Daughters of Death: Notorious Murderer’s Daughters Get Harbored Under the Duke’s Roof
The words arranged themselves on the page with the malice that only cheap ink and cheaper morality could produce.
Hudson’s vision narrowed. The pleasant chatter at the breakfast table faded to a distant hum, overridden by the white-hot roar of something that started in his chest and spread outward withthe force and velocity of a cannonball. The paper trembled in his grip. He was distantly aware that his knuckles had turned white.
The article itself was worse than the headline, a masterpiece of innuendo and sanctimonious horror, pieced together from half-truths and outright fabrications.
Lord Whitfield’s crimes were summarized in lurid detail, and his daughters were portrayed as somehow complicit by blood, as though the mere fact of their parentage rendered them dangerous, contaminated, unfit for polite society.
Augusta’s name appeared six times in the first paragraph alone, each iteration accompanied by some variation on “the governess with the murderer’s blood.”
Olivia fared no better. Her artistic talents were reduced to a footnote, her presence in his household framed as evidence of either his monumentally poor judgment or something considerably darker.
Hudson read it twice. The second time was not out of any desire to revisit the content but out of the peculiar, dislocated sense that the words on the page could not possibly have been written by a human being with functioning lungs and a beating heart. He needed to confirm this impression before proceeding to the next step, which involved locating the said human being and rectifying the deficiency with his fists.
He became aware, belatedly, that the breakfast table had fallen silent.
“Your Grace?” The butler, still hovering by the door, had the expression of a man who would prefer to be anywhere else.
Hudson folded the paper with a precision that cost him more effort than he cared to admit. His hands, he noted with detached interest, were perfectly steady. The rest of him was not.
“Leave us,” he ordered. The words emerged low and controlled, which was not at all how he felt.
The butler withdrew with the alacrity of a man escaping a building that had just begun to smolder.
Augusta reached for the paper. Hudson held it just beyond her reach. It was an instinctive movement, but it was entirely futile because the damage was already done, the words already inked onto cheap paper and distributed across a city that fed on scandal with the indiscriminate appetite of a starved dog.
“What is it?” Olivia asked. Her voice was calm, but Hudson caught the slight tremor beneath it, the careful composure of a woman who had spent years perfecting the art of appearing unruffled while the ground shifted beneath her feet.
He handed Augusta the paper. Watched her face as she read it. Watched the color drain from her cheeks. Watched her throat work. Watched the moment her eyes found the passage about her father.
“It’s about us,” she said finally. Her voice was remarkably steady, which made it worse. “About our father. About… all of it.”
Olivia took the paper next. Her reaction was quieter. She read to the end with methodical attention, her fingers leaving faint creases in the margins where they pressed too hard.
Cassie, who had been watching their exchange with the mounting concern of a child whose morning had been abruptly derailed, reached for the scandal sheet with the unselfconscious curiosity of the very young.
“No,” Hudson said, the word coming out sharper than he had intended.
Cassie’s hand froze mid-reach, her expression crumpling into something that made him want to locate the author and introduce him, personally and at length, to the concept of consequences.
“I want to know what it says,” she said, her lower lip trembling.
“Lies,” Hudson told her, his voice gentler now, though the gentleness cost him something fierce. “Horrible lies, written by people who have never met you, or Miss Norton, or Miss Olivia, and who don’t care about the truth. That’s all you need to know.”
He looked at Augusta. At Olivia. At the two women seated at his breakfast table with their composure intact and their eyesholding a hurt that made his chest ache with a fury that had nowhere useful to go.
“I will find out who did this.” Each word emerged precise, measured, honed to an edge that could have cut glass. “I will find out who gave them this information, and I will ensure they regret it with every breath they take for the remainder of their miserable existence.”
He pushed back from the table, his chair scraping across the floor with a sound that seemed to fill the suddenly silent room.
“I’m going to their offices,” he said. “Now.”
Augusta rose. For one suspended moment, he thought she would attempt to stop him.
“Be careful,” she said quietly.
After Hudson had left, the house was quiet for a while.
