Ever since he was a young boy he had had an extremely strong sense of justice and fairness, which had been instilled in him by his father from a young age — the same principles, however, had never quite taken root in Charles’ character. As such, the feeling of being falsely accused was profoundly alien and distressing to him; he had never known anything like it in all his life.
After the anger had died away, however, he had started to find a kind of grim humor in the situation. He marveled at the shamelessness of those around him. First and foremost in that group was, of course, his uncle, Lord Peregrine, whom he could see was exploiting this whole situation to his own advantage.
And then there was the hypocrisy of the Earl of Sheffield, Rebecca’s father. He could scarcely believe the way that the Earl had spoken of Rebecca’s marriage as if she were an object to be traded. If it were not for the mercenary attitudes of such people as Lord Peregrine and the Earl, Andrew was quite certain that he would not be in this mess.
Yet there he was, and bemoaning his fate would do nothing to help him. He knew that much.
So far he had been well treated, and the gaolers had proven to be very respectful. He supposed that they were not much used to incarcerating a duke.
He wondered whether such attitudes would help or hinder him if it came to his being tried for murder. As a peer of the realm, he would be tried by other peers, whom he knew would not take kindly to the idea of a duke being put on trial for murder.
But then again, he reminded himself, they also would not take kindly to the idea of a duke being murdered.
The sun rose through the small gap of the barred window as he turned these thoughts in his head over and over again. He was jolted from this reverie, at last, by the entrance of one of the guards into the room.
“There’s a lady here to see you,” the man said. He paused for a minute, and then added as an afterthought, “Your Grace.”
“Thank you,” Andrew replied automatically as if he were addressing a butler, and not a man who was holding him captive. Then the meaning of the man’s words sank in, and he leapt to his feet.
Rebecca.
He cursed the fact that he was still in yesterday’s clothes, that he had not been given so much as a basin from which to splash his face. He supposed he must be looking rather disheveled.
That feeling was only heightened when Rebecca entered. She looked radiantly beautiful, even though her fine features were pale and drawn with worry. Andrew had never seen a more welcome sight in all his life.
“My Becca, I am saved by the sight of your face,” he burst out. In the bleak and loveless space of this gaol cell, it seemed senseless to hold back what he felt any longer.
“I only wish that my face were enough to save you,” she replied sombrely. “But I must admit that I feel the same.”
“I have been a fool, Rebecca,” he said, and the words seemed to resonate as physical distress that filled his whole body. “I have not been free in my speech, and now that I am not free in my body I must say what needs to be said.”
“You do not need to say anything,” Rebecca replied. “My heart knows it all.”
“Then it is not for the benefit of your heart, but mine!” Andrew replied. “I failed to declare myself properly yesterday, and I was punished for my complacency by being snatched away from you.”
Rebecca did not say anything but met his gaze with clear eyes. He could see that her breast was heaving with suppressed emotion, but her face remained miraculously composed.
“I love you, Becca,” he said. “I have loved you for as long as I can remember, but I do not speak of a childish love, a fancy that can be cured by crushing or distraction. The love I speak of is of the very deepest kind, and it causes me to suffer a good deal.”
“I suffer too,” she replied. “More than I would have thought possible until the last few days.”
“There is only one way that my suffering can be alleviated,” he said, stepping forward to take both her hands in his, “And that is to beg you to become my wife. Whether I make you a duchess or whether we are paupers together, I can only be happy with you at my side.”
“I would prefer to be a pauper with you than a duchess with anyone else,” she replied simply. “I wish that we could have known that earlier, and run away together before any harm could have come to Charles.”
Andrew strangely found himself giving a little laugh.
He was imagining what it could have been like if, instead of all those tense mealtimes and repressed silences, he and Rebecca had thrown caution to the wind and gone to Gretna Green together. That was what they ought to have done when they were on that ride together when they had almost dared to acknowledge that the world was theirs if only they had the strength to reach out and take it.
Who knew? If only they had dared to flout what society demanded, if only they had chosen to follow their hearts there and then, then perhaps Charles would still be alive.
“I wish I could embrace you,” he said.
“Do not,” she replied. “If I were to permit you to embrace me now then it would be an admission that we were saying goodbye.” She seemed to reach very deep into herself and summoned up the most beautiful smile that Andrew had ever seen in all his life. “There will be plenty of time for embraces when we are married.”
“So you will marry me?” he said eagerly. “Is that your way of saying yes?”
For the first time in their encounter, Rebecca’s features lit up with a playful smile.
“Well, if I were to be particularly pedantic about the matter, Duke, I would point out that you have not actually asked me to marry you yet.”
“Have I not?” Andrew replied in amazement, thinking back furiously to their conversation in the woods, and then again now. It is true, he realized abruptly and immediately began to laugh.
