A shiver shook Julia, and then another. She slowly laid her cape over the packet and wrapped it inside the folds of the damp wool to hide it.
Her mind whirled with thoughts. Had he seen Garrett? Did he know about him? Had the duke come to take Chatwyn away from her?
Julia walked down the corridor and into the drawing room on stiff legs and numb feet. The duke stood by the fireplace warming himself. He was much thinner than when she had seen him last. She’d never seen his shoulders stoop before. There was a sickly pallor to his skin, and his thin face looked gaunt. For the first time since she’d known him, it appeared as if he’d aged considerably.
“Duke,” she said, and curtseyed, hoping that she wasn’t visibly shaking as much as she felt her insides trembling.
“Lady Kitson,” he answered with a nod. “You seem out of breath.”
She swallowed hard. That hardly touched the way she was feeling. “I am. I just came in from playing outside with Chatwyn.”
“You allowed him in the garden in this weather?”
“It’s hardly a storm,” she said cautiously. “Just a misting rain. Though, it may be raining harder now.” She hugged the wrapped packet of documents to her chest so tightly the knuckles on her hands had turned white. She tried to loosen her grip so he wouldn’t notice but she couldn’t seem to let go.
“Where is my grandson?”
“I just sent him upstairs with Miss Periwinkle to change his clothing and shoes. You know I’m always so careful, just as you instructed, to see that he doesn’t catch a chill. It’s been raining for a couple of days now. He was quite irritable and needed to get out of the house for a while. He is now getting into dry clothing, so he should be fine.” It irritated Julia to have to explain in detail how she took care of her son. “You still don’t look well, Your Grace. Would you like to sit down?”
“I’m not well. I’d like to go up to my chambers and rest, but I want a brandy and to see my grandson first. Then I must go to my book room. There are some things I need to take care of in there.”
Julia felt as if she might faint. She knew exactly what he wanted to do in his office. What was she going to do? She held the fake documents in her hands. Should she drop her cloak now and admit that she’d stolen the real ones? Should she wait until he went into his book room and confront him there?
Yes, that seemed the better idea than the drawing room. And truly she needed more time to recover from his return. She knew it was inevitable but still a shock that it was now. She needed all the time she could get to calm herself. Now that she was going to actually confront him.
The duke sat down in his favorite chair by the fire, and said, “I don’t know where the butler is. He’s never around when I need him. Pour me a brandy and then bring my grandson down.”
Julia looked around for a place to put her cape. She laid it on the secretary and then placed a book on top of it, hoping Mrs. Desford wouldn’t come in, see it, and want to put it away.
She poured brandy for the duke and one for herself. She seldom drank the strong spirit, but this afternoon, she needed more fortification than just her anger and fear to get her through what she had to do. With her back to the duke, she put the small glass to her mouth and drank the entire dram. It burned all the way down, but she managed to hold in her cough.
After a few deep breaths, she walked over the duke. “How are you feeling?” she asked, hoping her question would distract him so he wouldn’t see her hand shaking.
“Only somewhat better.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“The fever is gone and I’ve decided that whatever it is that has beset me hasn’t killed me yet, so it’s not likely to any time soon. I’ve heard there’s a new physician in Town and that he’s quite good. I’m going to see him tomorrow.”
“Yes. I remember you telling me that before I came to London.”
“Perhaps he can do more for me than the present host of men I’ve had at Sprogsfield seeing to my well-being.”
“It does seem as if it’s time for you to seek another opinion. I’ll get Chatwyn for you.”
“Before you go,” the duke said. “I stopped getting daily letters from Mr. Pratt over a week ago. Do you have any idea why?”
She tensed. “No.”
“You didn’t think it necessary to mention in your letters to me that Mr. Pratt had stopped giving the lessons?”
“No. I assumed you had finally listened to my pleadings and dismissed the man. I was happy he wasn’t coming.”
Picking up her cape, she took it with her and quickly stuffed it behind a pillow on the settee in the vestibule before going to the top of the stairs and calling for Miss Periwinkle to bring Chatwyn.
Her little boy was shy at first and didn’t want to leave her side but he soon remembered his grandfather and was asking the duke to chase him around the settee. Less than half an hour later, Chatwyn was sent back to his rooms. The duke was too weak to play with him for long. When he walked down the corridor into his book room, Julia’s heart sank. The duke was in no shape to move the heavy desk, but she had no doubt it would be only a matter of time before he called in one of the healthy young footmen he brought with him from Sprogsfield to move it and retrieve the missing documents.
