The Duchess War

“Minnie! Minnie!” Lydia’s voice.

Minnie rushed to her door. A storm had come on since the duchess’s visit and rain beat against the windows in sheets.

Minnie didn’t stop to put on slippers. She simply threw her bedroom door open and darted toward the stairs. Her friend stood in the entry, dripping water in a puddle. Her hair had fallen from its half-curls to lie in a sodden black mess at her shoulders. Her skirts and petticoats were bedraggled.

“Minnie,” she said again, before Minnie could descend the stairs to her. “Stevens is back, and you would not believe what he is saying to Papa. He’s saying—”

Minnie held a finger to her lips. “Shh.” She tilted her head to where the maid stood, watching in confusion. Don’t say anything. They might gossip.

“He’s saying,” Lydia said in hushed tones, coming up the staircase, “that you’re the author of those handbills.”

Minnie’s heart pounded in her chest. “Is he? Has he any proof?”

“He’s saying that you are a liar and a cheat—that he has proof that your mother never married, not ever, that you’re a child of sin. He’s saying your real name is Minerva Lane—”

Minnie set her hand over Lydia’s mouth. “Shh,” she repeated softly. “I know what he’s saying. No need to repeat it. Who does he think Minerva Lane is?”

Lydia frowned at the question. “Just—just some other woman. Stevens thought it was the name you were given to hide the truth of your illegitimacy.”

So. Stevens had discovered her real name—she had lived in Manchester when she was a tiny child, and someone must have remembered the connection. But he hadn’t traced her family history, or figured out why she’d taken on a new name. If he’d been looking in Manchester, he might well have missed the reason. After all, the scandal had broken in London.

“You have to come sort it all out. Stevens is talking about a warrant for your arrest.”

“For my arrest?” Minnie gasped.

“For criminal sedition. Papa has known you all these years. I don’t know how it could have happened, how he could think anything so impossible. I heard it all through the door. Minnie, you must come. Maybe if you send for the duke…”

Thunder rattled the windows, so loud that Minnie flinched.

“No,” she said swiftly. “Not him. Not him. He can’t save me.”

Stevens might not know why Minerva Lane had changed her name, but he would soon. Once that name was uttered in public, there would be no hiding her past. If Minnie married Robert, exposure would not just be a possibility. It would be a certainty. She would never be able to escape this noose around her neck. She could feel it tightening about her now.

Another clap of thunder came, long and low, vibrating through the air. Her hands trembled with it, and in the end, fear made the decision for her. She had a heartbeat to choose between ruin and betrayal, between the possibility of love and the certainty of defeat. And when it came down to it, love had served her poorly before.

“We have to leave now,” Lydia insisted. “I know you can put things right. You always do.”

Minnie knew what she had to do. She could see it already, a nightmare vision stripped of color.

“Have a horse saddled,” Minnie said to the housemaid, who still waited in the entry below.

There was only one path out of this mess, and it was going to break Minnie’s heart.

“Come, come.” Lydia tugged on her sleeve.

“Dry off a little.” Not that it would do any good, what with them venturing out again. “I need…five minutes. Five minutes to gather some papers.” Five minutes to slay two birds with one single betrayal.

She walked into her room in a daze. Slowly, she pulled out the stash of papers she’d built up. Evidence, painstakingly collected. Including the letter he’d written her.

Minnie looked straight ahead. Her heart thumped heavily, but she bundled it all up without trembling.

IT TOOK NEARLY THREE-QUARTERS OF AN HOUR for Minnie to make her way to the Charingfords’ house in the storm. By the time she arrived, Minnie’s skirts were dripping and her hair was no doubt a tangled, sodden mess. But there was no time to waste with anything so frivolous as drying. As soon as Lydia escorted her inside, she threw the parlor doors open and walked inside.

“Miss Pursling!” Mr. Charingford exclaimed, jumping to his feet.

Stevens slowly stood, folding his arms in disapproval. His eyes slid over Minnie, fell on Lydia behind her, and then shifted away. “Miss Charingford,” he said icily. His gaze shifted back to Minnie.

“Tell them,” Lydia said behind her. “Tell them the truth.”

Stevens shifted to look at Minnie. “You, I presume, are Miss Minerva Lane.”

She had known it was coming. Her stomach lurched, even so, at hearing her old name spoken aloud, seeing the look in Stevens’s eyes. Lights flashed in front of her vision.

It is nothing. You are nothing. It can’t touch you here.

“Correct,” Minnie said.

Behind her, Lydia let out a gasp. But Minnie couldn’t look back. She couldn’t bear to see her friend’s face now.

“So, you’re a bastard. What else have you been hiding?”

Minnie held up a hand. “I am a great many things,” she said quietly. “But there is one accusation that will not hold. I am not, nor have I ever been, a writer of seditious handbills.”

“Lies,” Stevens growled.

Minnie met Mr. Charingford’s eyes. “I have never been involved—and all the proof points to another man.”

Stevens shook a finger at her. “More lies.”

But Mr. Charingford stepped forward. “Are you sure?” he asked. “Because, Minnie, as little as I would like to think of you in this way, I know what you can do.”

He didn’t look at his daughter as he spoke, but Minnie knew he was thinking of that long-ago afternoon when she’d explained what needed to be done to safeguard Lydia’s reputation.

She ignored him. “I shall prove it.”

All her emotions seemed distant—a light stuffed away under a metal hood, shining brightly where nobody could see it. She was dark and calm. She was nothing inside.

“Who do you claim is responsible?” Charingford asked. “Grantham? Peters?”

She opened the fabric sack at her side. She’d wrapped the contents first in waxed paper, then in oilcloth; they were only a little damp when she pulled them out.