The Duchess War

by Courtney Milan

  Chapter Eight

  In the end, it took days for Robert to bring Sebastian in—in large part because Violet, the newly widowed Countess of Cambury, insisted on coming along.

  “First,” Violet had said, spearing Robert with her gaze, “I am tired of sitting on an estate in Cambridgeshire with nothing to do. Second, you’ll need someone to keep Sebastian on a leash.” She’d nodded at Sebastian, who had attempted to look innocent.

  There had been some truth to that. Violet could get Sebastian to behave—nominally—when she wished. Violet was two years older than Robert and Sebastian. She’d grown up on the estate next door to Sebastian’s, and until Violet had been deemed too old to play with boys, she’d accompanied them during the summers.

  But Robert had far more memories of Violet tweaking Sebastian and sending him climbing trees for hawks’ eggs in a fit of rage, than he did of Violet getting Sebastian to behave.

  “Finally,” Violet said, “your mother actually likes me, and if we wish to distract her, a two-pronged approach will work best. Sebastian can drive her off, and I’ll lure her away from you.”

  But it had been Sebastian who provided the final impetus, after Violet had disappeared that first evening. “Look,” he’d told Robert, “she’s in mourning for a man she hated. Give her a chance to get out.”

  So Robert had relented—and thus brought upon himself an entourage of servants and maids and dressers, of messages sent to reserve rooms in a hotel, as Violet could not stay in Robert’s bachelor establishment. It was more than forty-eight hours before Robert found himself, his cousin, the Countess of Cambury, nine separate servants, two cats, and one owl on the platform at Euston Square in London.

  The servants were engaged in wrestling the luggage into the proper compartment, and Robert took the time to walk with his cousin. There was a bit of a breeze, enough to keep the air along the platform crisp and pleasant. The tang of burning tobacco—that was Robert’s excuse for not sitting in the station proper alongside Violet—made an acrid counterpoint to the smell of autumn leaves.

  He walked beside his cousin, and all his myriad worries seemed to grow smaller.

  “So,” he said to Sebastian, “they’re actually taking steps to make some sort of position for you at Cambridge. Given what they said of you when you were a student there, I would imagine that was the last thing you’d expect. Are you dying of shock yet?”

  Sebastian gave him a long look. “I’m not a student any longer, you know.”

  “Don’t pretend you’ve grown up.”

  That got him an impish smile. “Wait until I turn it down,” his cousin said. “That will shock everyone.”

  Robert blinked and looked at the man more closely. Sebastian was a known prankster, but he took the work he did now very seriously. “You’re going to turn it down?”

  “I’m afraid I have to.” Sebastian put his hands in his pockets. “Even Newton had to get a dispensation from Charles II because he didn’t believe in the Trinity. Oxford has become more liberal, but Cambridge…” He shrugged. “Still the Dark Ages there. They insist on adherence to Church of England doctrine. Half the natural scientists want me because they think I’m doing interesting work. The other half believe that appointing me a Fellow will force me to shut up.”

  “Would it?” Robert glanced at him. “I’ve never known you to shut up, not about anything. And are you an unbeliever? I’ve read all your papers, even the ones that are well over my head, and I don’t recall you taking a position.”

  Sebastian shrugged. “Haven’t you heard? I’m a godless scientist, an apostate follower of Darwin.”

  “Even Mr. Darwin isn’t an unbeliever.”

  Sebastian didn’t answer the question. Instead he gave a resigned shrug. “I not only think that the species evolved, I can prove that characteristics are transmitted from parent to offspring in a dependable, scientific manner. Not by the grace of any divine being. By the operation of simple, natural principles.” He gave Robert a look. “That makes me an unbeliever in half of society’s eyes. Who am I to argue with them?”

  “I take it that’s a rhetorical question, as you argue with them at every opportunity.”

  Sebastian smiled in pleasure and shook his head.

  “I think you just like being an outcast.”

  “That must be it.” Sebastian shrugged.

  “And you’ve managed to distract me. You never did answer my question. Do you believe in God?”

  “I’ve given you as much an answer as I’ll give anyone. I think it’s a shame that Mr. Darwin must account for his religion on the basis of the work that he does. A man’s beliefs should be between himself and whatever deity he does—or does not—worship. Nobody asks a cooper whether he believes in God. Why should I have to answer? Why should anyone care?”

