The Duchess War (The Brothers Sinister)

by Courtney Milan

  The entire night was conspiring to destroy her. Her best friend’s fiancé thought she was engaging in sedition, and the Duke of Bloody Clermont could ruin her with a single word. That for her treacherous imagination. That for moonlit paths. That for even a moment’s contemplation of romance. Dreams failed, and when they fled, they left reality all the colder.

  His Grace met her eyes just before Minnie took her leave. And once again, he gave her that sheepish smile. This time, she knew what it meant.

  She was nothing. He had everything. And for what little it was worth, he was embarrassed by his own strength.

  THE CARRIAGE SWAYED, NOT SMOOTHLY, but in harsh back-and-forth jerks. Once, Minnie supposed, the springs had been new, and every bump in the road back to her great-aunts’ farm would not have been magnified into teeth-jarring jolts. But funds were scarce, and repairs were a luxury, one that her great-aunts could ill afford.

  Her Great-Aunt Caroline sat on the bench across from Minnie, her cane poised over her knee. Next to her sat Elizabeth, less stooped but far more gray. They could not have looked more different if they had been picked from a crowd. Caro was tall and plump, while Eliza was short and angular. Caro’s hair was sleek and dark, with only a few gray strands; Eliza’s once-blond hair had become white and frizzled.

  At their age, they should have been resting at home by the fire on a cold November night, not gallivanting out to attend musical evenings. But they had come with her, and now they wore twin expressions of grim dissatisfaction.

  In the dark of night, shielded from the view of the man who drove the carriage, they’d joined hands for comfort.

  And, as she always did, Minnie was about to make everything worse.

  “Great-Aunt Caro. Great-Aunt Eliza.” Her voice was quiet in the velvet night, almost overwhelmed by the rattle of the wheels. “There’s something I have to tell you. It’s about Captain Stevens.”

  The two women exchanged a long, lingering glance. “We know,” Great-Aunt Caro said. “We were wondering whether to mention it to you.”

  “He’s looking into my past.”

  The two women exchanged another slow look. But Caro was the one who eventually spoke. “It’s a setback, to be sure, but we’ve weathered worse setbacks before.”

  Minnie shook her head. “He knows. Or he will. Soon. I don’t know what to do.”

  Eliza reached over and patted Minnie on the knee. “You’re panicking,” she said softly. “Never panic; it tells others that something is wrong. Just remember, the truth is too outlandish to be considered. Nobody will ever guess.”

  Minnie took a deep gulp of air, and then another.

  “But—”

  “In order to uncover the truth,” Eliza said, “he’d have to ask the right questions. And trust me, my dear. Nobody, but nobody, is ever going to ask whether your father passed you off as a boy for the first twelve years of your life.”

  “Still, he only needs to suspect—”

  “Stop. Minnie. Breathe. Working yourself into a state won’t accomplish anything.”

  Easy for them to say. With her eyes shut, she could almost see the mob closing around her, harsh discordant shouts emanating from faces twisted by anger…

  “It’s nothing,” Eliza said, awkwardly rearranging herself in the carriage so that she sat next to Minnie. She put her hand on Minnie’s shoulder. “It’s nothing. It’s nothing.” With each repetition, she smoothed Minnie’s hair. Each whisper brought greater calm, until Minnie could curb her rising panic. She locked that memory back in the past where it belonged, held it there until her vision stopped swimming and her breath returned to a regular cadence.

  “That’s better,” Eliza said. “We’ll handle this. Stevens spoke to me as well. He thinks you’re lying to us—he suggested, in fact, that you might not be who you claimed, that you were taking advantage of our kindness.”

  “Oh, God.” Minnie put her head in her hands.

  “No, no,” Caro said. “This story is easier to combat, because it is so clearly false. There’s no need for us to even lie. I said that I’d been there the day you were born, that I promised your mother on her deathbed that I would see to your wellbeing, and that I didn’t appreciate his poking his nose in where it didn’t belong. When I told him that there was no way that you were some cuckoo thrust into our nest unawares, he believed me.” Caro gave a sharp nod. “He knows you’re my great-niece—no question about that. He suspects that something is not quite right, but I’ve made him very uncertain. He won’t do anything.”

