The Duke’s Guests Laughed as the Maid Fell Into the Lake — She Said, “I’ll Remember Every Face”
Chapter 19
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Bramble was awake. The old gray mare was standing in the corner of her stall, and she was restless. She stamped her feet. She pushed her nose against the wooden wall again and again."What's the matter, old girl?" the Duke said softly. "You miss her, too, don't you?"Bramble snorted and kicked the wall with her back hoof, hard. A board fell loose and clattered onto the straw.The Duke frowned and held up his lantern. Behind the fallen board was a small dark hollow in the wall, and inside it, something white. He reached in and pulled it out.It was a folded handkerchief, plain cotton, the kind a housemaid would carry. Inside the handkerchief was an old yellow sheet of paper. He unfolded it in the lantern light.The first thing he saw was the handwriting: large, bold, a little messy. He knew it at once. He had seen it on every birthday card of his childhood, on the letters that came to him at school, on the last page of the family Bible where his own name had been written on the day he was born: his father's handwriting.
My dear Margaret,
Margaret was his mother's name. The Duke read the letter standing in the straw, with the lantern shaking in his hand. He read it once. Then he sat down slowly on an upturned bucket and read it again. Every word.
It is E.V. He has stolen from us for years... I can no longer protect him. Tomorrow morning, after my ride, I will go to him...
After my ride.The Duke sat there for a long time while the old mare breathed softly beside him. He was remembering things—small things he had never thought about before: Edmund Vane arriving at Ravensworth the very morning his father died, before anyone had even sent for him; Edmund Vane taking charge of all the estate's money while Thomas was only a boy; Edmund Vane, who had never once in 15 years let anyone else look at the old account books; Edmund Vane, so warm, so kind, like a second father, pushing and pushing for this wedding to happen sooner.And Clara, standing in the dusty study, asking him in a strange voice, "Was Lord Vane close to your father?"She had known. She had found this letter that very day, and she had hidden it here, in the one place nobody would ever look. And then Edmund had stood in the great hall and called her the daughter of a murderer before she could say a word.The Duke stood up. His face in the lantern light was hard as stone. He folded the letter carefully and put it inside his coat, next to his heart. Then he walked back to the house, went straight up the stairs to his mother's room, and knocked on her door at 3:00 in the morning.The door opened. The Dowager stood there in her white nightgown with a candle in her hand. She was not surprised to see him; she looked as if she had not been sleeping either."Thomas," she said, "what is it?"He held out the letter. "I think, Mother, that you and I need to talk."