Page 17 of Stolen by the Cruel Duke (Dangerous Dukes #1)

Chapter Seventeen

“ I never thought I’d step foot in here again,” Iris said as she stared up at the front door of her father’s townhouse. “After he banned me from entering any of his properties, I assumed I’d seen the last of this place.”

Anna, who was standing beside her, looked at her nervously. “Are you sure you want to go in, Your Grace?”

“Yes.” Iris squared her shoulders. “I have to do this. For my mother, for my sisters, and for Phineas.”

And for myself .

With a determination that she didn’t fully feel, Iris stepped forward and knocked firmly on the door.

Several long seconds passed, and then the door swung open. Mr. Jones, the butler, blinked at her.

“Your—Your Grace!” he stuttered, his eyes widening. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to see my father,” Iris declared, drawing herself up as tall as she could and flashing the butler her most imperious look.

“But—” Mr. Jones looked nervously over his shoulder, then lowered his voice. “His Lordship has forbidden you entry into his home.”

“Believe me,” Iris said, stepping forward so that she was halfway across the doorstep, “he wants to hear what I have to say.”

Mr. Jones hesitated, as if he couldn’t make up his mind about what to do next. Iris could see him considering his options. She even felt a little guilty. Mr. Jones’s job could be on the line if he let her into the house. And her father had probably given him permission to throw her out of it if she tried to enter. But she knew that the kindly, aging butler would not dare to harm her.

And she was right, because after several more tense seconds, he relented and stood aside. Iris smiled with satisfaction and swept into the hall, Anna following close behind her.

“I’ll go get His Lordship,” Mr. Jones murmured, and he practically flew out of the hall.

The moment he had disappeared into the interior of the house, Iris turned to Anna. “Go now,” she whispered. “This might be our only chance.”

Anna nodded, then hurried up the stairs. She had just disappeared around the corner when a door at the end of the hallway flew open and her father strode out, looking irate.

“I thought I told you that you were never allowed to step foot on my property again!” he shouted as he barreled toward her.

His face was red with anger, and his eyes seemed to be bugging out of his head. Iris felt a grim satisfaction at knowing that so far, the plan was working. Her father was so distracted by her presence that he would not stop to consider if she’d come alone, and if not, where her maid might be.

“I meant all of my properties,” he snarled as he came to a stop just inches away from her. “Including this one.”

“I was well aware of what you meant,” Iris said coolly. Even with him raging and so close to her, she didn’t feel afraid. She knew what he was capable of, but all her fear had evaporated. In its place was cold contempt. “But I felt this was important.”

“You should know I’ve already sent Jones to fetch the Bow Street Runners,” he warned, spittle flying from his mouth and landing on her cheeks. With as much dignity as possible, she wiped it away.

“If anyone should call the Bow Street Runners, it’s me. I know what you did.”

“Oh?” The Viscount raised an eyebrow. “And what’s that?”

“You hired ruffians to ransack and rob the Duke’s house. My house.”

Her father sneered. “Yes, I heard about the break-in. I trust nothing important was taken?”

“Just some… precious items,” she replied, watching his face for a reaction. He gave none.

“I’m sorry to hear that. But if you’ve come here with empty accusations of my involvement, then I have no time for you. You have no evidence that I did such a thing. Your husband has many enemies, and any number of them could have staged a robbery.”

Iris rolled her eyes. At the same time, her father’s mouth opened slightly. In all her years, she had never rolled her eyes at her father—or done anything so disobedient and unladylike—and it was worth it for the shock on his face.

“I know it was you,” she affirmed. “But I didn’t come here to argue the point.”

Lord Carfield folded his hands in front of his chest. “Then why did you come here?”

“I came here to make a deal with you.”

Her father blinked. She’d caught him off guard, she knew, and she relished the momentary confusion that flickered across his face. He took a step back and surveyed her, his eyes crawling up and down her frame as if looking for some secret that might be hidden in her person.

