The Duchess War, Page 23

  Chapter Twenty-three

  On the express train from Paris to Boulougne, Robert booked an entire first-class compartment. Not for luxury; he would hardly have noticed at this point. It was simple self-preservation. If he had to make polite conversation about his journey, he would never survive. Instead, he stared at the passing countryside as the sun climbed in the sky. The hours passed.

  He didn’t sit in any of the comfortable seats, didn’t partake of any of the charming fruit-and-cream-laden pastries that Minnie must have ordered for him. He tried a biscuit at her urging, but it tasted like ash in his mouth, and he laid it aside after one bite. He stood near the front of the compartment, one hand on the wall, the other holding a cigarillo out the open window.

  He’d long since realized that he used cigarillos as an excuse to avoid company. Now, the trickle of smoke that escaped into the compartment made another barrier, a hazy wall built between him and his wife. He took a drag on it anyway, and the smoke was acrid and harsh in his lungs, a more fitting punishment for what he’d allowed than his own guilt.

  He’d known that Stevens wanted a culprit. He’d known, and in the haste—and lust—of his wedding, he’d put the matter off for his return. He thought he had time enough to deal with it.

  The miles clacked past, marked only by his watch and the passing villages. Long hours slipped by, punctuated only by the shriek of the brakes and the whistle of the train for the few stops that the express made. First Beauvais, then Amiens, was left behind. It was only when the train skirted the silver-barked beeches of the Forest of Crécy that his wife braved the forbidding looks he gave her and crossed to him.

  “You know,” she said, coming to stand by him near the farthest wall, “pushing won’t make it go faster.”

  “No?” He tapped the end of his cigarillo out the window and watched embers fly away, pulsing briefly in the wind. “Doesn’t slow it down, either. Not that I can see.”

  She looked away. Her fingers tapped against the window; her jaw squared.

  A third punishment, that slight withdrawal, one that stung more than the smoke he’d inhaled.

  But this way, you’re punishing her, too. His fist clenched and he shook his head.

  She didn’t say anything. The train went around a curve; she put one hand against the wall to steady herself. The protest of the metal couplings, bending in place, surrounded them. The sound of the train, clack-clacking along at something just above thirty miles an hour, swallowed up any other response she might have given.

  Not even one week married, and he was already fouling everything up. He’d wanted…so much. Not just a wife in name, but a family in truth. Someone who chose him.

  Stupid bloody dream, that. At this particular moment, he wouldn’t have chosen himself, either. He gave the cigarillo another flick and watched orange sparks fly.

  And that was when he felt her arm close around him from behind. She didn’t say anything at all, just pressed against him, holding him tight. She squeezed until it was clear that she wasn’t letting go, no matter how foul his mood. His breath rasped in his lungs, and this time not from the smoke.

  “Oh, Minnie,” he heard himself say. “What am I going to do?”

  “Everything you can. When is the trial?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “You’re a duke. There must be something you can do.” She paused. “Legal matters… I know almost nothing about them. But cannot trials be quashed?”

  “This one, it’s intended to embarrass me,” Robert said. “Retaliation, I think.”

  His face grew grim.

  “There’s been something odd afoot in Leicester. I started looking into it because I discovered what my father had done with Graydon Boots. Those charges of criminal sedition always arose just when matters between workers and masters had come to a head. They’re grudges, not a proper application of the law.”

  “All the easier to have it quashed, then,” Minnie said.

  “Not that simple.” Robert tapped the cigarillo against the window frame once again. “Sebastian said they’ve already had a few reporters come in from London to cover the matter. It’s being reported that a man in my household committed a crime. Stevens no doubt thinks he has an easy conviction, that with me out of the country, I won’t be able to respond. He thinks the damage will be done by the time I come back. I’ll be embarrassed, and Oliver—a guest of my house and a known associate—will be branded a criminal.”

  “But that won’t happen,” Minnie said.

  Robert was silent a little longer. “I could bring enough pressure to bear that the case would be dropped.”

  Her arms tightened around him.

  “But I can’t stop the talk that would result if I quashed the inquiry. My brother…he’s worked hard, so damned hard, to build up a store of respect for himself. He’s beginning to have a reputation as an intelligent, fair-minded man. If I quashed the inquiry—even if we won, eventually, on the grounds that the papers weren’t even seditious—the idea that he had written such radical sentiments under an assumed name would destroy everything he’s worked for. So, yes, I could stop the legal trial. But my brother doesn’t just need a favorable verdict. He needs to be publicly exonerated of the charge.”

