Page 41 of Duke of Eccess (Seven Dukes of Sin #4)
Lady Auster’s gaze filled with true sadness.
“Yes, I had a brother. He was struck by lightning as a child and died screaming.” Her eyes glittered with a mixture of fear and rage.
“Right in front of me.” She gave a sob. “You are playing with God. How can anyone sane do that? Such power is not meant to be manipulated by people, and especially not by women.”
Temperance experienced a jolt of her own: a jolt of connection, empathy towards the woman she had wished to be close to, had loved once.
Until Lady Auster had betrayed her trust and become her adversary.
Temperance tried desperately to think about how to escape as she blurted out, “I’m sorry your brother died, Lady Auster, but electric fluid is not something that belongs only to God.
Humanity has been practicing controlling it for over eighty years.
I’m not doing anything but working on exciting progress.
If I don’t want a husband, it doesn’t mean I’ve lost my mind, and Papa’s money is rightfully mine as defined by his will.
He loved me and wanted me to be happy. His wish was to give me independence?—”
“See, all that nonsense again,” said Lady Auster dismissively.
“Of course you belong in an asylum. Independence!” She snorted.
“A woman’s place is by her husband’s side.
I know and love Bartholomew like my own son, and once he’s your husband, he’ll cure you of these mad ideas.
You’ll give him children, and your father’s money will stay where it belongs—with a man, a man who knows how to manage it properly. ”
Temperance was shaking. This could not be happening—this was a nightmare! “Bartholomew doesn’t know how to manage anything properly given he’s deeply in debt. How can you be the president of the Board of Trade for this country?”
Bartholomew’s upper lip curved in an expression of fury. “I couldn’t care less about being president. I only needed to get closer to you.”
Lady Auster’s mouth became a straight line.“Last chance, darling. What will it be? My nephew’s wife or the asylum?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Temperance could see that Lord Langston was preparing to drag her out of the library and likely straight through the back door of the house.
And she couldn’t win. If Octavius saw them, he’d realize she’d brought danger to his house, put his political career at risk, endangered the children he loved.
When the prime minister learned that the Duke of Eccess had been harboring the “Mad Heiress,” it would destroy his chances to be the president of the Board of Trade forever.
He’d realize how deeply she’d betrayed his trust, and there was no possibility that he’d help her. Why would he?
“Well?” Lady Auster asked as Bartholomew’s fingers dug deeper and more painfully into Temperance’s arms.
But she wouldn’t give up. Not yet.
“You think me mad for my interest in science,” she said, reaching into her pocket and retrieving the bottle of willow bark tincture. “Yet you fail to appreciate how practical such knowledge can be.”
Her mind raced. She had to improvise. She couldn’t overwhelm them with physical strength, but she could most certainly play into Lady Auster’s biggest weakness and fear.
“The line between medicine and poison is strangely thin,” Temperance said softly. “The difference…is in the dosage.”
Bartholomew’s grip loosened enough that Temperance wrenched her arm free, hurrying to stand behind the desk. “You’re bluffing,” he growled.
“My father trusted me in his laboratory for years,” Temperance continued, her thumb moving to the cork stopper.
“This mercury solution was essential for our electrical experiments—we used it in our electric machine to make the glass orb glow.” She held the bottle out for them to see, hoping her fingers wouldn’t shake.
“But mercury absorbs through skin in minutes. First your hands would tremble, then your speech would slur, then madness would truly set in.”
She uncorked the bottle, making a brave step forward. The brown color of the willow bark tincture was completely different from mercury, but they didn’t know that. All she needed was to scare them.
Temperance took a deep breath. “Ironic, isn’t it? You want to put me in an asylum for madness, but this would make you genuinely mad. Have you ever heard how mercury treatments make those sick with French pox mad? Tremors, hallucinations, talking to an empty room?”
“Even if that were mercury, you wouldn’t use it,” Bartholomew said, pressing himself against the wall in contradiction to his words. “Your high morals would never let you poison anyone.”
