Chapter Seventeen
“Well done, m’boy,” said Alan, shaking Lawrence’s hand. “It’s a triumph!”
A triumph. Well, thought Lawrence bitterly, he supposed that on paper it was a triumph.
A triumph which had been a long time coming. If only it had not happened right there, right then. Right in from of her.
“A most excellent result,” said Mr. Snee formally, his mustache blustering as he continued. “I must say I was starting to have my doubts you know, but I should have trusted you. Trusted the process. That’s what is important, after all. Trust.”
Lawrence nodded blearily. It felt strange to be standing here in the justice’s office, having handed over John Mortimer minutes before to the bailiffs’ care.
He’d be in goal now, Lawrence thought darkly, while I am here, forced to drink bottom-of-the-shelf brandy with people who can think of nothing but celebrating.
As if everything in the world was righted…
“Trust, indeed,” Alan was saying formally, evidently delighted to be on speaking terms with a judge. “I always said to Lawrence, I can trust you to do this…”
“I trust you, Lawrence. At least, I trusted—I thought we had an understanding.”
Lawrence’s stomach curdled. Trust.
That was what Julia had thrown in his face. That he did not trust her.
Despite the many congratulations flying through the air, Lawrence could not help but feel empty. Yes, he had achieved what he had set out to do last year. Yes, his brother’s killer and the traitor to the Crown was now behind bars, where he belonged.
God, he could now cast off the cover of Lawrence Madgwick and return to the world he knew. To better men. To better brandy, at the very least.
But how could he celebrate the end of his glorious connection with Julia? How could he walk away from this life knowing he would be leaving her behind within it?
“Mr. Madgwick, please consider this engagement to be at an end.”
Oh, there was a chance that they would cross paths again, Lawrence thought wretchedly. In a formal dining room perhaps, over a tureen of soup.
Would she even recognize him? Would he recognize himself?
“—saying to His Grace here, enchanted to have him handed over,” Alan was saying, clapping a hand on Lawrence’s arm. “Yes, yes, marvelous.”
Lawrence blinked. For a moment—a heart stopping moment—he had wondered who on earth “His Grace” was.
Who was he if he could not recall his birth? Had Lawrence Madgwick, boxer and general brute, become such a part of him that he was unable to leave him behind?
“Well, Your Grace, I am sure you are delighted to have avenged your brother,” said Mr. Snee.
Lawrence nodded without saying anything.
What could he say? That he had expected to feel triumphant, glorious, powerful beyond the extreme, determined to shout to the world that he had been the one to bring down the blaggard?
It was all true, but it seemed to belong to a Lawrence, Duke of Penshaw, who no longer existed.
All he felt was empty. A shell, as though his insides had been scooped out, placed on a plate, and handed to Julia…who had rejected them.
Mr. Snee settled happily in the large mahogany chair behind his desk. “Well, what will you do now, Mr. Alan?”
Lawrence blinked. Dear God, he had never thought to ask. Was Alan his surname, not his first name?
Alan spread his arms wide as he took in the expanse of leather and wood around the man’s office. “Look for another way I can serve the Crown, of course, Mr. Snee. I am always at His Majesty’s service.”
The judge nodded sagely. “Excellent, excellent. And you, Your Grace?”
Lawrence looked at his hands. The nicks and bruising the devil Mortimer had exacted on him before he was subdued him were subsiding. Every day brought greater healing to the abrasions on his hands.
But what about his heart? What about his very soul?
A cough brought him to his senses. “What?”
“I said, Your Grace,” repeated Mr. Snee with a raised eyebrow, “what will you do now? Now your commitment to serve as a duke in danger is at an end?”
Lawrence hesitated. “Go to the devil” did not appear to be a polite response. Certainly not one to make to a man who had the authority to clap him in irons if he thought the duke impertinent.
“Go to the Dulverton Club,” he said.
Mr. Snee blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“I am in need,” Lawrence said, setting down his glass almost untouched, “of a good drink. I thank you, my lord,” he continued, his voice growing stronger, more imperious with every word, “for your thanks and your hospitality, but I regret we must depart. Come, Alan.”
He hated the way his voice so easily spat out orders. Almost as much as he hated how swiftly they were obeyed.
Alan was no servant of his; he was obedient to the Crown, not the name of Penshaw.
That did not seem to matter. With a nod of his head, Alan placed his own glass on the desk before him—Lawrence saw Mr. Snee wince at the immediate ring it started to make—and stepped toward the door.
“Any time I can be of service,” Alan said with another bow. “Your servant, Mr. Snee.”
