The Duchess War

He’d long since realized that he used cigarillos as an excuse to avoid company. Now, the trickle of smoke that escaped into the compartment made another barrier, a hazy wall built between him and his wife. He took a drag on it anyway, and the smoke was acrid and harsh in his lungs, a more fitting punishment for what he’d allowed than his own guilt.

He’d known that Stevens wanted a culprit. He’d known, and in the haste—and lust—of his wedding, he’d put the matter off for his return. He thought he had time enough to deal with it.

The miles clacked past, marked only by his watch and the passing villages. Long hours slipped by, punctuated only by the shriek of the brakes and the whistle of the train for the few stops that the express made. First Beauvais, then Amiens, was left behind. It was only when the train skirted the silver-barked beeches of the Forest of Crécy that his wife braved the forbidding looks he gave her and crossed to him.

“You know,” she said, coming to stand by him near the farthest wall, “pushing won’t make it go faster.”

“No?” He tapped the end of his cigarillo out the window and watched embers fly away, pulsing briefly in the wind. “Doesn’t slow it down, either. Not that I can see.”

She looked away. Her fingers tapped against the window; her jaw squared.

A third punishment, that slight withdrawal, one that stung more than the smoke he’d inhaled.

But this way, you’re punishing her, too. His fist clenched and he shook his head.

She didn’t say anything. The train went around a curve; she put one hand against the wall to steady herself. The protest of the metal couplings, bending in place, surrounded them. The sound of the train, clack-clacking along at something just above thirty miles an hour, swallowed up any other response she might have given.

Not even one week married, and he was already fouling everything up. He’d wanted…so much. Not just a wife in name, but a family in truth. Someone who chose him.

Stupid bloody dream, that. At this particular moment, he wouldn’t have chosen himself, either. He gave the cigarillo another flick and watched orange sparks fly.

And that was when he felt her arm close around him from behind. She didn’t say anything at all, just pressed against him, holding him tight. She squeezed until it was clear that she wasn’t letting go, no matter how foul his mood. His breath rasped in his lungs, and this time not from the smoke.

“Oh, Minnie,” he heard himself say. “What am I going to do?”

“Everything you can. When is the trial?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“You’re a duke. There must be something you can do.” She paused. “Legal matters… I know almost nothing about them. But cannot trials be quashed?”

“This one, it’s intended to embarrass me,” Robert said. “Retaliation, I think.”

His face grew grim.

“There’s been something odd afoot in Leicester. I started looking into it because I discovered what my father had done with Graydon Boots. Those charges of criminal sedition always arose just when matters between workers and masters had come to a head. They’re grudges, not a proper application of the law.”

“All the easier to have it quashed, then,” Minnie said.

“Not that simple.” Robert tapped the cigarillo against the window frame once again. “Sebastian said they’ve already had a few reporters come in from London to cover the matter. It’s being reported that a man in my household committed a crime. Stevens no doubt thinks he has an easy conviction, that with me out of the country, I won’t be unable to respond. He thinks the damage will be done by the time I come back. I’ll be embarrassed, and Oliver—a guest of my house and a known associate—will be branded a criminal.”

“But that won’t happen,” Minnie said.

Robert was silent a little longer. “I could bring enough pressure to bear that the case would be dropped.”

Her arms tightened around him.

“But I can’t stop the talk that would result if I quashed the inquiry. My brother…he’s worked hard, so damned hard, to build up a store of respect for himself. He’s beginning to have a reputation as an intelligent, fair-minded man. If I quashed the inquiry—even if we won, eventually, on the grounds that the papers weren’t even seditious—the idea that he had written such radical sentiments under an assumed name would destroy everything he’s worked for. So, yes, I could stop the legal trial. But my brother doesn’t just need a favorable verdict. He needs to be publicly exonerated of the charge.”

“And you’ll see it done.”

She said it so confidently, so sweetly, that for a moment he almost believed her.

“I’ll do anything.” His voice broke. “My brother told me once that family was a matter of choice. If I were to turn my back on him now, what kind of brother would I be to him?” He let the cigarillo go; it swirled in the eddies alongside the train and disappeared around the bend before he saw it land. The forest passed by, receding in the distance. Now there was only rolling pastureland.

He counted three fences before he spoke again. “My father raped his mother.”

She sucked in her breath.

“That’s the claim I have on him—that an unwilling woman was once forced to my father’s will. That my family was so powerful that justice was subverted.”

“It wasn’t you.”

“It was the Duke of Clermont. I bear his name, his face.” His hands tightened into fists. “His responsibility. I suppose in some ways it was the height of selfishness for me to even claim him as a brother. But I can’t let go. If family is a matter of choice, I’ll choose him. And I will, over and over, until—”

The thought was a crushing weight against his chest. He almost staggered with it. He did stagger, when the train shifted direction once more. But Minnie leaned into his shoulder, steadying him, and then guided him to sit on one of the cushioned benches.

“You’ll choose him until what?” she asked.

“Until the stars fall from the sky,” he said. “Because he chose me first.”

It was such a damning thing to admit, that vulnerability. He felt like a turtle, stripped of its shell, being readied for soup.

But she didn’t lift a brow at that. Instead, she stood before him, her skirts spilling around his knees. Her fingers traced his eyebrows, pressing against his temples before running back along the furrows of his forehead. It felt…lovely. As if she could coax the tense guilt from his features.