“My morals didn’t protect me from your abuse,” Temperance replied, raising the bottle. “Perhaps it’s time to see how mercury poisoning feels.”
She had almost reached a position where she could make a dash for the door. Could she push past Lady Auster?
“Leave her alone!” came a child’s voice.
She didn’t even hear the creak of the door but there he was: James, standing with a pistol directed straight at Bartholomew.
Bartholomew looked over his shoulder and surprise, mixed with fear, had his face slackening. “Boy, what do you think you’re doing?”
“Leave her alone,” James repeated, reminding her of Octavius so much, her heart jolted. Her brave, determined boy. James stepped closer. “Both of you, get to that corner.”
He gestured to the farthest corner of the library, and Temperance recognized the pistol as the same one he’d had in his hands when he had frightened everyone so much on St. Nicholas Day.
She should have ensured it was properly locked away, though James’s bravado and mischievous nature were now working in her favor.
“Who are you, boy?” snapped Bartholomew without moving. “Haven’t I seen you before?”
“I’m the duke’s ward, the heir to the title.”
Lady Auster raised her hands defensively. “Oh, that’s right. Didn’t you cause an incident with wine and Lord Liverpool?”
James’s gaze darkened, reminding her of Octavius yet again. He cocked the hammer. “Doesn’t mean I can’t shoot well.”
Lady Auster paled, and she and Bartholomew began backing away towards the corner as the latter said, “The future duke—look, it’s all a misunderstanding.”
With her way to the door clear, Temperance darted to James, and the boy stood straighter with her by his side as he said, “The threat of asylum or a forced marriage doesn’t sound like a misunderstanding to me.”
“So you did know your governess is not who she claims to be?” asked Lady Auster incredulously.
“I knew all along,” James lied and that protective act warmed her heart . “We all did, including the duke. Now stay here, or I will tell his grace you are threatening his governess.”
Temperance and he both backed out of the library.
He closed the door, took the nearest chair standing in the entrance hall, and pushed it against the knob.
A servant would surely move it eventually, but Temperance and James would be in safety by then.
Then the two of them climbed the stairs to the children’s bedchamber, two steps at a time.
When they were inside, Temperance locked the door with the key.
“Give that to me,” she said.
The boy gave her the pistol without a word of protest, and she put it on the highest cupboard in the room. Margaret and Sophie were sleeping.
“Please don’t tell his grace,” James whispered. “About the pistol.”
“I won’t,” Temperance said as she picked up a book and came with him to his bed. “Let me read you to sleep.” Before she began reading, she whispered to him, “Please don’t say anything to his grace.”
He looked at her and shook his head with a mischievous smile.
“Thank you,” she said with relief as she rumpled his hair.
“The Mad Heiress,” James whispered with a slight grin. “I like that so much more than the boring Miss Fields.” And the little devil winked at her!
Temperance grinned. “I only need to remain in secret until Christmas Day. Then I can claim my inheritance and it will all be over—they will have no more power over me.”
He nodded seriously, then frowned. “You won’t need us, then, after Christmas. You’ll leave us.”
The crack of pain in his voice had her throat tightening. “That was the plan, yes.”
“I understand,” James said, though his eyes clouded with sadness. “It was all too good to be true anyway, and all things that are too good to be true…they never last.”
Tears welled in Temperance’s eyes, and even though she wished she could convince him otherwise, she was quite sure herself that was the case. “If his grace will ever forgive me for lying, I would like to visit you as often as he would allow.”
“I would like that very much.”
That was when Temperance knew she couldn’t let them bully her anymore. Hunt her here, where the children were forced into danger because of her? No, never again. She’d been rejecting the idea of getting the proof that Bartholomew had stolen from her father but she was tired of running.
She had to go on the offensive now and get that proof.
Tomorrow, while they’d be out at Lord Liverpool’s dinner, she’d act.