“And yours, I am sure, Mr. Alan,” said the judge in wonder. “And Your Grace, I wonder if—”
Lawrence had strode out of the room and closed the door behind him before he could hear a single platitude or request of the man.
Probably hoping for an invitation to Penshaw, he thought darkly. Well, he would need time alone there to get over this damned heartbreak before he permitted any visitors.
He almost tripped down the steps to the street. Heartbreak? Now where on earth had that thought come from.
“Well, that was damned rude,” said Alan cheerfully, buttoning up his greatcoat. “The Dulverton Club, you say? I hope they have as good brandy as old Snee, I was really enjoying—”
“Far better, as you will soon discover,” Lawrence interjected. “Come on.”
They walked in silence, which was precisely how he liked it. When had conversation become so dull? When had the warmth gone out of the sun, color seeped from the world?
Lawrence gritted his teeth as they turned a corner. Oh, he knew damned well.
Admitting it to himself, however, was not something he was prepared to do.
The impressive columns of the Dulverton Club were a sight for sore eyes as they approached it, crossing the road just before an eager barouche rushed past them. Lawrence could almost feel the dread slipping from his shoulders.
At least here, he would be back where he belonged. Back, perhaps, where he should never have left.
“Ah,” Alan said, clearing his throat awkwardly as they strode into the entrance way. “I’ve never been to—I did not realize it was quite—”
“The tradesmen’s entrance,” came a cool voice, “is around the back.”
Lawrence fixed the footman on the desk with an imperious glare. He should have expected this. It was too much to expect that there would be a man here to recognize him.
Not that it would be easy. He was still dressed in the threadbare clothes Alan had sourced for him at the beginning of his assignment. His cover, Alan had said, must be impeccable.
Apparently it was so impeccable that the man at the welcome desk of the Dulverton Club did not even recognize the Duke of Penshaw.
“I think it best if we—”
“My dear man,” said Lawrence sternly, cutting across Alan’s hurried whisper. “Do you mean to tell me that you do not know who I am?”
It was strange. Returning to his old accent, the voice of his birth, came as quickly as breathing. Lawrence had wondered whether his rounder vowels would grow on him, but as it happened, he was able to slip into the tones of the Duke of Penshaw without a second thought.
Because, he tried to remind himself, he was the Duke of Penshaw.
Damn, this was getting difficult.
The footman looked aghast. “I—I did not think—Your Grace, is that you?”
Lawrence tried not to take this as an insult. In fairness to the man, his black eye was not entirely healed, and his clothes did stink something dreadful.
“It is I,” he said calmly. “And I am, as you can see, in need of fresh clothes and a shave. Have a man made available, will you?”
It was a mark of the Dulverton Club’s quality that it furnished him with bath, valet to shave him, and a set of clothes that almost fit within the hour.
Within another five minutes, he and Alan—who had undergone a similar transformation and looked markedly uncomfortable—were sitting by a window in the Japan Room, proper brandy in hand.
Alan looked down suspiciously at his glass. “It doesn’t smell at all right.”
Lawrence smiled. “That’s what it is supposed to smell like.”
“Hmm.” His companion did not look convinced. “If you say so.”
It was a mark of how close they had become over the months that when Alan took a large swig of the liquid and choked, Lawrence did not laugh. He merely patted the older man on the back.
“You’ll get used to it.”
“I’m not sure I can afford to,” spluttered Alan, placing the glass down on the small table beside him. It was going to leave a ring.
Lawrence let the warmth of the brandy revive him. But the liquor, fine as it was, was no miracle worker.
Well. This was his life now.
“You’ll be in here often, I suppose.”
Lawrence looked up at Alan, who had been impressively perceptive. “I suppose so.”
“Balls and dinners and fine young ladies,” said Alan with a grin. “All the comforts of life you’ve been missing.”
Missing? Lawrence supposed he had. Missed that, that was.
He would certainly appreciate someone else darning his socks. He’d have to burn the remains of what he had. They were hardly fit for humans.
But what else had he missed? He had few friends; his brother had always been his closest companion, and his brother was gone.
Lawrence blinked back treacherous tears. He was not going to cry. Not here, not now, not at all. Dukes did not cry.
Besides, why would he want to return to a world that Julia was not in?
She was in it somewhere, he supposed. Lawrence had tried hard not to think about her mother’s demand that she wed before the Season was over. Tried not to think of her attending balls, accepting the compliments of another man.
A man who, for some reason, had the same face as Mortimer.