  “And you’ll see it done.”

  She said it so confidently, so sweetly, that for a moment he almost believed her.

  “I’ll do anything.” His voice broke. “My brother told me once that family was a matter of choice. If I were to turn my back on him now, what kind of brother would I be to him?” He let the cigarillo go; it swirled in the eddies alongside the train and disappeared around the bend before he saw it land. The forest passed by, receding in the distance. Now there was only rolling pastureland.

  He counted three fences before he spoke again. “My father raped his mother.”

  She sucked in her breath.

  “That’s the claim I have on him—that an unwilling woman was once forced to my father’s will. That my family was so powerful that justice was subverted.”

  “It wasn’t you.”

  “It was the Duke of Clermont. I bear his name, his face.” His hands tightened into fists. “His responsibility. I suppose in some ways it was the height of selfishness for me to even claim him as a brother. But I can’t let go. If family is a matter of choice, I’ll choose him. And I will, over and over, until—”

  The thought was a crushing weight against his chest. He almost staggered with it. He did stagger, when the train shifted direction once more. But Minnie leaned into his shoulder, steadying him, and then guided him to sit on one of the cushioned benches.

  “You’ll choose him until what?” she asked.

  “Until the stars fall from the sky,” he said. “Because he chose me first.”

  It was such a damning thing to admit, that vulnerability. He felt like a turtle, stripped of its shell, being readied for soup.

  But she didn’t lift a brow at that. Instead, she stood before him, her skirts spilling around his knees. Her fingers traced his eyebrows, pressing against his temples before running back along the furrows of his forehead. It felt…lovely. As if she could coax the tense guilt from his features.

  “My great-aunts used to do this for each other,” she said. “When things did not go well.”

  He brushed her hands away. “I don’t need comforting.”

  He didn’t deserve it.

  But before he could stand up and turn away, she grabbed hold of his hands. Her grip wasn’t firm, but it was sure.

  “If family is a matter of choice,” she said softly, “I’ve chosen you.”

  He let out a long breath.

  “And I will,” she said, “again and again.”

  He lifted his head. Her eyes were wide and gray and guileless, and she was saying words that he’d longed to hear for years. On a breath, he stood, reaching for her. His hands closed on her hips; a scant few moments later, his mouth captured hers. There was no thought, no calculation in tha
t kiss. She was simply achingly present.

  “Minnie,” he murmured against the heat of her lips, and then again, “Minnie.”

  Tonight would be the fifth night of their marriage. He’d had her while she laughed. He’d taken her while she moaned for him. He’d never taken her feeling as he did now—dark and uncertain.

  He didn’t ask this time, or whisper to her what he wanted to try. He didn’t ready her with kisses. He pushed her against the wall of the train car, and before she had a chance to struggle or cry out, captured her skirts in his fists, gathering up petticoats and crinoline. He had only to free his erection. One thrust—one push inside her, and he’d be as bad as his father, taking a woman because she was there and he wanted to feel her. One thrust, and he’d punish himself even more.

  Her head was down, bowed before him. He towered over her. There was nobody around, no way she could call for help. He’d probably frightened her to death.

  He let her skirts fall and stepped away. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m in a filthy, filthy mood. You’d best walk away while you still can.”

  She looked up at him then. Her eyes were pale gray and absolutely lovely. But she didn’t twitch a muscle.

  Shadows from a passing tree flickered over them, painting their faces in a shifting palette of light and darkness. His body shivered with need.

  “I mean it, Minnie,” he said quietly. “Walk away. If you could see what I was thinking now, you’d be scared half to death. Do you know what I could do to you?”

  “No.” Her voice was almost placid. “Tell me.”

  “I shoved you against the wall.” He set his hands on either side of her head. “I might have had my way with you.”

  “Had your way with me,” she mused, shaking her head. “Which way is your way, again?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “You know what I mean.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have any idea.”

  He took a step forward, trapping her against the wall. “Must I spell everything out?”

  “Please.”

  “I could plunge my cock inside you.” His hips ground into hers. “No preamble. No nothing.”

  Her eyes widened. The corner of her mouth tilted. “Oh, no,” she said. A dimple popped out on her cheek. “Not your cock. Anything but your cock.”

  He found himself smiling in spite of everything. “God damn it, Minnie. Can’t you take my bad mood seriously?”

