by Evie Dunmore
And then he did something Peregrin had never imagined he’d see his brother do.
He dropped his head and buried his face in his palms.
And stayed that way.
Oh, bloody hell.
“She may have rejected you because of the dukedom, not despite,” Peregrin blurted. There. Let him piece it together himself.
Montgomery lowered his hands. “What do you mean?” There was a quivering spark of hope in his eyes.
Perhaps he wasn’t obsessed. Perhaps . . . it was much worse. Perhaps he was in love.
Christ. If this was what love did to the least sentimental man in Britain, Peregrin wanted none of it.
“It’s just that I spent more than a month in hiding because I did not feel equipped to inherit one of the largest dukedoms in the country,” he said. “I can see why Miss Archer would have reservations about being officially the reason for plunging that dukedom into scandal.”
Montgomery made an impatient sound. “She wouldn’t be responsible.”
“There are people who always feel responsible.” Peregrin shrugged. “They can’t quite help themselves.”
The duke’s expression turned suspicious. “When did you become wise?” he asked. “Where were you hiding? Some cloister Scotland Yard overlooked?”
Peregrin grimaced. “Almost. I was in the wine cellar of St. John’s.”
Montgomery blinked. “You were underground for near six weeks?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Montgomery studied him with an unreadable expression. “Tell me,” he said softly, “am I such a tyrant that hiding in a cellar is preferable to following my orders?”
Peregrin’s eyes widened. “A . . . tyrant? No.”
To his surprise, Montgomery seemed to be waiting. Waiting for more.
Since when was he interested in explanations?
“I want to follow your orders,” he said slowly, “it’s just . . . daunting. When I was a boy, I couldn’t wait to grow up and be like you. And then one day I understood that one does not simply become like you.” It had been a terrible day, he remembered, fraught with existential angst. “I began to understand the magnitude of what you do, and how effortless you make it look. For a while, I thought you were simply better made than most men, but then I understood that you were that and still working morning till night in all these offices. And it felt like someone was choking me, thinking of myself in an office until sunset every day, with thousands of people relying on me . . . I will always come up short as duke, even if I did my best, while you do everything perfectly.”
“Perfectly?” Montgomery echoed. “Ah, Peregrin. The first temptation of its kind, and I fell like a house of cards.” He swayed a little in his chair. “And in case it has escaped your notice, I’m roaringly drunk and I’ve been contemplating various ways to destroy an Oxford University professor.”
“I did that every other day, up at Oxford,” Peregrin murmured.
“I’m aware,” Montgomery said. “I sent you to the Royal Navy for that reason.”
Peregrin froze. Was that where they would begin talking about his fate? If he was lucky, he’d only be escorted all the way to Plymouth and be stuck in the Royal Navy for a few years. If he were to get what he deserved, he’d receive the whipping of a lifetime first, not that his brother had ever had him whipped before, but there was always a first. Almost certainly, he’d have his allowance cut forever, or perhaps Montgomery would disown him and never speak to him again . . .
Montgomery fixed him with a remarkably sober stare over his steepled fingers. “You are wondering what is going to happen to you, aren’t you?”
Peregrin managed to hold his gaze. “I’m p-prepared for the consequences of my actions.”
And then Montgomery said a strange thing: “You know that I care about you, Peregrin, don’t you?”
“Eh. Yes, sir?”
The duke sighed. “I’m not sure you do.” He scrubbed a hand over his tired face. “She was distressed, you say?”
“Miss Archer? Yes, quite.”
“I can see that it may have been a bad proposal,” Montgomery muttered, “and I do think she was lying,” he added cryptically.
“Did she know you had fallen off your horse when you, eh, proposed?” Peregrin asked, because blimey, he was as curious as he was disturbed by the whole development.
“Yes. Why?”
“Well, I reckon no lady wants a proposal right after a man has hit his head.”
Montgomery was quiet. “I may have called her a coward, too,” he said.
Peregrin’s jaw dropped. “I’m no expert, but that sounds like a terrible wooing strategy.”
“And I—God.” Montgomery groaned. “I was not quite myself last night. I was . . . too forceful.”
Of course he would have been too forceful, Peregrin thought, because that was exactly how Montgomery was: forceful, intense, and a little frightening. He probably didn’t even intend to be frightening. He probably couldn’t fathom that him always having a plan, and always expecting everyone to function logically, was enough to frighten the average fellow. It wasn’t quite normal, to unwaveringly have the eye on a noble aim and to be able to drop emotions that did not suit. But then, perhaps that was what confinement made of a man—after all, no one had shielded Montgomery from the cage their father’s death had left behind.
A hollow sensation took hold of Peregrin, as though he were about to plunge headfirst into the river Isis off Magdalen Bridge—you never knew what was lurking in the opaque waters. The point was, Montgomery needed a duchess, a durable, intelligent one he could not accidentally steamroll, one who kept him in a good mood and off Peregrin’s back. And while Miss Archer was in many ways not a suitable bride for him, perhaps in the most important ways, she was. She made Montgomery feel. One could even speculate that she would make his brother happy.
