“Your Grace.”
He stopped on the second step and turned partially. One hand on the rail, the letters held loosely in the other.
“I should like the use of the carriage this afternoon. To see my guests home safely.”
A sound came from his throat that was not quite a word. He gave a single nod and then he was gone up the stairs.
Kit said nothing, but she saw his eyes narrow, saw the muscle stand at the corner of his jaw.
She instructed Patten to have the carriage brought around, the one with the Iredell crest marked on it, and saw to it that her guests boarded safely. Then she stood and watched the carriage pull away with Mrs Bickle waving enthusiastically until the street had taken them. When she turned back into the hall, Patten was clearing the salver and the wax cherry from the marble, and the house was as it had been before they came.
Chapter thirteen
Cranbrook House
Henry
The Alliance met on a Tuesday when Cranbrook decided there was business enough to warrant the brandy. Henry had received the note at breakfast, brought up on Patten’s salver alongside a card from Lady Bramwell and a small brown parcel addressed to Her Grace from the Hampstead Botanical Circles that he did not examine. He pocketed the note and left the rest.
Cranbrook House had not changed in the past two weeks. The same drawing room, the same arrangement of chairs around the fire, the same footman who poured the brandy and withdrew. The rain beat against the windows as it had the night they sent him to Hampstead, and Henry took his usual position near the bookshelf and waited for the business to find him.
It found him within the quarter hour.
“Trowbridge… We shall consider this affair concluded,” Cranbrook said.
“The Trowbridge affair is mine to close,” Henry said. “I sent word this morning that the boy present himself here tonight.”A silence. Cranbrook’s brows drew together. Banbury looked up from his spectacles. Wiltshire’s cigar paused on its way to his mouth.
“The matter is not mended. Not until he answers for it first, in this room, before the only men whose good opinion he requires.”
Wiltshire settled back with an amused expression, seemingly preparing for a stage drama to unfold. “Do try not to kill him, Iredell. Your reputation is already quite firm.”
As if on cue, the footman opened the door.
Trowbridge entered the room with his chin held up by effort. He looked younger than his twenty years, barely growing a moustache. He looked at the ring of older men, then at Henry, and visibly shrank before his eyes.
“Your Graces.” The words cracked in the middle.
No one offered him a chair.
Henry crossed the room. He did not hurry and watched the boy’s throat work as the distance closed. He stopped a few steps away from him.
“Do you know who I am?” Henry asked.
The boy nodded.
“Do you know what they call me?”
Trowbridge’s eyes went to the others who were studying him with varying expressions of indifference.
“The Reaper,” the boy whispered, “Your Grace.”
Henry nodded. “I have never cared for it. But there are evenings I find it useful, and I believe this is one of those evenings.” He let the quiet stretch until Trowbridge’s hands had begun to tremble.
“You wrote a lady’s name in a book,” Henry said. “You wrote that you had had her, and you knew as you wrote it that you had never stood within a mile of her. You did it knowing it would ruin her life.”
Trowbridge swallowed. “I never meant any harm to her.”
“Yes, you did. Only you chose your pathetic pride over a woman’s reputation, her life, her family, her right to happiness.”
