The Duchess War (The Brothers Sinister) Read online

  “Captain Stevens. It’s so crowded in there. I simply had to get some air.”

  “Did you, now.” He came toward her. At first, he was nothing more than a shadow. Then he drew close enough for her to make out details without her spectacles, and he resolved into familiar features: jovial mustache, puffed-up sideburns.

  “You don’t like crowds, do you?” His tone was solicitous.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just never have.” But she had, once. She had a dim memory of a swarm of men surrounding her, calling out her name, wanting to speak with her. There’d been no possibility of coquetry at the time—she’d been eight years old and dressed as a boy to boot—but there had once been a time when the energy of a crowd had buoyed her up, instead of tying her stomach in knots.

  Captain Stevens came to stand beside her.

  “I don’t like raspberries, either,” Minnie confessed. “They make my throat tingle.”

  But he was looking down at her, the ends of his mustache dipping with the weight of his frown. He rubbed his eyes, as if he wasn’t sure what he was seeing.

  “Come,” Minnie said with a smile. “You’ve known me all these years, and in all that time I’ve never liked large gatherings.”

  “No,” he said thoughtfully. “But you see, Miss Pursling, I happened to be in Manchester last week on business.”

  Don’t react. The instinct was deeply ingrained; Minnie made sure her smile was just as easy, that she continued to smooth her skirts without freezing in fear. But there was a great roaring in her ears, and her heart began to thump all too swiftly.

  “Oh,” she heard herself say. Her voice sounded overly bright to her ears, and entirely too brittle. “My old home. It’s been so long. How did you find it?”

  “I found it strange.” He took another step toward her. “I visited your Great-Aunt Caroline’s old neighborhood. I intended to merely make polite conversation, convey news of you to those who might recall you as a child. But nobody remembered Caroline’s sister marrying. And when I looked, there was no record of your birth in the parish register.”

  “How odd.” Minnie stared at the cobblestones. “I don’t know where my birth was registered. You’ll have to ask Great-Aunt Caroline.”

  “Nobody had heard of you. You did reside in the same neighborhood as the one where she was raised, did you not?”

  The wind whipped through the courtyard with a mournful two-toned whistle. Minnie’s heart pounded out a little accompanying rhythm. Not now. Not now. Please don’t fall to pieces now.

  “I have never liked crowds,” she heard herself say. “Not even then. I was not well-known as a child.”

  “Hmm.”

  “I was really so young when I left that I’m afraid I can be of no help. I scarcely remember Manchester at all. Great-Aunt Caro, on the other hand—”

  “But it is not your great-aunt who worries me,” he said slowly. “You know that keeping the peace forms a part of my duty.”

  Stevens had always been a serious fellow. Even though the militia had been called on only once in the last year—and then to assist in fighting a fire—he took his task quite seriously.

  She no longer needed to pretend to confusion. “I don’t understand. What does any of this have to do with the peace?”

  “These are dangerous times,” he intoned. “Why, I was part of the militia that put down the Chartist demonstrations in ’42, and I’ve never forgotten how they started.”

  “This still has nothing to do with—”

  “I remember the days before violence broke out,” he continued coldly. “I know how it starts. It starts when someone tells the workers that they should have a voice of their own, instead of doing what they’ve been told. Meetings. Talks. Handbills. I’ve heard what you said as part of the Workers’ Hygiene Commission, Miss Pursling. And I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit.”

  His voice had gone very cold indeed, and a little shiver ran up Minnie’s arms. “But all I said was—”

  “I know what you said. At the time, I put it down to mere naïveté. But now I know the truth. You’re not who you say you are. You’re lying.”

  Her heart began to beat faster. She glanced to her left, at the small group ten feet away. One of the girls was drinking punch and giggling. Surely, if she screamed—

  But screaming wouldn’t do any good. As impossible as it seemed, someone had discovered the truth.

  “I cannot be certain,” he said, “but I feel in my bones that something is amiss. You are a part of this.” So saying, he thrust a piece of paper at her, jabbing it almost into her breastbone.

