Page 49 of The Duke
“Richard has told you something about my ward, Miss Genet, and you have believed him. You plan to use that information to turn public opinion so thoroughly against me, none will dare be seen to support me in the matter of your bill.”
His brows rose in a genuine show of surprise. His steepled hands came up beneath his mouth, where he rubbed them to and fro. He smiled. “You are quick,” he said at last. “Quicker than I expected.”
He wouldn’t believe her if she told him who must be credited for that.
“Whatever Richard told you,” she said carefully, “isn’t worth much when you’re giving him my title in exchange for it. It makes him into rather a biased witness, wouldn’t you say? It discredits the information, as well as himself.”
Lord Wroth pursed his lips. “But when the facts are true, as I believe in this case they are, they can be proven. You left yourself open, Duke.”
A derisive snort called Kate’s attention to the third member of the party, Lord Vespasian. “Not a duke for much longer.”
The Wroth heir wore unrelieved black, her coat buttoned up beneath the chin, her hands covered by leather gloves, and her hair tied severely back. Her crossed legs pivoted on a single, wicked boot heel. Her hand was buried in the fur of the huge black wolfhound that was her near-constant companion. Its long face swung towards Kate, fixing her with eyes the same bright blue as its mistress’s.
Vespasian said, “We have more than one count of moral degeneracy to lay at your door. The mine manager Mr. Buttle is willing to publish an account of how you destroyed his innocent familywhen he wouldn’t falsify the evidence you wanted against my father. Tsk, tsk. Politically corruptanda bully.”
Kate had forgotten—it had been a small, irritating detail—how Richard had taken the Buttles under his wing and housed them. She had thought it proof of his good heart then, taking bread from his own table. But Lord Wroth had surely been bankrolling the whole thing. It had been a conscious move against her. Richard had known the report on the mines would fail.
The cold surrounding her intensified.
“If only I’d had a daughter,” she said, “to offer Richard in marriage.”
“You could’ve offered yourself,” Lord Wroth said with a small smile.
Vespasian, whose handhadbeen the price of this alliance, remained coolly composed.
She was a striking woman and very difficult to read. She took after her mother in colouring: skin of palest white, hair jet black, and eyes a piercing blue. Her beauty was a warning, like a python’s sleek skin:Touch me and die.
It was a far cry from the awkward child she’d once been.
They’d overlapped for one year at school—Vespasian’s first, and Kate’s last. Vespasian had been a nasty, pale child, with haughty manners that endeared her to nobody. But in Kate, she had inspired an irrational tenderness.
Kate had wanted to spare Vespasian the burden of the enmity that had malformed her own character. But what chance had she had against that child’s own splendid parent? Vespasian had come to school determined to hate her and had only hated her more for every kindness shown.
“I have some experience,” Kate said tightly, “of the lengths a child will go to for a parent’s approval. But Vespasian, it’s not going to be enough. You’re giving up everything you are, and it still won’t be enough to make your father love you more than he hates me.” Then, incredulously: “You’re going to be aHoward.”
Vespasian’s only reaction was a slight, sneering curl of the lip. “Richard will take the Wroth name, naturally.”
She almost reeled back. The end of her family name. The end of the Howards holding the Howard title, as they had done for six centuries.
“Actually,” Lord Wroth said, “I must thank you; it was you who gave me the idea. You were only able to take the mines from me because you were willing to give them up yourself. I have applied the same theory here, though to rather more devastating effect, I hope you’ll agree.” The friendly, almost fatherly tone dropped from his voice, and all that was left was a powerful man, older than her, more experienced than her. He said, “You must have known there would be consequences when you threw that childish fit and gave my mines to a lunatic.”
A thousand responses came to her lips, and none of them would win her a reprieve. How familiar it felt, this gathering up of arms against her. She would bear it, as she always had. She would fight back harder, and dirtier, and worse.
She gave a short bow and turned to leave, but she was stopped by a hand on her elbow. “Kate,” came Richard’s quiet voice. “Let me explain.”
She had always hated his use of her given name—the suggestion of intimacy, of an unprotected flank—but she had overcome the instinct, because it wasRichard. Slowly, she turned to him, her tall, stalwart friend, and the icy wall that had been protecting her cracked.
Everything I have given you. Everything I hoped you would become.
“I cannot possibly imagine what you could have to say to me.”
He didn’t have as much experience in betrayal as she did; he took a long time to meet her eyes. “I would say my piece in private, if you will do me this last courtesy.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“I’m sorry,” Richard said quietly in the cobbled mews yard. He pulled a cheroot out of his coat, raised the top off a lamp with his hanky over his hand, and lit it. He drew on it deeply and blew the smoke away from her before angling to face her. “I couldn’t pass up the hand of Vespasian bloody Wroth.”
She turned her face up to the sky. Nothing but smog and fading light. “How long have you been in his pocket?”