  She ignored him. “And here I was, feeling so…so empty. Why, if you were to slide inside of me, it might give me the most curious feelings.” As she spoke, she undid his trousers. Her fingers played down the length of him, stroking his erection.

  “But there’s no worry of that,” she said. “You’re so massive, I don’t think you would fit.” She gave the head of his penis a squeeze as he spoke, and he let out a gasping laugh.

  “God, Minnie. I can’t see straight.”

  “It’s a good thing you have hold of your urges,” she said, more quietly, “because I’m so wet now, and it would be dreadfully embarrassing if you were to—”

  He lifted her against the wall, wrapped her legs around him, and slid inside her. She was wet, so wet, and hot. The pleasure of her body, clasped around him, was so intense that it almost hurt. The light rhythmic sway of the car rocked him into her.

  He braced them against the wall, his muscles straining.

  “That’s right, Robert.” Her arms came around him. “That’s right. Just like that.”

  He moved inside her, sliding, straining, until sweat popped out on his brow. He let his lust get the better of him, let his instinct take over until there was nothing but her, her around him, her breasts beneath his hands, her pulse pounding in time with his thrusts.

  She came around him, tightening in waves of pulsating heat around his cock. And he pounded into her, hard at first, and then even harder, until his own climax came. In the moment when he spilled his seed, he imagined them connected by far more than the scrape of his teeth against her jaw, the tangle of their hands, the clamp of her legs still wrapped around him. It was more than just the physical act of burying himself in her body.

  In that moment, for the first time in his life, Robert believed that there was someone for him. Someone who would be there for him through the hardest times. More than a lover, a friend, an ally. A wife—for better or worse, richer or poorer. In sickness and in health. In laughter and in tears.

  He stood, breathing heavily, humbled by the gift he’d been given. He could only touch her cheek in awe.

  “Minerva, mine,” he whispered.

  He felt as if he were discovering her anew. As if, amidst all the turmoil of the day, he’d finally been granted his heart’s desire. And now that he had her, he didn’t want to let her go.

  She set her head against his shoulder. “That’s better,” she said.

  It was so new, this thing he felt between them. New and unfamiliar, and so welcome that he was almost afraid to acknowledge it, lest it disappear. And yet if he said nothing…

  “Somewhere,” he said, “someone is saying that I made a dreadful mistake in marrying you.”

  She pulled her head from his shoulder and looked up at him, her eyes wide.

  “They’re wrong.” He put his arms around her. “All of them, wherever they are. You are the best choice I have ever made.”

  There was a light in her gray eyes when she looked at him, one that made him feel a thousand feet tall. He could have conquered an entire army with her at his side. Whatever it was that had gone wrong would come out right.

  It was almost too much to believe.

  And so instead, he dipped his head and kissed her again.

  By the time Robert arrived in Leicester, he’d been traveling the better part of the day. His wedding night, the slow, timeless memory of waking next to Minnie the next morning, followed by days of languorously making love to her…all those things had been washed away by the harsh, rhythmic clack of express trains, the vibration of steamers.

  He gave himself no time to eat or wash when their train finally arrived in Leicester in the late evening. It was dark, and the moon was already high overhead. He put Minnie in a carriage and proceeded immediately on foot to the center of town.

  The evening was dark and windy, but not quite cold. Sebastian’s telegram had told him where Oliver was held—in the Guildhall itself, just beneath the library where he’d first met his wife, mere steps from the hearing room where they’d first been introduced.

  And indeed, when he came up on the building in the dark of night, it seemed as if it might have been the evening that they met. Some sort of event was going on in the Great Hall. He knocked on the side door instead, waited, and then knocked louder still, until the man who passed for gaoler came.

  “No visiting.” He frowned at Robert. “Not at this hour.”

  Robert slipped the man a heavy coin. “I’m not a visitor.”

  The man didn’t even blink. “Right this way, sir,” he said.

  Paris and the croissants seemed very far away. The memory belonged to some other man, someone happily married, shyly delighted with the future that was slowly unveiling itself. All that happiness was taken over by a hollow feeling in his gut as he was led to the holding room. The gaoler unearthed a hooded lantern that showed grimy walls and wooden doors. He unlocked the main doors and then went up to one of the cells. Wood scraped against wood.

  Robert aimed the light forward. The man hadn’t opened the door to the cell. Instead, he’d moved a panel, one that covered a fixed slot at eye level, a few inches high and maybe half a foot long.