  It had come on so quickly, Sebastian’s fame. So much that it was still rather a shock to discover that Sebastian—quick-minded, foul-mouthed Sebastian Malheur, his cousin and onetime coconspirator—had become a famous scientist. Not that Sebastian didn’t have the brains for it; he’d always been quick and clever. It was just easier to see his cousin as the prankster he’d been as a child, rather than an actual serious-minded adult.

  “Besides,” Sebastian said, “it’s loads more fun tweaking everyone. Refusing to answer the question has all the old biddies hem-hemming and striking me from their guest lists.”

  Possibly this was because Sebastian had not become an actual serious-minded adult. Robert had missed him.

  The conductor sounded his whistle, and people began to board. Robert and Sebastian waited at the end of the platform for the first crowds to dissipate, and then walked back. They passed the luggage cars, then the second-class cabins, on their way to their seats.

  But as they walked past one car, Robert blinked. He couldn’t have seen… He quickly turned and walked back.

  “Oy!” Sebastian called. “You’re going the wrong way.”

  Robert waved him off. He’d had the strangest illusion when he’d walked by—that the woman he’d seen out of the corner of his eye was none other than Miss Pursling.

  It couldn’t be.

  When he came abreast of the window, he saw his eyes had not deceived him. The woman lifted her head from contemplation of her book to stare out the window on the other side. The sun spangled through the dust collected on the window, illuminating that nose he knew so well—and those lips.

  Miss Pursling was sitting in that compartment. She’d be sitting there the entire way to Leicester—several hours with nobody to talk to. Nobody, unless…

  Violet had come out of the station as well. She was tossing orders to the porter.

  Robert tapped her on the shoulder.

  “Violet,” he said, “might I borrow your maid?”

  Violet’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Borrow my maid? No, you may not borrow Matilda. Whatever do you need her for?”

  “I—” He tried not to look in Miss Pursling’s direction. “Ah.”

  “It’s a woman,” Sebastian put in. “You can tell by the look of nervous anticipation on his face—it’s a woman.”

  “Oh?” Violet looked around demurely. “Is it… No. Don’t tell me who. Let me guess.”

  Violet was capable of a demure little glance about. But Sebastian craned his neck, looking from side to side with exaggerated motions.

  Robert winced. “Stop. Stop. Do you have to be so obvious?”

  “I knew it was a woman!” Sebastian said triumphantly. “We’re embarrassing him—it has to be a woman.”

  Just a moment before, Robert had been thinking how lovely it was to be around people who understood him. No longer. His cheeks flushed. “If I admit it’s a woman, will you stop gawking and pretend to be normal people?”

  Violet sniffed. “I still don’t see what a woman has to do with your needing Matilda.”

  “She’s riding in one of the second-class compartments alone,” Robert admitted. “I want to sit with her.”

&nb
sp; This pronouncement was met with a rigid silence. Sebastian looked at Violet; Violet looked at Sebastian. The two of them might as well have waggled their eyebrows in accusation.

  “You’re interested in a woman who is riding second-class,” Sebastian finally said.

  Violet gave him an almost identical look. “You’re interested in a woman who is riding second-class, and your interest is such that you care about the effect on her reputation.”

  Sebastian rubbed his hands together. “Oh,” he said with glee, “your mother is going to love this.”

  “I hate it when you two do that,” Robert groused, which was a lie. He usually loved it when they spoke like that, Violet’s thoughts piling on top of Sebastian’s, making an ungainly heap of the conversation. Now, though, it was going to prove inconvenient. He had to get rid of them before they said something dreadful.

  Violet looked up. “Well, I’m sorry, Robert. You may not borrow my maid.”

  “But—”

  “But,” she said, brushing her hands together briskly, “I will be happy to accompany you myself.”

  Robert swallowed. He tried to imagine carrying on a conversation with Miss Pursling while the Countess of Cambury looked on with avid interest.

  “Second class,” Sebastian said. “I’ve never ridden second-class. This is going to be fun.”

  Robert coughed heavily into his hand. “No, not both of you. Definitely not both of you.”

  “You need both of us,” Sebastian said. “There are four seats. If you take Violet on her own, someone else might come and sit in the car with you. There are four seats. Surely you wouldn’t want all opportunity for conversation quashed.”

  “But—”

  “You know me,” Sebastian said. “I’m the soul of discretion.”

  “No, you’re not. You are exactly the opposite.”

