The Most Dangerous Duke in London

by Madeline Hunter

  When the butler at Kengrove Abbey packed all of this, he had begun with the most recent papers and worked backward through time. That meant the oldest material had been on top, and Adam’s examination had moved forward through the years. If he did not sift through quickly, it was because each letter revealed something about his father. Even the reports from the stewards opened little windows.

  The most interesting items had been letters from his mother, written before they married. Sent from France, she reported on the mood abroad in her country and expressed her concerns. Not love letters as such, they read as warm and affectionate communications between friends. He had set those aside to give to her when next he saw her.

  He sat behind the boxes and removed a big stack from one of the last ones. Within ten minutes he realized that he had before him the papers from the last year of his father’s life. There were a lot, and many letters from other lords. He unfolded each one and read it.

  In some, people begged off a party his mother had planned. In others, peers pointedly set aside the rumors and wrote on about bills to be discussed. The tone began changing, however. One man wrote to break their friendship. Another bluntly referred to the smell of treason. Then for several months, there were no letters at all.

  Finally he found the reason why. A long letter in a fine hand began with regrets over the difficulties an old friend faced. However, it then gently gave bad news. Marwood sent a man to France, unbeknownst to anyone, I assure you. No minister approved this mission, and more than one is angry for the interference and the earl’s insistence on stirring once again this cauldron of innuendo. Unfortunately his man found the pawnshop at which the jewels were sold and retrieved a description that, along with the pawnkeeper’s explanation of their heritage as given to him, ties them directly to you. It is all around town, and I beg you to remain in Surrey until the worst passes. I regret that I must inform you of this, but you need to know. It is time, old friend, to discover what you can about these events so you are not impugned for others’ actions. It was signed Brentworth.

  It touched him that the last Brentworth had remained a friend to the end and even assumed the rumors were untrue despite new evidence to the contrary. The last sentence loomed large, however. If not you, then who?

  There was only one other possible who. The most likely who. Had his father asked her and learned that indeed she had done it? Had he chosen a path to ensure she would never be asked, by him or anyone else?

  Adam stared blindly at the letter a long time. The revelations in it emptied him out until only a dark hollow existed in his heart. He had assumed he would find proof the accusations had all been wrong. As for the who—

  “What do you have there that makes you frown so seriously?”

  He looked up. Clara stood just inside the door. A ribbon bound her hair at her nape. She wore the banyan and, he guessed, nothing else. It was much too large, and the sleeves covered her hands. The bottom pooled around her feet. If any servants had seen her, she would never know it. They all had orders to fade away if the lady visited.

  Her eyes held naughty lights that said she wanted to play. They faded, one by one, as she gazed at him. She walked to the end of the table and looked at the pile of papers in front of him. “Your father’s papers.”

  “I am going through the last group.” He set the stack back in the box. “I will bring these with me to London and finish there.”

  “What was that you were reading, Adam? You looked far away and almost lost.”

  He looked down on that letter, not even folded again now. “It was a letter he received that explained what he faced.” He held out his hand. “Come along. I will have breakfast sent up to my chambers.”

  She did not take his hand but instead kept looking at that box. “Have you learned anything from them?”

  “A few things, yes.”

  “Did you learn that my father played a role?”

  He wanted to lie, desperately. Had she asked an hour before or an hour later, he probably could have. “Yes.”

  “I think you always suspected that. I feared you would learn you were right. It is why my brother fears you and my grandmother is so eager to make peace. Not because of some old argument over a piece of land. Because of this.” She looked at him with a gaze both sad and defiant. “Do you think of my father when you see me?”

  “Not any longer. Not since very early. Please believe that.”

  “I am not sure I do. What if you discover he is to blame for all of it? Or did you already? He is dead and you cannot challenge him. Do you take what little revenge you can through me?” Her voice rang with both fury and hurt. “When you are with me, perhaps you are thinking Look what I am doing to your darling daughter, you scoundrel.”

  “That is not true. Do not say that.” He reached for her, but she slipped away. Her back to him, she hugged herself.

  He moved behind her but restrained himself from the embrace he longed to give her. “When I am with you, I think how I would like to live here with you, as I said this morning.”

  “Here? A few miles from his home? From my family home? You will never give this up, ever, if you live here, with the grave of a man you blame mere miles away. As for me, am I to abandon them? Cross the great divide and never look back?”

  He dared one touch on her arm. She did not thrash at him or jump away. “We can make peace, just as your grandmother first proposed. There would be no need to cross a divide if a bridge is built.”

  She turned, angry still, and looked at him. “What were you reading when I arrived, Adam? Something bad, I think. Very bad, if you do not want to speak of it.”

  “It confirmed some things I had already guessed and told me others I wish I did not know.”

  “Was it enough for you? Are your questions answered? Are you now finished with this? Because if you are not, there will be no bridge that stands long, and no place for me in your heart that I can trust.”

  Was he finished? Was it done? He wanted it to be. With his whole soul, if it meant he could have her.

