The Duchess War (The Brothers Sinister) (24 page)

“I can’t marry you,” she said. “How could I be a duchess?”

“It’s easy,” he said. “You say yes. I get my lawyers to draw up the settlements. That will take three or four days, and by then, the special license will have arrived.”

Oh, God. His version of marriage started with attorneys. If she’d needed proof of how far apart they stood, how different were the worlds in which they lived…

His hand rested on hers, and every muscle in her body came to a standstill—her lungs ceased to draw air; her mouth froze half-open. And her fingers—well, she didn’t dare move her fingers, not one inch. Only her heart continued to pound in her chest, one staccato beat after another.

“After that,” he said, “I get to take you to bed.”

That, at least, was the same. Despite herself, Minnie smiled.

He drew his thumb along the side of her hand in a caress. “What am I going to do with you, Minnie?” he asked idly.

She jerked her hand away, her heart stinging with some emotion she couldn’t identify. “Stop. Stop doing anything.”

He tilted his head toward her. His profile was crisp and perfect. The lamplight kissed the tip of his nose, and Minnie felt an irrational surge of jealousy—that the light could touch him so indiscriminately, and she could hardly withstand the pressure of his fingertips.

“Your Grace,” she said distinctly, “I must be more clear. I told you there was something in my past. Something I didn’t want to come to light.”

He didn’t stop toying with her hand. “I can guess what you’re about to say,” he said mildly. “And I really don’t give a fig about that.”

Minnie’s palms had begun to sweat. She was beginning to feel the first stirrings of nausea. It had been so long since she told anyone, so long since she’d said the words aloud.

“Until I was twelve years old—” She was beginning to tremble, and he sat up and looked at her with concern. There was nothing for it but to get it out quickly. “Until I was twelve years old,” she said in a rush, “my father dressed me in trousers and introduced me to everyone as a boy.”

He blinked, his eyes widening in surprise. “I was…definitely not going to guess that.”

“It came out, of course,” she said. “It came out badly.” She rubbed her hands together, trying to stop them from shaking. “All of London knew. It was in the papers. That mob I told you about? They were after me. Wanting to punish me for daring to pretend so much. For being so unnatural.”

“Huh.” He had a small frown on his face as he looked at her. His eyes traveled over her, as if seeing her again, this time as a thing that had not come out right. Maybe he had read about the scandal at the time. Maybe he was trying to recall details. Maybe he’d been part of the crowd, part of the group throwing rocks.

No. Not that. He hadn’t let go of her hand, and she couldn’t imagine him hurling stones at anyone, let alone a child.

“It was so bad that I had to give up my life entirely. I changed my name. I was born Minerva Lane. When I was…when I was pretending, my father called me Maximilian.”

“Huh,” he repeated. His jaw moved, but he didn’t speak.

“Say something,” she said. “Say anything at all. You didn’t know when you proposed marriage. I won’t fault you for walking away.” She looked up into his eyes. “Just say
something.”

He searched her face for a moment, and then shrugged. “Did you like being a boy?”

“I—well.” It was not a question she’d ever been asked, and it startled her out of her fear. “It was all I really knew at first. The deception started when I was so young. I didn’t think anything of it.” She sighed. “I hated lying, though. All the pretenses to avoid removing clothing around others. I hated that a great deal. And when I was twelve, I started to fancy one of my friends. That was…deeply awkward.”

“I should say.” He blinked at her. “This explains a great deal about you.”

“I had to learn to be a girl again, afterward. How to walk. How to talk. So many little things to do wrong. It was just…easier to be small and quiet. I couldn’t make any mistakes that way.”

“It makes me think I should have a very long talk with you about the appropriate subjects for female education,” he said with a sudden smile. “After we’re married.”

“You’re not being serious. Your Grace, I’m a scandal waiting to happen.”

“Minnie, I want to abolish the peerage. I write radical pamphlets in secret. I am not going to shriek, ‘Oh, no! A scandal!’ and run away. I don’t mind scandal.”

Minnie looked him in the eyes. “But I do, Your Grace. I do.”

The door rattled once, then again. A few moments later, after some more extremely loud fumbling with the handle, Lydia opened the door. She came in carrying a pitcher of water.

“That,” Minnie said, “must be water fetched all the way from Bath. Did you walk there yourself or take the train?”

Lydia gave her a cheeky grin. “Well? Is everything settled?”

“My question exactly.” Robert raised an eyebrow.

And Minnie found she couldn’t answer. She wanted him. She
liked
him. If he’d been any other man, she’d have taken him. But marrying him would put her in front of not just a few people, but the entire country. And with him at her side, they would all be looking. She felt ill just thinking about it.

She looked away. “I need more time.”

“Time? Time for what?” Lydia demanded.

But Robert held up his hand. “Then have it,” he said. “Think it through from all angles. Consider your strategies, if you must, and advance your supply lines. Whatever it is you must do to feel secure.” He flashed her a smile, a confident smile. A smile that said he knew she wouldn’t turn him down.

“Take your time,” he said, stepping closer to her and leaning in. “And in the end, Minnie, take me.”

