Page 50 of A Duke in Disguise
Verity cracked a smile and climbed in. There ensued a polite but wordless dispute over seating arrangements, which ended somehow with Ash’s aunt occupying the entire front-facing bench while Verity and Ash sat opposite her.
“I’m going to give testimony tomorrow,” Verity said once she had arranged her skirts.
Ash frowned. When his solicitor had told him as much, Ash had protested heartily. But Verity had been the one to find the letter, so she must take the stand. “I apologize for that.”
“Don’t,” she said. “I told you that I want to help you. Besides, after hearing your uncle’s barrister publicly slander you and Lady Caroline, I want a chance to look him in the eye.” She said this viciously enough that Ash wouldn’t have liked the barrister’s odds if he met Verity Plum in a darkened alleyway. He very much wanted to take her into his arms but they were in a carriage with his aunt.
At close distance, Ash could see that Verity’s unfamiliar garments were speckled with more than a little cat hair. “I gather you and the cat are getting along.”
“She has a charming new habit of scratching me bloody if I stop petting her. Also, her name is now Isabella of France.”
When the carriage stopped at Holywell Street, Verity tried to tuck a stray piece of hair beneath the brim of her bonnet.
“Here,” he said, staying her arm. “Hold still.” He retrieved a pin from his pocket to tie back the loose tendril.
“I’d like to know whose hair you’re dressing these days to warrant still carrying hairpins around,” Verity said over her shoulder as she stepped down from the carriage.
“Only you, Plum. I’m ever optimistic that I’ll have a chance to put you to rights.”
“Until tomorrow,” she said, and Ash knew a moment of confidence that no matter what, they would look out for one another.
Chapter Nineteen
Verity arrived in the courtroom the next morning wearing a bonnet that was even more demurely enormous than the previous day’s. She truly hoped Ash recognized two days of consecutive bonnets as the public declaration of love that it was. From where she sat, Ash seemed weary and on edge, and she wished she could have sat by him. But she had a different role to play this morning.
With her hands—sheathed in Amelia’s finest kidskin gloves—folded in her lap, she watched as the judge read a letter from a trustee of St. Gerald’s School in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, stating that Adrian Lewes had been employed by that institution from the year 1792 until his death ten years later.
Then, accompanied by a din that rose to a roar, the judge announced Verity’s name and she made her way to the witness stand. For the last two days the papers had talked about how one of their own, the publisher of theLadies’ Registerand sister to Nathaniel Plum, had come into possession of an item of evidence that was crucial to the fate of the Forgotten Heir. This was too good a story to resist, of course. Every word she spoke would be transcribed in newspapers and distorted in broadsheets. She’d be lucky if she didn’t have a ballad written about her.
Answering the barrister’s questions in a loud, clear voice, she spoke about how she had come into possession of the letter, who Roger Bertram was, how she knew the plaintiff, and other questions as to her knowledge of Ash’s life dating from his arrival in London.
She then answered Ash’s uncle’s barrister in tones of bland indifference. When the barrister asked whether it was true that she was the defendant’s lover, and had cooked up this scheme in order to make herself a duchess, she let out a peal of laughter. The judge warned her to answer the question that was posed.
“Sir, if you’re in the least familiar with my magazines, you’ll know precisely in what regard I hold the aristocracy. For my brother’s dearest friend and the companion of my childhood to now count himself among the most highly ranked men of the land is a grievous professional embarrassment.” The court exploded into laughter, and no amount of gavel pounding brought order until Verity had descended from the stand and disappeared through the crowd. On her way from the stand, she met Ash’s eye and he responded with a slight, grateful smile.
And then—oh, to hell with it. Instead of returning to her seat upstairs, she sat beside Lady Caroline. She didn’t know if this was even allowed, and as someone who had been raised to have a healthy fear of the organs of the law, she half expected a bailiff to haul her off to a prison cell. But nobody even seemed to notice, because Ash was taking the stand and all eyes were on him.
He looked like the grandson of a duke and she hated it. She made plans to divest him of every stitch of snowy white linen, to make him pay for that cravat pin and signet ring. But beneath all those despicable trappings of class that was Ash up there, and she loved him, whatever he wore, whatever he was.
As Ash spoke, she knew she wasn’t the only one who thought he looked the part. The court was silent, every person’s attention on him. In a tone that conveyed a sense of acute embarrassment that he had found himself in this position, he told the court what little he remembered of his early life and the circumstances under which he had discovered his origins.
“Do you wish you had never found out the truth?” asked his solicitor.
“Yes,” Ash answered without hesitation. “If I were still an engraver, I think I’d be halfway to convincing the woman I love to become my wife. Or maybe a third of the way.” Verity heard soft laughter even as her cheeks heated. “But with things as they are, I doubt that will come to pass.”
He was a fool. She had worn this bonnet. Did he not understand the significance of that? She was in love with an idiot. But she saw two members of the jury smile fondly at him, and even the judge brought a hand to his mouth to conceal what must have been a grin. That, she knew, was the moment he had won the case.
It was also, it seemed, the moment his uncle realized it, because while Ash was being cross-examined, his uncle, who until that point had been a dark and sullen presence on the opposite side of the room, rose to his feet. The courtroom fell silent, and then once again exploded into sound as the man pushed his way out of the room.
“I know that look,” Lady Caroline said. Her face was ashen, and when Verity reached for one of her hands, she could feel the chill even through both their sets of gloves. “I need to stop him.” The older woman rose to her feet. The judge pounded on his gavel, and Verity sought out Ash, who was still on the stand. He gave her a pleading look.
“All right,” Verity said, standing. “Lead the way.”
Lady Caroline’s carriage was nowhere to be found, so Verity hailed a hack.
“Where are we going?” Verity asked.
“Arundel House. If we aren’t too late.”
