The Duchess War

by Courtney Milan

  Chapter Fourteen

  Minnie didn’t see the duke at all in the days that followed.

  But it was impossible not to think of him. She examined his paper under a borrowed jeweler’s lens, poked at the ink used in his handbills, cataloged the vagaries of the type used to create it. There was a lowercase e that had a hairline crack in the lower stem; she’d seen it on four separate handbills, now. A b that was a bit misshapen.

  All of the proof that she’d found added up.

  Details, all of that. Now that she had his letter, it was all rendered superfluous.

  More importantly, when she imagined herself on the streets of Leicester, she no longer saw herself industriously collecting paper samples, but striding arm in arm with the Duke of Clermont.

  Stupid. She was so stupid.

  She told herself that all too often, and yet found that she could not make herself stop thinking of him. She remembered the feel of his lips, the look in his eyes. She remembered his hands, warm on her body. She remembered everything he’d told her, and she didn’t feel stupid.

  She looked at her reflection in the mirror one afternoon. “You,” she told herself, “are an idiot.”

  Her gray eyes looked back at her solemnly.

  He had sent over a message. His cousin was delivering a penny reading that evening for the Leicester Mechanical Society and he’d asked her to come.

  Minnie suspected that she shouldn’t go. The stupidity of what she wanted was evident just from her own mirror. She wore a plain blue gown, one he’d seen twice already. It was severe and high-necked, the sleeves long but unadorned. There was scarcely a hint of a bustle, and her skirt sported no flounces, no cunning knots. Fabric was dear, ribbons dearer. It was simple logic to dress like this when there was so little extra money. Garbed like this, nobody would look at her. She didn’t want people to look at her.

  But she wanted to make him smile.

  “Oh, Minnie,” she said in despair. “Really. Him? Could you be any more hopeless?”

  He was a duke. She was…

  “Look, damn you,” she said. And she forced herself to look in the mirror. Not to focus on the pleasant parts—the curve of her bosom, or her waist—but to really look at who she was. To look at that scar on her cheek. That wasn’t just skin-deep. It was etched on her soul. Wilhelmina Pursling was dried-up, severe, quiet, mousy.

  “Miss Pursling,” Minnie enunciated very slowly, “is a nobody. By design.”

  But those were still her eyes looking out at her. And no matter what she told herself, no matter how many times she named herself a fool, that wild, untamed want welled up in her.

  “You,” she repeated, stabbing her finger at the mirror, “are an idiot.”

  Still, if she was going to be an idiot, she might as well be one in style. And so she went downstairs and out into the fallow fields. She tromped up one hill and down another, searching the sheltered south sides until she found what she was looking for—a patch of late yellow pansies, hidden in the cornstalks.

  And she harvested them all.

  If any stars shone behind the thick blanket of fog and smoke, Robert couldn’t see them. He descended from the carriage and then turned to help Violet out. The streetlamps let out a dull and heavy illumination, enough to show a gathered mass of people waiting on the front steps of New Hall. In the night, all the clothing looked black, and the effect was almost funereal. It would have been, had they not been chanting.

  “Ah, good,” Sebastian said at his side. “There’s a crowd.”

  “A mob,” Robert said.

  Sebastian simply rubbed his hands together in glee. “When I speak, it’s usually the same thing. Are those things goats?”

  They were. In the market square outside the hall, someone had set up two temporary enclosures. There were placards tied to both, but he couldn’t read them in the dark. Still, one of those pens was filled with goats—nearly a dozen of the beasts, milling about and bleating.

  The other enclosure, oddly enough, was filled with children. Small children, more of them than there were goats. Robert frowned as he drew closer. The tallest of the children would scarcely have reached his waist; the youngest was barely walking, stumbling after the others in grim determination. None of the shouts came from the children; all that tumultuous yelling came from the surrounding adults.

  As they came abreast of the enclosures, Robert could finally read the signs.

  THESE ARE ANIMALS, proclaimed one grim placard that graced the goat enclosure. The sign over the pen that held the children read: THESE ARE NOT.

  Robert glanced at Sebastian. His cousin was still smiling—he’d always enjoyed stirring matters to boiling—but there was an edge to his smile. Sebastian took a few steps forward until he faced the children.

  The children were far more confused than the goats. One small boy had his hands on the middle rail of the fence. He wore only a light coat and thin gloves. If he’d had a cap, it had fallen off. His eyes seemed luminous in the cold of the night; his breath made puffs of cold air.

  Sebastian bent down, and the shouts redoubled. “We are not animals!” a woman was saying. “We are not animals!”

