Sir Lionel lifted a hand. "Sit down, Lord Edmund."
Mrs. Kettle continued: "The man believed dead after installing those valves is alive and waiting in the servants' hall. He is sober, which is fortunate and recent."
The clerk looked delighted; clerks love surprises when ink is available.
Lord Edmund's face twisted: "This is not relevant to Sebastian's capacity!"
Sebastian spoke: "Is it not?"
His voice cut through the room like a match in darkness. Lady Portia gasped; Sir Lionel sat straighter.
Sebastian rose from his chair. He did not need to rise, but the drama was satisfying, and I suspected aimed at Lord Edmund's complexion. His Grace faced the room so every person could see his mouth.
Sebastian spoke clearly: "I am deaf. I am not empty. I read lips. I read rooms. I read accounts. For six years, my cousins mistook silence for absence, and pity for permission."
Lord Edmund staggered back as if words had struck him.
Sebastian turned to Dr. Mowbray: "You accepted money from Lady Portia to write a certificate before examining me. You discussed the fee in my presence because you believed I could not understand. I watched your mouth in the mirror behind you."
Dr. Mowbray's collar seemed to shrink around his throat.
Lady Portia whispered, "Sebastian..."
He faced her: "You told Mrs. Daventry that a deaf man feels less deeply. I remember the shape of every word. You told Lord Edmund the harbor sale would save you both. You told Clarabel that I could not protect what I could not hear."
My throat tightened.
Lord Edmund pointed at me: "That maid has poisoned him against us!"
Sebastian looked at me then, for one reckless second. Warmth crossed his face before all those witnesses. Sebastian looked toward me: "That maid called me her 'handsome tyrant,' and accidentally reminded me I was still alive. Her judgment has been excellent; her aim with linen remains questionable."
The room went silent. Sir Lionel coughed into his hand. The clerk stared at his paper with heroic discipline. Mrs. Kettle closed her eyes as if asking patience from every saint with housekeeping experience. My face burned hot enough to toast bread.
I whispered, "Your Grace, perhaps not the linen part."
Sebastian read my lips and smiled.
Lord Edmund shouted, "This is indecent!"
Mrs. Kettle replied, "So is attempted murder, my lord, but you were willing to include it."
Abelard was brought in next. He was a thin man with a scar along his chin and the haunted look of someone who had been frightened into a lie and paid badly for it. He testified that Lord Edmund had ordered the gas valves altered; Lady Portia had supplied the key to the glasshouse. The blast came early because Sebastian arrived sooner than expected. The old Duke was meant to find him unconscious, not dead. Then the blast took Sebastian's hearing, and the culprits discovered that a living, isolated Duke could be more useful than a corpse.
Lady Portia tried to faint; Mrs. Kettle moved the sharp table edge away, but did not catch her.
Sir Lionel ordered both cousins detained pending formal charges. Dr. Mowbray tried to leave through the garden door and was stopped by Cook, who had been listening from the corridor with a rolling pin. He later claimed the rolling pin was a weapon; Cook said it was a medical opinion.
When the room emptied, I remained by the sideboard: shaken, embarrassed, and suddenly afraid. Not of Lady Portia, not of Lord Edmund—of Sebastian. He had spoken to me publicly: kindly, yes; warmly, disastrously, with linen. But I was a maid; he was a duke. The whole county would soon be chewing my name like tough beef.
Sebastian crossed the room slowly. The confidence from the hearing left him with each step, until he stood before me not as a public duke, but as a man who knew he had overreached.