Page 81 of Love, the Duke
“I’ll do as you say and protect the chalice with my life, but I need to confront the baron for the wrong he did.” Her heart pounded with outrage. “He would let my brother’s name be sullied for all time because a relic caught his fancy.”
Hurst gently but firmly took hold of her shoulders, intent on steering her out of the book room. “You can have your say to him later.”
“Why wait? Let her have it now.” Lord Gagingcliffe’s voice came from the doorway.
Ophelia and Hurst turned and stared at him. His tone held no note of distress or concern as he stood in the book room’s wide doorway looking beyond put out, his face tight as he saw Ophelia clasping the sacrament.
She could hardly hold her composure together.
To Hurst, he ventured with an uneven lift of his lips, “It took me a moment or two after I got into my chambers to realize you weren’t here to call on me just for my opinion of Mr. Sawyer, or your seeming genuine interest in my treasures. You wanted something else from me. You were so clever to hide your true intentions behind such friendliness, and I accepted it without question.”
Ophelia held the chalice with a firm grip. “How could you steal from a church? You are a criminal!”
With a shrug, Gagingcliffe noted, “And I turned you into one. You are trying to steal from me.”
His slight stung Ophelia for its truth.
Hurst took a step forward, his eyes hooded and his mouth set in a hard line. “Watch what you say, my lord, or I will forget that you are ten years older and five inches shorter than I am. I would take great pleasure in pinningyou to the floor and holding you there until the magistrate can get here.”
“Quite right, Your Grace. There will be no need for such tactics, I assure you.” He gave a bow. “I do apologize, Duchess. And commend you on your perfect performance when we played cards together. You never gave me one hint you thought the chalice was missing. I’ll get the magistrate.” He called for his butler.
“Why did you take it?” Ophelia eased closer to Hurst, his arm coming around her waist.
The baron shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I take it when I had opportunity and the desire to possess it the moment the vicar agreed I could see it up close? He was already ill, so I went back a week later thinking to talk him into letting me hold it again, but the man was so ill he didn’t even know I was there. The vicarage was quiet. No one about, so I had no problem slipping the keys from his belt and taking the chalice with me.”
“That was an evil thing to do,” Ophelia whispered so softly she didn’t know if the baron heard. He kept right on talking.
“I admit thinking at first, I’d only make a copy for myself and return it, but once I put it in my vitrine, I simply couldn’t part with it. Historically, I knew it was too valuable to be replaced, and I simply didn’t want a reproduction. The thin hammered gold is done with a keen artist’s eye; the rubies around the middle are small but flawless.” With a willful shrug, he declared, “Who wouldn’t want to have it?”
“An honest man.” Ophelia tempered her boiling rage and disdain for a man she had considered a member of her small circle of acquaintances.
“I took it weeks ago. I hadn’t heard anything about itmissing or having been stolen, so I thought no one knew it was gone.”
“We deliberately kept it that way so we could search for it without the thief knowing.”
The baron smirked. “I thought there was the possibility I was safe from ever being found out. Especially when I heard about all the troubles with first one and then another vicar getting sick so soon after arriving and then leaving. I figured the theft could be blamed on any one of them. I’m actually impressed you figured out it was me, Your Grace.”
Suddenly his demeanor changed, and he took a few more steps inside the room. Rather than accommodating, he looked perturbed. As if bothered by this whole sordid affair.
Gagingcliffe called loudly for his butler again, who appeared so fast, one would think he’d been eavesdropping this entire time. The man stepped subserviently into the book room, looking almost frightened.
“Yes, my lord?”
“Send someone for the magistrate at once,” he said indignantly. “The duke and duchess are trying to take something from my home, and I want to report them.”
“You must be half-mad to think you can get away with this,” Hurst said.
“I’ll find a way. I always do. It will be easy to say I bought it from a stranger. Churches hate dealing with messy things such as robbery. They always want to settle things quietly and as easily as possible. They never want the parish members to know there’s been any kind of trouble in the church.” He turned to his butler and barked again. “Don’t stand there; go for the magistrate. I want these two out of my house.”
The baron’s cavalier behavior had not been expected. His nerve filled Ophelia with contempt.
Movement outside the doorway made them all give their attention in that direction. Mr. Mallord entered the room with another man following closely behind him.
“That won’t be necessary,” the footman said. “The magistrate is already here. I hope you don’t mind, Your Graces, but I took it upon myself to ask him to come.”
“How?” Ophelia and Hurst said in unison.
“Like Mrs. Turner, I’ve known from the beginning that the duchess was looking for the chalice. I’ve been watching over her as much as possible to make sure she was always safe. I didn’t know why you needed me to accompany you here, but I could tell it was urgent. And then when the duchess showed up and had trouble getting inside even though you were there, I sensed something was wrong, so I went for the magistrate.”
“Good job, Mr. Mallord,” Hurst said.
The footman nodded. “I like to be prepared.”
