Page 19 of Stolen by the Cruel Duke (Dangerous Dukes #1)
Chapter Nineteen
“ W ell, well, well, what do we have here?”
Lord Carfield stepped into the room, and the moment he did, a cold breeze seemed to follow him in, chilling Iris to the bones. Her father’s presence was large and looming, like a shadow falling across them all, and she had to do everything in her power to keep herself from shrinking back in fear. Now was not the moment to let him intimidate her.
“Lord Carfield!” she heard Mr. Hargrove murmur. “What are you doing here?”
But her father wasn’t looking at the solicitor. Nor was he looking at her. His eyes were fixed, instead, on her mother.
“Bridget…” he murmured, and his voice sounded like a prayer, if Iris could believe that her father had ever prayed.
“Jebediah,” Lady Carfield replied, much more frostily.
She stood up straighter, jutted her chin, and narrowed her eyes. There was an icy power to her that seemed to radiate throughout the room, and Iris wondered how her father could bear to keep looking at her with such an arrogant sneer on his face.
“We meet again.”
“What has it been?” Lord Carfield asked, pretending to count on his fingers. “Eight, nine years?”
“Ten,” his wife replied.
“Ahh, yes. How time flies… I never thought I’d see you again. It is pleasant, indeed, to be wrong.”
Lady Carfield didn’t respond, but no one in the room had any doubt, from the look on her face, that she did not find it pleasant.
“What are you doing here, Father?” Iris asked, her voice snapping like a whip through the room.
Lord Carfield’s eyes flicked to hers, and the simpering sneer vanished, replaced by deep dislike. “Why, I am stopping you from trying to tarnish my good name,” he said, as if this were painfully obvious—which, Iris grudgingly admitted, it was. “As amusing as it is to see so many women mobilized for my downfall, I’m afraid that the jig is up.”
“What does that mean?” Iris snarled.
“It means that I know what you’re up to,” Lord Carfield said smoothly. “You cannot possibly get away with this. You do know that, don’t you? You are mere women, and I am the Viscount Carfield. Whatever evidence you think you have, I have five lawyers who will find a way to discredit it or declare it inadmissible. I have money, I have power, and I have a reputation as an honest businessman. What will your word matter against mine?”
“It won’t just be our word,” Iris snapped, her temper rising. “Phineas is also on our side!”
“Is he?” Lord Carfield looked amused. “Or is he at his club right now, drinking his sorrows away, and falling right back into the pit of despair that got him into this mess in the first place, when he originally signed the land over to me?”
“That’s a lie!” Iris yelled. “He never signed away the land.”
“Anyway,” Lord Carfield continued, “will he really be so quick to jump to your aid? The last I heard, he had left you after accusing you of spying on him at my request. What makes you think that he will come running to you now?”
“It won’t matter if he doesn’t trust me now,” Iris said.
But despite the conviction in her voice, she wasn’t entirely certain. Was it possible that Phineas wouldn’t help them if he still believed in her guilt? And where was he? How could he have stayed away for days, instead of coming home to her?
Even if he suspected me of helping Father, doesn’t he at least know that I love him? S houldn’t he at least believe that I would only continue to help Father out of fear for my sisters?
“He’ll know what we’ve done soon enough,” she forced herself to add, swallowing her doubts, “and he will want to help ensure that you end up behind bars. Then it will be him against you, and no one is going to take the side of a viscount over that of a duke.”
The Viscount’s lips twisted—in anger or amusement, Iris couldn’t tell—as he stared down at her. “That’s very loyal of you to believe, my dear, but you forget that this particular Duke has made it his business to alienate every member of the ton. He is known for his cruelty, for his ruthlessness, and for his unrelenting vendetta against every respectable businessman in London. No one is going to take his side after he has spent a lifetime of not being on their side.”
Iris wasn’t sure if this was true, but she didn’t exactly know how to refute it either. It was possible there was some truth in it. The Duke had been known for trying to take down powerful members of the ton, and people might believe Lord Carfield was just another on his hit list. Which he was… but if they knew the truth, they’d understand why.
