Page 60 of Dukes Do It Better
It had to have been when they met in Olread Cove. The journal had disappeared in October, around when she’d spent the night with Mal. Questions buzzed through her brain, but Emma couldn’t ask any of them without giving away that she had the journal back.
Was her identity clear within the pages? Perhaps he didn’t realize the journal was hers?
That seemed as improbable as Mal sending threatening notes to the friends and family of the woman warming his bed. And yet, it wasn’t impossible.
At the front door, Emma tugged on her gloves and avoided his gaze.
“Are you sure you’re all right, Emma?”
“Of course. I’m just tired.” She dimpled up at him, pulling on the unaffected and innocent air she used to ply on her father. “You wore me out, Your Grace. Oh, there’s my carriage. Hobby must have been waiting for my summons. Good coachmen are worth their weight in gold, wouldn’t you agree?” Emma opened the door herself and rose on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek one more time.
“Let’s do this again soon,” she said. No, they wouldn’t be meeting like this again, but he didn’t need to hear that right this instant.
The cool night air slapped her cheeks as she nearly ran down the stairs to the coach and the footman holding the door open. “Thank you, Charles. Let’s go home.”
Her breathing didn’t calm until the wheels lurched into motion and the house with the black door and shiny brass knocker disappeared from sight.
Emma pulled the journal from her cloak and ran her fingers over the familiar dimensions. In the dark, she couldn’t see the words, but as she opened it, she knew the pages fluffed open to the wrong place. The clean pages at the back no longer opened upon command, awaiting her pen. This book had been read, and often enough to have changed to greet someone else’s favorite pages. A chill rocked her.
No, she could never see Malachi Harlow again. How she’d manage that, she had no idea.
* * *
“Good morning, Your Grace,” Ivan said, opening the door to the Trenton townhome.
“Dobroye utro, Ivan. Is my mother home?” Malachi handed his gloves and hat to the butler.
“In the library, Your Grace.”
Nodding his thanks, he strode down the hall toward the carved double doors. Inside, his mother stood on a rolling ladder, removing books from the shelves one by one. Now that he knew what the bank book looked like, it was obvious her efforts focused on those with red covers.
“Good morning, Mother. I trust you slept well. The night patrols report things have been quiet since the break-in.”
Lady Trenton stepped delicately from the ladder and brushed her hands together in a gesture he knew probably indicated nerves. With his mother, one never knew for sure. But he’d learned from a young age to watch her hands. Like a gambler, her hands were always the tell.
“Malachi. I wasn’t expecting you.”
After his time in the family crypt, the plan he’d hatched with the other men had solidified in his mind. All he had to do was convince his mother.
Easier said than done under most circumstances.
Within reach of the desk, a shelf held the collection of daily diaries George had kept from his years as Trenton. And, as he remembered, several of them were the approximate size and color of their father’s bank book. He slipped the stack from the shelf and placed them on the desk in a tidy pile.
“What are you doing? I’ve already searched those shelves.”
Malachi opened the first, filled with his brother’s neat handwriting and exhaustive details of the estate management. “We need to sacrifice one of them to get you out of the trouble you’ve made. Choose one to burn, and we’ll take the ashes to whoever you threatened. You’ll hand over the remnants and tell them it’s the bank book, which you destroyed to protect everyone’s secrets. And then, you’ll apologize prettily, claim you were addled by grief, or some such excuse, and promise to never misuse your power in such a way again. Do what you need to for this to go away.”
“But…those are George’s.” A crack in her voice made Malachi glance up. The stricken look on her pale face said it all.
The open book in his hands had his mother turning pasty white and shaky at the idea of getting rid of it. Malachi ran a hand over the page. It wasn’t really the book though, was it? It was the handwriting. A remnant of his brother. That’s what she couldn’t destroy.
The old ache, the pain of knowing he’d never be as beloved as perfect George, reared its head, but he stopped it with one look at his mother. The grief on her face was undeniable. Yes, she’d loved George more. Yes, she’d been frequently cruel and dismissive to Malachi as a child. And as a child he hadn’t understood why his mother favored one son over the other. At the end of the day, there was nothing he could do about it now. No way to earn her affection, or be enough in her eyes. The truth was, the Dowager Duchess of Trenton had lost the two men she loved most in the world—her husband and son. Her grief was real, and if he loved her at all, he’d recognize that.
“I miss him too, Mother. It’s not the same as what you feel. I understand that. But, even if we gutted this entire room and erased all signs of George, it doesn’t erase him. George knew how important Father’s bank book was, and he took great pains to hide it from us. Don’t you think he would throw this diary into the fire himself if it meant clearing a threat against you?”
To his shock, twin tears trailed down her cheeks. “Of course he would. You don’t really think he hid the bank book on purpose? From me?”
“I know he did. I found an entry mentioning it in one of these estate journals. Mother, he loved you dearly. He probably hid the bank book to protect you from the potential danger of Father’s secrets.” Danger she’d found anyway. Mal offered the book to her. “Would you like to look through this? It appears to be livestock and dairy records from the estate in Essex. But there might be a few personal notations you want to save.”
