Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
The door to her sitting room crashed open with enough force to rattle the teacup on its saucer. Eliza’s quill fell onto the page, leaving a dark streak of ink through the letter she had been writing to Mrs. Everett.
The footman in the doorway looked as though he had run the length of the house, his face flushed and his carefully maintained composure cracking at the edges.
“Your Grace.” He struggled to catch his breath. “Mrs. Finch requests your presence immediately in the servants’ quarters. She says it is most urgent.”
Eliza set down her quill though her pulse had already begun to quicken.
Mrs. Finch was not given to dramatic summons.
In the months Eliza had been mistress of this house, the housekeeper had maintained an unshakeable calm through everything from broken china to a small kitchen fire.
If she deemed something urgent enough to send a footman running, then something was genuinely wrong.
“Thank you. Tell Mrs. Finch I shall be there directly.”
The footman bowed and withdrew, and Eliza rose from her desk. Her hands wanted to shake. She pressed them flat against her skirts and forced herself to breathe slowly, evenly. Composure. A duchess maintains composure, no matter what awaits her below stairs.
She made her way through the hallway and down the back stairs that led to the servants’ domain.
The stone steps were worn smooth by decades of feet, and the air grew cooler as she descended.
Voices drifted up from below—low, urgent, the kind of whispers that stopped the moment she appeared in the doorway.
The servants’ hall was crowded. Far more crowded than it should have been at this hour.
Footmen and maids lined the walls, their faces turned toward the center of the room where Mrs. Finch stood with her spine rigid as an iron post. Beside her stood a young maid Eliza recognized as Martha—one of the newer girls, hired perhaps three months ago.
The girl’s eyes were red and swollen, and her hands twisted her apron with such force that the fabric had gone white at the knuckles.
The whispers died completely when Eliza entered. Every head turned. Every pair of eyes fixed on her with an intensity that made her skin prickle.
Mrs. Finch stepped forward. “Your Grace. Thank you for coming so quickly.”
“What has happened?”
The housekeeper’s mouth was pressed into a thin line. She looked at Martha then back at Eliza, and something in her expression made Eliza’s stomach drop.
“I discovered Martha in your private chambers approximately half an hour ago. She was going through your writing desk.”
The words landed like stones in still water. For a moment, Eliza could not process them. Martha had been in her desk? Going through her private papers?
“I see.” Her voice came out calm though she did not feel steady at all. She looked at the girl, who had gone deathly pale. “Is this true?”
Martha’s chin trembled. She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. No sound emerged.
“Answer Her Grace,” Mrs. Finch said, her tone sharp enough to cut glass.
“I—yes. Yes, it is true.” The words tumbled out in a rush. “But I did not mean—that is, I was not stealing, I swear I was not—”
“Then what were you doing?”
The girl’s face crumpled. Tears spilled down her cheeks, and she pressed both hands to her mouth as though she could hold back the sobs threatening to break free.
Mrs. Finch’s expression did not soften. “You will answer Her Grace’s question. Immediately. Or you will be dismissed without references and turned out before the hour is done.”
“No! Please, no, I need this position, I have nowhere else to go—”
“Then explain yourself.”
Martha drew a shaking breath. The apron in her hands was now twisted beyond recognition. When she spoke again, her voice was barely above a whisper.
“The Marchioness of Wilhampton paid me.”
The name hit Eliza like a physical blow. She heard the collective intake of breath from the servants lining the walls, felt the way the room seemed to tilt slightly beneath her feet.
Lady Wilhampton.
Of course.
“Paid you to do what?” Eliza asked. Her voice sounded distant to her own ears, as though someone else were speaking.
“To—to put letters among your things.” Martha was sobbing openly now, the words coming between gasping breaths. “She gave me three letters over the past month. Said I was to hide them where they would be found. In your books, in your desk, places where His Grace might come across them.”
Three letters. Not two. Three.