She just kept thinking that she’d hoped for more time alone, more time to be with Garrett, to be with her son before she had to confront the duke, but her time had run out. The brandy had helped to calm her a little and allowed her to start focusing on what must be done. There was such great risk in what she was about to do. The duke could throw her out of the house and forbid her to come back. He could take her son, leave immediately with him, and never let her see him again. But usually with great risk came great reward. She had to be strong and bluff the duke into thinking she had the ledger and it was being decoded.
Garrett crossed her mind again. Without him she would have never gotten this far. That he wanted to continue to help her filled her heart with such love for him. She didn’t want animals to live in cages, and she no longer wanted to live in one either. She had to break free. Unwrapping the cloak, she took out the packet. It had never felt so heavy. With a deep settling breath, she held it tightly behind her back. Lifting her shoulders and her chin, she walked down to the book room doorway and stopped at the entrance. She didn’t speak.
Her legs trembled. Her stomach quaked. The duke sat behind his desk looking at a letter he’d taken from his stack of mail. For a moment, she truly didn’t know if she would be able to go through with this. But then she heard Chatwyn’s squeal of delight and her shoulders lifted.
She didn’t know when the duke first saw her, but she walked into the room and stopped in front of his desk. Her body, heart, and soul told her that just as it had been with Garrett, this was worth the risk.
“Your Grace,” she said.
“I am tired, Lady Kitson, and I thought I bid you good day.”
“You did.” Her voice trembled. She took in another deep breath and shored up her courage. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to say to you for a long time.”
“Some other time, Lady Kitson. I’m in no mood for more talk.”
“What I have to say needs to be said here and now. Though you always doubted me, I wanted you to know I did mourn for your son after he died. His death grieved me deeply, and I’ll always be sad that he didn’t live to see his handsome son be born and grow up. He was a good husband to me and I, in turn, a good wife to him.”
The duke’s stare was icy. “Lady Kitson, I said I am tired and not going to discuss this with you.”
There was so little movement in his cold, thin face, he could have been a statue talking to her. She almost faltered. His stoic roughness had always intimidated her. But not today.
“I’m not finished, Duke,” she said, giving him an icy stare of her own. “Chatwyn and I have lived under your roof, your commands for four years now, but it is time for us to be on our own.”
“Now see here. I won’t allow you to talk to me this way.”
She felt herself grow stronger as she gripped the packet so tightly her hands hurt. For once, he wasn’t going to stop her. “You have no choice. I’m not finished, Your Grace. I will no longer agree to your stringent demands on me. From this day forward—” She halted for a moment and sucked in a deep breath. “From this day forward, Chatwyn and I will live on our own and you will release enough of my inheritance to see that our lives will be comfortable and befitting the life of a duke’s grandson. In return, I will see to it that Chatwyn will know he is Kitson’s son. I will tell him what a good and courageous man his father was, but we will no longer be accountable to you for anything we do or for anyone we see. Do I make myself clear?”
The duke rose from his desk and placed his hands heavily upon it as he leaned toward her. His dark-brown steely eyes seemed to pierce her, but she held strong. “You have just made a grave error in judgment, Lady Kitson.”
“No, you have.” She brought the packet from behind her and placed it in front of him.
His expression was filled with disbelief and he straightened. “How did you get that?”
“That isn’t important. What is important is that inside you will only find forgeries of the documents you’ve been hiding. I have the originals that were registered in the Courts at Westminster. I only made copies so you would know for sure I had each one of them. You have forced my hand and I had to lower myself to your level and steal them. You have taken control of my son away from me for your own selfish reasons. So you have left me to play the game your way.”
He jerked up the packet, opened it, and thumbed through the pages, letting them fall one by one to the desk and scatter on top of it.
Julia kept talking. “I know about the company where the gunpowder led to an explosion that killed all those people, and that you did nothing to help them. I know about all the nonexistent men who own your companies and brothels. I know it all because I heard you and your solicitor discussing them.”
He threw the empty leather packet on top of the desk. “You dared to eavesdrop on my conversations?”
His arms were shaking and his eyes bulging. He was angry, but so was she. “No, I didn’t have to. You walked right past me and didn’t see me. I have proof you are not the saintly man you proclaim to be, and I will reveal your secret and make all this known to Society if you ever come near me or my son again.” She spread her hands out over the strewn papers.
“What have you done?” He grabbed up the leather packet and looked inside it again. “Where’s my ledger?”
“I have it.”
Julia turned and saw Garrett standing in the doorway behind her. Her heart suddenly felt as if it might beat out of her chest. Her body felt as if it might have frozen in place. He was the last person the duke needed to see. What was he doing? Was he was going to bluff the duke, too.
