The Inconvenient Duchess

every sense of the word. The lady will be no help to you.’
    He got his foot in the door in time to halt the slam, and pushed roughly past her, into the tiny room. ‘Close the door. The questions I have to ask are better handled away from prying eyes.’ He tossed his purse on the table and watched her eyes light as it made a satisfying clink. ‘I require information. The money’s yours if you can provide it.’
    She dropped another curtsy, this one not tinged with irony. ‘At your service, milord.’
    ‘I want the whereabouts of Lady Cecily Dawson, and any information you can provide about her ward, Lady Miranda Grey.’
    The colour drained out of the woman before him. And she clutched the table edge. ‘Why would you be wanting that?’
    ‘To satisfy my mind in certain details of Miss Grey’s life before her recent marriage.’
    ‘She’s done it, then?’ The avarice in the old woman’s eyes changed to a glint of hope. ‘She’s safely married.’
    ‘Yes.’
    The woman pushed on. ‘And her husband. What is he like?’
    ‘He is a very powerful man, and impatient for information. Provide it, and keep the gold on the table—delay any longer and things will go bad for you.’
    A man’s voice rose from the curtained corner of the room behind him. ‘That’s enough, Cici. I’ll talk to the gentleman.’ The last word was said with a touch of scorn. The man that appeared from behind the curtain was in his mid-fifties, but hard work had left him much older. He walked with a cane, and the hands that held it were gnarled and knotted, the knuckles misshapen. He glared at the duke as though thiswere the reception room of a great house, and not a hovel, and said in a firm tone, ‘And whom do I have the honour of addressing, sir?’
    ‘Someone who wishes to remain anonymous.’
    ‘As do we. But you are the one who forced his way into my home, and you can take your gold and go, or introduce yourself properly. You have my word that your identity will go no further than these walls.’
    ‘Your word? And what is that worth to me?’
    ‘It is all I have to offer, so it will have to do.’
    ‘Very well, I am Marcus Radwell, Duke of Haughleigh.’ He heard a sharp gasp escape the lady behind him. ‘And you, sir?’
    ‘I, your Grace, am Sir Anthony Grey, father of the young lady you are enquiring after.’
    Marcus resisted the temptation to grab the corner of the table for support. Just what had he wandered into this time? ‘Her father? I was led to believe—’
    ‘That she was an orphan? It could well have been the case. Indeed, it would have been better had it been true.’ He looked at the duke in curiosity. ‘Tell me, Your Grace, before we go further—are you my daughter’s husband?’
    ‘Yes.’ The word came out as a croak, and he cleared his throat to master his voice before speaking again.
    ‘And you have come to London, seeking the truth.’
    ‘I left on our wedding night.’ He coughed again. Facing the girl’s father, even under these circumstances, it was a damned difficult subject. ‘Before an annulment became impossible.’
    ‘And where is my daughter, now?’
    ‘Safely in Devon. At my home.’
    ‘And your decision about her depends on the results of your search here?’
    ‘And on her wishes. I have no desire to force marriage on her, if she is unwilling.’
    Her father set his face in resolve. ‘Do not trouble yourself as regards her wishes, your Grace. Delicate sensibilities can be saved for those women that can afford them. My health is failing and I can no longer pretend to support the three of us. Her choices here are a place in service in a great house, or walking the street. If you still wish to have her, after today, she will choose you and be grateful.’
    ‘Proceed then, Sir Anthony.’
    The man barked a laugh at the title. ‘How curious to be addressed so, after all this time. Very well, then. My story.
    ‘Once, some thirteen years past, I was a happy man, with a beautiful wife, a daughter who was a joy to me and expectations of a son to carry on my name. Unfortunately, my wife died, giving birth to our second child, and the child died as well. The grief quite unhinged me. Your Grace, are you, as Cici remembered, a widower for similar reasons?’
    Marcus gave a faint nod.
    ‘Then you can understand the grief and disappointment, and perhaps sympathise with the depths to which I sunk. I turned from the daughter I loved, and, in the space of a few years, I destroyed