Page 111 of The Wolf Duke's Wife
He took the paper from her and read. She watched the slow change in his face. The humor banked, the light gone from the eyes, the mouth flattening to a line a magistrate would have respected.
“They have an astonishing gift for being wrong in every particular,” he said at last, voice quiet in the way quiet is most dangerous, “it is almost admirable.”
“It is almost daily,” she said, keeping her tone light because his was not, “they needn’t be right to sell.”
He turned the sheet and read again, in case rage looked better from a different angle.
“They call you an adventuress who learned her arts in a kitchen.”
His eyes lifted to hers, and the gentleness that replaced anger made her flinch harder, “Does this wound you, Christine?”
“It pricked,” she attempted a smile that did not quite deserve the name. “A shopgirl used the name yesterday, too. And Lady Martha during the Duke Hunt, when we were walking in Greytonwic.”
He folded the sheet with care and tucked it, like a specimen, under his arm. “Come.”
“Tristan…”
“Come,” he repeated, the syllable clipped, not unkind, “we are paying a call.”
I will not stand for it. I will not have her name dragged through the mud of London’s streets and the gutters of its minds. It stops now.
She followed because she had learned, by now, when the wolf had decided to run. He found their carriage with a look. London rose, wet and watchful. Tristan sat forward, one hand braced on the rail, his fury coiled into purpose so neatly that she almost pitied its object. She reached for his sleeve. He covered her hand with his and left it there as if he had forgotten he did not usually ask for comfort.
The offices ofThe Evening Clarionsquatted in a crooked street that smelt of ink and old cabbage. Pressmen moved like ghosts behind the window; a boy swept letters from a doorstep with a broom that had given up but refused to retire. Inside, the air was hot with metal and damp paper. The clerk at the desk tucked his pen behind his ear and saw two people he did not recognize and did not fit in this place.
“Good evening,” Tristan said, utterly polite, “we would like a word with the editor.”
The clerk swallowed. “Mr. Setter is occupied.”
“He will be unoccupied,” Tristan said, “tell him the Duke of Duskwood is here about a correction.”
The name went through the room like a rolled drum. A door opened at the back. A man with spectacles too small for his face emerged, a quill still in his hand like a cigarette. He took them in, the height, the title, the woman whom his paper had turned into a headline, and recovered faster than sanity recommended.
“Your Grace,” he said, as if he conducted conversations with wolves daily, “we are honored. If you object to the tonality of a particular item, I can assure you we have the highest respect for…”
Tristan handed him the folded sheet. “You will retract this tomorrow,” he said, calmly, “you will apologize for the language you used, which was inaccurate and designed to injure. You willdo so in the top left, above the fold, where I am told eyes go when readers pretend to be moral.”
Mr. Setter glanced down the column as if hoping the words had arranged themselves into virtue since printing.
“Ah,” he said, “you will understand, Your Grace, that the public’s appetite…”
“—is not a stomach I mean to fill,” Tristan said, “here is what I offer instead. An exclusive to your paper, the Clarion. The particulars of the engagement festivities at Duskwood. That includes guest lists, benefactions, a public supper on the green, a subscription fund for the parish school, and the widow’s board administered by Mr. Reeve, Mayor of Duxworth. Your paper may have the news first, clean and whole, with as many flattering engravings as you can contrive. You will also enjoy the novelty of being correct.”
Mr. Setter blinked. “And if we decline?”
“Then you will enjoy a lawsuit,” Tristan said pleasantly, “and discover that printers’ ink washes off hands more easily than it does from reputation. Furthermore, you will find your rival…” he nodded toward the window, where across the street a meaner office stood, “will suddenly be favored by the highest houses in town, beginning with my own. I will teach them the pleasure of accuracy.”
Setter’s pen twitched in his fingers. “You propose to bribe us with truth.”
“I propose to reward you with it,” Tristan said, “bribery would insult your profession.”
Christine watched Mr. Setter measure coins. He was a pragmatist, not a martyr. He studied Tristan’s face as if for a leak and found none. He studied Christine’s, found neither tears nor appetite for them, and reassessed again.
“Top left,” Setter said slowly. “Above the fold.”
“With your name,” Tristan said, “so that men know whom to thank for decency.”
Setter hesitated, looked down at the sheet one last time as if hoping it would absolve him, and then flicked it in half with his fingers like a card trick.
