In the confusion, the Earl of Marlowe had begun edging quietly along his pew toward the side door that led to the vestry. He had almost reached it when two large men in plain dark coats stepped out of the shadows and blocked his way.
"Going somewhere, my lord?" said one of them pleasantly.
Behind them, a gray-haired gentleman in a black gown rose from the front pew. Several guests gasped; everyone in London knew him.
"Sir Matthew Kendall," the Earl whispered, all the color draining out of his face.
"Lord Marlowe," said the chief magistrate. "I have read these papers. I have examined the witnesses. And I have spent the last week speaking with a number of very impatient gentlemen in the city to whom you owe a great deal of money—more than you could ever repay. Your daughter's famous dowry, I understand, does not exist." He nodded to the two men. "You are under arrest for fraud, for perjury, and for sending an innocent man to his death. Take him."
The Earl of Marlowe was led down the long aisle of St. George's Church between the two Bow Street officers. Three hundred of the finest people in England watched him go; not one of them said a word.
Lady Cecilia stood alone at the altar in her ruined white satin, her veil crooked, her face streaked with tears. All around her, the whispers began: fine ladies raised their fans to hide their smiles; gentlemen shook their heads. Every person who had admired her an hour ago now looked at her with cold, curious, pitiless eyes.
She looked out at the crowd, and for one moment, she seemed to understand exactly how it felt to stand alone in a great hall with everyone watching and no one coming to help. Then she gathered her pearl-covered skirts and ran from the church, sobbing.
The diamond bracelet had slipped from her wrist as she ran; it fell to the stone floor with a small, bright sound and lay there glittering in the aisle.
The Dowager Duchess had sunk back down into her pew, suddenly looking very old and very tired. Her eyes went from her son to Clara and back again.
"Henry," she said faintly. "Henry, what is happening? Who is this girl? She was a maid in our house—a maid!"
The Duke turned to face his mother. And then he did something nobody in that church expected: he walked across to Clara in her plain gray dress and her white lace cap, and in front of three hundred of the most important people in England, the Duke of Ravenshire went down on one knee.
"Not a maid, Mother," he said. "Miss Clara Hartley, the daughter of the most honest man in London." He looked up at Clara. "I stood on that gallery and watched you lose everything, and you did not bend," he said quietly. "You came into my father's study at midnight and