Montgomery was probably too drunk to remember much come morning. Hopefully, he would remember what he was going to hear next. He took a deep breath. “I think there is something you should know about Miss Archer.”
Chapter 31
Lucie lived on Norham Gardens in a narrow slice of a yellow brick house of which Lady Mabel rented the other half. The arrangement satisfied the expectation that unmarried ladies of still marriageable age must not live alone, and Annabelle woke in her creaky cot in the mornings with a sense of relief—there was no master of the house to answer to, no one who expected things to be done this way or that. Had she so desired, she could have morosely sat in the nook of the bay window until noon every day with the comforting weight of Lucie’s cat in her lap.
Lucie occupied one of the two rooms on the top floor and her housekeeper the other, and she had repurposed the whole ground level for the cause. There was an ancient printing press in the reception room, and in the drawing room the piano had had to make way for a sewing machine and bales of fabric for banners and sashes. A large cherrywood filing cabinet was stocked with stacks of blank paper, old pamphlets, and a copy of every issue of the Women’s Suffrage Journal since 1870. The wall around the fireplace was papered with news clippings, some yellowing, some crisp like the Guardian’s front-page article on their fateful demonstration. Left of the fireplace, a large potted plant had withered and died, the brown leaves looking ready to crumble to dust at a touch.
“This place has much potential,” Hattie said as she waltzed in with Lucie on her heels. “Are you sure you don’t—”
“Yes,” Lucie snipped, “I’m sure. This is a space for serious work; no feminine touch is required.”
Hattie made a pout. “I still don’t understand how pretty curtains would interfere with our work.”
Annabelle’s lips attempted a smile. It was the same debate every time before they settled down to work, and there was something reassuring in these little routines when everything else lay in ruins. All thr
ough last week, their quartet had met here in the afternoons and gathered round the oversized desk at the center of the room like surgeons around an operating table. The monthly newsletter needed to be sent out, and Lucie was planning an excursion to the Ladies’ Gallery in the House of Lords in a few days’ time.
“Oho, what have we here,” Hattie exclaimed, and tugged on a magazine that was half hidden under a cluster of empty teacups. “The Female Citizen? How scandalous.”
“What is so scandalous about it?” Annabelle asked without looking up. She was folding the newsletters Catriona had cut to size and sliding them into envelopes. Hattie was supposed to put the address on the envelopes, but she sank into her chair with her nose buried in the magazine. The Female Citizen was printed in bold, scarlet letters across the title page.
“It’s a radical pamphlet,” Catriona supplied. “It writes about unsavory topics.”
“Such as?”
“Cases of domestic dispute,” Hattie murmured, absorbed, “and the plight of unfortunate women.”
“Prostitutes,” Lucie said dryly, and Hattie shot her a scandalized look.
“Either way, it’s barely legal,” Catriona said. “Don’t be caught reading one in public.”
“Who’s the editor?” Annabelle asked, beginning to copy the addresses from their members list on the envelopes herself.
“No one knows,” Catriona said. “The copies just show up in letter boxes or public places. If we knew who it was, we could put a stop to it.”
“Why would you want to stop them?”
Catriona swept up the paper clippings and disposed of them in the bin under the desk. “Because they alienate people to the cause.”
“The Woman’s Suffrage Journal is too soft in tone to inspire much change, and The Female Citizen is considered too radical to appeal to the masses,” Lucie said. “I can reveal that I have been working toward launching a new magazine soon that is going to be right between the two.” She looked at Annabelle. “I’ll need assistance, in case you are interested.”
Annabelle lowered her pen. “To help you launch a journal?”
Lucie nodded. “I won’t be able to pay a shilling, certainly not at first, but I could supply free lodgings.” She eyed the cot in the corner by the dead plant. “The lodgings are of course a bit rustic.”
“They are just fine,” Annabelle said quickly. For the time being, the cot was all that stood between her and life at Gilbert’s, a life as a wife, or the great unknown.
Her stomach churned with unease. The day after tomorrow, Christopher Jenkins expected an answer to his proposal. Two days. She could hardly insult him by asking for more time, and the truth was, she didn’t have more time. With her stipend suspended and her pupils lost, her sources of income had dried up, and she couldn’t eat Lucie’s food and sleep in her sitting room forever.
A streak of black fur shot across the floorboards and up the outside of Lucie’s skirt.
“Heavens, Boudicca,” Lucie chided as the cat settled on her shoulder and wound her sleek tail around her mistress’s neck like a small fur stole. “You are awfully agitated lately, aren’t you?”
“Perhaps having a visitor in her sitting room is upsetting to her,” Annabelle murmured.
“Nonsense,” Lucie said, and turned her face into Boudicca’s soft fur. “She knows you are one of us, don’t you, puss-puss.”
A memory flashed, of a beautiful young viscount in a magenta waistcoat. She had never asked Lucie how Lord Ballentine knew she had a cat. And thinking of that waltz inevitably made her think of Sebastian, and how he had walked toward her across the dance floor in a way that said he was out for Ballentine’s blood . . .
“Annabelle, before I forget, there was mail in your pigeonhole,” Hattie said, and opened her reticule. “I took the liberty of picking it up for you.”