Her father continued, “I don’t think we will have to let it get that far. I am sure that Mr. Hargrove here has no desire to notarize and sign documents that spread salacious lies about a member of the peerage, do you, Mr. Hargrove?”
As one, every person in the room turned to look at the solicitor, who blanched under the stare of so many people.
“I-I am deeply concerned by any accusation of dishonesty,” he mumbled, stuttering over his words. “However, if the lady wants to make a statement, that is her right to do so…”
“Is it, though?” Lord Carfield took another step forward into the room. “Lady Carfield is my wife, and if I say she cannot sign a document accusing me of grievous—and most untrue—crimes, then I believe she does not have the right to do so.”
Mr. Hargrove licked his lips nervously, just as Iris felt her stomach drop.
Is that true?
She turned to look at her mother. Lady Carfield looked similarly unsure, but she set her jaw and flashed a warning look at Iris that seemed to say, Give nothing away.
“If Lady Carfield wishes to make a statement, there is no legal requirement that she get permission from her husband,” Mr. Hargrove stated.
“But if I order my wife home, then there is the requirement that she obey me, is there not?”
Mr. Hargrove pushed his glasses up his nose, which was beginning to sweat. “Technically, yes… a husband is entitled to his wife’s body if no formal separation has been declared.”
Iris gasped, and Lady Carfield shot her another warning glare.
Turning to Lady Carfield, the Viscount’s eyes seemed to glitter with malice. “Then I would like to insist that my wife accompany me back to my home,” he purred. “Unless, of course, she refuses to sign this despicable document.”
“Don’t listen to him, Mother!” Iris cried, banging her fist down hard on the desk, startling everyone. “Once he is arrested, he won’t be able to order you around anymore!”
“It will take several days for this flimsy piece of evidence to be brought before a judge,” Lord Carfield continued as if he hadn’t heard her, “who is the only person who can issue a warrant allowing the Bow Street Runners to make an arrest. That is if the judge is foolish enough to believe such things. But I’m sure there are not many who would, especially considering how friendly I am with the judges of our fine legal system…”
Friendly …
Iris inwardly scoffed. So the judges were on his payroll as well.
“And in those few days, I am sure that there would be plenty of time for Bridget and me to… get reacquainted.”
“What are you threatening to do to her?” Iris hissed through gritted teeth, but she had a feeling she already knew.
Her father had already proven he was a killer. What would stop him from disposing of Lady Carfield and her witness statement, should he force her to return home with him? The thought filled Iris with sick dread. And then another thought came to mind—Violet and Rosalie! He could also threaten to kill them if Lady Carfield didn’t go home with him.
But she knew, deep in her heart, that her mother was the one he wanted dead. Iris knew it because Lady Carfield, and her signature, had the power to ruin him forever. And she knew it from the look of pure venom on his face. Lady Carfield had left him, after all, humiliating him in front of the ton. If there was anyone that Iris thought her father might hate more than her, it was her mother.
His next words only confirmed this theory.
“Oh, how I have longed for this day,” he murmured, taking another step towards her mother. He seemed to be in a trance, his eyes fixed unblinkingly on her. “All these years, I waited for you to return to me, biding my time, knowing that if I forced you at the wrong moment, I would lose the opportunity to turn it to my advantage. I knew where you were, of course. I kept tabs on you, had you followed, ensured that you never saw your daughters or were able to contact them. Of course, when you tried, I read the letters before I burned them. But still, throughout all that time, knowing where you were and what you did, I never forced you to return to me.
“In that way, I have been generous to you. I very easily could have forced you to return home to care for the children and husband you abandoned. Did you know it’s legal for a husband to sue his wife for leaving him and depriving him of someone to manage his home?” He laughed, as if this were amusing. “But no, I never did that. Instead, I waited, patiently, for the right moment, for an opportunity to both thwart your plans against me and get my beloved wife back under my roof.”