  Sebastian grinned. “I’m the soul of only teasing you about things when nobody else is around to hear me. And besides, if you don’t sit with this mysterious woman, I’ll go join her myself. I believe I saw where she was.”

  He was doomed. It would almost be better to simply walk away and not speak to her at all. But…

  He glanced back at her car. She was staring out the window away from the station, her fingers pressed to the glass. She wasn’t contemplating anyone; she was looking into the distance, away from the high columns of the station, as if what she yearned for was far off.

  “Don’t say anything embarrassing,” he said.

  “Me?” Sebastian said. “It would be counterproductive to do so. I’m no student of human behavior, but as a scientific matter, noninterference is necessary in order to properly observe the primitive mating rituals of—”

  Oh, God. This was going to be awful. He should never have said a word.

  “I mean it,” Robert said. “If you two come, I don’t want to hear a peep out of you. Not one word the entire trip.”

  “Really,” Violet said, “you know you can trust me to be circumspect.”

  “I’m not worried about you,” Robert said, which was true in the relative sense. “Sebastian?”

  “You can rest assured that I will not break my vow of silence until you have given me leave to do so, lest I lose my immortal soul.”

  A less grandiloquent promise would have inspired more trust. Particularly since Sebastian refused to admit whether he believed in an immortal soul. Still, Robert bowed his head and hoped—fervently—that this would not turn out as badly as he feared.

  The conductor was calling for all to board the train leaving out of Euston Square, and Minnie had hidden herself in the second-class car. The cars were almost empty, and she had her cloak drawn up to her cover her face. A look of firm disapproval usually sent any would-be traveling companions scampering for the next compartment over.

  So when the door handle rattled, she fixed a grim, uninviting expression on her face. The hinges squeaked; the door swung in, and a woman stepped into the compartment.

  Not just a woman; a lady. She was dressed in the dark gray of half-mourning, ribbons and bows flirting with a lavender so pale it was almost colorless. Minnie didn’t need to see the seed pearls lining her cuffs to know that this woman was wealthy and important. She’d have guessed it from the careful tucks and frills of the gown, the fabric that billowed out in careless excess, the fit of a gown that could only have been perfected through countless visits from a modiste.

  What was a woman like that doing back here in the second-class cars?

  Her eyebrows were drawn down; she rapped the bench across from Minnie lightly, as if to ascertain that it was indeed as hard as it appeared. Then she shrugged prosaically.

  Before she could look at Minnie, a man—a gentleman, by the look of him, trousers pressed and creased, red waistcoat covered by a long traveling coat—ducked his head in. “Cobber’s lost the truck again,” he said. “And Matilda says the porter insists on loading your second crate on bottom, no matter what the markings say.”

  “Oh, hell,” the woman said.

  The man didn’t blink at the profanity. He simply stood aside and let her sweep out the door.

  Oddly enough, that gentleman—dark-haired and dark-eyed—looked at Minnie. It was probably too late to drive these people away, whoever they were, but she glared at him anyway.

  In return, he winked at her.

  “The first-class cars are there.” She gestured.

  He shrugged, tossed his heavy coat on another seat, and then followed after the woman.

  So she was to have companions after all—and odd ones, at that.

  The door rattled again. She looked up, expecting to see her strange companions—but no. Her heart dropped. Her hands burst into flame.

  “Miss Pursling,” the Duke of Clermont said. “How absolutely lovely to see you.”

  The last time she’d seen him, he’d told her to look up. She’d wanted to do it. And then… Then, she’d discovered that she had even fewer choices than she supposed. Looking at him made her want to forget all that. She’d hoped to put that longing out of her mind for good, but at the sight of him, the memory returned unbidden, waiting on the surface of her skin, reviving with every breath that passed through her lips.

  I want you.

  Those words had taken hold of her imagination, and even though her mind knew that nothing had ever happened between them, her flesh seemed unconvinced. She broke out in prickles of awareness at his presence. She looked down.

  “Are you having a nice journey?” He placed a satchel in the rack overhead and then sat across from her.

  “Yes,” she said, somewhat stiffly. “I visited a papermaker in London so I could discover where you were getting your materials.”

  She tossed it out so he would know where they stood—as far apart as she could push them.

  His nose twitched. “A progress report,” he said happily. “I see I have advanced in your standing. How lovely.” And he smiled at her.

