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“Neither does Matthew, but alas…” Eleanor cooed.
Matthew shook his head. “Oh, you are such a lucky sod having no siblings to speak of, Pollock.”
“Actually, I have five sisters.”
“And you are stillsane?”
Eleanor refastened her bonnet. “Come now, brother. We are only teasing in turn.”
“And how very taxing it all is,” Charlotte added with finality. The mention of Huxley had done little to soothe her worry, still mulling over the Duke’s proposal as she was. “You will forgive us, Mr. Pollock. Now, shall we be on our way?”
With a rolling of her hand, they were.
However, they did not amble long.
Coming into Piccadilly on their way to their coaches, Charlotte had the poor sense of torturing herself by looking in the window of Hathaway & Bacon. Stalling for only a moment, being largely forgotten by her siblings, she thought to catch a more curious name on one of the illustrated poems in the window.
Pressing her nose up against the glass, she squinted to get a better look at the panel they had affixed for show. It was an excerpt from the upcoming edition of The Ladies’ Monthly Gallery of Arts, in which she had previously been published under her pen name. As such, it was not beyond reckoning that the nameMr. Charles F. Huxleyshould appear in the window. Itwasdifficult to understand, however, why they would seek to publish her work twice.
Reading the title of the poem, she was struck dumb.
The poem was not one she had delivered for publication. Scanning the verses, she, in fact, realized that it had been penned long before she had ever thrown her work in the fire. This was a poem that onlyshehad ever seen. How then could it have appeared in Hathaway’s shop window?
Unless another person had gotten their hands on her work before it burned.
But…how?
A slow, creeping fear burned at the base of her neck, climbing up to crown her head until she felt utterly submerged. It was a feeling she had suffered all too recently, brought on first when Benjamin had pleasured her.
Not when he had pleasured her—when he had said,Princess.
Surely, you’re not thinking of following me, Princess.
“Oh, God…” she breathed, recoiling at the memory.
The highwayman had stolen her poems, among which, without a doubt, was the one she had just read in the window. The highwayman who was handsome and tall, whose voice was low and rumbling, who had been called Admiral, whose presence was heady and dark and sofamiliar.
She had not met Benjamin first at the Singberry ball.
They had metmonthsbefore.
When he had robbed her blind on her way out of Twicham.
CHAPTERTWENTY
You will leave this place. You will leave never to return.
Gamston’s words words played over in Benjamin’s mind as he looked up at the stately home of the Duke. It seemed smaller than it had the other night, though still massive by anyone’s account—owing to the sun’s kiss, perhaps, or to the blazing, angry fire in Benjamin’s heart. Nothing, not a word, nor a house, could but be dwarfed by it.
And there was nothing that would smother it definitely but Gamston’s truth.
He clutched the Duke’s letter to his mother in his hand, the paper near falling to pieces for how many times he had read it over. There could be no other answer but this—Gamston had fallen in love with his mother and had sent her away, scorned by her love for Benjamin’s father. As if to beg her forgiveness, he had supplied her with housing, money, and all else she might need to raise her son.
Benjamin nodded, waving away the rider of the coach he had taken and trying ardently to smooth out his brow. With a defiant growl, he walked the path to the manor’s front door.
A butler answered, a different man than the one who had greeted him at Gamston’s masquerade. Just how many men did this libertine have in his employ? How much money to whittle away on such vanities? The manservant didn’t speak, merely looked Benjamin up and down.
He offered a simple, “I am here to call upon His Grace. Tell him Huxley has come,” knowing a man as depraved as the Duke would not be able to resist taking up the gauntlet.