“Beloved wife?” The disgust on Lady Carfield’s face and in her voice was palpable. “You have never thought of me as your beloved wife for even a moment! From the very first day of our marriage, you proved to be nothing but a cruel, vindictive man without an ounce of love or care in your heart!”
“How can you say that, my dear?” The Viscount’s smile was so twisted and terrible that Iris felt her stomach lurch in disgust. “I have always valued you highly.”
Lady Carfield tossed her head, her eyes sparkling with rage. “You valued me for the one thing you value women for—producing heirs! Even before you realized I would never give you one, you treated me with contempt, telling me how incapable I was of running your house, that I was not elegant or beautiful enough, that you only married me for my dowry. The only time the string of abuse ever let up was when I was with child. Even then, your care only extended to my physical comforts, never to my emotional well-being. And each time I birthed a girl, you greeted the news with even more hatred for me. You never valued me, My Lord. Maybe you might have if I had borne a son. But I am glad I did not, because it taught me your true character—a man who only values women for breeding.”
The look on Lord Carfield’s face had soured. “Well, what else are women good for?” he growled. “You were brought up to serve your husband and give him heirs, and you couldn’t even do that!” He looked around at Iris, the contempt on his face growing. “Three daughters! It is an unimaginable crime to give your husband only daughters and no heir! And you wonder why I didn’t cherish you.”
“An unimaginable crime is the one you committed!” Lady Carfield exclaimed. “And which you forced me to partake in. No, I will not say forced, for you never explicitly made me sign the bill of sale. But throughout years of making me feel small, of telling me what a disappointment I was to you and how much you despised me, you made it impossible to advocate for myself and my daughters. I was beaten down.”
“Beaten down!” Lord Carfield scoffed. “You were born to a man whose father had been in trade and who had married up when he ran off with the daughter of a minor landowner. Marrying me was the best thing that ever happened to you! I elevated you! I gave you a place in Society. Without me, you would never have been able to move in the most exclusive circles in the land. Yes, I can be severe. I expect nothing but perfection from those who have the honor to bear my name. But you should have been grateful to me.”
Lady Carfield shook her head. “Well, I’m grateful for my daughters, but other than that, I have never felt an ounce of gratitude toward you. Except perhaps that you were so abominable that even children could sense it, and chose to grow up as different from you as was possible. For that, yes, I am grateful.”
“You witch!” Lord Carfield shouted. “I should have sued you for everything you’re worth years ago and had you locked away in a poorhouse!”
“Perhaps you should have,” Lady Carfield agreed. “Because now it’s too late. I am finally my own person, and I finally know what I am worth. And I will no longer allow you to mistreat me or our daughters. Nor will I allow you to get away with your crimes. I am signing this document, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.”
“Mother,” Iris interjected, and Lady Carfield turned to face her, “if you sign this, he will force you to return home. He will ki?—”
“I am doing this, Iris,” Lady Carfield said, laying a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “And no one can stop me. It is past time that I redeem myself in your eyes, in the eyes of the Lord, and most importantly, in my own eyes. So that when I meet my maker, I can go to see Him with my head held high.”
And with that, she strode across the room, grabbed the quill from the desk, dipped it into the inkpot, and signed her name across the paper.
A deafening silence fell over the room as Iris, Anna, Mr. Hargrove, and Lord Carfield all stared at Lady Carfield. Iris was in shock, and simultaneous emotions were crashing through her—awe at her mother’s bravery, worry that she’d made a dangerous mistake, and hope that maybe, at last, her father might be punished for his crimes.
“You will pay for this,” Lord Carfield spoke into the silence. “You and your daughters will pay for this.”
“I think you’ll find,” a voice suddenly said from behind them, “that the only one who is about to pay for their crimes is you.”
Once more, Iris found herself turning towards the door to see the newcomer. But this time, it wasn’t dread that filled her stomach, it was elation. Because standing in the doorway was her husband, and he looked as if nothing on earth could stop him.