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

Chapter 20

Lord Vain listened to every word.

He was sitting in a deep chair by a fire that had burned down to embers, in a room full of dark furniture and dark paintings, with a glass of port on the table beside him. He did not interrupt. He did not move. His rings caught the firelight as he turned the glass slowly between his fingers.

When the man had finished, Lord Vain did not shout. He did not curse. He did not knock over the glass or ring for a servant.

He only smiled.

“A convict who came home early,” he said softly. “Well, well, well.”

He set the glass down.

“Thomas Bell has just done my work for me.”

He rang the bell for his carriage, and then he sat for a few minutes longer, thinking.

It was, he reflected, a beautiful piece of luck. The girl had been a problem — a small problem, but a problem, the kind that grows if it is left in the ground. He had thought he would have to deal with her the slow way: the closed doors, the empty pockets, the winter. He had done it before, to other people, and it always worked. London was a hungry city.

But now she had given him something much better.

A criminal. A returned convict. A man the law would hang by the neck until he was dead, and everyone in England would say quite right too.

And if the girl tried to speak — if she ever tried to open her mouth about fires, or songs, or burned hands — who would listen to the daughter of a hanged felon?

Nobody. Nobody on earth.

He smiled again, and picked up his hat.

The Dowager Duchess and Lady Cordelia had come up to London that same week, because there was the wedding dress to finish and the flowers to order and a thousand other things, and they were all staying at the Duke’s townhouse in Mayfair.

At nine o’clock the next morning, the Duke came downstairs dressed to go out.

He found his mother, Cordelia, and Lord Vain all waiting for him in the front hall, in their coats, with the carriage at the door.

“Good morning, Edmund,” said Cordelia sweetly. “Going somewhere?”

The Duke stopped on the stairs.

“On business,” he said.

“To St. Mary’s church, by the docks,” said Lord Vain. “Then we shall come with you. There is something you need to see.”

The Duke’s face went very still.

“What do you know about St. Mary’s?”

“More than you do, I think,” said Lord Vain cheerfully. “Come along. It won’t take long.”

He was already reaching for the door handle when the Duke said, quietly:

“What have you done?”

Lord Vain opened the door, and the cold morning came in, and outside in the street the carriage horses stamped and blew steam into the air.

“Nothing at all,” he said. “I have merely informed the proper authorities of something they ought to know.”

And then he smiled, and stepped out into the snow.