Page 37 of My Disastrous Duchess (The Untamed Ladies #2)
“You are kind to check on me, Lord Somerton. I am feeling...” She couldn’t bring herself to lie. Instead, she moved her body slightly beneath the blanket, testing its mobility. “My body seems to be mostly functional. Let us be grateful for this small mercy.”
“A mercy, yes. But that you should find yourself in such a predicament in the first place is a travesty beyond description.” Carlisle pressed his lips together. He looked at his nephew. “I assume you told Her Grace what has been discovered.”
“If you have come to speculate, you may spare us your theories,” Alexander replied defiantly. “Margaret has been apprised of the situation. Nothing more needs to be said at this time.”
Carlisle sighed. “Something must be said, for time is of the essence. I have tried speaking with you privately for days, and yet you have eschewed my every attempt at conversation?—”
“For there were more pressing matters to attend.”
“Matters which have since been resolved. Margaret is awake, alive...” Carlisle lingered at the foot of the bed, fingers tapping against his coat sleeve.
“I am sorry, duchess, but I will not be silenced by my nephew nor anyone else. We cannot sit idly by while the likely perpetrator of this fall is allowed to travel further and further from the scene of the crime, now that you have awoken.”
Margaret craned her neck up at Alexander. He stared passionately at his uncle. Carlisle had finally gotten what he wanted. Isadore was gone, but he still wasn’t satisfied. Her heart hurt for Alexander. In that moment, he had lost a sister and an uncle, both.
“How quickly you accuse them without proof,” Alexander muttered. “We do not know where Miss Bell and Bastian have traveled, nor the thoughts that premeditated their departure. Any number of things might have happened.”
“Please...” Margaret glanced back and forth between the two men. “There is no need to argue for my sake.”
“There is a need, duchess. A most dire need,” Carlisle said again.
His eyes never left Alexander. “My nephew’s inaction in this matter must be addressed.
Not even a note from Miss Bell—an impressive display of impropriety.
Do you believe me now when I say that she is not who she claims to be?
More than a liar, she is an attempted murderer?—”
Alexander scoffed. “Carlisle, you will cease your mad guesswork at once.”
“I am guessing nothing. I am looking at the facts and drawing the only reasonable conclusions,” Carlisle said, lifting a hand.
“Miss Bell came under very unusual circumstances, and now she has left under them, too. With your friend, no less. We must determine where they have gone and force them to speak the truth.”
An uneasy silence followed, settling like a weight on Margaret’s chest.
“You are saying nothing we do not already know,” Alexander muttered.
“But you will not investigate this matter, Carlisle. No attention must be drawn to their disappearances until we know what has happened. So, unless you have any relevant information you yourself would like to part with, you will leave this room at once and allow the duchess to convalesce in peace.”
Carlisle clicked his tongue against his palate, conceding his defeat. He nodded graciously at Margaret before he left, extending the heavy silence in his wake.
“Do you suspect something?” Margaret asked after a time, not sure what to believe. “No, you could not possibly think... Carlisle could not harm anyone.”
“Before this strange turn of events, I would have agreed,” Alexander replied, eyeing the now-closed door. “But Lady Jane was right. Something is gravely wrong with Somerstead Hall. Why should my uncle alone be above my suspicion?”
The fire hissed behind the grate as the logs settled in the library hearth.
Margaret reclined on the chaise near the window, wrapped in her shawl, her body slowly healing from her fall.
It had been a week since the accident—a few days since the complete dismissal of the stable staff—and a dark shadow lingered over the manor that not even her husband’s gentle ministrations could chase away.
She glanced at Alexander, where he sat nearby, one leg hooked over the other, an open volume balanced in his hand. He looked up from the pages and caught her staring.
“Are you certain you want me to continue?” he asked, raising a brow. “You hardly seem to be listening. I can think of a great number of books more stimulating than anything written by Edward Gibbon. Allow me to fetch them instead.”
“No, you are fine right where you are. I will not feign any great interest in the Roman Empire,” Margaret admitted, smiling, “but I doubt I have the capacity to focus on anything I might genuinely enjoy for the moment. Your voice is soothing to me, and the content of the book likely to put me to sleep... So, please,” she closed her eyes teasingly, “do go on about Caracalla.”
She cracked an eye open when her husband remained silent. Alexander sighed, poorly hiding his amusement, reading a few lines before he stopped again.
“I suppose Gibbon is at least more tolerable read aloud than alone.”
Margaret tilted her head. “Are you speaking from experience? I had no idea you were so closely familiar with his work.”
“My uncle insisted I familiarize myself with all the most notable English writers of history when I was a child.” He glowered down at the open book. “I can recall half this accursed library by heart.”
“Are you trying to impress me, Your Grace?”
“No,” he replied with a laugh, his voice warmer now. “But if I did impress you, I would not shirk from your admiration in shame.”
“Hm. Tell me then. Do you believe what he writes, you who knows Gibbons most intimately? Are all great powers destined to fall in time?”
He looked at her carefully, considering her question seriously, though she hadn’t really asked it seriously. “For better or for worse, that seems to be the way of things. Not all power is great, and not all decline must be tragic. I imagine in some cases collapse comes as a relief...”
Before Margaret could say something more, the library door creaked open. They turned in tandem to where the butler stood in the frame.
“Your Grace,” he addressed Margaret first, bowing slightly, before extending a similar greeting to Alexander. But there was something odd in the way he addressed him. “Pray, forgive the interruption. Guests have arrived for you—specifically Viscountess Pembroke and Miss Eliza Pembroke.”
Margaret straightened, a ripple of unease passing through her. She glanced at Alexander. “What are they doing here?”
“I invited them,” he said, as though only just remembering that he had. “I thought you knew, but perhaps, in the chaos of the last few days, I neglected to tell you. Would you prefer them dismissed?”
“No, not at all, I...” Margaret glanced around, then rose gingerly out of her chair. Her eyes prickled with tears at his kindness. “This is a most wonderful surprise. Please show them in at once.”
The butler paused, folding his hands behind his back. “Certainly, Your Grace... But it should be made known that there is another with them who is also seeking an audience.”
“Another?” Margaret’s breath caught. “Who?”
“The Viscount Pembroke.”
Alexander stood slowly, the book slipping closed in his hand.
“My father?” Margaret whispered.
Margaret’s fingers closed tightly around the edge of her shawl, heart skipping a beat. She turned to Alexander, recalling the letter she should have burned, her eyes wide with shock...
But he did not look shocked in the slightest.