Chapter Sixteen

R
OBERT SHOULD HAVE GUESSED
what the gossip would bring, but the next morning’s visitor still came as a surprise. He was on the verge of going out—had just stepped outside his door, in fact—when a carriage drew up in front of the house. A servant leaped from the back and placed a stool on the pavement.

The door opened, and his mother disembarked. Her eyes landed on Robert. She didn’t frown. She didn’t squint. In fact, the duchess did not show any emotion at all. Instead, she simply stepped onto the pavement and floated up the steps.

“Clermont,” she said in greeting.

He inclined his head a half inch. “Duchess.”

She swept in the open door as if he were holding it for her. Without asking permission, she accosted a passing maid and ordered tea. He followed in bemusement. Two minutes later, she’d seated herself in his front parlor. She waved her own maid away and faced him.

“I take it,” she said, “that you haven’t made a general practice of debauching genteel young women of the middle class.”

She said the words
middle class
as if they smelled of rotten eggs.

“You are referring to the events of last night?” he said, matching her tone. “I make it a habit to ruin a pair before tea. I find the anticipation makes the morning hours pass with delightful alacrity.”

She sniffed. “That is the sort of joke your father would have made.”

Robert’s hand clenched in his glove. “No,” he said. “That is the sort of thing my father would have
done.
He would never have joked about it, not in mixed company.”

She waved a hand in acknowledgment. “This is not the first I have heard your name coupled with that of Miss Pursling. Tell me you are not considering anything untoward.”

“I don’t see why you should care. You never have.”

The Duchess of Clermont simply shrugged. “Your actions, such as they are, reflect on me.”

Of course. She wasn’t taking an interest in him; she never had. She was simply seeing to her own reputation, worrying about the difficulties that he might cause her. He’d waited his entire life for her to notice him.

He’d studied hard when he first went to school, earning praise from all his tutors. He’d written her in excitement, hoping that she’d read his letter, that he would have done enough to make her proud.

But his first letter had received no response. So he’d tried harder. If he was not just good, but
great…
Surely then his mother would be proud of him. So he’d studied harder, tried more, achieved even more. He’d written her again after four months, shyly placing his accomplishments before her.

The post had brought an endless round of nothing.

Undaunted, he’d tried harder. He’d sent his third letter at the end of the year, informing her that he’d been first in his class. For a week that summer, he’d held his breath every day when the post arrived. For a week, he’d been disappointed.

And then, one day, he’d received a one-line response.

Tell your father that this strategy won’t work, either.

It had been a matter of principle to continue on as he had before—to prove that all that effort hadn’t been for
her.
Even so, it had taken him years to break the habit of hoping.

“Well?” she said, studying him now. “What is it that you intend with the girl?”

Robert stared across the room. “I believe,” he said slowly, “that a son ought to defer to his mother. To answer her queries, because he owes her respect for the years of care she has given.”

Her whole form tensed.

“I’m feeling generous. I shall answer one question for every month you spent in my company as a child.”

He looked over at her. Her lips thinned. Her fingers tapped an angry rhythm against her saucer.

Robert stood up. “As you are no doubt aware,” he said, “that leaves you with no questions at all. This interview is done.”

And so saying, he stood and left the room.

A
PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE,
M
INNIE REALIZED,
shouldn’t make her feel ill. Especially when she actually liked the man. But she couldn’t argue with the truth of her body. Her stomach cramped just thinking about what marriage to him would mean. It wasn’t a falsehood when she told her great-aunts the next morning that she needed to lie down.

She’d promised to consider the advantages of his proposal, but all attempts to do so were swept away by visions of angry faces surrounding her. “Fraud!” they yelled, and “Devil’s spawn!” Duchesses attracted crowds. Duchesses attended parties. Duchesses didn’t faint when too many people looked at them. If they did, they’d always be collapsing.

She could imagine the private portion of their relationship all too well. Her skin burned with the hope of that. They had too many kisses between them now for her to pretend she didn’t want him. But while she might have done well as Robert’s lover, the thought of being a duke’s wife made her feel ill. And eventually, any private understanding they might have would be overshadowed by the inevitable public disaster.

Her reverie was interrupted in the afternoon by the clatter of wheels on the drive. She propped herself up on one elbow so that she could see out the window and watched in bemusement as four matching dark horses drew up in front of her great-aunts’ cottage. A servant jumped off the back, opening the carriage door, setting down a stool upholstered in bright colors. And the Duchess of Clermont stepped out. She looked around in every direction, her nose upturned. No doubt taking in the cabbage fields beyond the house, the paint peeling off the barn to the left, the rust on the hinges…all the signs of poverty waiting just on the edge of vision.

She wore a pale pink gown, frothed with lace at the cuffs and hems as if she were a fancy cake in a baker’s window. The duchess shook her head as if to dispel the commonplace sight of the house before her and swept up the walk. One of her servants glided before her and sounded the knocker.

It was starting already. The crowds. The dubious looks. The recrimination.

Minnie was hardly surprised when Great-Aunt Caro came to see her a few minutes later.

“Minnie,” she said in awed tones, “I know you’re feeling poorly, but the Duchess of Clermont most particularly wishes to see you. Shall I send her away?”

Obviously, the duchess had heard the news from her son.

“No,” Minnie said. “I had better see her.”