Page 49 of A Duchess of Mystery (The Mismatched Lovers #3)

Jem shook his head. “No, Your Grace, I can’t. I can sign my name, but can’t write nor read. I never went to school, see, but my ma, she learned me to sign my name.”

“So you didn’t even know what you were signing?”

Jem shook his head. “I didn’t sign it. He wanted me to, but I wouldn’t.

I said as I’d changed my mind and the duchess was a lovely lady what I couldn’t tell lies about.

Not for anything.” His hand went to his trouser pocket.

“I was going to send most of it back to my ma. She needs it now my pa can’t do nothing on the farm no more, and the rent’s due on the next Quarter Day, and it’s gone up this year, and my brother don’t have the money to pay it.

” He paused, and a couple of the tears escaped and ran down his cheeks.

“I thought as I could help them stay on in the farm if I did what the feller wanted. But in the end, I couldn’t do it. ”

Richard’s anger, which had been mounting, subsided a little. “You wanted the money for your mother?”

Jem nodded. “I was going to keep just a little bit back and buy my girl something pretty.”

Richard exchanged glances with Atkins, who raised his eyebrows in question.

For a moment, Richard did nothing, digesting the idea that one of the tenants, his tenants now, was in such dire straits that their son had been forced to resort to dishonesty to raise the money for their rent.

Although this reflected harshly on Marcus, it also did so on him.

“I’m sorry your family is in such dire straits,” Richard said. “And I will endeavor to help you and them. I believe you when you say you refused the temptation of the bribe, and I praise you for it. Now. Think hard. When you turned him down, where were you?”

“In the stableyard, near the tackroom.”

“And was anyone else about who could have overheard your words?”

Jem’s brow puckered as he thought.

Richard waited.

The boy was clearly trying to go over the events of the morning.

Eventually, he lifted his eyes and looked Richard in the face.

“There was. Mr. Hopkins was there, what used to be the duke’s valet but he’s now just a footman.

He was there polishing his shoes. Cook don’t let the servants do that in her kitchen.

She makes’em do it outside, even if it’s raining. ”

“Mr. Hopkins?” Had Richard even laid eyes on this man? He was ashamed to admit that in the ten days or so he’d been at Stourbridge he’d not taken an awful lot of notice of the individual servants. Another thing to chide himself with.

Atkins spoke. “He stayed on after the duke’s death because he hoped that when a new duke arrived he, I mean you, would be in need of a highly trained valet.” He cleared his throat. “He has been most discontented since he discovered you had brought Mr. Baxter with you from your army days.”

Mrs. Barnes nodded. “Moans about it every day, down in the servants’ hall.”

Richard swallowed. “What sort of a man is he? I mean, is he vengeful.”

Silence met this question. Only Jem seemed brave enough to answer it. “That he is, Your Grace. He’s a man scorned, and he’s said it hisself more than once.”

“Thank you, Jem. Go and wait outside the door with Robert,” Richard said.

Jem nearly fell over his feet in his haste to leave.

When he’d gone, Richard turned to the other three.

“The boy isn’t the callous, greedy villain I thought he was going to be.

It seems apparent he only considered doing this to get the money his family needed to pay back to me on the Quarter Day at the end of the month.

His is a family in difficulty because of the sickness of the father.

Was my cousin such a monster that he had no sympathy for the problems of his tenants? ”

More silence.

Atkins broke it. “Best ask Mr. Sanders about that, Your Grace. I’d not like to comment on what I don’t know for sure.”

Richard nodded. “I will speak to Mr. Sanders as a matter of priority. I should have enquired more about the tenants already. I’m ashamed to say I was too busy preparing for that damned ball.

I should have put the people who depend on me first, and look what’s happened because I didn’t.

But before I speak to Mr. Sanders, we have to get Hopkins in here.

It has to be him. He needs to recant his statement and sign another to say he was coerced into the first by that man Barker.

And then we have to get to the jail and try to get the duchess released. ”

Right now he couldn’t think about Dora, the true perpetrator of the crime, if it even was that.

The French would have called it a crime of passion as she’d killed him in fury at seeing what he was doing to Isabella.

She’d done it only to protect Isabella. If she hadn’t, her sister-in-law would have been dead, and no one would have lifted a finger to find out where she’d vanished to.

He, Richard, would still have been in Portugal with the Rifles, and no one would be here to protect Dora from Marcus.

Right now though, she needed protecting from herself.

He’d think about what to do about her later.

How to help her. But only after he’d rescued Isabella.

Right now, his whole being was focused on doing just that.

The thought of her locked up in some jail in Newbury turned his stomach.

A vision of her pale, anguished face as she’d taken the blame for Dora’s crime rose before his eyes, twisting his heart.

If only he’d been the one who’d married her ten years ago, not Marcus.

How different he could have made her life.

He rose from the table. “Have Robert call Hopkins in, Atkins, and we’ll see to his confession.

Amos, can you have the grooms prepare the carriage.

I’ll be going to see both of the other magistrates before I attempt to secure the duchess’s release.

We have to go about this the right way, or we’ll fail.

And we need to make haste.” The thought of Isabella having to spend a night in a jail cell chilled his heart.