“Why would I make a deal with you, when I am, so far, winning in my battle against you and your husband?”

“Are you winning, though?” Iris smiled serenely. “Because, as I’m sure you know, I recently reconnected with my mother. And she had some very interesting things to tell me.”

“Such as?”

“Such as the fact that you had the late Duke and Duchess of Eavestone murdered.”

There was a beat, during which the hall seemed to ring with the weight of her accusation. Her father continued to gaze at her, a calculating expression on his face. At last, he shifted.

“What a preposterous accusation,” he said smoothly. “I’m assuming your mother has evidence proving this?”

“Yes, she does,” Iris lied.

She kept her cool, her eyes wide and innocent, but she could feel sweat beading on the back of her neck.

“Oh?” Her father seemed wholly unconcerned. “And what exactly does she have?”

“A letter, from you to the man you hired, detailing your crime.”

The Viscount smiled. It was a cold, cruel smile. “That isn’t possible, as I never sent any letter to the man who killed the late Duke of Eavestone.”

“It is possible, and I have the letter.”

Her father narrowed his eyes. “And here I thought that such precious items had been stolen from the Duke’s residence.”

“The one that was stolen was a copy,” Iris said with a shrug. “Not the original.”

For a split second, her father’s facade cracked, and the briefest hint of doubt flashed across his face. Then it was gone, replaced by cool indifference.

“If that were true,” he countered, “then you wouldn’t be here telling me about it. You’d be using it to try and ruin me.”

“Well, that’s why I’m here.” Iris squared her shoulders again and raised her chin in defiance. “I am ready to give you back the original letter if you help me.”

Her father stared at her. “Help you?” he repeated.

“Yes.” Iris took a deep breath. “After our home was ransacked, His Grace—who believes as I do that you were responsible— decided I must still be working with you to spy on him. He accused me of betraying him, of working with you to take everything from him. No matter what I said, I could not convince him otherwise.”

Tears sprang to her eyes, and she wiped them hurriedly away. Her father’s eyes followed the motion with interest. “He left me right then and there, and I do not believe he will be back. After everything he has been through in this life, he doesn’t trust easily. And now his trust in me is broken.”

Her father tutted impatiently. “And what does this have to do with me?”

“You were right,” Iris said, “about our connection. We have grown close. I… I love him. And I would do anything to earn his love again.”

Lord Carfield stilled. “Anything?”

“Yes, anything. Including giving you back the original letter.”

A beat passed, during which Iris held her breath. Then her father shook his head. “But no such letter exists, since I did not commit this crime,” he maintained, although he didn’t sound as convincing as before.

“Regardless,” Iris said with a shrug, “I would give you back the letter, and you could safeguard it and ensure that no one ever sees it if you tell my husband that I am not working with you. Prove it to him.”

“And how would I do that?”

“You’d find a way.” Iris snorted. “You always find a way.”

“You’re bluffing,” her father said slowly. “If such a letter existed, why wouldn’t you simply show it to the authorities in order to prove your loyalty to your husband? Why give it back to me, with no guarantee I could convince your husband of your innocence? Why not just ruin me once and for all?”

“For my mother’s sake,” Iris replied at once. “She could have gone to the authorities years ago with the letter, but she chose not to. And why not? Because it shows her own complicity in the murder. She witnessed the forged bill of sale, and it wouldn’t be hard for a prosecutor to argue she was also involved in the murder.

“She knows all this, which is why she has kept your secret. Not just out of fear for her own freedom, but out of fear that if both your reputations were ruined, her daughters’ reputations would be tarnished as well. And I want to protect her, as well as my sisters. Which is why I would prefer to deal with you directly, rather than involve the Crown.”

“And all this… in exchange for me telling your husband you weren’t spying on him for me?”

“In exchange for convincing him,” Iris insisted.

Lord Carfield drummed his fingers on his leg. He looked thoughtful, but not wholly convinced. “Of course, there is no legitimate letter,” he began slowly. “But I suppose your mother could have forged such a document. In which case, it would be helpful to make sure she doesn’t distribute it and try to ruin me.”