“You are right! I have turned the question over in my mind so many times that I believed that I had already spoken it aloud, but in fact, I never had.” He gave her his most beguiling smile. “In that case, Rebecca, I do beg your pardon. And furthermore, I beg you to be my wife.”
“I suppose that you may deduce my response from my earlier remarks,” Rebecca replied, with a smile to mirror his own. “Yet it cannot do any harm to say it aloud. Yes, Andrew, I accept your proposal with all my heart.”
At this point, they could resist no longer, and embraced for a few long moments, with a great deal of the passion that they had been obliged to hold back in recent days.
They had held each other before, of course, in the innocent embraces that pass between childhood friends. But ever since they had been a young gentleman and a young lady they had scarcely exchanged more than a handshake, or the occasional touches of the hand or arms on the waist that had come when they danced together at balls.
Now, their embrace felt like coming home.
For a while they continued to stand, holding one another, neither being able to bring themselves to believe that they would ever be forced to let go. But then, with her face still pressed against the front of Andrew’s shirt, Rebecca spoke.
“Who do you believe is responsible for Charles’ death?” she asked. The words seemed to burst out of her as if they were the only things that still remained between her and Andrew, and that she, therefore, needed to tackle them so that the two lovers could be free.
In all that had happened since Andrew had arrived back at Godwin Hall, he and everyone else had barely had a chance to ask themselves that question.
“I do not know,” he replied honestly. “All I know is that whoever committed that dreadful act wished to throw our whole world into chaos, and I fear that they have succeeded.”
“We shall recover it, together, I promise,” Rebecca said. “Do you know what your grandmother said to me last night?”
“I do not,” Andrew replied. “But I am sure that whatever it is, it made a good deal of sense.”
“She said that the fight would begin today,” Rebecca said. “And that is precis
ely what I intend to do. I intend to fight to clear your name.”
Andrew took her face between his hands and smiled into her eyes. It was a gesture more sharply intimate than any that the two of them had ever shared before, but at that moment it felt like the most natural thing in all the world.
“Then I know I will be saved,” he replied. “I trust you more than anyone else in the world, and I would place my life in your hands a thousand times over.”
Rebecca gave him a tremulous little smile in return.
“Then I shall have to do whatever it takes to prove you right,” she said in response.
Andrew had not intended to kiss her at that moment, but on hearing the strength of the conviction in her voice, he could not help himself.
After all, it may be my last opportunity, he thought.
It was not a long kiss, but it expressed everything that could not be spoken in words. Despite the grimness of their surroundings, they both found themselves gasping and laughing with delight. The kiss spoke of a future and infused them both with emotion that until now had seemed foreign: hope.
“Godspeed, Rebecca. I trust you with my life,” he said.
She gave his hand a final squeeze, and then she was gone, and Andrew was alone again.
Chapter 32
The Earl of Sheffield did not understand why the fates seemed to conspire against the possibility that he would ever enjoy a quiet life.
His daughter was supposed to be almost married by now. He was supposed to have seen his daughter become a duchess and then go home to visit his late wife’s grave and inform her that he had done his duty, that he had seen their little girl set up for life in a position that would keep her safe and comfortable.
Instead, he was faced with the prospect of a funeral, and the knowledge that after all the unpleasantness at Godwin Hall was over, he would be obliged to spend the Season watching his daughter like a hawk to ensure that she did not rebuff the advances of any suitable prospects.
Assuming that any suitable prospects made advances, of course, he reminded himself.
He knew that his daughter thought him cruel. He also knew that the best fathers were not those who concerned themselves with the fancies and feelings of their sons and daughters, but those who quietly ensured that their children were provided for, and accepted the scorn and rebellion that might be inflicted upon them as a result.
He spent the morning in the library, alternately dozing and reading a volume of history. He had not the least notion of what he ought to do with himself, given the fact of Andrew’s arrest. He was not even sure who his host was any more.
He only held the vague idea that he ought to keep out of the way of everyone else as much as he possibly could, so as to avoid any other catastrophes that might further rupture his dream of a quiet life.
However, when Lord Peregrine entered the room and said, “Ah, Sheffield, just the man I wished to speak to!” he did not begrudge the intrusion.
He liked Lord Peregrine. He thought him the kind of man with whom he would be able to have a frank and open conversation, given what he perceived to be their shared sensibility about the world and the way that it worked.
“In the absence of anyone else to say it, Sheffield, I wanted to apologize to you for all this,” Lord Peregrine said, with a charming mixture of sheepishness and self-assurance.
“Oh, no need for any of that, Lord Peregrine,” the Earl replied offhandedly. “It’s been a terrible business all around, but I know that I am far from the one who has suffered the most in all of this.”