  Her expression smoothed. She reached up and laid her palm on his face. He would remember forever the look she gave him, as if she sought to memorize his face. “You must see it through, of course. This is your legacy as surely as these lands. What a fool I was to fall in love with you, knowing that. And yet, I find I am not sorry, even knowing what I now will suffer.”

  “Clara—”

  She touched his lips with her fingertips. “Do not. Please, do not. I think you would lie if you had to, and that would be too sad.” She lifted the hem of the banyan and walked to the door. “Please stay here until I am gone.”

  She slipped from view. His mind went black and he slammed his fist into a wall. Then he sank down its length until he sat on the floor, and the hollowness filled with anguish.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Clara opened the letter. She knew what it would say. She knew Adam had sent it.

  Come to me it read.

  Similar letters arrived three times a day. They had continued for a week. Only the first one, written upon his return to London, had been more expansive. You fell in love with me, you said. As I have with you. To discard love when we find it is a great sin. Come to me.

  Each letter made her want to cry. Each one also lit a tiny flame of uncertainty.

  Could she do it? Would love let them separate themselves from the past? Even if that past included his belief that her father had wronged his so severely?

  It would mean believing in him more than common sense warranted. More than she had any person, really. Would love let her see deeper than normal or make her blind?

  Mrs. Finley announced that Althea was arriving. Clara tucked the letter into her writing desk with the others and removed a stack of banknotes and a bag of coins.

  “Do you have it all?” Althea asked as soon as she entered.

  “I visited every shop the last two days. Here it is. Three copies remain at Ackermann’s, but he expects them to
sell and told me to increase the order to twenty next time.”

  Althea opened a sheet of paper at the table, then moved the inkwell over. “Let us proceed, then, so our ladies see the fruits of their labor.”

  Althea’s paper listed all the women who had contributed to the last issue of Parnassus, from Lady Farnsworth down to the women who carried the copies to the shops. She read out the amount each should receive, and Clara counted it out.

  “Mrs. Galbreath, ten shillings,” Althea read as the last name.

  Clara took a five pound note and placed it beside the others. Althea glanced at it, then at Clara. “That is not ten shillings.”

  “Indeed it is not. I think it is the correct amount, however. Your list was in error.”

  “We agreed to ten shillings almost two years ago.”

  “We agreed before it was known if we would sell a single copy. You do more than half the work, Althea. I could not do this without you, let alone contemplate a regular schedule of publication. In fact, I think you should be a partner in the law, not only one in responsibility.”

  Althea’s big smile made her glow. “I think so too. Where do we sign?”

  Clara laughed until she cried. She wiped her eyes. “Oh, that felt so good. I was beginning to think I would never laugh again.” She took a deep breath. “I will have my solicitor draw up an agreement and we will sign as soon as it is prepared. Now, take that banknote before I decide it would pay for a nice ball gown.”

  Althea grabbed the note and stuffed it in her reticule. “If you deliver the money to those who live near here, I will do so with those who live near Mayfair.”

  “You will have to be more discreet than I will.”

  In Althea’s always organized way, she placed pieces of paper naming each stack, then tied coins into little sacks with the papers inside. She grouped the Mayfair stacks on one side and the east London stacks on the other.

  “Now,” she said, “I want to celebrate and do something decadent with my earnings. I think you should come with me to Berkeley Square and indulge in an ice.”

  “Mr. Brady can take us, then bring you home before we return here.” Clara went to the reception hall to call Mrs. Finley and tell her to send word down to Mr. Brady.

  She and Althea tied on their bonnets. “I am so glad you are joining me on this little debauch,” Althea said. “While we indulge ourselves at Gunter’s, you can explain why you feared you would never laugh again.”

  * * *

  Clara dipped her spoon into her ice, then savored its cold, rich sweetness. It helped soothe the sadness that came on her when she explained her break with Stratton to Althea.

  From their tiny table, she could see the other wares that made Gunter’s famous. Cakes and bisquits and other desserts lined the counter of the confectionary shop. Marzipan could be had too, crafted into artistic tiny sculptures of animals and flowers. A decadent sweet smell permeated the premises.

  “Of course if you could not trust his motivations, there was nothing else to do,” Althea said.

  “That is what I told myself.”

  “It would be horrible for it to go on, only to learn he had deceived you all along.”

  “Terrible. Only—he is not one for deception, it seems to me. To say so is unfair.”

  “So you do not think you would have discovered that?”

  She thought about it. “There was the chance I would, I suppose. I rather think not.”

  Althea set down her spoon. “If you believe he would not deceive you, why do you doubt his motivations in pursuing you? You are contradicting yourself, darling.”

  She shoveled a large spoonful of ice into her mouth. Too much. It hurt.

  “How can I marry a man who carries such hatred for the father who loved and protected me? And he must hate him, if he learned my father encouraged the accusations against his own. For an instant, when he looked at me that day, I think he hated me too, or at least hated the ghost he saw standing behind me.”

  Althea raised her hand holding the spoon. “Stop, please. Let us go back to your first sentence. Did you say marry?”

  “Did I?”

  “I am sure you did. Have you been considering it?”