  She took it from him reflexively and held it up to catch the light emanating from the windows. For a second, she wondered what she was looking at—a newspaper article? There had been enough of them, but the paper didn’t have the feel of newsprint. Or perhaps it was her birth record. That would be bad enough. She retrieved her glasses from her pocket.

  When she could finally read it, she almost burst into relieved laughter. Of all the accusations he could have leveled at her—of all the lies she’d told, starting with her own name—he thought she was involved with this? Stevens had given her a handbill, the kind that appeared on the walls of factories and was left in untidy heaps outside church doors.

  WORKERS, read the top line in massive capital letters. And then, beneath it: ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE!!!!!

  “Oh, no,” she protested. “I’ve never seen this before. And it’s really not my sort of thing.” For one thing, she was fairly certain that any sentence that used more exclamation points than words was an abomination.

  “They’re all over town,” he growled. “Someone is responsible for them.” He held up one finger. “You volunteered to make up the handbills for the Workers’ Hygiene Commission. That gives you an excuse to visit every printer in town.”

  “But—”

  He held up a second finger. “You suggested that the workers be involved in the Commission in the first place.”

  “I only said it made sense to ask workers about their access to pump water! If we didn’t ask, we would have done all that work only to find their health unchanged. It’s a long way from there to suggesting that they organize.”

  A third finger. “Your great-aunts are involved in that dreadful food cooperative, and I happen to know you were instrumental in arranging it.”

  “A business transaction! What does it matter where we sell our cabbages?”

  Stevens pointed those three fingers at her. “It’s all of a pattern. You’re sympathetic to the workers, and you’re not who you claim to be. Someone is helping them print handbills. You must think I’m stupid, to sign them like that.” He gestured at the bottom of the handbill. There was a name at the end. She squinted at it through her glasses.

  Not a name. A pseudonym.

  De minimis, she read. She’d never learned Latin, but she knew a little Italian and a good amount of French, and she thought it meant something like “trifles.” A little thing.

  “I don’t understand.” She shook her head blankly. “What has that to do with me?”

  “De. Minnie. Mis.” He spoke the syllables separately, giving her name a savage twist. “You must think me a fool, Miss Minnie.”

  It made a horrible kind of logic, so twisted that she might have laughed outright. Except that the consequence of this joke was not amusing.

  “I have no proof,” he said, “and as your friendship with my future wife is known, I have no wish to see you publicly humiliated and charged with criminal sedition.”

  “Criminal sedition!” she echoed in disbelief.

  “So consider this a warning. If you keep on with this—” he flicked the paper in her hands “—I will find out the truth of your origins. I will prove that you are the one behind this. And I will ruin you.”

  “I have nothing to do with it!” she protested, but it was futile. He was already turning away.

  She clenched the handbill in
her fist. What a damnable turn of events. Stevens was starting from a false premise, but it didn’t matter how he found the trail. If he followed it, he’d discover everything. Minnie’s past. Her real name. And most of all, her sins—long-buried, but not dead.

  De minimis.

  The difference between ruin and safety was a little thing. A very little thing, but she wasn’t going to lose it.

  Chapter Two

  “MINNIE!”

  This time, when the voice came across the courtyard, Minnie didn’t startle. Her heart didn’t race. Instead, she found herself growing calmer, and a real smile took over her face. She turned to the speaker, holding out her hands. “Lydia,” she said warmly. “I am so glad to see you.”

  “Where have you been?” Lydia asked. “I looked all over for you.”

  She might have lied to anyone else. But Lydia… “Hiding,” Minnie returned. “Behind the davenport in the library.”

  Anyone else would have taken that amiss. Lydia, however, knew Minnie as well as anyone ever could. She snorted and shook her head. “That’s so…so…”

  “Ridiculous?”

  “So unsurprising,” her friend answered. “I’m glad I found you, though. It’s time.”

  “Time? Time for what?” There was nothing playing beside Beethoven today.

