Page 32 of The Duke
“To her clothes or her face?” she asked, alarmed.
“Both,” Margot said dryly.
The uncomfortable feeling of being wrong increased. If the duke was the merciless tyrant Celine thought her, a skilful valet like Miss Everett wouldn’t have stayed in her employ for eleven years. Frustrated, Celine asked, “Aren’t you scared one day you’ll press a crease into the duke’s collar and she’ll have you killed for it?”
Margot’s head jerked back, and then her brow cleared, and her face resolved into knowing mirth. “The old story about the maid she killed? Who did you hear it from, the duke’s secretary, Mr. Shaw? It is a principle of mine to pay Mr. Shaw as little mind as possible.”
Celine’s face warmed. “No, the duke told me herself.”
Margot choked on her chocolate and her eyes filled with tears. Behind her hand, she fought back a full-blown laugh. “My God, you really have got under her skin, haven’t you?” Then, getting hold of herself: “That rumour, or versions of it, is an old piece of nonsense put about by those who envy the duke and haven’t the means to come to her attention. She really doesn’t bother… explaining herself to those kinds of people.”
Embarrassment made Celine say pertly, “Is there someone shedoesexplain herself to?”
Margot’s lips twitched.
Celine had clearly piqued Margot’s curiosity now, beyond mere sympathy. After a moment’s frank consideration, Margot said, “One of the upstairs maids, Bessy Simms, fell into a spot of trouble out of wedlock, and the duke sent her home to the country with a small allowance while her condition persisted. When the hometown butcher wanted to marry her, big belly and all, the duke paidfor the wedding. Her Grace was hardly going to tell Bessy’s personal business when people assumed the worst.”
The truth was so pedestrian, boring almost.
What a fool Celine had made of herself. If she hadn’t felt so nauseous after visiting Lady Pecke, she wouldn’t have missed the duke’s dry tone. She wouldn’t have missed the way it didn’t square with what Adele had already told her.I wouldn’t work for anyone else. Her Grace is a very good employer, always generous and kind.
She had been wrong about this, and she had been wrong about Royce as well.
It didn’t change her fundamental view of the duke—there was no misunderstanding how the duke had left her in Paris, or what she herself had felt upon waking alone—but it made her realise the truth was more complicated than she had wanted to believe.
She could no longer deny her curiosity. If the duke wasn’t who Celine had thought her, then who was she?
“So the duke was… twenty-one when you met? What was she like?”
Margot hesitated, as though unsure whether she ought to speak about her employer this way. But she must have resolved her doubts, because her eyes softened and she said, “She was like a raw, cut hem. She had this frightful energy, this ability to focus on one thing, but she was full of rage and still learning the self-mastery that characterises her now. Her body burned up energy at an alarming rate.
“She was newly invested in the House of Lords, and notorious for being a vote for hire. No bill or resolution was too low for her; she would lend her name to even the greasiest scheme. No one would back her, you see, because she was so young, and because she’d had some early, spectacular failures. So she was determined to build power however she could. Of course, later they realised how thoroughly she’d managed to reverse her family’s fortunes, but by then it was too late for anyone to moderate how powerful she would become.”
Margot paused, then added wryly, “And then there were the debutantes.”
Something twisted inside Celine, imagining this young, hungry incarnation of the duke seducing debutante after debutante. Who could have refused her? Celine hadn’t.
She ignored the hateful thought and focused instead on something that had caught her attention. “When the duke and I first met, she said something about the many obstacles that had been put in her path. She seemed to have a particular antagonist in mind.”
“Her Grace told you that herself?” Margot said, taken aback. She took her time setting her mug on the table, then folded her hands and looked at Celine, frowning. Celine had her full attention now. Margot said, “Have you heard of the Wroth family? The Earl of Wroth and his relations?”
Ah. “Mr. Shaw mentioned them.”
Margot’s brows rose. “Mr. Shaw?”
Celine thought of the duke’s long-haired secretary getting buttery fingerprints on his glasses over the morning paper and wondered guiltily if perhaps she shouldn’t have brought him into it. She was too curious to prevaricate, however. “Mr. Shaw and I happened to be in the breakfast parlour at the same time, this morning. He has been kind. Well… yes, kind.” She waved away Margot’s obvious amazement, returning to where her own interest lay. “He says Lord Wroth is respected and well-liked, and that the Duke of Howard, in opposing him, is seen as something of a villain.”
The valet frowned. “It’s a good enough caricature, I’ll allow. The Howards and the Wroths are old and bitter rivals. Lord Wroth, though of lower rank than Her Grace, is in reality the more powerful of the two. The title is older, and the Wroth family has been in ascension these past centuries, even marrying into the royal family, while the Howards suffered something of a decline. The previous Duke of Howard, Her Grace’s aunt, had made some progress towards restoring the family’s fortunes when she died prematurely in a fire. Her heir died in the same fire, and so Her Grace inherited at thirteen.”
The hairs rose along Celine’s arms and neck. It was confirmation, in part, of what she’d been thinking about in the gallery, and she could no longer doubt the letter the duke had written and the fire that had killed the duke’s family were somehow linked.
No wonder the duke was up there screaming.
“You understand,” Margot said, “I didn’t know Her Grace when these events were taking place, but I have pieced much of it together over the years. After the aunt’s death, an elderly relative stood guardian, and in theory held the estate in trust for when Her Grace reached her majority. But at fifteen Her Grace took up where her aunt had left off, and began mining a vast swathe of land for iron stone and coal. It was an unbelievably lucrative venture, and Her Grace wasn’t content merely to mine it; she also contracted an engineer to build her a canal that would carry her iron stone direct from the underground mouth of the mine to industrial centres farther north.
“She was sixteen or seventeen when she bribed a bill through Parliament, allowing the canal to be built, and a year later the work was complete. The first of the iron stone had been loaded on barges, and the land above was black with coal.
“She had proven herself more competent than anyone could have imagined.”
