Page 63 of Gone With the Rogue
Her little boy was shy at first and didn’t want to leave her side but he soon remembered his grandfather and was asking the duke to chase him around the settee. Less than half an hour later, Chatwyn was sent back to his rooms. The duke was too weak to play with him for long. When he walked down the corridor into his book room, Julia’s heart sank. The duke was in no shape to move the heavy desk, but she had no doubt it would be only a matter of time before he called in one of the healthy young footmen he brought with him from Sprogsfield to move it and retrieve the missing documents.
She just kept thinking that she’d hoped for more time alone, more time to be with Garrett, to be with her son before she had to confront the duke, but her time had run out. The brandy had helped to calmher a little and allowed her to start focusing on what must be done. There was such great risk in what she was about to do. The duke could throw her out of the house and forbid her to come back. He could take her son, leave immediately with him, and never let her see him again. But usually with great risk came great reward. She had to be strong and bluff the duke into thinking she had the ledger and it was being decoded.
Garrett crossed her mind again. Without him she would have never gotten this far. That he wanted to continue to help her filled her heart with such love for him. She didn’t want animals to live in cages, and she no longer wanted to live in one either. She had to break free. Unwrapping the cloak, she took out the packet. It had never felt so heavy. With a deep settling breath, she held it tightly behind her back. Lifting her shoulders and her chin, she walked down to the book room doorway and stopped at the entrance. She didn’t speak.
Her legs trembled. Her stomach quaked. The duke sat behind his desk looking at a letter he’d taken from his stack of mail. For a moment, she truly didn’t know if she would be able to go through with this. But then she heard Chatwyn’s squeal of delight and her shoulders lifted.
She didn’t know when the duke first saw her, but she walked into the room and stopped in front of his desk. Her body, heart, and soul told her that just as it had been with Garrett, this was worth the risk.
“Your Grace,” she said.
“I am tired, Lady Kitson, and I thought I bid you good day.”
“You did.” Her voice trembled. She took in another deep breath and shored up her courage. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to say to you for a long time.”
“Some other time, Lady Kitson. I’m in no mood for more talk.”
“What I have to say needs to be said here and now. Though you always doubted me, I wanted you to know I did mourn for your son after he died. His death grieved me deeply, and I’ll always be sad that he didn’t live to see his handsome son be born and grow up. He was a good husband to me and I, in turn, a good wife to him.”
The duke’s stare was icy. “Lady Kitson, I said I am tired and not going to discuss this with you.”
There was so little movement in his cold, thin face, he could have been a statue talking to her. She almost faltered. His stoic roughness had always intimidated her. But not today.
“I’m not finished, Duke,” she said, giving him an icy stare of her own. “Chatwyn and I have lived under your roof, your commands for four years now, but it is time for us to be on our own.”
“Now see here. I won’t allow you to talk to me this way.”
She felt herself grow stronger as she gripped the packet so tightly her hands hurt. For once, he wasn’t going to stop her. “You have no choice. I’m not finished, Your Grace. I will no longer agree to your stringent demands on me. From this day forward—” She halted for a moment and sucked in a deep breath. “From this day forward, Chatwyn and I will live on our own and you will release enough of my inheritance to see that our lives will be comfortable and befitting the life of a duke’s grandson. In return, I will see to it that Chatwyn will know he is Kitson’s son. I will tell him what a good and courageous man his father was, but we will no longer be accountable to you foranything we do or for anyone we see. Do I make myself clear?”
The duke rose from his desk and placed his hands heavily upon it as he leaned toward her. His dark-brown steely eyes seemed to pierce her, but she held strong. “You have just made a grave error in judgment, Lady Kitson.”
“No, you have.” She brought the packet from behind her and placed it in front of him.
His expression was filled with disbelief and he straightened. “How did you get that?”
“That isn’t important. What is important is that inside you will only find forgeries of the documents you’ve been hiding. I have the originals that were registered in the Courts at Westminster. I only made copies so you would know for sure I had each one of them. You have forced my hand and I had to lower myself to your level and steal them. You have taken control of my son away from me for your own selfish reasons. So you have left me to play the game your way.”
He jerked up the packet, opened it, and thumbed through the pages, letting them fall one by one to the desk and scatter on top of it.
Julia kept talking. “I know about the company where the gunpowder led to an explosion that killed all those people, and that you did nothing to help them. I know about all the nonexistent men who own your companies and brothels. I know it all because I heard you and your solicitor discussing them.”
He threw the empty leather packet on top of the desk. “You dared to eavesdrop on my conversations?”
His arms were shaking and his eyes bulging. He was angry, but so was she. “No, I didn’t have to. You walked right past me and didn’t see me. I have proofyou are not the saintly man you proclaim to be, and I will reveal your secret and make all this known to Society if you ever come near me or my son again.” She spread her hands out over the strewn papers.
“What have you done?” He grabbed up the leather packet and looked inside it again. “Where’s my ledger?”
“I have it.”
Julia turned and saw Garrett standing in the doorway behind her. Her heart suddenly felt as if it might beat out of her chest. Her body felt as if it might have frozen in place. He was the last person the duke needed to see. What was he doing? Was he was going to bluff the duke, too.
“But of course it’s in a safe place, where it will remain.” Garrett walked over to stand beside Julia and put a sheet of foolscap in front of the duke. “I admit it wasn’t easy for my man to figure this out. It was very clever and difficult. This is only a copy of the first page, but you can see enough to know that your code has been broken, and this lists most every company and house you have in these records. Including dates and amount of monies you received from each of them.”
Julia couldn’t hold in a loud intake of breath at hearing Mr. Urswick had been successful.
“Who are you?” the duke asked, his face, his arms, and his hands shaking from rage.
“The rogue who will see to it that you leave Lady Kitson and her son alone.”