  “But I’m not.” Minnie gulped for air. “I’m not your great-niece. I’m—”

  Caro reached out her cane and rapped Minnie smartly on the leg. “Don’t you speak like that. You know how it is.”

  She did. For as long as Minnie could remember, she’d called both Caro and Eliza great-aunt, even though Eliza was her only blood relation. Almost fifty years ago, the two women had gone to finishing school together. They’d come out in London society at the same time. And when they failed to find men that they loved after a handful of Seasons, they had refused to marry for convenience. Instead, they’d retired together to the small farm that Caro owned just outside of Leicester—friends and spinsters for the remainder of their lives. They were as close as sisters. Closer, Minnie suspected.

  “Don’t you worry,” Eliza said. “I did promise your mother. We both did.” Her voice shook. “I failed her once, to my great shame. Never again.”

  Minnie reached up and touched the scar on her cheek. When she was a child, she’d thought herself invulnerable. Other people might falter and fail, but she could not. The very brazenness of what she’d achieved was matched only by how far she’d fallen after. She could still remember lying in the dark, not knowing if she’d have the use of her eye again. That was when her great-aunts had come for her.

  “If you come with us,” Caro had told her, “you’ll have a chance.”

  They had offered not the glittering, glamorous life that most young girls dreamed about. If she came with her great-aunts, she could expect a frugal life. An assumed name. She’d have a few years of childhood, followed by a little time to meet the local men in town. She might marry and have children. There would be no fame, no adulation. They could provide her only one benefit: a future without angry mobs.

  Her great-aunts had sacrificed so much to give her that bare, gray chance. They’d scraped pennies so that she could have a respectable wardrobe once she was old enough to go out in mixed company. They never complained, but Minnie knew why there was no sugar in their tea. She knew why they’d—regretfully—let their subscription to the lending library lapse. They’d sacrificed every comfort of their old age for Minnie.

  And she didn’t even have the grace to want what they had so generously won for her.

  “Maybe,” she suggested, “maybe if we tell Captain Stevens the truth…”

  Her great-aunts stared at her in dismay. “Minnie,” Eliza said slowly. “Darling. After all this time! You know you must never do that.”

  Caro picked up where Eliza had left off. “These rules we made for you—they’re not intended to be strictures. Or punishments. We made them because we love you. Because we want you to have a future. Isn’t Walter Gardley sweet on you? Because if you could catch him, and marry him quickly…that might be a good idea.”

  “Yes,” Caro echoed, nodding. “That would be a very good idea. All Stevens’s wild imaginings will lose force once you’re married to a distiller’s son. Then it would be your own livelihood at stake should the workers organize. Marriage would secure not only your future, but your credentials.”

  Nothing she hadn’t thought to herself before.

  She’d known what a coup it was to get even that. For a girl with no dowry and only middling looks, any man was a catch. Even if he wanted her because he thought she would suffer his boorish behavior in silence. And yet she couldn’t muster even the smallest iota of enthusiasm over the prospect.

  “I heard him talking,”
Minnie choked out. “He said I was a mouse—that I’d keep my peace while he took a mistress.”

  Caro and Eliza looked at one another.

  “You don’t have to marry him,” Eliza said slowly. “Of course you don’t, if it will make you unhappy. But before you refuse, please consider what your other choices would be. I might counsel you to wait.” That was said with a dubious frown, one that said a second, preferable proposal was unlikely to come as Minnie aged. “If there’s the smallest chance that Stevens might hit on the truth…” She trailed off.

  She didn’t need to voice the words. If the truth came out, there wouldn’t be another offer.

  Minnie hadn’t lied to the Duke of Clermont. Gardley was the best she could hope for—a man who knew only that she grew quiet in crowds. A man who preferred her quiet. He hadn’t bothered to discover a single thing about her: her favorite color, her favorite food. But then, it would be safer to marry a man who wanted to know nothing of her.

