The Duchess War (The Brothers Sinister) (41 page)

This was the man whose mother had walked away from him as a child. This was the man whose father had seen him as nothing more than a tool to extract money from other pockets. Robert had forgiven Minnie for her earlier deception. But he had so little expectation of forgiveness for himself that he couldn’t even ask for it.

Minnie reached out and took his hand. “Do you know why I am furious? Because you would rather leave than try to make our marriage work.”

He searched her eyes. “I…”

“I know. You don’t want to fight. But fights don’t destroy a marriage. Not making up does.”

He swallowed. “You
want
to fight?”

“Yes. And I want you to say that you were terribly, desperately, sordidly wrong.”

He flinched. “I was. I know I was.”

“I want to believe you when you apologize. I want to know in my soul that you would never do anything to hurt me. I want you to promise me that next time this happens, you’ll come talk to me first, and we’ll decide what to do together.”

He was looking at her, his head cocked.

“And then, when you’ve done all that, I want to forgive you.” Her eyes filled with tears.

“But why do you want to do all that?”

“Because I love you,” she said. “I love you. I love you.”

He let out a deep breath. “You’re certain?” he said quietly.

She nodded.

“I see,” he said. And then, without saying another word, he walked out of the room.

Chapter Twenty-seven

M
INNIE STARED AT THE DOOR
where Robert had exited, her mind a whirl of confusion. Why had he left? Where was he going? What was she to do?

She went to the window to see if he was leaving the house entirely, took one look outside, and stepped back with a gasp. There was a small crowd encamped on their doorstep, a throng of hats in shades of brown and black forming a half circle almost three deep. One man looked up, saw her, pointed—

Minnie jumped back, her heart pounding.

If he’d gone out, she wouldn’t even be able to follow after him.

She turned back to his room. A newspaper lay on a chest of drawers. She unfolded it curiously and discovered that it had been printed this afternoon. It couldn’t have been more than a half hour old.

Duke of Clermont Authors Handbills,
the headline proclaimed. In smaller type underneath, the subtitle read:
Duchess Is Former Chess Champion.

She read that again, shaking her head at how bland it felt. “Well,” she finally murmured. “I suppose ‘Duchess is former fraud who dressed as boy and deceived hundreds’ wouldn’t fit. Three cheers for restricted paper size.”

The article itself was surprisingly evenhanded. The worst accusations she’d weathered in the past—monster, cheat, unnatural devil’s spawn—were absent. Her past was summarized in a short, factual paragraph. It was shocking, no doubt, but time had blunted the power and charisma of her father’s words.

Mr. Lane claimed the entire scheme was his daughter’s idea, but no evidence was ever found to support the assertion that a twelve-year-old child had been involved in the fraudulent endeavor.

She felt as if she’d opened a door on what she believed was a towering monster, only to find it five inches tall. There were things one might say about the child of a criminal. One didn’t say those things about a duke’s wife.

The account of today’s trial seemed equally strange.

Reading about her own collapse was a decidedly odd experience. It felt as if she were observing her emotions from a distance. She could hear the gasps of those around her in the courtroom, but now she understood them as surprise, not condemnation. She could see herself go pale, without her own skin going clammy, her breath cycling dangerously swiftly.

It allowed her to see what happened afterward, too. She’d fallen into a dead faint. A man near her had spat at her—and when he had, the dowager duchess had smacked him over the head with her umbrella. She’d glared at everyone else who threatened to close in, keeping them at bay.

Robert had leaped over three benches—surely that had to be an exaggeration—to reach her.

When the duke brought his wife out of the courtroom, he deigned to answer a few questions. He affirmed that he was aware of his wife’s identity on their marriage—a claim that seems unassailable in light of the marriage registry, which names his wife as Minerva Lane. His Grace explained his choice of bride as follows: “Why would I take a conventional wife, when I could have an extraordinary one?”

Minnie set the paper down and shut her eyes. Her eyes stung with prickling tears. She could hear him in that quote—could imagine the roll of his eyes, the look of annoyance he’d cast at them. Her body had the memory of being held, even if her mind did not.

She wasn’t sure what any of it meant, but she was sure of one thing.

He was coming back.

She read on in the paper. The article was only a few columns long. A related note mentioned that after the trial, Captain George Stevens had been taken into custody and charged with accepting bribes in exchange for performing his official duty. Minnie smiled wanly. Good.

The door opened. Robert stood in the hall, a book clutched to his chest. He met her eyes, his expression wary.

“You’ll have to excuse me if I make a hash of this,” he said quietly. “But I’ve never done it before.”

“What are you doing?”

In answer, he walked into the room and laid the leather-bound volume on the chest of drawers near her.

It was the primer she’d bought him the other day. “I…” He looked down and then looked up at her. “I decided what these letters stood for,” he told her. “I thought I might tell you.”

It took her a moment to realize that he was nervous. He glanced at her sidelong and opened the book to the first page.

“A,” he said, “is for all the ways I love you.”

That fierce prickle of tears stung her eyes with renewed force. She blinked, unwilling to let them cloud her vision. She wanted to
see
him, to make out the details of his pale, tousled hair, the way he bit his lip.