Eliza’s mind raced. They had found two—the one August had discovered in her book, and the second one that had led to their terrible argument. But there had been a third?
“Where is the third letter?”
“I—I do not know, Your Grace. I hid it in your writing desk last week, tucked inside one of the cubbyholes. I thought—I thought His Grace might see it there when he came to your sitting room.”
August rarely entered her sitting room. The letter might still be there, waiting like a viper in the shadows.
“What else?” Mrs. Finch demanded. “What else did the Marchioness ask of you?”
Martha’s hands twisted the apron tighter.
“She wanted to know things. About you and His Grace. Whether you took meals together, whether you seemed happy, whether there were arguments. She said—” The girl’s voice broke.
“She said she was an old friend of the family and simply wanted to ensure His Grace was well cared for after his father’s death. ”
“And you believed her.”
“I did! I swear I did, Your Grace. She was so kind, so concerned. She said she worried that you might not understand the demands of being a duchess, that you might not be giving His Grace the support he needed.” Fresh tears coursed down Martha’s cheeks.
“She paid me five pounds—five whole pounds—just for placing the letters and telling her small things about the household. I thought—I thought I was helping.”
Five pounds. A fortune to a girl in service. Eliza could not even muster anger at Martha though she knew she should feel something. The girl had been used, manipulated, turned into an unwitting weapon in Lady Wilhampton’s campaign.
“Did you read the letters?” Eliza asked.
Martha’s face went scarlet. “No, Your Grace! They were sealed. I never—I would never—”
“But you must have had some idea what they contained.”
The girl would not meet her eyes. “The Marchioness said they were love letters. From—from someone who cared for you. Someone you had known before your marriage. She said His Grace deserved to know the truth about his wife’s affections.”
Love letters suggesting an affair. Letters designed to make August doubt her, to poison whatever fragile trust they had been building. And Martha had placed them exactly where they would cause maximum damage.
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant in its cruelty.
Mrs. Finch turned to Martha, and her voice could have frozen water. “Collect your things. You have twenty minutes to pack your belongings and leave these premises. You will not be given references. You will not be given notice pay. You are dismissed, effective immediately.”
“Please!” Martha fell to her knees. “Please, Your Grace, Mrs. Finch, I am so sorry, I did not understand what I was doing—”
“You took money to spy on your mistress,” Mrs. Finch said. “You placed false evidence in her private chambers. You betrayed the trust of this household for five pounds.”
“I did not know they were false! I thought—”
“You did not think at all. That is the problem.” Mrs. Finch turned to one of the footmen. “Escort Martha to her quarters. See that she packs her belongings. Once she is ready, have the cart drive her to the village and leave her at the posting inn. She is not to set foot in this house again.”
Martha was still sobbing as the footman took her arm and led her toward the door. The other servants parted to let them pass, their faces a mixture of shock and judgment. The girl’s cries echoed down the hallway, growing fainter as she was led away.
Eliza stood frozen in the center of the room.
She could feel every eye on her, could sense the household absorbing what had just been revealed.
Tomorrow, this story would spread through the servants’ network like wildfire.
By next week, half of London would know that Lady Wilhampton had planted false letters in the Duchess of Wildmoore’s belongings.
“Your Grace.”
Mrs. Finch’s voice pulled her back. The housekeeper was watching her with something that looked like concern beneath her professional composure.
“Are you well?”
Was she well? She did not know. Her hands had gone cold, and her pulse was racing. But she was still standing. Still functioning. Still maintaining the composure expected of a duchess.
“I am perfectly well, Mrs. Finch. Thank you for bringing this to my attention so quickly.”
“I should have caught it sooner. I pride myself on knowing everything that happens in this household, and a viper was living under our roof for three months.”
“You caught her in the end. That is what matters.”
Movement at the doorway made them both turn.
August stood there, still in his riding clothes, his face flushed from exertion.
He must have just returned from inspecting the northern fields.