“Then you’ll do it?”

“I’ll think about it,” he snapped.

Just then, a knock sounded at the door, and Mr. Jones scurried out of wherever he’d been eavesdropping to answer it. He pulled it open, and in walked the Constable who had come to Eavestone House after the robbery. He looked surprised as he surveyed the scene.

“Your Lordship,” he said, bowing low, “you said you needed help removing a trespasser?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Lord Carfield replied smoothly, looking at Iris. “Her Grace was just leaving. Isn’t that so, Iris?”

“It is,” Iris confirmed. “My lady’s maid accompanied me here. I sent her to the kitchen. Mr. Jones, would you please tell her we are leaving?”

Mr. Jones nodded and left the room.

Several moments passed, during which no one looked at each other. Then Mr. Jones and Anna emerged from the kitchen. Anna briefly glanced at the Viscount, but he didn’t so much as look at her. Iris tried to act natural. There was no reason for her father to suspect his spy of doing anything other than going to the kitchen to see her old friends, right?

After a brief nod to Mr. Jones and the Constable, Iris turned and swept past the Constable and out of her father’s house for what she hoped was the last time.

Lord Carfield stood still for a long moment after his daughter left, listening to the echo of the slammed door bouncing through the hallway and then slowly fading to nothing. At last, he went to the window and drew the curtains. He couldn’t see any sign of Iris outside, but he checked for a moment or two before finally turning and making his way up to his study, ignoring the bumbling inquiries of the Constable, whom he left standing alone in the hall.

Once he was in his study, he went straight to his desk. On top of it was a small bronze statue of an eagle. He twisted the right wing of the eagle, until it unscrewed, revealing a small hollow inside the bronze. From this, he pulled out a silver key.

Turning, he grabbed the edge of the large portrait of himself that hung above his desk and pulled forward. Instead of falling off the wall, the portrait swung outward, revealing a small space in which a safe was hidden. Inserting the key into the safe, he clicked open the lock.

Inside was a bundle of documents. He retrieved them and spread the papers out on his desk, rifling through them until he found the one he was looking for—a letter that he had written to the man he’d hired to rob and kill his old friend and nemesis, the late Duke of Eavestone, along with his wife.

Lord Carfield raised the letter to the light and squinted at it. The ink was faded, but there was no doubt that it had been written in his hand. He would recognize his penmanship and signature anywhere. There was no way that this was a forgery. No one could replicate his handwriting so well.

Lord Carfield sat down slowly, continuing to stare at the letter, thinking hard. If this wasn’t a forgery, then that meant it was the original. And if it was the original, then his daughter had nothing to threaten him with. It was as he had expected. She had been…

“Lying,” he murmured out loud to the room. “But then, what is she playing at? Why lie about having the original, when she knows I would be able to tell if it was a fake?”

It wouldn’t be right to say that Lord Carfield was scared of his daughter, but she had certainly proved to be more serious a foe than he had anticipated. Her marriage to the Duke of Eavestone had made her more willful than he had realized it would. The Duke’s arrogance had rubbed off on her, undoubtedly. And he didn’t like not knowing why she had lied to him. Lord Carfield couldn’t see what her endgame was, and that unnerved him. He had never suspected his daughter of being able to outwit someone, let alone himself.

“It must be one of Eavestone’s plots,” he muttered. “But what is he trying to do?”

No one answered him. He was speaking out loud to himself, after all, and he was alone in the room.

Or so he thought.

As he carefully folded up the papers and locked them securely back in the safe, he didn’t notice the slight sway of the long, velvet curtains that he always kept closed over the windows. Even if he had, he would have thought nothing of it.

And he never would have suspected that peeking out from a small crack in the curtains was his middle daughter, Violet, who had been informed by Anna of Iris’s plan and had just had time to hide away in her father’s study and discover exactly where he kept the key to his safe.