The Duchess War

“And will you do it?”

He paused and looked her in the eyes. “This no longer just involves me.”

She looked up at him. When had she begun to trust him? Why had he let her?

“Who else does it involve?” she asked.

“My mother, for one.” He shut his eyes, not able to look at her as he told the first lie. “If I explain everything, I must publicly disclose my relation to Oliver. The truth would embarrass my mother—he was conceived scarcely a few months after her marriage—and it would humiliate Oliver’s parents. Oliver himself…well, it wouldn’t hurt him to be known as a duke’s son.”

“I see,” she said slowly.

“It’s worse than you think. You see, it’s no longer about the trial itself, but the public account of it. If I just asserted that he was my brother, some people would always believe that I said it just to save him from the conviction for the sake of friendship. He’d not be exonerated. But…imagine that, for the sake of verisimilitude, I was to announce the truth of his parentage with my mother in the room. How do you suppose she might react?”

“I… Well. The duchess—dowager duchess, I mean—she’s strong as flint. But just as brittle.”

“She would probably turn white. She might stand up and leave. And that reaction, more than anything, would give the assertion the stamp of veracity. I could drive her into reacting.” He looked over at her. “It would humiliate her, but it might save my brother.”

“Perhaps, if she knows it’s coming—”

“When she knows what is coming, she can steel herself not to react. If she knew it was coming, likely she wouldn’t even attend.” He looked at her. “I am sure that I can convincingly make the case for Oliver’s innocence. But to do it, I might have to sacrifice—forever—any peace I might make with my mother. Tell me, Minnie. Is it worth it?”

She was silent for a long time, looking in his eyes. He buried the truth deep, deep, so that she would not hear what he had not said.

“And you’d do that?” she finally asked. “Lose all hope of your mother, for your brother’s sake?”

“My father—” The words came out hoarsely. He shut his eyes. It was his only chance to explain it to her, even if she did not yet know what she was hearing.

“No,” she said. “You don’t have to answer. On the scale of things, we are weighing your mother’s humiliation against your brother’s future. Your brother must come first.”

She put her arms around him. Her touch burned. He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve her. He shrugged her off, stood, and went to stand a few paces away.

“It’s more than that,” he said softly. “It isn’t just the fact that my father forced himself on his mother. It isn’t that he tried to have her sent off, that he refused to acknowledge the child, that he failed to provide anything except the barest modicum of support. It isn’t just that my actions put him in a stinking cell tonight.” He clenched his fists. “I’ve tried to choose everything my father was not. And so I can’t. I can’t leave my brother alone in this. I can’t risk his conviction, and I won’t stand by while I have breath to save him.”

“No, Robert,” she said. “Of course you won’t.” She ran her hand along his cheek. “You have too much to do to waste your energy on regrets now. Do what you must.”

There was no way to escape his regrets, looking down at her. It didn’t make it any better, that he’d received her tacit approval. In some ways, it made that knotting in his gut feel worse.

She smiled up at him. “Now, what can I do to help?”

His heart almost broke as he looked down at her.

“You can make sure my mother is in the courtroom on the day of the trial,” he said slowly. “Sit with her, and make sure she is there when I speak.”

Because if Minnie brought the duchess…she would be there herself.

No time for regrets now.

Still, he felt them piercing his skin like silent splinters as she smiled at him. “You can trust me,” she promised.

And he’d done it. He’d fooled his wife.

ROBERT RETURNED TO HIS BROTHER’S CELL at ten the next morning. The money that he’d handed the gaoler the night before had already made a difference. The top half of the cell door had been opened, showing heavy iron bars behind. The cell itself had been scrubbed out, and Oliver had been given water to wash with.

There was still an unmistakable stench to the holding room, but at least now it was only toe-curling and not enough to actually trigger gagging.

“I had a good talk with the lawyers this morning,” Oliver said cheerfully. “My parents are out having breakfast, but they’ll be back soon.”

“Then I won’t take long,” Robert said.

A hint of confusion flashed over his brother’s face, but Robert bulled ahead and told him what he’d learned on the previous night—about the substance of Lord Green’s testimony, about the quote from a volume of chess strategy.

Oliver leaned back against the cell wall. “Come to think of it,” he said, “that is a good point. I didn’t recognize the quote. Where did you ever hear the term discovered attack? You never played chess.”

Robert drew a deep breath. “Do you know who Minerva Lane is? Or Maximilian Lane, I suppose.”

Oliver gave a surprised little huff and leaned forward. “Maximilian Lane? Of course I know who he—who she is. She’s famous in the annals of chess. Or infamous, I suppose. I’ve studied her games, you know. They were recorded during…” He broke off and looked Robert in the eye. “You’re joking,” he said. “Never tell me that your Minnie is Minerva Lane.”

“Uh.” Robert shrugged. “As it happens…yes.”

“That’s how you knew.”

Another nod. “Stevens knows her real name, but he hasn’t uncovered her past.”

“I see.” Oliver took two paces to the edge of his cell and turned around. “Of course she’s hiding who she is. She’d be ruined if everyone knew.” He didn’t say anything—didn’t ask whether Robert would expose his wife’s past. He didn’t beg him to do it. Oliver would never ask for such a thing. But he took hold of the bars of his cell and squeezed until his knuckles turned white. “What a mess.”