Page 42 of A Lady of Means (Roses and Rakes #1)

Chapter Thirty-Three

The Burn Book of Lady M

Miss Kate Herring: Said young lady advertises her family’s exploits adventures in the Congo.

Some light digging shows that one Mr. Thaddeus Herring came back a ransom richer.

One has only to wonder if the purpose and activities Miss Herring extols, were, in fact, mercenary in nature rather than Godly.

How does a man of God afford a manufactory in Manchester and two of the Earl of Westmoreland’s prized racehorses?

* * *

“What are you all….”

Several days later, Moria entered the breakfast room and immediately her words fell away as soon as she saw the pamphlet the occupants of the drawing room were holding.

The Burn Book.

She snatched one from the nearest hand, it was Lawrence’s. He didn’t try to take it from her.

“No…” her stomach dropped.

She’d written some unkind things. She’d mostly written truths. But they were salacious, and they were about people that garnered attention and sold headlines.

Someone had stolen her words. Words written by an angry and heartbroken and guarded girl in her own notebook in her room.

Lady Gretchen and Carina had also written in the book, but there was no audience intended.

At least she and her friends hadn’t signed their own names to them.

Although their names were conspicuously absent.

“Did you write this?” It was Jasper, walking to stand in front of her, pamphlet in hand.

“There’s no proof of that,” she shot back, straightening to her full height as he peered down at her.

“Whoever stole this took some of the worst of the worst and the most damning,” Noelle put in, standing from her seat at the table.

Moria felt like sights and sounds were happening around her, to her, but she wasn’t a part of it.

Who had done this?

As if on cue, Lady Carina and Gretchen entered, Olivia in tow.

Before Moria could ask any questions, her two friends rushed her, pulling her into their arms.

If anyone ever found this, it’d be quite the scandal, Gretchen had said, was it a fortnight ago? Or longer?

You mean people would pay to read some debutante’s diaries?

No. She wouldn’t. But when she looked into Gretchen’s face, she knew she had reached the same conclusion.

Here, Moria had said, putting the book in Kate’s hands, Write something.

Kate had taken the quill. What should I say?

Do your worst. Moria had said.

You let it out, honey. Put it in the book. Gretchen.

And then Kate had inked her quill, she’d written entry after entry.

The four of them had passed around a bottle of champagne Carina kept in her carriage.

Moria had been so in the throes of grief and drink and the safety of friendship that she hadn’t noticed that Kate didn’t take the bottle.

She hadn’t noticed where the book, black and pink and so necessary to her survival, had ended up when she’d returned home hours later.

“It was Kate,” Lady Carina explained to Moria’s family.

Lawrence and Fitz looked at each other. Jasper swore.

“How many people have read this?” Moria heard herself asking as though from someone else’s voice, far underwater or on the other side of a chasm. Perhaps her body was on the other side of a chasm from her heart. It might as well be, it had dropped all the way through the carpeted floor, at least.

Gretchen and Olivia both took a step toward her. The occupants of the breakfast room were rapt as Olivia spoke first. “It was all over the Piccadilly news stand. Lady Carina, Gretchen, and I bought all they had and then went to three more stands and bought those too, but…”

“Then we had to keep an appointment for tea with one of Lady Olivia’s suitors and his mother,” Gretchen continued.

Moria looked to Olivia, no doubt not the only one of them all noting the red tip of her nose. Jasper’s voice dropped low and lethal. “What happened?”

Olivia shook her head, unshed tears in her eyes. “It doesn’t matter.”

Moria felt the remaining dregs of her willpower strengthening. A fury that tasted like spite fueled her.

Moria and the others all looked to Carina, “We were turned away by the butler. Apparently, Lady Olivia was no longer welcome.”

Moria registered Kathleen’s defiant scoff and her copper curls moving as she shook her head. It was their Mother’s voice Moria heard inside her head:

Head held high. Shoulders back. Smile like you have a secret. Even if they hurt you, don’t let them know it. You’re not their porcelain doll, you’re unbreakable.

