Page 16 of His Duchess of Scandal
Hermia’s resolve shattered, and she pulled Isabella into her arms for a quick hug.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I do not know what has happened, but I will get to the bottom of it. Your future will be safe, I swear it.”
She saw the flicker of doubt in Isabella’s eyes, but her sister said nothing, only released her.
Hermia backed away, rushing out of Wickleby Hall to the stables. There, she slipped between the stalls to find her mare.
Brushing a quick hand down Aphrodite’s nose, she clambered onto her back.
London was not far at all, and so she set her eyes on the distance and urged Aphrodite onward, letting herself fade into the dark evening.
Chapter Three
“Iassume you all know why I have summoned you here,” Charles said sternly.
The footmen lined up in a row, their coats pristine and crisp, copper colored.
Charles stood before them in the parlor of his townhouse, his eyes sweeping the line of footmen, the steward, Robert Cunningham, and his housekeeper, Mrs. Andrews.
Robert looked nervous, as did some of the footmen, but Mrs. Andrews kept her chin high. Not in defiance, but in business. She understood the severity of the situation.
“All I would like to know,” Charles said quietly, “is how the portrait was moved. Iexplicitlysaid that the portrait was not to be touched. It was a personal one, and now I have been humiliated before the ton. Furthermore, the lady in the portrait has been humiliated before the ton.”
He had spoken nothing of the woman he had dubbedAphrodite, the lady who had so much to say about his artwork. Nobody knew that he wasthe infamous Christian Dawson, yet nobody knew either that Charles Thorne himself painted.
Nobody except Levi and the staff.
“I am sorry, Your Grace,” Robert offered. “I will get to the bottom of it immediately and make sure the issue is resolved. It is an incredible invasion of both parties’ privacy, and I am terribly ashamed it has happened under my watch. Your Grace, I am so?—”
“I do not need apologies.” Charles waved him off. “I need answers. I need an explanation.”
“I will dismiss who did this,” Robert swore.
Charles’s eyes cut to the footmen to see who reacted to the threat.
They all looked equally nervous, so that was no indicator.
He nodded once at Robert and then redirected his attention to the footmen. “Whoever did this must speak. Now.”
Framed against the sun-drenched window, the footmen’s faces only showed terror. Either they were all covering up for one, or none of them had anything to do with it, but didn’t want to look defiant.
“I will not take silence,” Charles warned, raising an eyebrow. How he kept his composure when he had been falling apart all day, he did not know. “Somebody ought to talk.”
Nobody spoke up, and his frustration grew, thinking of the moment everybody had gasped.
He started pacing the room, closing his eyes while his back was turned to them.
All the years he had spent restoring the Branmere name, only to be the one to bring shame and laughter upon it.
For peoplehadlaughed, more of a nervous kind, the sort where they did not know what to do with what they had seen.
But Charles had not laughed. He had been humiliated and furious.
“I am not leaving this parlor—nobodyis leaving this parlor—until the matter is resolved and the culprit uncovered.”
Again, only silence greeted him. Tamping down his frustration, he adjusted his shirt sleeves and regarded his servants once more.
“If nobody speaks up, then you will all face the consequences,” he warned, thinking it more likely that they were protecting one man than all being in on it. “I do hope you have all enjoyed theextra two weeks off during the off-season months, for it will not continue if nobody fesses up.”