  They weren’t shouting at Sebastian; nobody chanting recognized him. To their eye, he was just another gentleman taking in the spectacle. Just another reason to hear their own voices. Slowly, Sebastian unwound his scarf from his neck. Without saying a word, he set it around the small boy’s neck. The addition of the oversized scarf made the child look even smaller. Sebastian nodded wordlessly and then turned to go.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” a nearby woman screeched. “That’s my son. We don’t need your charity.”

  Sebastian kept walking.

  “If you listen to that madman lecturing tonight,” the woman yelled at his retreating back, “you stand to lose your immortal soul. We want none of the devil’s teachings here.”

  Sebastian didn’t look back; the woman watched him leave, setting her hands on her hips. Her lips pursed; her fingers tapped in impatience. Finally, she turned to her son. “What were you doing, sitting there like a lump, then?” She took hold of one end of Sebastian’s scarf and gave it a yank. “I told you to chant. I want to hear you chant. Try it now: ‘I’m not—’” She stopped mid-sentence, on the verge of pulling off Sebastian’s scarf, as Robert came to stand by her. She looked at his boots, then followed them up his trousers, his waistcoat, until she saw his face.

  “Madam,” Robert said, “do you by any chance know the temperature this evening?”

  She seemed somewhat startled. “Why, no. But I believe there’s a thermometer mounted at—”

  “It’s thirty-five degrees out. Almost freezing and likely to get colder.”

  She gave him a sullen look. “If you knew already, why bother asking?”

  He took another look at the boy before him. The child’s nose was red and dripping with cold. “You have no right to lecture anyone on the care of animals,” Robert said bitterly. “My cousin least of all.”

  She frowned in confusion, and he left, his fists clenched. Behind him, the chants continued. We’re not animals. We’re not animals.

  Sebastian was a tease. He could tweak a man to the verge of annoyance and beyond. But he’d never been so thoughtlessly, callously cruel as the woman was with her own child. It chafed at Robert that his cousin was judged in danger of losing his immortal soul, when he wasn’t the one rounding up children, treating them like cattle in order to score points.

  He was thankful to leave the crowd behind him. The interior was warmer and drier. When the doors closed behind him, they cut off most of the noise from outside. He found Miss Pursling in one of the back rows, seated next to the aisle alongside her friend. Her hands were clamped around the edge of her seat. He paused next to her.

  “Miss Pursling,” he said. “We’ve seats up front, if you and Miss Charingford wish to join us.”

  “No, thank you.” Her voice was cool. “I…I do not care for crowds. If I’
d known it would be this bad, I wouldn’t have come. If there were any way to leave…”

  Her lips pressed together. It was hard to judge the pallor of her skin in the faint light at the back of the room, but he thought she looked a little wan.

  “Are you well?” he asked.

  “It’s nothing.” She swallowed. “It’s nothing. It’s nothing. I’m nothing.”

  “Your pardon?”

  She glanced up and then swiftly away. “It’s nothing,” she repeated. “Please stop looking at me.”

  He sat down in the row behind her. “There. I’m not looking. You have flowers on your gown.” She did. Real ones at that. Little yellow ones edging her hem, her cuffs.

  “They seemed appropriate, in light of Mr. Malheur’s work. He discusses plants, does he not?”

  “He does. And yet I seem to recall that he started with snapdragons, not…what are those? Pansies. There’s a missed opportunity on your part.” He glanced sidelong at her and caught a soft smile on her face. “They’re lovely.”

  “Ah.” She stared straight ahead.

  “There,” he said in satisfaction. “Now you’re breathing properly. You just needed a bit of a distraction for a moment.”

  He started to stand.

  “Your Grace.”

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you.” She was still staring ahead of her. She no longer clutched the seat as if it were the only thing keeping her erect. “I didn’t really wear the flowers in honor of Mr. Malheur, Your Grace.”

  He smiled. “I know. I know precisely who you wore them for.”

  “You…do?”

  “You wore them because you knew that color would soften the angles of your gown. That touch at the neckline makes your eyes look like storm clouds. It’s a lovely effect, Minnie. I know who you wore them for.”

  She held perfectly still.

  “You wore them for you,” he said. “Good for you.”

  She let out a breath. “You’re a very dangerous man.”

  He stood. “The hall is almost full. I’m sorry you’d rather stay here. I must go to the front and see to my cousin. Shall I see you after?”

  “I—the crowd…” She looked around. “I may leave early, Your Grace, so as not to be caught in the throng.” She looked into her lap as she spoke, but her face had begun to grow pale again.

  “You really aren’t well.”

  “It’s nothing.” She spoke more sharply this time, and a gentleman up front had stood and looked on the verge of introducing Sebastian. Robert had little choice but to leave her. By the time he found his seat, the man was running through Sebastian’s history.

  “…After a distinguished beginning at Cambridge,” the man said, “Mr. Sebastian Malheur made a name for himself by…”

  Distinguished beginning? Ha. He’d scarcely made it through the first part of his Tripos examinations. He’d always been on the verge of being sent down, pulling prank after college-boy prank. Nobody had been more shocked by Sebastian’s sudden success than the old men who’d once administered his exams.

