[CW: References to domestic abuse]

Mr. Meijer had been invited, not to the Carrington manor, but to a manor further out of Whitby, by Mrs. Carrington. Anne had gone to stay with friends on the very night that she had made the police report. Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence had been horrified upon gathering what had happened, and had offered Anne a spacious room and the promise to assist her in whatever way they could. Of course they would help her see a lawyer. They would pay for his time, so her disgrace of a husband didn't need to find out. 

Anne sat waiting in the parlour, a pot of tea and cups ready. She wore her best black gown with Whitby jet accessories. Her hairdo was immaculate, not a hair out of place. But her face was pale and there were dark circles under her eyes. Her nose was a little red as if she had been crying. Most notable of all, her arm was in a sling, worn close to her chest.

What on earth would Mrs. Carrington want a lawyer separate from her husband for? Did she have some sort of love child or something?

Zechariah opened the door, dressed well but indistinctly with his hair stuffed up into his hat. His eyes landed first on her arm, and for a moment his mortification showed.

Her arm was in a sling! What on earth had happened to this poor woman? This poor woman who was still grieving her eldest son? Clad in black, as if the news alone were not enough to make a man pause. What kind of monster would do this to a woman, let alone a grieving one?

“Mrs. Carrington,” he greeted, solemn. “Zechariah Mire, Esquire,” he introduced. “What—” happened? “—brings you here?” he managed instead.

Mrs. Carrington rose when Zech entered. "Mr. Meijer, so kind of you to come at such a short notice." Her voice was quiet, hushed almost, as if she was afraid to be heard. She held out her right hand - her right arm was unharmed - to give him a very weak handshake. She nodded at an upholstered chair beside her own. "Please, have a seat." A small table separated the two chairs.

There was a pot of tea and two cups on the table. Mrs. Carrington took her own seat and took the pot to him a cup with her good arm. "I must apologize for the absence of servants to wait on us. The matter is very..." her voice cracked a little and her hand trembled. Some of the tea shot over the cup, hitting the saucer. "Oh!" She put the pot down quickly - the cups rattled in their saucers - and brought her hand up to cover her eyes. "I'm so sorry. I..." She was quiet for a few seconds, while she pressed the hand over her eyes and seemed to struggle to regain herself. Then she lowered her hand, but her face did not look any less distraught than it hand a moment ago, when she had spilt the tea. "I'm a little shaken. I'll take that one."

Her hand was like a limp noodle in his, and he tried not to recoil over that. Tried. She was the fairer sex, after all. The fairer sex need not have a respectable handshake.

He managed to keep a professional face, and not wipe his gloved hand before clasping the touched one under the untouched hand. What was it that made a weak handshake so … gross?

“Thank you, Mrs. Carrington,” he answered politely, and took the seat as beckoned.

He started to reach for the teapot at the same time as her since she had an injured arm, though quickly withdrew when she moved to do so instead. He frowned, eyes wide in surprise, when she unsurprisingly spilled.

“Here,” he said softly, partly out of shock, “let me.”

This time, he did take the teapot and poured the empty cup.

“Whichever you like,” he said, gently … though quietly hoped she took the spilt one, because ew. “Do you … need a moment?”

He had seen plenty of criers, of course. Most of the people who sought him out were in the worst times of their lives … and Mrs. Carrington seemed no different in that regard.

The main difference was that many of his clients were gambling their lives’ savings on not dying in jail, and even at her most distraught? Mrs. Carrington could crush most.

So he kept the most polite, concerned face humanly possible.

"Oh... Oh, thank you, Mr. Meijer. I'm sorry...." She brought her handkerchief up to her face - Anne could produce handkerchiefs out of thin air like a magic trick - and pressed it against her mouth, while she 'tried to regain her composure'. Then she lowered her hand.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Meijer. I've been in great distress. I've never actually dared to run..." She stopped herself and turned to the lawyer with an imploring gaze. "My husband is a cruel man, Mr. Meijer, and I am desperate to know what my legal options are."

