showed me the full entailment terms after our conversation in early November. The conditions for a valid spouse are age of majority, sound mind, no blood relation, and no living lawful spouse. There's no financial threshold." She looked at Geoffrey. "I'd be interested to know which section you've been reading."
Geoffrey looked at his papers with the expression of a man who has just been asked a question his employer had assured him wouldn't be asked.
Lawrence's warmth had gone through several iterations in the last thirty seconds—deployed, interrupted, recalibrated, now in the process of being repacked. "My error," he said. His voice had lost the professional friendliness. What was beneath it was harder and less specific. "I must have confused the provision with another property I've been reviewing."
"Easily done," Ella said. She didn't mean it to be cruel. She simply didn't make it easier for him by leaving the sentence there.
He stood. Geoffrey stood faster. They made their exit with the brisk efficiency of people who have revised their plan and need to develop a new one elsewhere.
The sitting room was quiet.
"You memorised the terms," Samuel said.
"I read them twice." She considered the distinction. "I have a good memory."
He was looking at her with an expression she recognised—the one that accompanied new information requiring integration into an existing model. "He made up the financial threshold," Samuel said.
"He thought we hadn't looked carefully. Or that I hadn't." A pause. "He'll be more specific next time."
"Yes." He leaned back. Something had changed in his posture—not relaxation exactly, but a loosening of whatever he kept braced in himself for encounters of this kind. "You said it wasn't work. Earlier. When you remembered the terms."
"You said that," she said.
"You didn't contradict it."
She stood. "I'll ask Fischer to note the visit in the household log, in case it becomes relevant later."
"Ella."
She stopped.
"Thank you," he said. For the sixth time. She had stopped counting with any pretence of clinical detachment.
"Of course," she said.