The hope that Miss Wordsworth had written to inform her of her reinstatement was quickly dashed. Annabelle frowned at the spidery penmanship. “It’s from my cousin Gilbert.”
Of course. She was late with her payments. Was he sending her reminders already? The temptation to toss the letter into the fire unopened loomed large.
She sliced the envelope open with the scissors.
Annabelle,
Yesterday morning, the most disconcerting news reached us about you. A letter from an anonymous well-wisher arrived at the cottage. The paper and envelope were thick and costly, and the handwriting most elegant, but the message was outrageous—I was kindly advised to “save you from yourself,” as they put it, as it seems you have fallen in with the wrong crowd. There is talk about political activism, police involvement, and even prison! Furthermore, the writer is concerned that you are mingling with unmarried gentlemen . . .
“Oh, dear Lord,” Annabelle said, and rose to her feet.
“What is it?” Hattie asked.
“He knows.” How could he possibly know?
. . . If the stationery weren’t so fine, I’d suspect this was an ill-done prank. As things are, I am deeply troubled by these allegations, deeply indeed. I’ve repeatedly warned you about the perils of higher education. Now it seems you have plunged recklessly into your own demise, and we both know this isn’t the first time, is it?
I suspect it’s only a matter of time until your depravity will be known in all of Chorleywood, or worse, by the master of the manor, seeing that it has already reached the ears of respectable bystanders. And this after I fed you, housed you, and entrusted you with the care of my five children!
As an upright family man and a representative of the Church of England, I must lead by example and not associate with the disgraced. Thus, I ask you to not return to Chorleywood in the near future.
With great disappointment,
Gilbert
Her hand holding the letter sank to the table. “Well. It seems I can strike going back to my family off the list.”
She began wandering aimlessly around the room as her friends were crowding around the letter, and their gasps of outrage were scant comfort.
“A letter,” she murmured. “Five years, and he lets me go with a letter.”
“How ghastly,” Hattie said. “Is he always like this?”
“I think you are well rid of this one,” Lucie said, “and certainly you are well rid of Montgomery if that is how he handles a perfectly sensible rejection.”
“Montgomery.” The words lodged in her throat. “You think . . . he wrote to my cousin?”
“Well, who else?”
Not him. Surely not him. “He’d never do anything so petty.”
“Your cousin mentions fine stationery and elegant handwriting,” Lucie pointed out.
“I know, I know. But that could have been anyone. Perhaps one of the suffragists.”
“Now, why would they do that?”
Annabelle pressed her palms to her temples. “I don’t know. How did the whole rumor reach Oxford? Montgomery would hardly incriminate himself, so I believe someone else knows.”
“But who,” Catriona said, “and who would take the trouble to write to your cousin?”
Not Sebastian. Even if she had mortally offended him, and even though it would be easy for him to locate Gilbert’s cottage . . . The air in the sitting room was suddenly thick as soup.
“I’m going for a walk,” she muttered, and made for the door, if only to escape the sound of his name.
* * *
When his carriage pulled up in front of the elegant façade of Lingham House, Sebastian wasn’t surprised that Caroline was not in the entrance hall to greet him. He had formally announced his visit with a calling card, and so she was just as formally waiting in the reception room. Always perfectly on protocol, Caroline. And perhaps she knew that he would eventually put two and two together and figure out who had betrayed his visit at Millbank and who had brought Her Majesty�
��s indignation down upon him. As if formality would save Caroline from him making his feelings known.
It had taken him a while to identify her, because he had fallen on his head and had lost the woman he loved, but after some discussions with his man, he was certain.
What he did not know was why she had done it.
She observed him over the rim of her teacup from her place on the French settee, her eyes as pleasantly cool and blue as the afternoon sky outside the windows behind her.
He shifted on his chair. Soft ground or not, his legs had only recently endured the crushing weight of a full-grown Andalusian horse.
“I read this morning that Gladstone is advancing in the polls again,” Caroline said. “Will you be able to stop him, you think?”
“I would have been,” he replied, “if the queen had told Disraeli to do as I say. But she’s presently holding a personal grudge against me.”
A tiny frown marred her brow. “How unusual. Her Majesty is nothing if not sensible. Surely she would put a Tory victory above any personal sensitivities?”
He gave a shrug. “It appears that she considers that opportunism.”
A shadow of regret passed over Caroline’s intelligent face.
He’d often thought that he had cause to be grateful to her. After his wife’s betrayal, it would have been easy to become bitter, to see a treacherous, overemotional creature in every female he met. Caroline had been the antidote with her collected, rational ways, showing him that no, they were not all the same. Had his mind closed itself up entirely, he could have never loved Annabelle.
“Say, Caroline,” he said, “are you still the treasurer for the Ladies’ Committee for Prison Reform?”
Her expression remained unchanged. But there was a soft rattle of her teacup against the saucer.
Because she knew that he knew that she was indeed still the treasurer of the committee. And that she had a direct line of communication with Queen Victoria.
There was a resigned look in her eyes when she met his gaze. “I overstepped the mark,” she said.