The Duchess War

“Can’t be bothered…” he repeated in a stunned voice. He looked at her. He turned and looked at the half-packed trunks, at the pile of cravats the footman had abandoned on a chest of drawers.

“I just…” His voice was soft and tired. “I don’t understand. I hurt you. I knew I was going to do it, and I did it anyway. How can I make that right? I can’t tell you not to be angry. You should be angry. You deserve to be angry.”

This was the man whose mother had walked away from him as a child. This was the man whose father had seen him as nothing more than a tool to extract money from other pockets. Robert had forgiven Minnie for her earlier deception. But he had so little expectation of forgiveness for himself that he couldn’t even ask for it.

Minnie reached out and took his hand. “Do you know why I am furious? Because you would rather leave than try to make our marriage work.”

He searched her eyes. “I…”

“I know. You don’t want to fight. But fights don’t destroy a marriage. Not making up does.”

He swallowed. “You want to fight?”

“Yes. And I want you to say that you were terribly, desperately, sordidly wrong.”

He flinched. “I was. I know I was.”

“I want to believe you when you apologize. I want to know in my soul that you would never do anything to hurt me. I want you to promise me that next time this happens, you’ll come talk to me first, and we’ll decide what to do together.”

He was looking at her, his head cocked.

“And then, when you’ve done all that, I want to forgive you.” Her eyes filled with tears.

“But why do you want to do all that?”

“Because I love you,” she said. “I love you. I love you.”

He let out a deep breath. “You’re certain?” he said quietly.

She nodded.

“I see,” he said. And then, without saying another word, he walked out of the room.

Chapter Twenty-seven

MINNIE STARED AT THE DOOR where Robert had exited, her mind a whirl of confusion. Why had he left? Where was he going? What was she to do?

She went to the window to see if he was leaving the house entirely, took one look outside, and stepped back with a gasp. There was a small crowd encamped on their doorstep, a throng of hats in shades of brown and black forming a half circle almost three deep. One man looked up, saw her, pointed—

Minnie jumped back, her heart pounding.

If he’d gone out, she wouldn’t even be able to follow after him.

She turned back to his room. A newspaper lay on a chest of drawers. She unfolded it curiously and discovered that it had been printed this afternoon. It couldn’t have been more than a half hour old.

Duke of Clermont Authors Handbills, the headline proclaimed. In smaller type underneath, the subtitle read: Duchess Is Former Chess Champion.

She read that again, shaking her head at how bland it felt. “Well,” she finally murmured. “I suppose ‘Duchess is former fraud who dressed as boy and deceived hundreds’ wouldn’t fit. Three cheers for restricted paper size.”

The article itself was surprisingly evenhanded. The worst accusations she’d weathered in the past—monster, cheat, unnatural devil’s spawn—were absent. Her past was summarized in a short, factual paragraph. It was shocking, no doubt, but time had blunted the power and charisma of her father’s words.

Mr. Lane claimed the entire scheme was his daughter’s idea, but no evidence was ever found to support the assertion that a twelve-year-old child had been involved in the fraudulent endeavor.

She felt as if she’d opened a door on what she believed was a towering monster, only to find it five inches tall. There were things one might say about the child of a criminal. One didn’t say those things about a duke’s wife.

The account of today’s trial seemed equally strange.

Reading about her own collapse was a decidedly odd experience. It felt as if she were observing her emotions from a distance. She could hear the gasps of those around her in the courtroom, but now she understood them as surprise, not condemnation. She could see herself go pale, without her own skin going clammy, her breath cycling dangerously swiftly.

It allowed her to see what happened afterward, too. She’d fallen into a dead faint. A man near her had spat at her—and when he had, the dowager duchess had smacked him over the head with her umbrella. She’d glared at everyone else who threatened to close in, keeping them at bay.

Robert had leaped over three benches—surely that had to be an exaggeration—to reach her.

When the duke brought his wife out of the courtroom, he deigned to answer a few questions. He affirmed that he was aware of his wife’s identity on their marriage—a claim that seems unassailable in light of the marriage registry, which names his wife as Minerva Lane. His Grace explained his choice of bride as follows: “Why would I take a conventional wife, when I could have an extraordinary one?”

Minnie set the paper down and shut her eyes. Her eyes stung with prickling tears. She could hear him in that quote—could imagine the roll of his eyes, the look of annoyance he’d cast at them. Her body had the memory of being held, even if her mind did not.

She wasn’t sure what any of it meant, but she was sure of one thing.

He was coming back.

She read on in the paper. The article was only a few columns long. A related note mentioned that after the trial, Captain George Stevens had been taken into custody and charged with accepting bribes in exchange for performing his official duty. Minnie smiled wanly. Good.

The door opened. Robert stood in the hall, a book clutched to his chest. He met her eyes, his expression wary.

“You’ll have to excuse me if I make a hash of this,” he said quietly. “But I’ve never done it before.”

“What are you doing?”

In answer, he walked into the room and laid the leather-bound volume on the chest of drawers near her.

It was the primer she’d bought him the other day. “I…” He looked down and then looked up at her. “I decided what these letters stood for,” he told her. “I thought I might tell you.”

It took her a moment to realize that he was nervous. He glanced at her sidelong and opened the book to the first page.

“A,” he said, “is for all the ways I love you.”

That fierce prickle of tears stung her eyes with renewed force. She blinked, unwilling to let them cloud her vision. She wanted to see him, to make out the details of his pale, tousled hair, the way he bit his lip.