  But her friend didn’t say anything. She simply took hold of Minnie’s elbow and walked her to the door of the mayor’s parlor.

  Minnie planted her feet. “Lydia, I meant it. What time is it?”

  “I knew you’d never suffer the introduction in the Great Hall with all those people about,” Lydia said with a smile. “So I asked Papa to keep watch in the parlor. It’s time for you to be introduced.”

  “Introduced?” The courtyard was almost empty behind them. “To whom am I being introduced?”

  Her friend wagged a finger at her. “You need to stay abreast of gossip. How is it possible that you do not know? He’s only twenty-eight years old, you know, and he has a reputation as a statesman—he’s widely credited with the Importation Compromise of 1860.”

  Lydia said this as if she knew what that was—as if everyone knew about the Importation Compromise of 1860. Minnie had never heard of it before, and was fairly certain that Lydia hadn’t, either.

  Lydia let out a blissful sigh. “And he’s here.”

  “Yes, but who is he?” She cast another look at her friend. “And what do you mean by that sigh? You’re engaged.”

  “Yes,” Lydia said, “And very, very happily so.”

  One too many verys for believability, but as Minnie had never successfully argued the point before, there was no point in starting now.

  “But you’re not engaged.” Lydia tugged on her hand. “Not yet. And in any event, what does reality have to do with imagination? Can you not once dream about yourself dressed in a gorgeous red silk, descending into a crowd of adoring masses with a handsome man at your side?”

  Minnie could imagine it, but the masses in her imagination were never adoring. They shouted. They threw things. They called her names, and she had only to wait for a nightmare to experience it again.

  “I’m not saying you must lay out funds for a wedding breakfast on the instant. Just dream. A little.” So saying, Lydia wrenched open the door.

  There were only a handful of people in the room beyond. Mr. Charingford stood nearest the door, waiting for them. He greeted his daughter with a nod. The room was small, but the walls had been paneled in wood, the windows were stained glass, and the fireplace was adorned with carving. The Leicester coat of arms took pride of place on the far wall, and the heavy mayor’s chair stood at the front of the room.

  That was where the few people had congregated—the mayor, his wife, Stevens, a man she didn’t recognize and… Minnie’s breath caught.

  It was him. That blond-haired, blue-eyed man who’d spoken to her in the library. He’d looked far too young to be anyone important. More to the point, he’d seemed far too nice for it. To see the mayor dance attendance on him…

  “You see?” Lydia said in a low voice. “I think even you could dream about him.”

  Handsome and kind and important. The tug of her imagination was an almost visceral thing, leading her along paths paved with moonlit fantasies.

  “Sometimes,” Minnie said, “if you believe in the impossible…”

  She had been so young, when her father had been liked well enough that he was invited everywhere. Vienna. Paris. Rome. He’d had little to his credit aside from an old family name, an easy style of conversation, and a talent for chess-playing that was almost unsurpassed. He’d dreamed of the impossible, and he’d infected her with his madness.

  All you have to do is believe, he’d told her from the time she was five. We don’t need wealth. We don’t need riches. We Lanes just believe harder than everyone else, and good things come to us.

  And so she’d believed. She’d believed him so hard that there had been nothing to her but hollow belief when all his schemes had broken apart.

  “If you believe in the impossible,” Lydia said, jerking her back to the present, “it might come true.”

  “If you believe in the impossible,” Minnie said tartly, “you let go of what you have.”

  There were no moonlit paths that led to this man. There was only a gentleman who had spoken kindly to her. That was it. No dreams. No fantasies.

  “And you have so much to lose.” Lydia’s voice was mocking.

  “I have a great deal to lose. Nobody points at me and whispers when I go down the street. Enraged mobs do not follow me seeking vengeance. Nobody throws stones.”

  And strange men were still kind to her. He was unfairly handsome—no doubt that explained the gleam in Lydia’s eye. From what Lydia had said about importation, he was involved in politics. A Member of Parliament, perhaps? He seemed too young for that.

