The Duchess War (Brothers Sinister 1)

A few months ago, she would have never imagined coming to Paris with a husband. She wouldn’t have dreamed of a hotel that was scarcely a quarter mile from the Notre Dame cathedral. This was grander than even Lydia’s wildest imaginings—but no. Thinking of her friend gave Minnie a pain deep inside.

Instead, she concentrated on everything old and beautiful, everything bright and new. The colored awnings; the elegant buildings; the small flock of pigeons that came to roost near them as they ate, cocking their heads in interest at the croissants that Robert obtained from the baker.

The pastries were so good, warm and buttery and flaky, that Minnie almost didn’t want to share with the birds.

But as they were throwing the remnants of their breakfast to the cooing pigeons—trying to make sure that the intrepid little brown birds on the side got a few crumbs as well—a small boy with a crutch limped up. A beaver cap was pulled over his head, not big enough to cover too-large ears.

He should have been too young to have that calculating look in his eyes. But age had nothing to do with the necessity for cunning. He took a limping step toward them, leaning heavily on his crutch. The wobble in his stride was too exaggerated to be real. Some things, one didn’t need to translate.

Minnie’s fingers closed over the bracelet at her wrist.

His eyes flashed in calculation once more. If he’d been planning to pick their pockets while they tossed bread, he switched to another strategy just as swiftly.

“A few centimes, Monsieur,” said the boy in passable English. He took off his cap and swept it toward Robert. “A few centimes for the cripple.”

How he’d pegged them for English… Well, she supposed it wasn’t hard to figure out. They’d been talking to each other, after all.

Minnie had rather expected Robert to brush the urchin off, but he stopped and pulled out a purse. Without saying a word, he reached in and took out a coin. She saw the glint of gold as he flipped it toward the boy.

The boy’s fingers flashed; he grabbed the coin from the air in reflex. But his mouth dropped open when he looked at what he’d caught. His crutch fell from his grasp; unheeding, he stood staring.

Robert let go of Minnie’s arm and took two steps forward. He bent down and picked up the crutch.

“Next time,” he said in his English-accented French, “don’t drop your stick. Another man might not have understood this was an act and would be less forgiving.”

“M’sieur.” The boy looked again at the coin in his hand before taking the crutch from Robert and scampering away without any sign of disability.

“You knew he was faking the limp?” Minnie asked.

Robert shrugged. “It seemed likely.”

“And you gave him—what did you give him anyway?”

“A twenty-franc coin. I doubt he’s ever seen one in his life.”

Twenty francs. That was worth almost a pound. For a street urchin, that sort of bounty was worth months and months of begging.

“Why, when you knew he was lying?”

He gave her a little smile. “Frauds need a helping hand as much as anyone else. I know all about that.” He glanced toward the street where the boy had vanished. “Especially when it’s done like that.”

“You know about telling lies for money?” Minnie felt a smile come over her. She stood, brushed the crumbs off her gown, and strode over to him.

“Indeed. Some of my first memories are about lying for money.” He tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and they began to walk. On the left, a wrought iron rail separated their path from the Seine. The river drifted by. Minnie refused to believe its waters could be brown and dingy.

“Really?” She huffed in disbelief. “What trinket did you want to buy?”

“No trinkets.” He flashed her a smile and patted her arm. “It’s rather an amusing story. You see, my parents married under…odd circumstances. My father convinced my mother he loved her. She believed him; my father could be most convincing when he put his mind to it. But her father knew a bit more of the world, and he suspected that dukes didn’t fall into passionate, life-altering love with wool-merchants’ daughters who had enormous dowries. Not on a few weeks’ acquaintance, at any rate. So instead of handing over a vast sum of money to my father upon their marriage, he put it all in trust, to be paid out so long as my mother was happy.”

Robert had retrieved an extra bag from the baker. He opened it now and passed her a bun—crisp and golden and warm—and took out one for himself. This he began to apportion into pieces, tossing them over the iron rail for the ducks.

“This does not sound like the beginning to an amusing story,” Minnie said dubiously.

“Well, the background information isn’t very funny, I suppose.” Robert frowned and broke off a piece of crust. “But the rest of it is, I promise. In any event, to summarize: my father hadn’t any real money of his own, and my mother controlled the rest. So when she came to visit—”

“Your mother would visit? Was she not living with you?”

“No, most of the time she was not. I don’t think I saw her for the first three years of my life.” He scratched his chin. “If she’d been living with my father, the trust would have paid out—those were the terms. My mother controlled the money by her presence. She didn’t want my father to get a penny, and so when he told her that she would have to live with him in order to see me, she told him to go to hell.”

Minnie thought back over her conversations with his mother. She’d said all sorts of things, but not this. It explained a great deal, though. Far too much, in fact. This was not turning out to be anything like an amusing story. Minnie blinked at her husband, but he had a little smile on his face, as if this were all part of some joke. He tossed bread blithely in the air and grinned when the ducks squabbled for it.

“So, in any event—”

“Wait just one moment. Your father didn’t let your mother see you for the first three years of your life?”

“Correct.” He frowned and broke off another bit of crust from his bun. “He didn’t have any control over the money under the terms of the trust, but legally he did control me. So…” He shrugged again, as if this were perfectly normal. “One can’t blame him for trying.”

One couldn’t? Minnie could.

But Robert simply threw bread into the water and kept talking.

“By the time I was four,” he continued, “they’d worked out an arrangement. My mother’s father gave a handful of factories to my father so he could keep his worst creditors at bay.” He glanced at Minnie. “Graydon Boots was one of those. In return, my mother was allowed to see me for a few days twice a year. I would desperately try to be good when she came—so good that this time, she wouldn’t leave. My father, naturally, supported me in these endeavors. When I was six years old, his brilliant plan was this: I would pretend that I couldn’t read, presumably because in my father’s straitened circumstances, he could not afford a tutor. He was sure that would break her down.”