The Duke’s Fiancée Threw Water at the Maid — She Wiped It Off and Said, “You Will Remember This Day”

Chapter 10

The cellar stairs were narrow and worn hollow in the middle, and the Duke went down them slowly, one hand on the damp stone wall.

He was halfway down when he heard it.

He stopped.

The lantern shook in his hand, and the shadows on the wall lurched and swayed, and for a moment he thought he had imagined it, because he had imagined it a thousand times — in the dark, in the smoke, in the long gray hour before dawn.

But it went on.

That tune. Soft, low, sad. Coming from behind the cellar door.

Guide me home when the dark is deep.

For six years, Edmund Ashworth had heard that song only in his dreams. He had never been able to remember the words when he woke, only the shape of the melody, only the certainty that it had once been sung to him by someone who had saved his life.

He did not realize that he had stopped breathing.

He came down the last step as if he were walking through water. He put the key into the lock. It turned with a scrape that seemed to fill the whole cellar.

The humming stopped at once.

Cora stood up quickly from the crate and curtsied, the blanket falling off her shoulders onto the floor.

“Your grace.”

The Duke held up the lantern.

For a long moment he only looked at her. The wet hair. The thin blanket. The pale face. The gray glove on her right hand.

“Did you take the pearls?” he asked.

“No, your grace.”

“Then how did they come to be in your apron?”

“Someone put them there.”

“Who?”

Cora looked at him and said nothing.

“Lady Cordelia is to be my wife,” the Duke said quietly. “Why would she do such a thing to a housemaid?”

“Ask her, your grace.” Cora’s voice was low but it did not shake. “Ask her why she threw water in my face. Ask her what she heard outside your door.”

The Duke’s heart was beating hard now, so hard he could feel it in his throat.

“That song,” he said. “The one you were humming just now. Where did you learn it?”

And then they both turned.

Lady Cordelia Vain stood at the top of the cellar steps in her silk dressing gown, holding a candle in a silver dish. The light from below caught her face at an ugly angle, but her voice was soft and sweet and worried.

“There you are, darling. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” She came down two steps. “Mother is quite hysterical, and I did not want to be alone.”

Her eyes flicked to Cora, then back to him.

“You shouldn’t be down here with her. She’s a thief. She could be dangerous.”

“I was asking her some questions,” said the Duke.

“And what has she told you?” Cordelia asked lightly. “Let me guess. That she’s innocent. That someone else did it. That’s what they all say, Edmund.”

She came down another two steps and laid a gentle hand on his arm.

“Please come upstairs. You’re tired, and it’s cold, and she isn’t worth it.”

The Duke looked at Cora one more time.

Cora looked back at him. She did not beg. She did not plead. She did not say please. She simply waited, with her scarred hand hidden in its glove, and her eyes on his face.

He turned and went up the stairs with Cordelia.

The door closed. The key turned. Cora sat back down on the crate in the dark.

He had heard it. She knew he had heard it — she had seen it in his face, the way a man’s face changes when a door inside him opens onto a room he had locked years ago.

And he had still walked away.

She pulled the blanket up to her chin and told herself that she had expected nothing else. She had told herself that for six years. It had never once been true.