He Let Her Rip Our License, So I Married Another Man novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Chatsworth House

Eleanor welcomes Hallie, the terms are set, and the cut video of the wedding goes viral. Claudia and Cade are at the gate.

The front door of the Chatsworth house opened before Benedict could touch it.

A small woman with silver hair and a cane stood in the hall in her stocking feet.

She did not wait for introductions.

She took my face in both hands and looked at it for a long moment.

"You have Walter's chin," she said. "Thank God. I was afraid you'd have your father's."

"Mrs. Chatsworth," I said.

"Eleanor. You're my granddaughter now, and you're not calling me anything with a Mrs. in it."

She pulled me against her coat, and I stood there with my arms at my sides, and then I held on.

Three years of being laughed at, and a stranger's grandmother was the first person all day to hold me.

"Four minutes," Eleanor said over my shoulder to Benedict.

"Three," he said.

"From where?"

"I was close."

"Of course you were," Eleanor said, and let me go.

I thought he meant traffic.

She took me into a sitting room full of old books, with a fire already lit.

A woman in an apron put tea in front of me without being asked.

I held the cup in both hands until they stopped shaking.

Benedict stood by the window.

He had taken off his jacket and folded it over a chair, and I saw for the first time that he was tall enough to have to duck under the beam in the doorway.

"Before anything else," he said, "I'd like to say what this is."

"It's a marriage," I said. "I signed it."

"It's a marriage on paper. For one year."

I put the cup down.

"You can have a room in the east wing, next to mine, with a lock on the inside. You can leave any day you like. If you ask for a divorce, you'll get one, and I won't ask why."

"That's generous," I said.

"There's one more rule."

"What?"

"Neither of us lies to the other. Not about small things. Not about large ones."

Eleanor made a small noise in her teacup.

"Fine," I said. "Then here's mine. I said some things on your voicemail three years ago."

"I remember every word," Benedict said.

He said it evenly, but he did not look at me, and I looked down at my hands.

"I was angry," I said.

"I know."

"You didn't come to the dinner."

"I know that, too."

"Are you going to tell me why?"

"Yes," he said. "Not today. Today you've had enough."

I opened my mouth to argue.

Then I realized I was tired in a way I hadn't let myself be for hours, and I closed it.

The woman in the apron came back and held out a tablet to Benedict.

She looked unhappy.

"Sir, you'll want to see this before Mrs. Chatsworth does."

"I'm right here," Eleanor said. "Give it to me."

She read it, and her mouth went thin, and she handed it to me.

It was Brooke's video.

She had posted it forty minutes ago, with a broken-heart emoji over my face.

The caption said: My best friend's fiancée walked out on him and married a man she's never met.

It went on: She's been unstable for months. Please be kind to Cade.

The clip started after the passport.

It showed me sitting alone on a bench, and then it showed me kissing Benedict in room B through a narrow pane of glass.

Three million views.

Under it, the comments scrolled by faster than I could read them.

Gold digger.

She's clearly using him.

Poor Cade, he did everything for her.

I scrolled to the top of the comments and found the first one, posted by a name I didn't know.

Does anyone know what she even DOES for a living lol.

"She cut out the passport," I said.

"She had to," Benedict said. "Everything before that makes her look the way she is."

"Nobody will believe me. I'm the girl who married a man she'd never met."

"Then they'll believe the camera over the counter," Eleanor said.

I looked up.

"The county office has one above the glass," she said. "I've given that office money every year for thirty-eight years. I will have the footage by Monday."

"I don't want you to spend favors on me," I said.

"Child, I have been saving them for you since you were born."

She said it so simply that I didn't know what to say back.

The sitting room door opened, and the housekeeper's face went blank before she spoke.

"Mr. Benedict. Mrs. Chatsworth."

"Yes?"

"There are people at the gate. Mrs. Whitford and her son. And a car full of other young people. They say they're here to bring Miss Lovelace home."

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