Page 51 of A Duke in Disguise
“Too late for what, exactly?”
“I expect he’s going to tear up my plants. He’s always been a petty man.” She sounded so resigned to this, and Verity remembered her mother’s similar state of mind with respect to her father’s temperamentality.
When they arrived at Arundel House, the front door was slightly ajar. The foyer was empty, the house utterly silent.
“Perhaps I was wrong,” Lady Caroline said. “Perhaps he didn’t come here at all, but went off to his club.”
That was when Verity smelled smoke. “I think he’s here,” she said unnecessarily, as Lady Caroline was already dashing up the marble stairs. Verity sighed and followed her. This was probably the stupidest thing she had ever done, rushing farther into a building that might well contain both a killer and a fire. But for all she knew Lady Caroline was being murdered at that very moment. Or the duke might be being killed—no, on second thought she didn’t care much about him. He was a villain and entirely welcome to die, as far as she was concerned. But Lady Caroline had been good to Ash and had suffered enough for a couple of lifetimes.
When she reached the top of the stairs, there was no sign of Lady Caroline. The smoke seemed to be thicker than it was in the foyer, but still she couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Before she could debate whether to go downstairs and shout for the fire brigade, she was jerked backward by a strong arm around her neck. The man—presumably Ash’s uncle—had apparently never witnessed a street brawl, because he was utterly surprised when Verity twisted her head and bit his hand. She stepped out of his grasp, searching the landing for anything she could use to bludgeon him with, her eyes alighting on a very solid-looking urn. But before she could reach it, Lady Caroline appeared behind her brother and hit him on the head with a newel post that appeared torn from the bannister. He hit the ground with a thud.
“Are you all right?” Verity cried. Lady Caroline had blood on her face and the sleeve of her dress was badly singed, hinting at damage beneath.
Lady Caroline ignored her. “He’s not dead, is he?”
“I don’t think so,” Verity said, nudging the man with the toe of her boot. He rolled over, and the two women stared at him, and then at one another. He was inches from the broken segment of banister. Several posts were missing, as if they had been kicked out in anger, with the result that there was a gap of more than a yard.
“He tried to kill my father,” Lady Caroline said. “He set a fire outside his bedchamber.”
“It looks like he tried to kill you too,” Verity pointed out, gesturing towards the blood on the other woman’s face and the burn marks on her dress. “He certainly seemed intent on killing me. I do believe he tried to kill Ash once too. While we’re tallying up his crimes, that is,” Verity added, knowing she was rambling.
Lady Caroline stared at her brother, then took a deep breath. Then she braced her foot against his back and shoved him off. A moment later, they heard an ominously wet sound from below.
“What a pity that he fell by accident,” Verity managed. “What a shame.”
Lady Caroline stared in mute horror over the railing, as if unable to comprehend what she had done.
“I’ll never forget how you rescued me from an assault and then my attacker fell to his death completely by accident,” Verity recited, not taking her eyes from the older woman. There were advantages to spending some time on the windy side of the law. “Witnesses?”
Lady Caroline shook her head. “The servants are gone,” she said after a moment. “The house is empty except for my father and his manservant. Ash must have given them the day out.”
“Well. Let’s go downstairs and see if we can find a constable.” She looped her arm through Lady Caroline’s and they headed for the street, two women who had made their own justice.
When Ash walked in the front door of Arundel House, he was greeted by the sight of Verity and his aunt bonding over the corpse of his uncle. As he had spent the harrowing trip from Westminster imagining the grievous injury of either Verity or his aunt, it was a pleasant surprise, all things considered.
“Perhaps we ought to get a constable,” he suggested, shoving his hands in his pockets and deciding that he was not going to ask what had happened.
“We’ve already done that,” Verity said. “Now we’re waiting for the coroner.” She outlined the facts, with enough emphasis on how it was a terrible accident to make him resolve never to ask any questions about the details. Ash had been afraid his uncle would retaliate against the duke and the household staff, which was why Ash had quietly sent the servants away for the day. He found that he was pleased to learn that his grandfather had slept through the entire episode, and that the house suffered only minimal damage.
In the end it was past midnight by the time the body was removed, the coroner’s inquest scheduled, the servants returned, and the foyer cleaned of blood. Verity stayed with him the entire time.
“You still have on your bonnet,” he remarked when they were collapsed on the sofa in the library, Lady Caroline having retired to bed.
That must have been the wrong thing to say because she sat up straight and pointed a menacing finger at him. “Perjurer,” she declared. “A third of the way. Not likely to come to pass. Fabrications and falsehoods. As if I’d wear a bonnet for a man I didn’t love with every fiber of my being.”
He swallowed hard. “I don’t doubt your love for me, Plum, although it’s always gratifying to hear you remind me. But loving someone and marrying them are two different things entirely, as you’ve pointed out more than once.”
She set her jaw and regarded him in a way that was all too familiar. This was Verity steeling herself. “I’ve been thinking about those letters Roger saved,” she said, surprising him. “They were in love, weren’t they? Roger and the schoolmaster?”
“He never said as much, but I think so.”
“It must have been his friend’s bible. And I thought to myself, Roger must have remembered his friend every time he looked at that careless knot. He didn’t look at it as the text of a religion he rejected, but as a book that was dear to his friend. The ribbon was worn ragged, Ash.” He could picture Roger worrying the knot, running the ribbon between his fingers. “I dare say they would have married if they could have. Instead Roger must have only found out about his friend’s death weeks after it occurred. Ash, I don’t want to read about you in the paper. I want to be by your side.”
His arms were around her, hauling her into his lap. “That’s a yes?”
“It’s a yes.”
Verity was in the back of the courtroom when the jury announced that they had found in Ash’s favor. She wanted to see it happen, wanted to watch the moment Ash officially became a duke, as if the transformation would happen before her eyes. Ash was not present: a week after the death of his son, the old duke’s health had taken a turn for the worse and he died in the night. Ash remained with his aunt at Arundel House. When Verity arrived home, she found a note from Ash to the effect that he would call on her the following day, special license in hand, and haul her before the clergyman of her choice at a time convenient to herself. He also wrote that if she would consider where she might like to reside, he would be grateful.
