He turned the pages for a long time. Near the end there was a slip that was not a note of hand. It was a scrap torn from the back of a letter, and it said only: Not a word to the Duchess. She would never forgive either of us.
The Duke closed the book.
"He used to take me to Newmarket," he said, to the window. "When I was nine or ten. He would put me on his shoulders so I could see the horses come in. I thought it was the finest thing in the world. I thought he was the finest thing in the world, until I was old enough to see how he treated my mother." He turned. "Eleven thousand pounds."
"Eleven thousand four hundred."
"And when he died, and the moneylenders came for your father—"
"My father went to your mother and asked her to acknowledge that the debts were the estate's. She refused. The trustees were told he had exceeded his authority. He was arrested at the Michaelmas audit, in front of the tenants. My mother sold everything we had to keep him in a better room in the King's Bench. It was not enough. He died in the January." Honora's voice did not waver; she had made sure, long ago, that it would not. "We went to Bath because my mother had a cousin there. The cousin died. We stayed."
He sat down, quite suddenly, on Mrs. Fairleigh's horsehair sofa, as though his knees had made the decision for him.
"I was told," he said, "that Lisle had been speculating with estate money in canal shares, and that my mother, out of kindness, had declined to prosecute."
"Who told you?"
"Haverstock. Our man of business. My mother." He put the book down on his knee and looked at it. "I did not ask. I was fourteen and my father was dead and I was very glad not to have to think about anything. And then I was twenty-one and I was very glad to find the estate in such good order. Everyone told me how marvellously my mother had managed. I believed them. I never once asked how." He raised his eyes to her. "That is what you know, that they do not. That I am a fool."
"No," said Honora. "That is not what I know."
"Then what?"
She was silent. By the window, Mrs. Fairleigh turned another page.
"I know," Honora said at last, "that the Hartsmere estate was insolvent when your father died, and I suspect it is not so solvent now as everyone believes. My father said, near the end, that the late Duke's debts were not eleven thousand but nearer sixty, and that his were only the ones with his name on. I know the women in that ballroom are chasing a fortune that may be a great deal smaller than they think. And I know that you were kind to a small girl about a wren's nest, once, and that you did put your thumb on the eggs after all, when you thought I was not looking. And that you were sorry, afterwards, because one of them did not hatch."
He stared at her.
"I did not chase you, Your Grace," she said, "because I have been watching your family for twelve years, from a very great distance, and I never once mistook it for a fairy tale."