The Duchess War (Brothers Sinister 1)

“Nobody? What about Mr. Marshall?”

“Especially not Mr. Marshall,” Robert said emphatically. “You see, I wrote those because it had come to my attention that there has been a rash of criminal sedition convictions in town—ones that did not appear to be properly charged under the law. I wanted to draw out those who were involved in the scheme. I wrote the handbills because I could not be tried, but wouldn’t have involved another person in the jurisdiction of Leicester. I wouldn’t have wanted to put anyone at risk.”

“What would you care about Mr. Marshall?” asked the barrister. “He was only a paid employee, was he not?”

“He was not,” Robert said forcefully. “I have never paid him—I settled funds on him. And even if I didn’t care about the wellbeing of my employees, he is my brother.” Gasps and a second murmur arose. Robert had been so concentrated on the questions that he hadn’t looked out at the courtroom. He did now. For one moment, the reporters in the front row looked at him in shock. Then they grinned in delight as they realized that the story here was even more interesting than they’d supposed. To a man, their pencils begin working feverishly. He smiled, looking out over them—until his eyes fell on the back of the room.

There, seated in the last row, was Minnie. She must have come in while he was speaking. Next to her sat his mother.

Had she not received his message? What was she doing here?

“Your Grace.” The barrister’s voice seemed slow, so slow, and yet Robert could not outrun it. He couldn’t even move from his seat. “Do you play chess?”

Minnie’s eyes burned into his.

“No.” He couldn’t turn away from her.

“Have you ever played chess?”

“A few times, when I was young. Enough to know the rules of the game. But I know very little.”

“Can you explain how you came to write about a ‘discovered attack’ in your handbills—and how you did so in terms that closely parallel words in an obscure handbook of chess strategy?”

“Yes,” Robert said. “I can.”

The entire courtroom became quiet.

“As it happens, when I wrote that, I had been talking with someone who is an expert at chess. Not Mr. Marshall.”

“And who was this person?”

Minnie would know what was happening now. She would understand why he’d asked her to come to the courtroom. She’d know that he’d trapped her, betrayed her in public, done everything to her that he’d promised not to do. He should have shaken her awake this morning and told her himself.

She was watching him with a curious look on her face. And then, oddly enough, she touched two fingers to her lips and held them up to him.

I’m sorry, Minnie.

“In 1851,” Robert heard himself say, “a twelve-year-old girl by the name of Minerva Lane almost won the first international chess tournament.”

In 1851, Minerva Lane was betrayed and ruined by her father. And now, Robert was doing it again.

“Are you acquainted with Minerva Lane?”

He made himself look Minnie in the eyes when he drove the knife in. Her face was gray, her eyes wide. Slowly, ever so slowly, she lowered the fingers that she had kissed.

The words felt like shards of glass in his mouth, but he formed them anyway. “I’m married to her.”

Chapter Twenty-six

KNOWING WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN DIDN’T HELP. Minnie couldn’t even feel her heart beating, so thick was her anxiety. As Robert spoke, her whole body turned to ice. And when everyone turned to see who he was looking at—when all their eyes landed on her, dark with accusation—a wild, ragged panic took her. The murmurs grew to a crashing swell.

“That’s her,” someone said.

She couldn’t remember how to breathe. Her lungs caught in airless spasms. She shoved to her feet, but the crowd was all around her. Shouting. Screaming. Her vision swam with dark spots that grew ever larger. The last thing she saw was Robert standing up from the witness stand and vaulting over the edge. And then everything went dark.

She wasn’t sure when she came back to consciousness. It returned slowly, like a piece of a dream gradually coming to life. There was the gentle sway of the carriage, her husband’s arms around her, his breath against her neck. His hands. He was whispering words of encouragement, but she couldn’t open her eyes.

Awareness came in flashes. Being carried up the stairs. Softness surrounding her. And his voice—Robert’s voice—was there, even in the middle of restless dreams. It made a muffled murmur in her ear until the disquiet fell away and she drifted off.

When she awoke, it was afternoon. She was lying in bed. Not, she realized, their bed. This was her bed—the bed that had been set up in the duchess’s quarters. It was the first time that she’d been on this mattress, and she didn’t like it.

Someone had taken off her blue silk day gown and her corset, petticoats, and drawers, leaving her in her shift. She wasn’t surrounded by a crowd—but yes, she really had fainted again. In public. Other memories followed swiftly on the heels of that. The courtroom. Robert, sitting up front. Robert, looking directly at Minnie as he spilled all her secrets to everyone.

She wasn’t angry so much as curiously hollow. Minnie sighed and sat up.

She could remember falling. But the most curious thing—she couldn’t remember hitting the ground. Slowly, gingerly, she poked one toe out of bed. Her feet found the floor; she tested her weight on them, and they held.

And that was when her eyes fell on a figure in a chair across the room—a female figure.

“Lydia,” she gasped. “What are you doing here?”

Lydia stood. “Your husband sent for me.” Her face seemed shadowed. “I heard what happened. He said you needed me, so I…I came.”

“But…”

“I’m so sorry,” Lydia said in a rush, moving to her side. “For the longest time, I could only think that you had lied to me, that I couldn’t trust you. That you didn’t trust me.” Lydia sat down next to her. “I said you didn’t tell me anything, but I knew. I knew you had these spells, that you hated crowds. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen you collapse in front of everyone. If I had thought, I would have realized. I’ve been so hateful.”

Minnie looked at her friend. “Don’t say that.”

“How can I not? It wasn’t a lie when you found out I was pregnant and you told me that everything would be all right. It wasn’t a lie when I miscarried and you read to me for hours while I lay in bed fearing that I, too, would die. I wish you had told me, but…” Her voice grew quiet. “Nothing between us has ever been a lie. And I should have been here for you, as you were for me, long before now.”