Chapter one
The Errand
Henry
London, February 1830
“The situation grows more dire by the hour,” declared the Duke of Cranbrook, his voice cutting through the rain beating against the windows. "Young Trowbridge has put it in the book at White's. Miss Linton's name, the date, and the claim in his own hand that he had her virtue. The entry has been read aloud in every drawing room in London. The Morning Post has set its proof. They mean to print within the week."
Henry Vexley, Duke of Iredell, pressed himself deeper into the alcove beside the towering bookshelf. The storm had darkened the room to near-twilight, and he let it shroud him. A man who had once commanded armies, now flattened against the wainscoting like a sullen schoolboy.
Wiltshire blew a stream of cigar smoke toward the ceiling. “Remind me why we care. The girl is nobody. Young men and their follies. Have him strike it from the book. It blows over."
“Surely, you must be aware that entries in the betting book cannot be scratched out.” Cromwell placed both fists on his knees. “Once written, it is permanent. That is the entire point of the book.”
“Fine. Then let him claim he was in his cups and laugh it off,” Wiltshire said.
“She is a lady.” Cranbrook spoke through the cigar haze. “Her father was Lord Thornwick. The title is extinct, but the blood is gentle. The house they live in sits on entailed land, the only property the old baron left unmortgaged. She may be poor, Wiltshire, but she is not nobody.” Cranbrook swirled the brandy in his glass. "Surely you must know we cannot afford another scandal attached to this group. Consider the precedent. We lost Iredell's brother then his mother not long after. Then three wives in a dozen years. The papers have written enough about cursed dukes. If Trowbridge drags us into the Post again, no nobleman will trust the Alliance to act on his behalf."
“All the more reason to resolve it quickly.” Banbury adjusted his spectacles.
"Send Trowbridge to apologise privately," Cromwell said.
"Trowbridge has already been to see her. With a draft for one thousand pounds and a document swearing the entry false." Cranbrook's face turned sour. "She has refused to sign."
Cromwell leaned forward. "Refused? The claim is his, not hers. She has only to say it did not happen."
Cranbrook held up both hands. "She will not say it. She told Trowbridge that if the book stands, the consequences are his to bear, not hers to mend."
No one moved. Even Wiltshire’s cigar hung motionless between his fingers. From the alcove, Henry felt something unfamiliar press against his ribs. Not quite admiration, but the involuntary recognition of nerve. Henry’s mouth curved before he could stop it.
Banbury sank back in his seat. “What kind of gentlewoman refuses to deny such a thing?”
“Perhaps she fears being with a child.” Wiltshire stroked his beard slowly. “He must marry her then. There is no alternative.”
A murmur of unease rippled through the room.
Cranbrook drew on his cigar and expelled the smoke in a thin stream. “The fool would rather die than marry a woman eight years his senior.”
Wiltshire threw his arm up in the air. “That should have been a considerationbeforehe compromised her.”
“The boy is a fool, but I do understand his concern with her limited childbearing years,” Cranbrook said.
“She is, I believe, eight and twenty.” Wiltshire stubbed the cigar out in a crystal ashtray.
Banbury tapped his fingers on the armrest. “The Linton family has no means to pursue the matter at law, in my estimation. The father is dead, the mother is not in her right senses, the estate is insolvent save the entailed property. There is no brother to speak of, only four sisters.”
“Then let her sit in silence,” Wiltshire said. “Who will care what a penniless spinster with a mad mother says?”
“Everyone.” Cranbrook held up his glass while a footman filled it with brandy. “Every drawing room in London is already talking about it. No lady allows such a claim to stand unless it is true. And once they believe it, they will want to know why a duke with eight thousand a year has not done the honourable thing. And then they will want to know why the Alliance has not compelled him to.”
From his seat near the hearth, the Duke of Cromwell’s fist landed on the table beside him. “I suggest we persuade her to release the boy from her net. We cannot possibly allow some insignificant chit to lead this Alliance by the nose!”
Wiltshire pointed his glass toward Cromwell. “What would you have us do?”
Cromwell’s gaze found him in the alcove. One by one, the others followed, and Henry felt the room tilt toward him. He had known what he was to this group. A bludgeon, produced when diplomacy had spent itself.
“Absolutely not,” he said.