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

Chapter 29

The West India Dock was a forest of masts and ropes and frozen rigging.

The Duke’s carriage flew through the gates at twenty-five minutes past eleven, scattering gulls and dock workers, the horses lathered white, the coachman shouting. Behind it, another carriage followed, and behind that, a cart.

The Endeavour was moving.

The lock gates were open. Slowly, heavily, the great ship was sliding out toward the river, towed by a little steam tug that churned the brown water to foam. The deck was crowded with passengers and crew, and the dock was crowded with the people who had come to watch her go.

And on the deck, standing alone at the rail, was a small figure in a gray shawl.

Cora Bell was looking back at London.

Back at the city where her father was, she believed, alive and safe because of what she had done. Back at the towers and the smoke and the gray domes and the thousand windows, one of which belonged to a man she would never see again.

She had signed away her name for her father’s life. She had done the only thing she could do. And it was right, and it was just, and it was tearing her in half.

The Duke jumped down from the carriage before it had stopped and ran to the edge of the dock.

The ship was already too far. Thirty feet of black water between the stone and the hull, and widening.

The sailors were shouting. The tug was blowing its whistle. The wind was loud, and the crowd was loud, and he could not shout her name — she would never hear it, not over all of that.

So the Duke of Ravenshollow did the only thing he could think of.

He sang.

His voice was rough, and out of tune, and ragged with running, and it cracked on the high note, and every dock worker within twenty feet turned to stare at the madman in the muddy coat standing at the edge of the water.

Guide me home when the dark is deep.

Guide me home by the light you keep.

On the deck of the Endeavour, the girl in the gray shawl went completely still.

For a moment she did not move at all. Then she turned, slowly, as if she were afraid of what she would see.

She saw him on the dock — muddy, breathless, bare-headed, his coat torn, his arm still raised.

And beside him, climbing slowly and painfully down from the second carriage with a doctor holding one arm, was a thin old man with a gray beard.

Her father.

Alive.

Cora screamed.

She ran along the deck to the captain, grabbing his sleeve, begging, pointing, half sobbing, half laughing. The Duke was already shouting at the harbour master. Money was changing hands. Men were running along the quay. A rope was thrown.

Five minutes later, a small rowing boat pulled away from the side of the Endeavour, and two sailors bent to the oars, and a girl in a gray shawl sat in the stern with her hands pressed over her mouth.

When the boat reached the stone steps of the dock, Cora Bell did not wait for anyone to help her out.

She climbed up the wet steps with her skirts in her fists and threw herself into her father’s arms.

They held each other and wept, and the dock workers stopped their work and watched in silence, and the gulls circled overhead screaming, and the Endeavour slid on down the river without her.

When at last she lifted her head, the Duke was standing in front of her.

“Lord Vain lied to you,” he said quietly. “He never meant to save your father. He was going to let him hang this morning while you sailed away.”

Cora’s hand went to her mouth.

“But you saved him,” she whispered.

“No,” said the Duke. “You did. You and your date at the bottom of that page.”

He took her right hand in both of his — glove and all, the burned hand, the hand she had hidden for six years.

“You told Cordelia she would remember this day. You were right.”

He went down on one knee on the wet stones of the West India Dock, in front of the sailors and the dock workers and the fishwives and the gulls, with his muddy coat spreading in a puddle around him.

“But I owe you so much more than one day, Cora Bell. I owe you my whole life. And if you will let me, I would like to spend it paying you back.”

Cora looked down at him.

And for the first time in six years, she laughed through her tears.

“Your grace,” she said. “You are kneeling in a puddle.”

“I know,” said the Duke. “Answer me anyway.”

And she did.