The Duchess War

“Minnie, is everything all right?”

Lydia’s worried voice brought her firmly back to the present. No shouts. No riot. No crowd.

Not yet, at any rate. And maybe…

“I’m well,” she said slowly. “Just…thinking.”

It would take Stevens at least a week to uncover the truth—if he even recognized what he was looking at when he saw it. And Minnie had the duke’s letter. That, along with everything else she had come up with, would prove that she hadn’t been involved.

Lydia watched her carefully. “What was it you wanted to talk with me about?”

Minnie sighed, and looked over at her friend. “At the W.H.C. the other day, Doctor Grantham asked to see you.”

Lydia’s nose went up a notch. “So?”

“So…he wanted to see you.” Although he might have only said it to tweak Stevens. “He’s handsome and young. I rather like him.”

“I don’t,” Lydia said flatly. “He was working with Doctor Parwine when it happened. And ever since then he’s looked at me in the most knowing way.”

“He looks at everyone that way,” Minnie said. “I think he can’t help it.”

“And he’s so sarcastic.”

“He’s sarcastic with everyone.”

Lydia looked away. “I don’t like to remember, and he makes me remember. Every time I laugh, he looks at me, judging me for my frivolity. I can’t stand being around him.”

“I had no notion,” Minnie said, moving over to sit beside her friend.

“I work so hard for my frivolity.” Lydia’s hands were shaking. “How dare he judge me for it!”

Only Minnie knew the truth of that.

“I know sometimes you think I’m not serious enough. That I dream too much. That I should be more rational.” Lydia sniffed.

“I don’t think that.”

“Only the tragedies are great,” Lydia said. “Melancholy is wisdom. Suffering is strength.”

“Lydia…”

“Some people would think me weak, because I was seduced by an older man.”

Minnie looked around—but the room was clear, and her friend spoke in a low voice.

“Because I didn’t know he was married. Because I didn’t truly understand what was happening. Some people would think that I was weak because I asked you for help.”

“I don’t.” Lydia had come to Minnie, and Minnie had figured everything out—how to get Lydia away from the public eye for the term of her pregnancy, how to make the journey seem respectable so that nobody talked. It had required only a little strategizing—and at that point, Minnie had been happy to have something to do.

Lydia threw a stack of handbills on the fire and waited until they caught in flames. “Some people would think I was weak because I cried when I miscarried. And they would think you foolish for holding me and saying it would be all right. But most of all, they would think I was foolish because I learned to smile again. They think you are useless because you do not wear silks and ribbons, because one has to listen carefully to catch what you say. And those people don’t know anything.”

Does nobody see you, Miss Pursling? The Duke of Clermont’s words drifted back to her.

Yes, Minnie wanted to answer. Yes. Someone does.

“Just once,” Lydia said, “I want everyone to see you as I do.”

Minnie shook her head, folding her arms around her. “No. No. I don’t want them to look. I can’t bear it if they look.”

“Well, maybe not everyone.” Lydia gave her a sly smile. “But what about—”

Minnie let out a breath. “Don’t say his name.”

“—the Duke of Clermont,” Lydia finished. “And that’s his title, not his name, so don’t glare at me so. He’s involved in your latest strategy, isn’t he?”

“Of course he isn’t,” Minnie said, but her friend just grinned.

“I want you to have a chance,” Lydia said. “I want everyone here to know how badly they’ve misjudged you, imagining you as quiet and biddable. I want them to understand what I know so well. That you have a loving heart and a clever mind.”

Minnie sniffed, looking away. “That only happens in fairy stories. Real girls do better with large dowries and flaxen hair.”

“And what I hate most is that we can never tell anyone my proof of how wonderful you are. But I still believe that the truth of you will come out. That one day, everyone will know you as I do.”

“And you think they would like what they saw?”

Lydia nodded firmly. “I know they would.”

There was nothing naïve about Lydia’s optimism. She’d won it fair and square, and even Minnie couldn’t rob her of it. Odd, that Lydia could be so firm in her vision of the future, and Minnie could see nothing.

She turned her head. “As it turns out, I do have something else on that front I should tell you. Doctor Grantham wanted me to invite you to come along and put up handbills with me and Marybeth Peters.”

Lydia’s eyes drifted to the crumpled piece of paper she’d just thrown on the fire.

“Not those kinds of handbills,” Minnie said with a smile she didn’t quite feel. “Boring ones—about smallpox and disinfectant.”

“And Doctor Grantham will be there?”

“No.” Minnie gave her another smile she didn’t feel. “That’s the part you’ll find so interesting. Someone else volunteered in his stead, and you’ll never guess who.”

“Fool.” Lydia squeezed her hand. “I already know. Was it like a fairy tale? Minnie, pining in distress—wait, you’d never do that. Minnie, pinching the bridge of her nose while the idiotic men argued, wondering how she was going to get them all to do what she wished.” Lydia smiled. “And then, the Prince of Wales stepped into the room!”

Minnie burst into laughter.

“Oh, very well,” Lydia said. “That would be unlikely, I suppose. Besides, he’s married, and I’d hate to imagine him unfaithful to Princess Alexandra. So instead, I’m going to guess it was the Duke of Clermont. He swept in, took one look at your bosom, and claimed you for his own.”

“Well…”

Lydia pointed at her. “I knew it. You should see the way he looks at you.”

Minnie tried not to, but she could call it to mind without any reminder whatsoever. Her cheeks warmed.