“We made sure to convey the message that Lady Moria Pembrooke, future Duchess of Andover, would not be pleased to hear this pronouncement,” Gretchen said, an arm about Olivia’s shoulders and steely pride in her voice.

“That was very forward thinking of you,” Moria said, touching Gretchen softly on the arm.

The others all fell silent, but it was Fitz who cut through the tension first.

“I don’t know that I like that look in your eyes,” Fitz observed, glancing around his wife who stood next to his seat at the breakfast table.

Moria narrowed her eyes at him. “What look, Fitz Pomfrey?”

Olivia was looking at her not in fear, but in awe. “Like a warrior.”

A head of the darkest hair and a pair of eyes darker than any night flashed in her vision. He hadn’t shirked his calling or backed down from a fight, and neither would she.

Moria turned from her siblings and friends, and exited the drawing room.

In the foyer, she scribbled something on a slip of paper in the escritoire, handed it to the butler who wrapped her coat about her.

She turned to the eight souls who’d followed her out into the hall, who’d likely follow her to the ends of the earth if she asked.

“Are you coming?” she asked.

“Lead the way,” Her older sister returned, letting her husband wrap her in her coat. No questions, linking her arm with Moria’s and following her out onto the street. They followed her into Hyde Park, the place to be seen of an afternoon.

The green park was filled with carriages, with prominent people and their servants following behind, all talking closely with one another. At the sight of Lady Moria, flanked by a battalion of titled relations, their gazes and whispers seemed to find a focal point.

The woman in question continued walking, head held high, on her brother, the Earl of Westmoreland’s arm.

The sky was conspicuously cloud free and the foliage of the park more verdant than usual.

Who could accuse her of perfidy in a yellow and blue flowered dress, the sun wreathing her countenance, and birds chirping at her back?

“Lady Moria!” A man about thirty with a mustache called to her.

She waved at him, and he caught up with her.

He exchanged pleasantries with her family, then said: “Suppose I’d like a gander in that little book of yours.”

Moria harrumphed, crossing her arms. So would she, if she had it in her possession.

“I’ll reckon you would, my lord.”

“How much would you offer for it?” Lawrence parried.

Moria pulled on his arm and then gave the other man a pleasant smile.

“Never let it be said of me that I am ungenerous. But as it happens, I have no written proof of your clandestine tryst with your ward. Though I’m sure if someone did, I could see why you might want to burn that before your wife finds out. ”

Moria tapped her chin, mocking as though in thought, “On second thought, maybe she’s already suspicious given her zealousness to see the girl wed.”

The other man was agog. “That’s not…That’s slander!” His face started to redden. He took a step in her direction. Henry and Jasper pulled him back as he called out, “You will regret-”

“Watch yourself, Garth,” a voice interrupted from behind them.

The unmistakable, perfect brown and chiseled face of the Duke of Andover was plainly visible over Jasper’s shoulder. “That’s my betrothed you’re speaking to.”

Moria hadn’t been sure how quickly he’d receive her missive and find her in the park, but he’d answered her call for his aid. Other park-goers of all stripes had stopped to gawk, to listen.

The other man broke free of Henry’s grip on his shoulder and turned in the Duke’s direction.

“Fine then, your Grace. Do you know what your betrothed has done?”

The Duke stepped around him to stand in front of Moria.

Her heart stuttered at the protectiveness of his stance and defiant gleam of his eyes.

“My betrothed? She isn’t the one who committed the acts, Lord Garth.

To my knowledge, she is a young lady who wrote down witnessed events in a personal diary.

If any crimes were committed, they were not by my betrothed, but by those who stole the book and aimed to profit by blackmail or extortive means. ”

She could feel watchful eyes on the Duke’s reaction, but George turned eyes on Moria. She could read only acceptance in them, even though some of the people she wrote about had been his friends.