  “I suppose so, a little.”

  “Did he propose, even a little?”

  “Oh, he proposed the second time we talked to each other. It was a sly form of revenge. He has all but admitted as much.”

  “Did he ever propose again?”

  She poked her spoon repeatedly into the remaining ice. “I suppose so.”

  Althea reached over and patted her arm. “You suppose a lot of so. Is heartbreak making you a little dim-witted?”

  “I suppose so,” she muttered.

  “Clara, your mention of marriage makes me change my opinion of him and makes me better understand your current sorrow. If you considered marriage at all, you must care deeply for him. I believe you should learn if there is a possibility for happiness with him. You should be very sure before throwing away a chance for that.”

  “He said much the same thing,” she said when they finished. “Or rather, he wrote it.”

  “Then perhaps you should see him one more time and speak honestly with each other.”

  That night, after much debate, Clara picked up her pen. I will call on Wednesday afternoon. You must tell me everything. There will be no kissing.

  * * *

  It was not cowardice that made her delay that meeting with Adam, she told herself. She did not dread what might be the final, unalterable break with him. Not at all. She did not spend most nights fighting against impossible hope that wanted to take hold in her heart. She could not see him right away because she had things to do, that was all.

  The next day she set out early to pay her contributors. She called on Mrs. Dalton first. Mrs. Dalton presided over a household near the river. Her husband and she let the modest home only for the Season, after which they would return to their property in Kent.

  Mr. Dalton did not know his wife was Boudica’s Daughter, so Clara arrived at one o’clock, ostensibly to pay a call. While she and Mrs. Dalton chatted about society gossip, the little sack moved from Clara’s reticule to Mrs. Dalton’s ample bodice.

  No such sleight of hand proved necessary with Mrs. Clark. She greeted Clara at her shop and took her to a tiny office, where they transacted business.

  “If you have the payment for the others, I will see they get it as before,” Mrs. Clark said.

  “I would like to bring it myself, if you would supply their directions.”

  “That is good of you, but it may be better if I do it. Their streets are not fitting for a lady like you.”

  “I have a coachman with me. I think I will be safe enough. If you brave those streets, I can too.”

  Mrs. Clark did not like it. All the same, she wrote down the directions. “You watch yourself now, Lady Clara. There’s pickpockets and worse about. Don’t let your man leave the carriage, whatever he does, and tell him to have his whip at the ready.”

  “I promise to be alert and cautious, Mrs. Clark.” Before she left she admired some of the bonnets in the shop. When she embarked on an orgy of sartorial excess, she would have to order some here.

  Mrs. Clark’s warnings proved less charming and more sensible when Clara’s carriage rolled into the neighborhood where one of her delivery women lived. Mr. Brady did not want her to step out of the carriage when they found the sad house of Mrs. Watkins. Clara insisted, however, and knocked on the door.

  It went without saying that no servant answered, but instead Mrs. Watkins herself. A young girl accompanied her, grasping her skirt.

  “Milady. What brings you here? Did that shop man claim I did not take him the books? If so, he is lying so as to rob you. I did, most certainly, and—”

  “There has been no complaint, Mrs. Watkins. I came to bring you this.” She handed over the sack of coins.

  The girl heard the sound and her eyes widened. Mrs. Watkins flushed. “My apologies
. I was just surprised to see you here on my doorstep.” She looked behind her. “Won’t you come in?”

  Clara could see the chamber and the makings of a dinner being prepared. A cot hugged one wall. Mrs. Watkins and her family appeared to occupy only this one room and not the entire house.

  “I do not want to intrude, and I have more errands to attend to,” she said, to spare the woman the difficulty of trying to host a visitor. “I just wanted to bring that to you and tell you how much I appreciate your help.”

  Mrs. Watkins beamed. “My pleasure, milady. I’m glad to do it anytime.”

  Clara returned to the carriage. Mr. Brady could not get her in it fast enough.

  “Bedford Square?” he asked through the window.

  “I am afraid not. We next go to St. Giles.”

  “Lady Clara, I don’t think—”

  “St. Giles, Mr. Brady.”

  She gazed out at Mrs. Watkins’s home while they rolled away. Parnassus might be a lady’s avocation for her, and others like Lady Farnsworth and Lady Grace, but for Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Watkins, and even Mrs. Dalton and Althea, the small earnings they gleaned from the journal mattered. In some cases quite a lot.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Adam pulled on the oars, hard. His body felt no pain because all of his concentration remained on thoughts in his head. They flashed to the rhythm of his rowing.

  Clara wanted to hear all. She believed he could never see her as separate from the rest of it, from her family’s actions, from his duty to extract some justice. He might convince her otherwise. All, however, also included the recent revelations he learned from that letter.

  That led to a terrible place, where his thoughts had lived for days. If he had not lost Clara, he might have had a better sense of where his duty lay. He never expected to face a choice between his two parents, but now he did.

  Let it all lie as it did, and his father’s good name remained dishonored. Try to rectify an injustice, and it would mean asking his mother questions no son should ever put to the woman who gave him life.