  The gaoler took a few steps back and motioned Robert forward.

  Robert stepped close, lifting the lantern as he did. The rays didn’t reach into the pitch-black interior of the cell behind that slot.

  “Oliver?” His voice was low.

  “Robert?” He heard a rustle. “God, that’s bright. I can’t see a thing.”

  The light from the lantern was anemic at bes
t, not even enough to show the dimensions of the cell his brother was in. For Oliver to think it bright… he must have been sitting in darkness for hours. All the time Robert had spent in his first-class compartment, his brother had been in here. He shivered.

  “Do you have blankets?” Robert demanded. “Food?”

  “What are you doing here?” Oliver replied in an unnaturally cheerful voice. “You’re on your honeymoon now. You’re supposed to be in Paris.”

  “This is my fault.” Robert set the lantern down and stepped forward, dropping his voice. “I wrote those goddamned handbills. I never wanted you involved at all. It’s my fault you’re in that stinking cell.” Not a figure of speech, that. He’d come close enough to scent the air wafting from that little slot. Stinking was putting it mildly.

  “Well, I surmised you were the author,” Oliver said after a short pause. “They sound like you, if you know what I mean. It was fascinating reading. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I knew someone was obtaining false convictions for criminal sedition,” Robert huffed; his breath was white in the cold of the room. “I wanted to find out who it was. I’m the one person they couldn’t charge. If I’d told you, you might be considered an accomplice.”

  “Ah. Clever.”

  “Not clever enough, obviously. I’m shocked that I arrived in town in time. I imagined they would have rushed you through to conviction.”

  “Apparently not.” Oliver sighed. “They’re waiting for a witness to arrive. Do you remember Lord Green, from our Cambridge days?”

  “Lord Green? Yes, I remember him—but what the devil is he going to say? Have you seen him more recently than I have?”

  “No, not since the time we had that last wager over the chess game, three years back. But they’ve called him to testify, and I have no idea what the devil he’s going to say.”

  Chess again. It couldn’t be a coincidence. What it all meant, though… Robert shook his head.

  “Well, you’ve a witness, too. I’d like to see a jury vote to convict you when the Duke of Clermont attests that he did it himself. That you knew nothing of it.”

  He brought his hand up to the slot. But instead of being able to grasp his brother’s hand, or clap him on the shoulder, his fingers met a cold metal grate, the bars spaced too closely to allow more than his smallest finger through. He could only brush his brother’s fingertips.

  “Here now,” the gaoler called. “None of that—passing of knives and the like where I can’t see it.”

  Robert dropped his hand in frustration.

  “I’ll be back in the morning,” Robert promised. “We’ll work everything out then. I’ll order a bottle of champagne in anticipation of your release.”

  “Better make it a gallon of carbon oil.”

  “Carbon oil?”

  “This cell has lice.”

  Robert winced. Dark, smelly, louse-ridden—he’d done this to his brother. The self-recrimination boiled up inside him. But if Oliver could manage good cheer…

  “Good thing, then, that I couldn’t slap your shoulder,” he said.

  “Ha.”

  He turned to go. “I give you my word. I won’t let them convict you.”

  But as he turned, he realized that a second figure had joined them in the dark—someone shorter than Robert and wider. In the darkness, he caught only a suggestion of hard muscle and imposing strength.

  “No,” the man said, looking at Robert. “You won’t. I’ll hold you to that, Your Grace.”

  The figure took another step forward, and the light from the lantern caught his face.

  “I give my word, Mr. Marshall,” Robert repeated.

  Oliver’s father looked at him. Simply looked, but he projected a quiet menace without saying a word.

  “Father,” Oliver said behind them. “Stop glowering. You’re embarrassing me.”

  “Hmm.” Mr. Marshall stepped forward. “We came as soon as we heard. Your mother is seeing to a place to stay. She should be here in a few minutes, once she gets past the gaoler’s wife.”

  That, Robert decided, was his cue to vanish. He had to be gone before the rest of Oliver’s family appeared.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he promised and slipped out before he could burden Mrs. Marshall more than he already had.

  There was a cabstand in the square down the street. He was on his way there when soft feet pounded up behind him.

  “Wait,” a woman’s voice called. “Your Grace.”

  Robert blinked in surprise and turned. A cloaked figure raced toward him and threw back her hood.

  “Miss Charingford,” Robert said in surprise.