He looked away. “This is stupid,” he muttered, reaching for the corner of the cover. He’d almost slammed it shut before Minnie realized what he was doing and insinuated her hand between the open pages.

“No!” she protested. “It’s not.”

His hand hovered over hers. He swallowed.

“There is nothing stupid about your telling me you love me.
Ever.”

“Oh,” he said quietly. He seemed to take a few moments to absorb that before he opened the primer again. “A is for ‘All the ways I love you.’ There are more than twenty-six, but as this is the alphabet we have, I’m going to have to restrict myself. At least for now.”

He turned the page to a brilliant scarlet B, illuminated the way one might see in a medieval manuscript. Beech trees made up one side of the letter, and a butterfly perched on the top of the curve of the B. “B is for ‘But I am going to make mistakes.’ Something I am sure does not come as a surprise to you.” He looked at her and turned the page. “C is for Confession. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to be a husband. I don’t know how to be a father. All I learned from my father is how
not
to do it—and that is rarely any guide. But…” Another turn of the page. “D is for Determination.” Another page-flip. “E is for Eternity, because that’s how long it will take before I give up again. F—that’s for Forgiveness, because I think I’ll need a great deal of that, before I start to get things right.”

“You are getting things right at this very moment,” Minnie said with a smile. “Keep on.”

He nodded and turned the page. “G is for… G is for… G is for ‘Good heavens, I should have written these down.’ I’ve forgotten.”

Minnie found the corners of her mouth twitching.

He frowned in perplexity. “Really. I have no idea what comes next. I puzzled them all out in my head, and they were going to be utterly brilliant, and when I was finished, you were going to leap in my arms and everything would be better.”

Minnie leaned over and flipped a few pages over until she found the letter M. This was the page that had been on display in the bookshop when she purchased it. M was done in blues and blacks with hints of gold, the silhouettes of mulberry bushes making the dark shape of the letter against a moonlit sky. This M, perhaps, evoked midnight.

“This is the most important one,” she said. “M is for Me. I’m yours, even when you make mistakes.” She tapped it.

He stepped forward and slowly, slowly pulled her into his arms. “Minnie,” he said, “my Minerva. What would I ever do without you?”

“There’s only one other letter that we need to talk about.” She turned back one page. “L is for love. Because I love you, Robert. I love you for the kindness of your heart. I love you for your honesty. I love you because you want to abolish the peerage. I love you, Robert.” She pulled him close. “I’m not going to toss you out for one mistake.”

“But I—”

She shook her head. “We’ll get into that later. For now, Robert… There are other things that demand our attention.”

“Yes,” he said slowly.

“There is a crowd of reporters downstairs,” she said, “and we’ve just told everyone who I really am.”

“I’ll get rid of them.” He stood.

She held up one hand. “No,” she said slowly. “I don’t think that will be necessary.”

“D
O YOU EXPECT TO INTRODUCE THE DUCHESS
in society?”

“What does the Dowager Duchess of Clermont think of all this?”

“Why did you write those handbills? Is it part of a parliamentary ploy?”

As Robert stepped into his front parlor a few hours later, the shouted questions overwhelmed him, rising atop one another, adding up to indistinguishable cacophony. The sun had set by now; the oil lamps burned brightly, and the bodies packed in the room had brought the temperature up above the level of comfort.

The newspapermen had been invited in fifteen minutes earlier, and apparently they’d made themselves comfortable enough to scream inside his private residence.

He waited until Oliver had entered the room behind him before he raised his hand. The shouted questions continued, but as Robert gave no answer—and instead stared the men down—eventually the hubbub subsided.

“Gentlemen,” he said, when everyone had quieted down. “Let me explain what is going to happen. I have invited you into my home. I have offered you tea and sweet biscuits.”

More than one hand surreptitiously brushed crumbs off of coats at that comment.

“If you abide by the rules I set, all your questions will be answered and then some. But the man who raises his voice above a pleasant, conversational tone—that man will get tossed out on his ear. The man who speaks out of turn, he will be shown the door. If you behave like a mob, you will be treated as one. If, however, you act as civilized people, we will entertain all questions.”

“Your Grace,” a man shouted from the back, “why the rules? Is there something in particular you fear?”

Robert shook his head gravely. “Oliver.” He gestured behind him. “Please show the shouting gentleman to the door.”

“Wait! I didn’t—”

Robert ignored the man’s protests, letting the others watch him be escorted out of the room. When the door closed on his babbled explanation, he turned to the remaining crowd. There were maybe twenty of them, perched on chairs raided from the other rooms. They all had their notebooks out. Forty eyes watched him warily.

“There are no second chances, you see,” Robert said. He heard the door open once again behind him. “Oliver, if you would please demonstrate the proper way to ask a question?”

His brother went to stand next to the nearest newspaperman and then raised his hand quietly.

Robert gestured at him. “I acknowledge the gentleman on the side.”

“Your Grace,” Oliver asked in a normal speaking voice, “why have you set these rules? Are you afraid of something?”

“An excellent question,” Robert said. “I have established these rules because, in a few moments, my duchess will be joining me, and I have no intention of exposing her to a howling mob.”

The men sat up straighter at that, leaning forward.