The duchess was motionless. And she was impressively impassive, but a fleeting rank fear skittered across her features.
“You are a babbling lunatic,” she said tautly.
“My name is Angelique Breedlove. Perhaps you’ve heard of me? I’ve lately taken a turn in the broadsheets. I’m also a very dear friend of Lucien Durand, Viscount Bolt, who has also, as you know, spent some time in them.”
The duchess’s features spasmed before she was able to hold them taut.
She fixed dark unblinking eyes on Angelique. “Ah, yes. Derring’s whore.” She ignored the mention of Lucien entirely.
“Ohhh,charming. And I thought duchesses were supposed to have fine manners. Here’s something we have in common, your grace:youare about to spend some time in the newspaper, too, if you don’t listen to me,” Angelique said gaily.
“CLABBARD!” the duchess screeched.
Her voice merely echoed in the churchyard. Clabbard, her driver, and the footman who traveled with them, were passing around a bottle of good whiskey on the opposite side of the church gates.
“I would like to make something clear. I think you’re a thoroughly awful person, Your Grace. People are sometimes awful because they’re frightened, which is, of course, the same reason adders bite. One can understand the nature of the adder whilst knowing they’re dangerous to disrupt.”
The duchess’s jaw dropped. “What rot you—”
“Ah, ah, ah.” Angelique waved a finger. “I’m here today because I’ve decided to write my memoirs!” Angelique said brightly. “I was a governess, Lady Brexford. I writebeautifully. And the first thing I intend to write about—a little item I intend to share with the broadsheets straightaway, in fact, to give them a taste of what’s to come—is that you paid a man to lead Lucien Durand into a trap in order to drown him. Thereby ensuring evidence of your husband’s, shall we say, affection for another woman would be effectively erased.”
She allowed her words to ring in silence. The duchess’s breathing was shallow now.
Two angry red blotches rode high on her cheeks.
“He was a drunken wastrel and fell into the water.Noone will believe otherwise.”
“He was a young man, abandoned by his father. He is an extraordinary adult now. I suspect people will want to believe that you ordered it, simply because it’s amusing to believe things about duchesses, especially because you’re so awful. But there’s more. My memoirs will feature the time I saw your husband at the Earl of Derring’s little parties, during which mistresses climbed into the laps of titled men the way kittens do. And so.Much. More. I expect they’ll make me a wealthy woman and you a laughingstock.”
The Duchess of Brexford’s nostril flared and closed again, like an angry bull. Her dark eyes were pinpoints of terror. And her complexion was now all over blotches of red.
And then, to Angelique’s astonishment, she covered her face with her hands in despair. For a long, silent moment Angelique watched her.
Finally the Duchess sighed and brought her hands down.
“Mrs. Breedlove... have you ever had a child?” Her voice was frayed now.
“I haven’t, yet. No.”
“When and if you do... you may find that you’ll do anything you can to protect that child, and that child’s future from someone who would besmirch the family name.”
“That may very well be,” Angelique said gently. “Excluding murdering another woman’s child, of course.”
The Duchess’s eyes flared.
And then she slowly closed them. And heaved a sigh. “She was so beautiful.” Her voice was strained. “Just a peasant, really, but I saw her once from a distance, and I’ve my fine qualities but I could hardly compare. And Lucien’s hotheaded recklessness... never a moment’s peace from the gossips... What sort of life would that be for me, for Robert, my son? It washell. I never meant for Lucien to be killed, you must understand. I only wished for him to befrightened.”
Angelique remained stonily silent. They both knew the odds of perishing in the Thames in the dead of night whilst drunk were quite high.
A bird trilled something heartbreakingly lovely into the silence.
“I love him, you know. The duke. Fat lot of good that does me. And perhaps you know, but love can be pain.” She looked up fiercely at Angelique for some sort of approbation.
Angelique knew that much too well, but her compassion could not extend to a woman who had tried to do away with the man she loved.
But she was not made of stone.
“Would you like to sit down? You don’t look as though you’re feeling in the pink of health.”