His gaze swept the room, taking in the assembled servants, Mrs. Finch’s rigid posture, Eliza’s too carefree composure.
“What has happened?” His voice was controlled, but she could see the tension in his jaw, the way his hands had formed into fists at his sides.
“A household matter,” Eliza said. She was aware of all the servants watching, listening. This was not a conversation to have in front of an audience. “Perhaps we might speak in your study?”
He looked at Mrs. Finch, who nodded once. Whatever he saw in the housekeeper’s face made his expression darken.
“Of course. Mrs. Finch, you have matters well in hand?”
“Yes, Your Grace. The situation has been resolved.”
August stepped back from the doorway, waiting for Eliza to precede him into the hallway. She moved past him, and the servants began to disperse behind them, their whispers rising as soon as they thought the Duke and Duchess were out of earshot.
They walked in silence through the hallways and up the stairs. August matched his stride to hers, but she could feel the questions radiating from him, the barely contained need to know what had just transpired. She kept her eyes forward.
His study door closed behind them with a quiet click, and the mask of composure finally cracked.
“Tell me,” he said.
So she did. She told him about Mrs. Finch discovering Martha in her writing desk.
About the confession—Lady Wilhampton’s payments, the three letters, the instructions to spy on them and report back.
She told him about the five pounds and Martha’s tearful justification that she had thought she was helping an old family friend.
With each word, she watched August’s face grow darker. By the time she finished, his jaw was clenched so tightly she thought his teeth might crack.
“That scheming—” He bit off whatever word had been about to emerge. “I should have known. From the beginning, I should have known it was her.”
“How could you have known?”
“Because I know her.” He paced to the window and back, his movements sharp. “I have known her for years, and I know what she is capable of when she sets her mind to something.”
Eliza lowered herself into one of the chairs facing his desk. Her legs felt unsteady, and she did not trust them to continue holding her upright much longer.
“The maid has been dismissed,” she said. “Mrs. Finch is seeing to it that she is removed from the property immediately.”
“Good. And Martha will not receive references?”
“No.”
“Good,” he said again. He stopped pacing and turned to face her. “Eliza, I need you to know something. I need you to understand this completely.”
She looked up at him, and something in his expression made her chest tighten.
“I never had any involvement with Lady Wilhampton.” He paused and took a breath as if to rearrange his thoughts.
“She has pursued me for years. Since before my father’s illness, since before I met you.
She has made her interest abundantly clear on numerous occasions, and I have declined her attention every single time. ”
“August—”
“No, you need to hear this.” He crossed to her chair and dropped into a crouch before her, bringing them to eye level.
“She is a widow with social connections and a title, and she believed that made her a suitable candidate to be my duchess. I never encouraged her. Not once. Not in any way that could be construed as romantic interest.”
She could see the truth of it in his face, in the fierce intensity of his gaze. He needed her to believe him. Needed her to understand that whatever Lady Wilhampton had imagined between them existed only in the Marchioness’ mind.
“I believe you.”
Some of the tension left his shoulders. He reached for her hand, and she let him take it, let him thread his fingers through hers.
“She did this because she was angry,” he said.
“Because I married you instead of pursuing her. Because she thought herself entitled to this position, to this life, to me.” His grip on her hand tightened.
“I am sorry. I am so desperately sorry that my past acquaintance with her has brought this trouble to our door.”
“It is not your fault.”
“Is it not? If I had been clearer in my rejections, if I had cut her from my acquaintance entirely—”
“Then she would have found another reason to hate me. Another method to attack us.” Eliza shifted forward in her chair. “Some people poison what they cannot possess.”
“She will never come near you again. I promise.” August took her hand and held it in his, the gesture sending warmth through her.
Eliza wanted to hope and to believe that they could survive whatever else came at them.
But she had learned long ago that wanting something did not make it so.
And that hope, for all its beauty, could be the most dangerous thing of all when it blinded you to the threats still lurking in the shadows.