“But of course it’s in a safe place, where it will remain.” Garrett walked over to stand beside Julia and put a sheet of foolscap in front of the duke. “I admit it wasn’t easy for my man to figure this out. It was very clever and difficult. This is only a copy of the first page, but you can see enough to know that your code has been broken, and this lists most every company and house you have in these records. Including dates and amount of monies you received from each of them.”
Julia couldn’t hold in a loud intake of breath at hearing Mr. Urswick had been successful.
“Who are you?” the duke asked, his face, his arms, and his hands shaking from rage.
“The rogue who will see to it that you leave Lady Kitson and her son alone.”
The duke picked up a handful of papers that were scattered on his desk and threw them at Garrett. “Get out of here. This proves nothing. And what could you do about it if it did? Who cares if I make money off the two things I detest most—gaming houses and brothels?”
“Gentlemen, Duke,” Julia said. “Most men enjoy both but for years they have listened to you say you are above such evil pursuits. What do you think Society will feel about such a pious man, such a wealthy man as you profiting from them while you malign them?”
“Tell the whole of London. No one will believe you, but if one should, he won’t care,” he muttered contemptuously.
“Do you really want to take that chance?” Julia asked. “I realize that as a duke you are immune from prosecution in any form. But as a man who gains from his self-made reputation as a man who is everything kind and good and the model for how one should conduct his life, this will make you go down in the history books as one of the most evil and uncaring men in history. How will you like that? Your likeness alongside the worst cheaters in England. What will your sons say? Your daughter and her children? What would the Prince say if he knew you were the man who owned the building where the gunpowder explosion happened and not the fake person to which it was registered? And you stood by and did nothing to help in the aftermath.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” he murmured menacingly, shifting his cold gaze from Julia to Garrett.
“I’m going to give you two days. If I don’t hear that restitution has been made and money has been paid to the families of the victims in the Manchester disaster, I will be distributing copies of all this to every door in Mayfair.”
The duke looked from Julia to Garret again. Rage and disgust were evident in his features. “I always knew you were just like my cheating wife. I take care of you and show you how to live properly for your son and your husband and this is how you repay me. You turn on me for a younger man who probably hasn’t a penny to his name.”
Julia glanced at Garrett. His calm expression of determination hadn’t changed since he’d come. His quiet assurance gave her all the courage she needed. “You forced my hand by your rigid unbending rules and suffocating ways. My mind can’t be changed. Your reputation can be destroyed and everyone will whisper about you when you walk by or you can do what is right for the town of Manchester and for me and Chatwyn. It’s up to you how you want this to end.”
The duke crumpled and fell back into his chair, winded and jerking. “Brigid was never good enough for me,” he said in a raspy, slurring voice. “She betrayed me with other men before she ever married me just as you betrayed your husband. But she got what she deserved and so will you. After the wastrel she ran away with had wagered away all the money she stole from me, he left her hungry and penniless in a wet ditch.” The duke chuckled low in his throat as he rested his head against the back of the chair. “No one knew she ever came back to me, but she did. She was destitute and wanted my help. Just like you will one day. And I’m not without mercy. I gave her what she deserved. I opened a brothel and forced her to work there. I was amazed at how profitable it was. That’s when I realized I could make money from the two things I hated most. Gambling and loose women.”
“You are a despicable wretched soul,” she whispered.
“Go. You’ll come crawling back one day. Just like she did.”
“I think you’ve heard enough,” Garrett said to Julia.
She nodded. “What are you going to do?”
“Stay here with him to make sure you get out of the house without any problems.”
Julia turned back to the duke. One of his hands jerked and one side of his mouth was slack, but he was laughing and mumbling in a whispered breath. It was clear he wasn’t well and he might have suffered a fit of apoplexy.
“I’m going upstairs to get my son. We’ll be staying at the house at The Seafarer’s School. I’ll send for our things tomorrow.”
The duke tried to rise. “You can’t—”
Garrett held out his hand toward the feeble duke. “I’m the one who’s going to see that she leaves here with her son. And I’m the one who will stop you if you try to prevent her.”
Julia looked at Garrett. She met his gaze and tried to tell him how much she appreciated his help, how much she loved him. His support had given her all the courage she needed. She looked at the duke again and for reasons she couldn’t fathom, she felt a pang of sorrow for him. “I’ll ask Mrs. Desford to send for a physician to tend to you.” She then turned and walked out.
Sometime later, Julia walked into the house at the school with Chatwyn, Miss Periwinkle, her maid and York. An aching weariness had settled over her. Mrs. Lawton didn’t seem surprised. Julia knew why when the housekeeper told her she had a visitor. Mr. Stockton was already at the house and waiting for her in the drawing room.