The cups had not been exchanged.

Oh, thank God she was no longer crying. He had no damned clue what to do with women who were crying. Most of the women in his family just yelled.

He started to reach for his cup, then actually glanced. Ew. He cupped his hands in front of himself instead.

“That is entirely dependent on what laws he has violated, Mrs. Carrington. You mentioned you were … running from, him? Was he attempting to murder you?”

Hm. He probably could have worded that more gently.

Her lips thinned as she pressed them together. She looked away. "Not tried to murder, no. Does a man have to attempt to murder his wife, before she has the right to seek protection?" She drew a shaky breath and turned her eyes back to the lawyer. "He pulled my arm so hard he dislocated the shoulder the other night. The bruising where he grabbed me is just disappearing. He drinks more than he should and I have long been afraid of him when he rages..."

“O-of course not,” Zechariah said. “My apologies.”

He doubted she wanted him to ask how thick any instruments he might have beaten her with were, let alone what she was being disciplined for. He doubted, even more, that she wanted hear that the most she could hope for was her husband’s shame, that his wife be rendered into such a shameful state by his drunken fits.

Greedy with tea or not … he wanted this woman to have a better future than the one he saw.

For a moment, he looked very young. Wide-eyed and lips pursed, searching for an answer better than the one he had available to her. An answer that led to some sort of safety from this volatile man’s furies, from the callous brutishness of a man who saw himself as entitled to others’ destruction just because they talked back.

“… If he has assaulted you and had a proven infidelity, Mrs. Carrington, then you might qualify for divorce under the Crown. I am sorry,” he hastily added. “You deserve more than that. Family court is not my expertise, but I can consult with someone who knows more about those aspects.”

He was not optimistic. London had just passed an ordinance this year against beating one’s wife between 10PM and 7AM … lest it wake the neighbors up.

The hasty apology satisfied her greatly, though her face did not show it. The look on his face satisfied her as well. Both made him look like a school boy ready to take orders.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes to mentally prepare herself - or rather prepare him - for the next scandalous revelation. "He has forced me to raise the child he fathered with some servant girl." She brought the handkerchief up to her mouth as if to steady herself. Then she lowered it. "He could have paid for Miss Pearl to be raised anywhere, but it gave him pleasure to torment me with such a brazen reminder of his disregard for his family. Now he intends to remove me and my children from his will and leave everything to her too."

There were no photographers here. No journalists to keep a stiff upper lip for. Just one regal yet terrified woman, shoulder dislocated by a man who most likely swore to love and cherish her in sickness and in health. (He knew: he had been at enough of his Christian peers’ weddings staring enviously on.) He was not nearly as guarded as he should have been.

She was in pain.

Zechariah blinked at the next admission. A thousand thoughts raced through his head, and a thousand more said ‘not now, stay on topic’.

“Is he mad?” Zechariah let out with high brows. “The reckless young woman who went out without a chaperon, was kidnapped in result … and then eloped down out of class?”

Thank God. Something the law actually saw fit to punish that was actually bad.

“Tell me if I am hearing this correctly,” he urged. “Your husband, recently taken by drink and, ahem, unusual stressors …” he stuck out one index finger and tapped it with the other, “decided to write everyone competent out of his will, including his dependent wife and likely children who will be left to die in the workhouse in such straits,” he stuck out another finger and tapped it with his index as he rattled off, “to leave it to the only other child who has made half the stir as his firstb-” he glanced to Anne Carrington, mother of Magnus IV, and cleared his throat, “-the only surviving child who is clearly struggling with her own … issues … and,” he tapped the finger he had missed and then the next: “she is neither male, competent, married to a man of her own class … nor even legitimate?”

Zechariah clasped his hands before himself and leaned forward.

“Has this man been examined by an alienist of recent, Mrs. Carrington?”