Page 88 of Her Duke By Accident
Juliet handed the letter back to her. “I don’t think that this is his handwriting, Your Grace.”
“How could you possible know that?”
“It’s quite familiar to me.”
Alicia’s eyes widened. “Well, that’s impossible. There isn’t any conceivable way for you to have seen my brother’s handwriting.”
“I know, Your Grace,” Juliet quietly said with a flushed face.
“You mean to say,” Alicia said, speaking slow as the apprehension clung to her throat, “that this letter is forged?”
Juliet raised her hands defensively. “Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn’t. Nevertheless, that writing is something I have seen before, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.”
“This is ridiculous!”
“I’m sorry, Your Grace, I never meant to offend you.”
“There isn’t any offense taken, Juliet,” Alicia breathed. “I am only torn between the reality presented to me, and the one you have so elusively uncovered. We are on the way to London, and I now doubt the reason why.”
Juliet licked her lips anxiously. “Can’t this be a good discovery, Your Grace? There is a chance your mother hasn’t been injured at all.”
“But doesn’t it bring along the question as to why this has happened?” Alicia asked. “Who wrote that letter, and why?”
“I cannot see a reason, Your Grace.”
Alicia turned to look out the window, more questions filling her mind than answers. She sighed, wrapping her arms around her chest as though a chill had entered the small carriage. Before the silence could carry on for long, the carriage came to a sudden stop.
Alicia and Juliet jolted forward, their bags shifting noisily above them.
“Have we arrived?” Juliet asked.
“In no way can we already be in London,” Alicia whispered, trying to get a good look out the window by pulling back the curtain.
At first, all she could see were woods, the tree branches and leaves swaying in the summer breeze. Shadows passed over the trees, looking tall and long like monsters. Alicia gasped, pulling herself away from the window.
“What is it, Your Grace?”
“I’m not sure,” she replied. “But I do not think it to be good tidings.”
More ruckus came from outside the carriage. There were two drivers at its helm, footmen from Garvey that regularly drove the carriages to and from London. Alicia could recognize their voices, but soon came to realize that there were unknown ones thrown into the fray.
“We are a simple delivery carriage,” one of the drivers was saying, his voice slightly muffled by the walls.
“Yes,” the other footman added, “only fruits and vegetables for Mayfair lodgings.”
Alicia narrowed her eyes. “Why do they lie?”
Something slammed against the left wall of the carriage, where Alicia sat. She flinched backwards, turning to watch a shadow move across the wall.
“This ain’t no delivery,” a man shouted out, his accent thick and deep.
“It is,” the footman repeated. “Deliveries only.”
Laughter came from the other side of the carriage.
“Look at ‘ow red the bloke looks!” Another man called out, more laughter surrounding the carriage.
“Juliet,” Alicia whispered amidst it all, gripping onto the girl’s arm, “try not to move.”