  “So serious,” Lydia said, pulling a face. “Yes, you’re right. You could be spit upon and hailed as a complete monster. And perhaps you might be eaten by dragons. Be reasonable. Nothing of that ilk is even remotely possible. Since you can’t envision it for yourself, I’ll do it for you. For the next minute, I’m going to imagine that he’ll turn around and take one look at you…”

  There was no need to imagine. He, whoever he was, turned at that moment. He looked at Lydia, who was bristling with excitement. She sank into a deep curtsey. Then his eyes rested on Minnie.

  There you are, his gaze seemed to say. Or something like. Because a spark of recognition traveled through her. It wasn’t something as simple as seeing his face and finding it familiar. It was the sense that they knew one another, that their acquaintance ran deeper than a few moments spent together behind a davenport.

  The man’s eyes traveled right, lighting on Lydia’s father standing by them. He took a few steps forward, abandoning the people around him. “Mr. Charingford, isn’t it?” he asked.

  As he came closer, he caught Minnie’s eye once more and he gave her a slightly pained smile—one that tugged at some long-hidden memory.

  If Mr. Charingford’s agitation hadn’t given her a hint, that smile would have convinced her. This man was someone important. It took her a moment to place that curious expression on his face—that small smile, paired with eyes that crinkled in something close to chagrin.

  She’d seen it eight years ago on Willy Jenkins’s face. Willy Jenkins had been bigger than all the other boys his age—alarmingly so. At just fifteen years of age, he’d been six feet tall and almost thirteen stone in weight. He had the strength to fit his size, too. She’d seen him lift his two younger brothers, once, one in each hand.

  Willy Jenkins was big and strong, and the other boys would have been frightened of him were it not for his smile.

  Mr. Charingford gave an obsequious bow, so low that he almost doubled over. He scarcely choked the words out. “Might I present…?”

  Mr. Charingford didn’t even assume that this man would allow the introduction—seemed to think that it
would be perfectly good manners if he said no.

  “By all means,” the man said. He met Minnie’s gaze; she looked away swiftly. “My circle of acquaintance is never so large that it cannot include more young ladies.” That apologetic smile again—Willy’s smile. It was the one Willy gave when he won at arm wrestling—and he had always won at arm wrestling. It was one that said: I’m sorry that I am bigger than you and stronger than you. I’m always going to win, but I’ll try not to hurt you when I do. It was the smile of a man who knew he possessed considerable strength, and found it faintly embarrassing.

  “So considerate,” Mr. Charingford said. “This is my daughter, Miss Lydia Charingford, and her friend, Miss Wilhelmina Pursling.”

  The blond man bowed over Lydia’s hand—a faint inclination of his head—and reached to take Minnie’s fingers.

  “Young ladies,” Mr. Charingford said, “this is Robert Alan Graydon Blaisdell.”

  His eyes—a blue so lacking in color that it put her in mind of a lake in winter—met hers. That smile curled up at the corners, more chagrined than ever. His fingers touched hers, and even through their gloves his hand felt overly warm. Despite every ounce of good sense, Minnie could feel herself respond to him. Her smile peeked out to match his. In her imagination, for just that one moment, there were moonlit paths. And that silver light painted every bleak facet of her life in magic.

  Beside her, Mr. Charingford swallowed, the sound audible at this distance. “He is, of course, His Grace, the Duke of Clermont.”

  Minnie almost yanked her fingers back. A duke? A bloody duke had found her behind the sofa? No. No. Impossible.

  Charingford indicated the other man by his side. “And his, uh, his man of business—”

  “My friend,” the duke interrupted.

  “Yes.” Charingford swallowed. “Of course. His friend, Mr. Oliver Marshall.”

  “Miss Charingford. Miss Pursling,” the duke said, nodding to Lydia over Minnie’s shoulder. “All the pleasure in the introduction is surely mine.”

  Minnie tipped her head slightly. “Your Grace,” she choked out.