  Miss Wilhelmina Pursling would be pathetically grateful to Gardley for an offer of marriage. But Minerva Lane, on the other hand…

  “He doesn’t even know who I am,” she said. “He called me a little rodent. Minerva Lane was never a rodent.”

  “Don’t say that name.” Eliza’s voice was quiet but alarmed. Her hand pressed against Minnie’s knees, clutching.

  “Keep quiet,” Caro said. “It never does to speak the truth.”

  Keep quiet. Don’t panic. Never tell anyone the truth. She’d lived with their rules for twelve years, and for what? So that she might one day be so lucky as to be forgotten entirely.

  The memory of Minerva Lane—of who she’d been, what she’d done—felt like a hot coal covered in cold ashes. It smoldered on long after the fire had been doused. Sometimes, all that heat rose up in her until she felt the need to shriek like a teapot. Until she wanted to burn the mousy shreds of her tattered personality.

  It rose up in her now, that fiery rebellion.

  The part of her that was still Minerva—the part that hadn’t been ground to smoothness—whispered temptation in her ear. You don’t need to keep quiet. You need a strategy.

  No strategies. Her great-aunts really would protest, if they knew that she contemplated taking action. It had been years since she’d allowed herself to do so.

  Stevens thinks you’re writing the pamphlets. You know you’re not. So find out who’s doing it.

  Stupid. Foolish. Idiotic. Impossible.

  But it didn’t matter how she browbeat herself; the insidious thought wouldn’t leave. How could she find out who’d done it? It could be anyone.

  No, it can’t. You know it’s not Captain Stevens. Not your great-aunts. Not yourself. If she could figure out who couldn’t have done it, only the guilty would remain. By process of elimination…

  No, you fool. There are hundreds that could be to blame. Thousands.

  But having given herself a task, it was nearly impossible to shut down her thoughts. There were those block-letter capitals, the exclamation points. Paragraphs of text, describing the factory owners and their offspring. Something was odd there.

  And then, for some reason, she thought about something else entirely. Minnie knew why she had been hiding behind the davenport. She’d been avoiding the crowds and Gardley’s proposal.

  But why on earth had the Duke of Clermont been there?

  ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE!!!!

  And how strange was that smile of his—that friendly smile, slightly abashed? When would a duke ever have learned to apologize for being what he was?

  No, there was definitely something odd there. Something…

  The realization hit her with a force so blinding that the carriage almost seemed to disappear in a flash of light.

  Moments like these were one of the reasons it had been so lovely to be Minerva Lane. There were times when it felt like words were mere threads, completely inadequate to contain the enormity of her thoughts. The landscape in her head rearranged with tectonic vigor, coming together with a certainty that was larger than her ability to explain.

  And like that, even though she knew she shouldn’t—even though she knew how dangerous it was to strategize—Minnie knew what she needed to do. The plan fell into her lap with full force.

  It was not the kind of thing that the rodent-like Miss Pursling would consider. But Minerva Lane, now—she knew what to do.

  And thank God, she wasn’t going to have to marry Walter Gardley immediately.

  Maybe one day she would. But if she could keep Stevens from suspecting her, she might be able to put him off for months. And maybe—just maybe—something better would come along.

  Chapter Three

  IT WAS ALMOST UNFAIR, MINNIE THOUGHT as the Duke of Clermont entered his front parlor, how handsome he was. The morning sunlight streaming in through the windows bounced off light blond hair that would have been too long, had it not had a bit of an unruly curl to it. He stopped on the threshold and rubbed his hand through his hair as he contemplated her, mussing it even further. But whatever softness the disarray of his hair might have imparted to his appearance was countered by his eyes. They were sharp and cold, a piercing blue, like a creek flooded with icy spring waters. Those eyes landed on her and rested for a few seconds, and then darted to Lydia, who stood by her side.

  Lydia had giggled when she heard that Minnie intended to call on the Duke of Clermont—and she hadn’t batted an eyelash when Minnie had explained that she needed to talk to him privately.

  It was only in Minnie’s imagination that the duke’s gaze sliced through the façade that she presented to the rest of the world. He only looked as if he knew everything.