  In some ways, Sebastian’s subsequent success—the nature of it, as well as the manner—was Sebastian’s biggest prank of all. And he knew it. He came to the podium in front with a bit of a swagger and a smirk.

  “Thank you, thank you all,” he said, “for your very kind welcome.” The quirk of his mouth was the only thing that acknowledged that half his welcomers had come to call him names. “I stand here to tell you about the science of inherited traits—the subject of years of study on my part. Over the course of my studies, I have come to several conclusions. One, that traits—like eye color, height, the number of petals on a flower, or the shape of a radish—are inherited from progenitors according to strict, inviolable rules. Second, that the rules of inheritance appear to be constant from animal to plant, from vegetable to tree, from cats and sheep to goats and, of course, the human animal.”

  Oh, he was enjoying himself. There was a gleam in his eye as he spoke, a faint smile that spread at the indrawn gasps scattered around the hall.

  “Third, I shall explain how the rules of inheritance walk hand in hand with Mr. Darwin’s discoveries on the origin of species. I know that many of you are particularly waiting for this portion, and so I shall explain the connection and the means by which I came to my conclusions, using—”

  “Using the tools of the devil!” someone shouted in the back.

  Sebastian paused only briefly. “Using facts, logic, and reproducible experiments,” he said gently. “All those may seem dull to many of you. But my colleagues usually raise objection to proof by diabolical influence.” There was another flicker of a smile and then he swept his arms wide, striding to an easel he’d set up at the front.

  “I start with the color of the snapdragon.”

  He set his hand on the fabric covering the easel. At that moment, though, the back door of the hall flew open. Heads turned. For a moment, there was only darkness.

  Then: “Get on!” someone shouted, and the goats that had once been in the square ambled into the hall. They looked about, mildly puzzled.

  “As you think there’s no distinction between humans and animals,” someone yelled, “here’s some for your audience!”

  Titters arose.

  Sheep, Robert thought aimlessly, would have been a better choice. Sheep were skittish things that bolted away at the flutter of a cloak. They would have panicked in an instant. Goats, on the other hand… Goats saw a gathering of this many people as an opportunity. They walked down the aisle, heads bobbing.

  “I welcome all creatures intelligent enough to understand,” Sebastian said grandly. “Never fear, my good man. I’m sure that after I’m finished, your animals will be able to explain the principles to you using very small words, the sort that even you might comprehend.”

  Another wave of laughter arose at that.

  The head goat took another lazy step forward. Then it stopped. It turned its head in contemplation…and reached out to take a bite from the flowers at Minnie’s hem.

  Robert came half out of his seat, reaching back, even though she was yards away. She shoved at its head. He could see her lips move, see her slap it on the shoulder, but he couldn’t hear what she said.

  “Here now,” the driver shouted behind her. “Don’t touch that animal! You heard the man—she’s one of us. I’ll have you up for assault if you lay hands on her again.” He gave another belly laugh.

  Another one of the goats came up to her, stealthily reaching out its neck. Miss Pursling took a parasol from a nearby woman and whacked it.

  “Assault! Assault and battery!”

  Waves of laughter grew. Another whack with the parasol; yet another goat joined the fray. This one reached in and chomped at her hem. The blue fabric ripped, showing a hint of creamy petticoat.

  And that was when Robert realized what was wrong. Nobody had moved to help her. They all surrounded her, watching, laughing. He found himself standing up, running down the aisle toward her.

  “Animal or human?” the goat owner was shouting. “Ah, you see—we can tell the difference after all!”

  The people around her were laughing at that fool—holding back, while Miss Pursling beat off the assault on her own. Robert shoved through the crowd, making his way up to the man.

  “You think that’s assault?” he growled.

  The man didn’t look behind him to see who was speaking. “What?”

  Robert set his hand on one shoulder and forcibly turned the fellow around. “This,” he said. “This is what a bloody assault looks like.” So saying, he punched the man square in the jaw. The fellow’s eyes widened in surprise. He seemed to teeter in place for a bare moment. Then his eyes rolled up and he toppled over.

  Robert turned away. “For shame,” he snapped to the gathered crowd. “Shame on all of you. Get those goats off that woman. Now.”

  Minnie looked up at that. She’d been so busy fending off the goats that she hadn’t noticed the crowd closing i
n on her. But instead of looking relieved at the men who advanced on the goats, her head whipped from side to side. She went absolutely white. Robert saw her eyes roll up in her head.

  If anyone had asked him before this night, he would have wagered good money that she had nerves of steel. He started through the crowd, but he was too late.

  She fainted in a crumpled heap before he could reach her.