Page 2 of The Duchess’ Little Miracle

William did not flinch. His family seal in a place like this was almost certainly a fraud, a desperate attempt by some opportunistic peasant to extort his estate. People lied, forged, and cheated for a fraction of his wealth every day, and he had not traveled eight hours to be swindled by the matron of an orphanage.

“Open the door,” William commanded.

Mrs. Ayton complied immediately, lifting the latch and stepping aside.

The room inside was a small, austere parlor, containing nothing but a plain wooden table, two stiff chairs, and a small hearth that held more ash than actual fire.

Sitting on the edge of one of the chairs was a small girl. Her skin was still pale from her recent illness, her dark hair pinned back in a neat but simple braid that looked too heavy for her small frame. She wore an oversized, scratchy gray wool dress, but despite her meager surroundings, she sat remarkably straight, her hands folded in her lap.

On the table before her lay a single, folded piece of cream parchment. He walked directly to the table, his eyes locking onto the red wax seal.

Christ.

Up close, the fraud he had fully expected to expose simply wasn’t there. There were no sloppy tool marks in the wax, no blurred lines from a cheap lead counterfeit, and the impression was perfectly deep. It was clean.

William didn’t let his expression slip, but a cold silence settled over his chest. He reached down, his long fingers picking up the parchment, and turned it toward the solicitor.

He turned and held it out to Jameson without a word.

Jameson stepped forward, and the nervousness left him the way it always left him when there was something precise to be done. He took the parchment and held it angled toward the gray light of the window. He did not look at the crest itself. His thumb moved instead to the outer rim of the wax, slow, feeling for something a casual eye would never find... a hairline nick pressed into the third chevron by the London engraver who had cut the die, a flaw so small it was invisible unless you knew to look for it, put there precisely so that anyone who knew could look.

He found it.

He held the seal closer and breathed in once through his nose. The wax was not the brittle, cheap kind that crumbled at the edges and smelled of tallow.

He lowered the letter.

“It is entirely authentic, Your Grace,” Jameson said quietly, for William’s ears only. “This is precisely what I feared when the summons arrived. If news of this document starts to spread, if the papers or the parish council —”

“Hush, Jameson,” William cut in and shut his eyes tightly. “Let me handle it.”

William flipped the document over, noting that the parchment wasn’t sealed shut. The wax was split cleanly in two, the bond holding the folds together severed. He turned his gaze toward the headmistress, his eyes flattening into ice.

“You broke the seal,” William said calmly. “What gave you the right?”

Mrs. Ayton visibly shrank, her hands finding the fabric of her apron and gripping it. “Your Grace, I must ask that you understand the circumstances under which the decision was made. The child was brought to us in the dead of night by a carter who had found her at the crossroads, delirious with fever and without a soul in the world who could name her. We did not know if she had family within the parish or beyond it. We did not know if she would survive the week.” She drew a breath. “I searched her effects for anything that might tell us who she was. A parish token. A name sewn into her garments. Anything at all. When we found the parchment, I confess I hesitated. But the child needed a physician, and we had no means to pay for one, and I thought — I hoped — there might be some provision inside.” She looked at him and looked away again. “I broke the seal to establish whether there were funds enclosed for her care. That was the whole of it, Your Grace. I would not have done so otherwise.”

“A gross trespass,” Jameson said. He stepped away from the window, forcing Mrs. Ayton to look at him. “The law recognizes no such defense for the violation of a Peer’s private token. To willfully split the armorial bearings of the House of Norwyn is a flagrant offense against His Grace’s person. I can assure you that the local magistrates, and indeed the Court of King’s Bench, would take a remarkably grim view of such malice. With a single word, we could have an injunction leveled against this parish that would strip you of your office and leave you personally liable for —”

William raised a single hand into the air and Jameson stopped talking immediately, the half-formed threat dying instantly in his throat as he snapped his mouth shut.

“You have made your point, Jameson,” he said calmly. “The room is far too small for this much noise, and I require quiet to read.”

Slowly, he unfolded the paper, his eyes scanning the writing before he read.

“To the Duke of Norwyn,

When this letter finds you, the fever will have done its work and I shall be beyond the reach of your family’s concern. I leave you Alice. She carries your blood, she carries your eyes, and she has no one left in this world but the promise you made.

You will recall the summer lodge at Oakridge. You will recall what passed between us there, and you will recall the morning you pressed this seal into my hand and told me it was your word made tangible — that should I ever find myself without recourse, your family would be bound to honor whatever was written upon it.

I did not think I would ever use it. I use it now.

Do not let our daughter be surrendered to the parish. She is all that remains of what you swore to protect.

— Clara”

“Clara...” he thought to himself.