“If it was even your little book. Some of the things in that notebook are quite scathing, but by my reckoning, the people who ought to be concerned here,” he turned to peer in Lord Garth’s direction, “are the ones who perpetrated them.”

My beautiful reckoning. Why was Devyn the man her thoughts ran to at that moment? When this one was here, healthy and hale, coming to her aid?

Tears stung like tiny bee stings, but she fought them off and wrote them off as relief over the Duke’s public show of support. She was sure to be adding more fodder for the gossips today with this display. With a Duke at her side, though, who would dare turn her sister away again?

Warm, soft fingers intermingled with hers and offered her the protection of his good name and his body. “Come on, my dear,” the Duke urged.

Moria looked down at their hands. Her engagement ring on her finger glinted in the afternoon sunlight.

It was bright and shiny and large, but it wasn’t as beautiful as the pink stone that Devyn had given her.

One of the Duke’s hands brushed against her fingers.

To his left, Noelle and Fitz were looking at them in obvious fascination.

Olivia’s eyes saw through her and held her for a moment, and then Moria looked to Kathleen.

“I hope to deserve you one day, all of you,” she said, meaning it with her whole patchworked heart. “The combined force of you all behind me, I felt like I could do anything.”

“We’ve never been able to counsel you when your mind is set on something, so we’ve just accepted our lot,” Lawrence replied.

But pride was in his eyes. He’d have hunted down whoever stole from her and released her words; but instead, he’d walked at her side, staring down any and all potential challengers.

“I’d like to have a private chat with His Grace if all of you don’t mind, though?”

Jasper huffed out a breath, and then he was hugging her. “I’m proud of you, you know?” he said, his chin on top of her head. He was so sturdy and warm and unexpectedly hugging her, she didn’t pull away until he did.

She saw the unshed wateriness in Kathleen's eyes.

Henry gave her a small wink. God knew she complained about being part of such a large family, but they showed up for her and stood at her side on her worst occasions.

No questions asked. Maybe she could finally tell them the truth.

She knew she had to finally tell the Duke, he deserved to know before being shackled to her for life.

Her three sisters and brothers and brothers-in-law all partnered up; Olivia on Fitz’s arm this time, as he waved at an old school friend and introduced the young lord and his mother to Olivia.

Miss Kelley followed three paces behind Moria and the Duke with her ward holding her hand.

“I meant what I said, earlier.”

Moria turned to face him, clutching his arm. “Oh?”

“You didn’t commit any crimes here, Moria. If you were even the one responsible for that book.”

“I was, I wasn’t the only writer; but I won’t deny it. I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.”

“But why…why did you write the book, Moria? Surely it would have been easier just to burn the pages than to risk it leaking?”

She met his eyes, sensing her opening to give him a version of the truth, for good or ill.

“When I returned from mourning last season, there were all kinds of rumors…when the dancing partners and invitations dwindled, I found it hypocritical. They seemed to have no problem turning a cold shoulder to me over what they’d heard when I had witnessed worse.

The first time I used such information to recover an invitation to a ball I felt…

” She gave him a small smile, “Awful, yet proud of myself at the same time. I only had to use the information a handful of times to get what I felt I deserved, or to get myself out of situations that were not of my choosing; but I told myself information was currency, and I was never going to be a lady without such means again.”

“Do you know who has the book?” He lowered his voice, next to her, tipping his hat at some matron as they passed.

Moria looked up at him, nodding. “Thank you for answering my note, for meeting me here. I was afraid—”

He turned his head to face her, slowing his strides. “I chose you. Whatever is said about you or to you, it affects the both of us. We handle this and whatever else comes. Together,” he punctuated his words, his finger brushing over hers where she clutched his arm.

Moria leaned her head against his arm, resolving to tell him everything he didn’t know.

Olivia’s reputation and future were secure, seemingly, for another day.

She let herself feel contented for the first time in a long time walking companionably with him in Hyde Park, listening to him recount his latest parliament campaign, and watching all those they came in contact with either vying for his attention or sporting a knowing smirk.