Page 23 of A Tale of Two Dukes

Richard was frowning over the pile of documents on his desk by candlelight when his chamber door opened and he turned to see who had interrupted him.

There was an art to covering up sensitive material from the gaze of others without appearing to do so, and he had mastered it. That, and not looking guilty.

He’d expected a maid with a warming pan, but it was Viola, and she was distraught.

Her lovely face was white, and she was trembling.

The fact that she’d come to his bedchamber without any thought of concealment already told him something was very wrong, but her face and demeanour said that whatever it was, it must be quite disastrous.

‘My love, what’s the matter?’ he asked, going to her side and shutting and locking the door behind her before he took her hand in his.

She was struggling hard to regain her composure.

He drew her to sit in the chair by the fire and put his glass of brandy in her grasp.

Without looking at it, she drained it, then fell to coughing.

When at last she could speak, she said dazedly, ‘I was just looking for my book… I’d never have known anything about it if I hadn’t been looking for my book. It was Evelina .’

‘Go on,’ he said. He didn’t think she could hear him, so great was her distress, but he hoped his tone would be encouraging and soothing.

‘I found it in the small chamber between the dining room and the blue saloon. The one with the window seat – you know it?’

He nodded; he’d used to hide from his bullying brother in the easily overlooked little space when he was a small boy.

‘I didn’t leave it there, but I suppose one of the servants… It doesn’t matter in the slightest. I had picked it up and was turning to go, but I heard Lord Marchett talking to Edward, and I had to stay and listen, because he was talking about us.’

Richard was conscious of a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. And then, apparently a little recovered, she turned on him unexpectedly in a peculiar sort of cold fury. ‘Tell me you didn’t know,’ she said stonily. ‘Swear to me that you were not a party to this… to this foulness.’

He had not the least idea what she was talking about, and told her so.

His face must have convinced her of his honesty – he was a good liar, his life demanded it, but on this occasion, he happened to be telling the truth – because she said, ‘I see you were as ignorant as I was. Thank God for that, at least. It’s almost unbelievable…

In the first place, Marchett warned Edward about us.

Said that it was obvious to him that we were about to become lovers, if we weren’t already. ’

Richard cursed, but she went on regardless, ‘He pressed the point, and at last Edward said that he knew. He knew! Oh, but he wasn’t angry.

He was perfectly calm. Because it’s exactly what he wants.

I think – he didn’t exactly say so, but it’s been dawning on me – I think he planned it.

Our closeness. That’s why he invited you here, and why he’s left us alone so much.

He was deliberately throwing us together. ’

‘For what purpose?’ He was beginning to suspect that he knew, but it was best to have all the information that might be got from what she had overheard. This sort of thing was his life, after all, when it was other people’s secrets at stake rather than his own.

‘For the purpose of you…’ Her voice cracked and she had to take a couple of deep breaths before she could speak again. ‘For the purpose of you getting me in farrow .’

‘He said that?’

‘He used those very words. “At least the child would be an Armstrong,” he said. And if he was lucky – he said that too – a son. He was quite calm about it. Lord Marchett was not. He was appalled.’

‘I cannot wonder at it,’ he said, pouring a little more brandy and tossing it down, then yet more, which he passed to her.

She held the glass between her hands and looked away from him, into the depths of the fire.

‘I don’t know why I should be so shocked.

It’s not as though I ever thought he loved me, or even cared for me a little.

He never pretended to. He told Lord Marchett I was of little consequence, but I already knew he felt that; it shows every day in the way he treats me.

And I need not be self-pitying about it, because I don’t love him either, or even like him now.

The strongest emotion I have ever felt towards him was pity, and that left me months ago.

I always knew he just wanted me for my supposed fertility.

But this… Lord Marchett said he was pimping me out to you, and that’s quite right, isn’t it?

I thought for a horrible moment that you knew, that you were colluding… ’

‘No,’ he said quickly. ‘No. I swear on my mother’s grave, I had no idea. You know I tried to talk to him about you, about the way he neglects you. What a fool I was. He must have been laughing at me all the while.’

‘Laughing, mentally rubbing his hands because his plan was working and you were beginning to be interested in me, just as he had hoped. I could hate him now, Richard, now that the shock is wearing off. I think I do hate him.’

‘I cannot wonder at it. I would never have believed such a thing of my cousin if anybody but you had told me. You have not been unfaithful to him, and I have not betrayed his friendship. Kissing is not infidelity, or, if it is, it is a small form of treason, because you have not given away anything he valued or wanted. He has no use for your kisses, or your precious affection, or anything that makes you the person that you are.’

‘No. No, it seems to me that he has betrayed us, if anything,’ she said, looking back at him with dark, tragic eyes.

‘Your friendship, and my wedding vows. I meant them when I said them, for though I did not love him, I earnestly hoped that I could one day; I don’t know what he was thinking.

This, maybe, even then? Which is revolting.

Despicable. I was only seventeen, and he stood in a church with me, and lied.

He told Lord Marchett a moment ago that you and I were bound to make love sooner or later – though of course, he did not call it that.

I don’t know if that’s true, if we would have. I’ll never know now.’

‘What will you do? What should we do?’

She said slowly, ‘Much as I hate to lose you, I must think you should leave. I don’t see how you can stay here, knowing how the cousin you once respected so much has tried to manipulate you and make use of you, for his own selfish purposes.’

He shifted uncomfortably, unable to deny her logic but reluctant to admit it. ‘I don’t want to abandon you to him. You told me you felt as though you were going mad. The situation is worse now, and surely unendurable for you.’

‘Then take me with you.’