  There was no place for him and his wants in her life. No place at all. Luckily, the door opened again to admit the lady in the impressive traveling habit.

  “Robert,” she said, “we cannot leave yet. They have misplaced Herman and the conductor is threatening to go anyway. What can it matter if the train is delayed? You must stop them, because my stratagems will not last much longer.”

  “Your stratagems?” The Duke of Clermont sat up straight, and his voice grew darker. “What have you done?”

  The woman held up a silver-plated whistle. “The conductor’s,” she said simply.

  The duke stared at her, then groaned and rubbed his forehead. “Oh, God.” He touched his hat and turned to Minnie. “Wait. I’ll be right back.”

  The door closed again, and she was once more left alone. Minnie briefly considered moving compartments. But if she did, he would only find her again. Besides, the conductor had marked off her ticket in this seat, and she wasn’t certain he’d remember her if she moved to another compartment.

  The next temptation
struck in a moment. He’d thrown his bag on the seat next to her. Only a single metal buckle separated her from his papers. His potentially damning papers.

  He had to be importing the handbills from somewhere. Maybe he had a bill of sale or a note in that satchel.

  But…it would be a tremendous breach of privacy.

  And what would she do even if she found something? His word against hers would still leave her ruined. She argued with herself back and forth, until the passage of time made her decision for her.

  The door to the car opened. It was the duke. He glanced at his satchel overhead and then shook his head. “Really,” he said, “you didn’t go through it?”

  “Really.” Minnie gritted her teeth. “I didn’t go through it.”

  “Am I not your enemy? Are we not at war?”

  “I don’t know what you are. I certainly don’t know what we are doing.” Her nose wrinkled. “But I would have the devil of a time proving the provenance. Even if I did find a stack of radical handbills in your satchel, what would I do? Take them out and show the magistrate? I’d have no proof you once owned them.”

  He took the satchel down and looked over at her. “You are constantly surprising me. I have to remind myself that whatever it is you are planning, it is going to be thought through more thoroughly than anything I have ever contemplated.” He undid the leather strap and reached in, taking out a handful of papers. “Here,” he said. “If you had gone through my satchel, you’d have found this. I wrote it for you anyway.”

  He held out a piece of paper.

  Minnie didn’t take it.

  “You said you were terrified of the future, when last we spoke. I want a truce. This is my best offer.” He smiled at her, and oh God, she felt it, felt the force of his smile all the way to her toes.

  She reached out and gingerly removed it from his hand. He was right; the letter had her name scrawled on the front.

  “Pax for the journey?”

  “I—I don’t know.”

  “A few hours, Miss Pursling. That’s all I’m asking for.” His smile tilted. “And incidentally, about the other two passengers—”

  The door opened, and he grimaced, folding his arms over his chest. The two people who had come in earlier entered once more.

  The woman’s eyes rested on Minnie…and narrowed just long enough for Minnie to realize that this calm, impressive woman had likely heard something about her from the duke. Enough that she took in Minnie’s plain gown, the scar on her cheek, and tilted her head. Behind her stood the gentleman who’d winked at her, his hair dark, his cravat white.

  The Duke of Clermont gave a rueful smile. “Heh,” he said. “Well, as to that.” He bit his lip. “Yes. Violet, Sebastian, may I introduce you to Miss Pursling? Miss Pursling, this is Violet Waterfield, the Countess of Cambury.”

  “Charmed, I’m sure,” the countess said, in a voice that suggested she was anything but.

  “And behind her is Mr. Sebastian Malheur.”

  Minnie forgot to be quiet. Her mouth fell open. “The Sebastian Malheur?” she found herself exclaiming. “The one who wrote that impassioned defense of Mr. Darwin?”

  Goodness. If the stories about him were even remotely true, he was an absolute reprobate. He was wildly rumored to be not only a religious dissenter, but an actual atheist. A womanizer. A rake. But Mr. Malheur simply shrugged and set two fingers to his lips in an exaggerated gesture.

  “Yes,” the duke said after a slightly stilted pause. “He’s that self-same benighted fellow. All the rumors you’ve heard are true. Also, he’s my cousin.” He let out a sigh. “Well, you two might as well come in and sit down,” he finally said. “It’s not as if you could make things any worse.”

  She had no idea what he meant by that, if he was talking to them or to her. But the two of them trooped into the car. Without saying a word, or even once glancing at Minnie, they took their seats.