The Inconvenient Duchess

your Grace,’ Sir Anthony said.
    ‘No, you are not and neither am I. What you’ve said about my mother is the truth. She cared for herself, and her status, and very little else. The fact that you managed to blackmailher into any action that was not solely for her benefit speaks to the heaviness of her soul at the end of her life. I married your daughter because I felt bound by honour to protect her good name after she came unannounced to my house and spent the night there unchaperoned. By her untimely death, my mother has trapped me yet again into choosing honour over good sense and secured the success of your scheme.’ He looked around him, ‘Of course, now that I have learned the origins of my wife…’
    Tears began to trickle from under the closed eyelids of the woman before him and he looked away. Better not to look and be fooled by a whore’s tears.
    Lord Anthony’s voice shook as he began. ‘Yes, your Grace, your new wife was raised by a drunkard and a gambler, and mothered by a whore. She has worked as a servant, cleaning privy pots and scrubbing hearthstones and doing whatever jobs were considered beneath the dignity of the regular staff. And now, if you turn her off, she has nowhere to go and will sink lower still to keep from starving to death. I am sick unto death myself of watching her pay for my sins. I wish to God when I held the pistol that day I had shot us both, rather than doom her to a life of servitude, for she has done nothing to deserve it but follow where I have led her. And when I sent her to you, she resisted, saying she’d rather stay with us and do what was necessary than leave us when we needed her. I made her swear, your Grace, on her mother’s Bible, that she’d do as I commanded and keep her tongue about it. I made her swear that, should she manage marriage to an honourable man, she would serve him with all her heart, and never, ever turn back to the place she had come from. She is a pearl, and a pearl buried in a dung heap is no less valuable for its surroundings.’
    Marcus kept his face impassive. ‘A pearl, you say? In what way? What can she bring to our marriage? There is no dowry, certainly. And as yet, she has not won me with her sweet nature and soft looks.’
    ‘She can bring her strength, your Grace. And her honour.’
    ‘Which she has proved to me by lying to gain access to my house and concealing the circumstances of her life.’
    ‘A thing that she would never have done had I not required it of her. She begged, your Grace, not to be forced to do this. And I’m sure that keeping the secret from you pains her almost as much as the separation from us. If you can relieve her of it, you will see her true nature and she will be eternally grateful to you. Look into your heart, your Grace, and ask yourself what you would do in the circumstances. Have you never lied to protect another? For that is all she is guilty of.’
    Marcus closed his eyes against the question, struck to the heart with a random blow. Maybe he and his new wife had more common ground than first he realised.
    He thought back to her, the way exhaustion had broken her the night he’d left, when the cool courtesy had cracked and the way a glimmer of the truth had come spilling out. The horror on her face, when she realised what she’d said and done.
    He stared at the people before him. ‘And what are you willing to do for your daughter’s honour, Sir Anthony?’
    ‘Anything you require of me, your Grace. If you wish us to work as servants in your house, say the word. As long as Miranda is safe, I am yours to command.’
    ‘And, Lady Cecily? Can you speak for yourself in this matter?’
    ‘I’ve raised the girl as my own daughter for twelve years, your Grace. It is as Sir Anthony says. I will do what you ask.’
    ‘Then I ask that you gather your belongings and prepare to remove yourselves to my home in Northumberland. Not the most comfortable of abodes, certainly. I use it for hunting. But there is a small staff and it is very private. You can wait there until decisions are made. And, Lord Anthony, I assume your debts still stand on someone’s books?’
    ‘Such things are never forgotten, your Grace.’
    ‘Then they will need to be settled.’
    ‘I have not the means…’
    ‘Of course you don’t, but I do.’
    ‘I never intended—’
    ‘That’s as it may be,’ he snapped, and heard four generations of Haughleigh in his voice. It was a voice people couldn’t help but obey.
    Lord