“I feel that you are owed an apology nonetheless,” Lord Peregrine replied. “For all the disruption and upset, of course, but particularly for the false accusations that were briefly leveled against your daughter. I feel it as a personal shame that a lady of her caliber and delicacy was embroiled in such a terrible business, although it does now seem that the matter is resolved.
The Earl sighed.
“Yes, indeed, it does seem to have been resolved. But in such a terrible way.” He shifted in his armchair, arranging the pillows there to provide optimal comfort. “Really though, I do find the idea of Andrew committing fratricide hard to believe. He has always been such an honest, decent boy.”
Truth be told, he though, I had always felt a little sorry that Charles was the heir and not Andrew. If one has to choose between their child being happy and being secure, one must always choose security, of course. Yet I would have felt more easy if I had given Rebecca’s hand to Andrew, and not to Charles.
“An honest and decent boy indeed,” Lord Peregrine readily agreed. “But passionate, and no doubt a little hot-headed. When one considers Andrew’s position, the way that Charles must have seemed to stand between him and everything that he could possibly want in life, it is possible to understand why he might have done it.”
“Possible, perhaps,” the Earl agreed. “Yet still I struggle to believe it.”
“The constable was quite convinced by the note that he sent your daughter,” Lord Peregrine said.
The mention of a note made the Earl frown, as something that had happened earlier drifted into his memory.
“The note that Andrew sent to Rebecca. Yes. Come to think of it, when Andrew and Charles’ father died, we received the news, not from Charles writing to me, as one might expect and think proper, but because Andrew immediately wrote to Rebecca.”
“Andrew wrote to Lady Rebecca?” One of Lord Peregrine’s silvery — black eyebrows arched up. “That hardly seems proper. They are not and never have been engaged.”
“They were always extremely fond of one another,” the Earl said. As he spoke, he realized, I am probably partly to blame in allowing their attachment to progress far further than it ever should have. “They wrote to one another when they were young. Before Rebecca was out, you see. But as soon as she came out, I put a stop to that behavior.”
“Very wise, Sheffield,” Lord Peregrine said sagely. “Young people are prone to developing attachments that fly in the face of what is sensible in the long-term, and I believe that the best strategy is to extinguish such youthful impulses at the earliest possible opportunity. Not to be cruel, you understand,” he added hurriedly. “But merely to keep practicality in mind.”
“That is what I have always had to do with my daughter,” the Earl said, a wave of bodily tiredness suddenly overcoming him. “To do my best to make her understand what is practical. But she has always been a headstrong girl.”
Lord Peregrine laughed. “Yes. I can certainly see that,” he said, smiling into the fire. “I do not wish to speak of your daughter in a way that is not seemly, but I must say that I find that fire very pleasing in a young lady.”
The Earl did not much care to acknowledge that comment one way or another, and so stayed silent.
“As a matter of fact,” Lord Peregrine continued, “I must confess that this was part of my motive in seeking you out this morning, Sheffield. I wish to speak to you concerning your daughter’s future.”
The Earl heaved a sigh. He had thought of nothing but his daughter’s future day and night since Charles’ death.
“I must tell you, Earl, that when I came back to Godwin Hall yesterday, one of my primary concerns lay in ensuring that Lady Rebecca was properly attended to in the midst of all that was taking place,” Lord Peregrine said. “Although she was not my nephew’s widow by law, of course, I felt that she was his widow in spirit, and I felt as concerned for her wellbeing as I would for any member of my family.”
“You are very kind,” the Earl responded.
“It is not mere kindness,” Lord Peregrine replied. “It began as purely a charitable impulse, but as soon as I met Lady Rebecca, I began to feel strongly toward her.”
“Strongly, eh?” the Earl asked. He did not want to push the matter too far, in case Lord Peregrine was not, in fact, making the suggestion that he appeared to be making.
“Indeed,” Lord Peregrine replied. “This feeling was greatly compounded by
my discovery that Lady Rebecca had been implicated in the murder of my nephew. I must tell you, Sheffield, I was quite horrified. It dismayed me to think of a young lady in full bloom, as your daughter is, losing her reputation in that way.”
“Her reputation?” the Earl repeated Lord Peregrine’s words, faltering slightly as he understood their implication. “What precisely is it that you mean?”
“Well, as you and I both know, a young lady’s reputation is an extraordinarily fragile and delicate thing,” Lord Peregrine said. “The slightest whiff of scandal is enough to cause the whole lovely structure to disintegrate and leave the lady in question friendless, as well as husbandless.”
The Earl had not thought of it in those terms. A dreadful roiling feeling filled his stomach as if a stormy sea had overtaken his body and was tossing his insides about.
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