  “Listen to me,” the woman said urgently, “and listen well. Stevens threw Mr. Marshall in gaol to embarrass you.”

  “He succeeded. In that and more.”

  “He thinks you’ll be in Paris throughout the trial. That he’ll have your man of business—”

  “He’s not my man of business,” Robert spat.

  “Whatever he is. Stevens thinks he can prove that the man was involved, that he can insinuate that he worked on your orders.”

  Robert looked at her. “He can’t prove that,” he finally said. “It isn’t true, and I should know. He can’t prove it unless he’s suborned testimony from someone.”

  Miss Charingford shook her head. “He can prove that Mr. Marshall was involved,” she said. “At least, he’s going to try.”

  “He can’t possibly do any such thing,” Robert repeated.

  Miss Charingford blinked. “I know,” she finally said, more quietly. “But you…you need to know how he’s planning to prove it. There’s a phrase in one of those pamphlets, a quote from some book on obscure chess strategy. It’s well known that you take no interest in the game. But there’s a witness coming who will testify that he discussed strategy with Marshall, that he loaned him the volume in question.”

  “Oh.” Robert let out a drawn-out breath, recalling Minnie’s anger the next day. “I know…I know exactly which phrase you are referring to. I know exactly how I knew it, too.”

  Dread rose up in him. He remembered how angry Minnie had been at him for using her words, how sure she had been that they would cast blame on her. He felt sick to his stomach.

  “Precisely,” Miss Charingford said. “Minnie sent me a letter explaining everything. I had to let you know. Stevens doesn’t know about her past. Just her name.” She shook her head. “He thinks there’s nothing to her but a name. It never occurred to him to ask what she might have done.”

  “How did you find out what they planned?”

  She was silent for a moment, then sighed. “My father told me. He was the magistrate who swore out the warrant for Marshall’s arrest. He didn’t have any choice, you see.”

  “Didn’t he?” Robert asked dangerously.

  “No,” she replied. “Stevens is good at breaking strikes. The best there is. But he helps those who help him, and since I refused him, he’s insisted that my father must do more.”

  “I see,” Robert said quietly. And he did. No matter what happened with Oliver, Stevens would not continue to serve the militia. “Do you suppose your father would talk with me, if I came by?”

  She gave him a short nod and then turned to go.

  “Wait, Miss Charingford. There’s one last thing.”

  She hadn’t come to their wedding. He remembered those few hours on the train from Leicester to London, when Minnie had looked almost lost for mourning this woman.

  He looked her in the eyes. “Minnie misses you.”

  As if she could hear the accusation in his words, Miss Charingford shrank away. “I miss her, too,” she whispered. “No. I don’t. I don’t know. I’m still angry with her. It doesn’t mean I want her hurt.” She shook her head. “I had better go, before someone realizes I’ve gone out. I just—I had to tell someone, and I can’t face her yet. Please don’t tell her it was me. Not until I’m ready.”

  So saying, she turned away.

  Th
ey were going to present proof that Oliver was involved. Robert started walking again, but this time, he passed the square where a solitary cabriolet driver nodded off with his hands on the reins.

  He could do his best to quash the investigation—and leave his brother under a cloud of suspicion. Or he could speak. When speaking had entailed taking all the scandal on himself, there had been no question. But now he would have to explain how it was that His Grace, the Duke of Clermont, came to quote from an obscure volume of chess strategy.

  He’d promised Minnie that he would protect her secrets. He’d promised his brother that he would see him free and clear. He could not do both those things.

  Some devil in him made him imagine precisely how Minnie would react to hearing him admit the truth. It was even worse than anything he could imagine doing to her—putting her in a courtroom, watching someone she cared for give her up without hesitation. He couldn’t do that to her. He couldn’t.

  But Oliver… Oliver was his brother. The man who had accepted him without question, despite the fact that his father had done nothing but harm to his family. He was his brother. His brother, the only thing he had known of family for years.

  That image in his head of the courtroom—of Minnie turning white as he betrayed her—played itself over and over in his mind. The worse it was for her, the more it would strengthen the public belief that he spoke the truth. It made Robert feel ill to think of it. It would utterly destroy their marriage. She really would leave him—and he wouldn’t even be able to voice a protest.

  Because she would be right. He would deserve it.

  Robert walked on the streets a very long time, until his feet ached and his hands turned to ice, until he could scarcely think for the turmoil in his head. He walked, and he decided.