  He couldn’t have known anything, because as he looked at her, he smiled in something like pleasure. Just a little curl to his mouth, but there was also a subtle change to his eyes—a shift from the pale blue of ice-water to the slightly-less-pale blue of a light summer sky.

  There was something boyish about his good looks: a hint of shyness in his smile, a leanness to his frame. Or maybe it was the way that he looked away from her so quickly and then glanced back.

  If she hadn’t heard Packerly, the MP, talking last night, extolling the young duke’s efforts in Parliament, she’d have believed him a fraud. Handsome, young, and unassuming? Far too good to be true. Dukes in reality were paunchy, old, and demanding.

  “Miss Pursling,” he said. “This is an unexpected pleasure.”

  Unexpected, she believed. Pleasure…well, he’d recant that before they were done.

  “Your Grace,” Minnie said.

  He briefly took her hand in his—through their gloves, she had a sensation of warmth—and inclined his head to her.

  “Miss Charingford.” Clermont bowed over her friend’s hand as if she were the grandest lady. As he did, Lydia cast a sidelong look at Minnie and pressed her lips together as if suppressing the urge to giggle.

  “What brings you ladies here?” he asked.

  Lydia cast a speaking glance at Minnie, waiting to have all revealed.

  “If anyone asks,” Minnie said, “we’ve come to solicit donations for the Workers’ Hygiene Commission.” She held her breath, wondering how astute he was.

  The duke pondered this for a few moments. “I consider myself solicited,” he said. “I’ll be sure to make an appropriate donation, if you’ll leave the particulars. As for the rest… If this is about last night, you can rest assured that I am the soul of discretion.”

  Astute enough.

  Lydia raised an eyebrow at the implication that they’d talked before and Minnie shook her head. “No, Your Grace. There’s something else I must discuss with you. I’m afraid that Miss Charingford has come along as chaperone, but what I must say is not for her ears.”

  “True,” Lydia said cheerfully. “I have no idea what any of this is about.”

  “I see.” His smile faded to guarded coolness. No doubt he was imagining something lurid and scandalous—some plot to entrap him into marriage
. He was a good-looking duke with a reasonable fortune; he likely encountered such plots on a regular basis. But he didn’t throw her out. Instead, he rubbed his chin and looked about the room.

  “Well. If you’re capable of conversing quietly, Miss Charingford can sit here.” He gestured to a chair by the door. “We’ll leave the door open, and we can arrange ourselves by the window. She’ll be able to see everything, ensure propriety, and hear nothing.”

  He held out the chair for Lydia. He acted the perfect gentleman, his manners so uncontrived that she almost doubted her own instincts. He rang a bell—tea on two trays, he said, when a servant ducked her head in. While they were waiting, he set one hand in the small of Minnie’s back and walked her to the window. It was the tiniest point of contact—just the warmth of his hand against her spine, muted by layers of fabric—yet still she felt it all the way to the pulse that jumped at her throat.

  It was so unfair she could scream. He was rich, handsome, and able to set her heart beating with a mere tap of his finger. She was here to blackmail the man, not to flirt with him. Out the front window, she could see the square outside.

  Squares were less common in Leicester than London. This one was badly kept. There was one tree, so spindly it was scarcely fit to be called by the name. The grass had long since perished, giving way to gray gravel. But then, this was one of the few neighborhoods in Leicester where there were squares.

  The most successful tradesmen made their homes a short ways down the London road in Stoneygate. The gentry lived on great tracts of land on estates in the surrounding countryside. Everyone with real wealth and position made their homes outside the town.

  But the duke had not. Minnie fingered the paper in her pocket and added that to the list of strange things about the man. When dukes came to the region, they situated themselves in Quorn or Melton-Mowbray for the fox hunts. He, however, had leased a residence that stood mere blocks from the factories.

  “How may I be of assistance?” he asked.

  There was too much that didn’t fit. He was lying. He had to be. She just didn’t know why. A chessboard was set up on the side table. She tried not to look at it, tried not to feel the inevitable tug. But…