Chapter Fifteen #2
How could she write such slanderous gossip? The woman Henry knew—or at least, the woman he thought he knew—would never wish to harm another.
So why was it so easy for her to write in that damned notebook, he realized with increasing horror, the sorts of headlines which had potentially soured all suitors for his sister?
“Henry, I thought we could…Henry?”
Henry turned slowly on the spot, hoping to goodness the world would stop spinning. It did so the moment his gaze fell on Minny.
She was standing in the doorway with a swiftly fading smile.
A shawl was wrapped around her shoulders, her nightgown still the only thing she was wearing.
If Henry had not been so horrified at what he had just seen, he would have taken the opportunity to strip off the nightgown and worship the body of the woman he…
But how could he even countenance the thought of such a thing now?
“Henry? You look awfully strange,” Minny said quietly. “What—”
“You,” Henry said softly.
It was clear she had no idea what he meant, or the wild pained thoughts whirling through his mind.
How could he have been so stupid? How had he managed to let his lust, his desire for seduction overcome his better nature—his care of his sister?
Henry swallowed. Oh God, Peg. All that she had suffered the last few months, it was his fault! He’d come to Pathstow to root out the truth, and he’d permitted the scandal to continue right under his nose.
“Henry, you’re frightening me,” Minny said softly, stepping toward him. “What—”
“You. It was you. You, all along,” said Henry darkly. He raised an accusing finger. “You’re the one that’s been sending the secret messages!”
Minny halted and stood staring, clutching her shawl around her as though the forge was cold.
But he had done a good job at laying the fire, Henry thought. It did not quite make up for the terrible job he had done in looking after his sister, but he did know how to build a fire.
If only he knew how to dampen the fire roaring through him. Love, passion, pain, anger, it all burned within him, feeding off each other as shame pointed out just how easily he had been tricked.
“All this time, I thought it would be someone using the forge to drop off and pick up messages,” said Henry bleakly. “I—I looked out for anyone who was coming here frequently, looked for the person I was sure was guilty but—”
“But you found me,” said Minny quietly. “Are you shocked?”
Henry wanted to fall to his knees and beg her to recant, to say she did not mean it, that it was all a misunderstanding.
Lady Margaret Everleigh shocks ton by meeting secretly with lover
Lady Margaret Everleigh suspected to be with child
Hushed up Dulverton scandal rocks Society…
Each one of those sordid headlines…had been born here.
“You did not stop to think what gossip could occur from your writings?” Henry asked with a dry throat. “You did not consider, for a single moment, what would happen when those notes of yours reached London?”
She blanched, turning away as she spoke. “I did what I thought was right.”
“Was right!”
Henry had not intended to shout, but it appeared she was going to leave him no choice. It was an outrage! Where was the principled and honorable woman he had come to care for?
Where was the woman with whom he had thought he could share…
Well, all thoughts of that nature would have to be completely ended, Henry told himself fiercely. His heart raged, pulse pounding with hot fury, but he could not tangle his tongue around the words that he knew he had to say.
That she had, although unknowingly, betrayed him.
“And would it shock you to learn, Miss Banfield, that your letters have already damaged, perhaps beyond repair, the reputation of someone dear to me?”
Minny’s face whipped around. “I did not know you were acquainted with—”
“I am,” Henry said bluntly. How could she look at him so calmly? “Your betrayal—”
“My betrayal?” She stepped forward, just as much fury on her face as Henry imagined was on his own. “I did not do this to betray others, but to share information vital to—”
“How could you possibly think such information was vital!”
Words swirled around Henry’s memory, words that had brought Peggy’s social standing down to that of a mere servant!
…the Lady Margaret has no honor left…
He closed his eyes for a moment as though that would cease the rush of pain circling his mind, but it was no good.
He had come here to find a cad. A brigand. To find the cur destroying his sister’s life with unfounded gossip. And all he had managed to do was fall in love.
“The notes don’t hurt anyone,” Minny was saying. Henry’s eyes snapped open as she continued, “I feel passionately—”
“Oh, yes, I am sure you do,” Henry snapped. “How much were you paid, eh? How many lives ruined because of what you did—why, for all you know, the life of a duke himself may have been impacted!”
The impression of his words were not precisely what he had hoped.
Minny snorted and rolled her eyes. “I doubt very much there is a duke in the world who even knows I exist!”
And he should have held his tongue, but he could not help but say—“You’re wrong, I know you far better than any other man on this earth!”
He was hot, far too hot. Henry did not understand it, he had barely moved in the forge—but it was growing in heat as his own anger grew in temperature.
Minny stared, mouth open. “Y-You know—but you’re no duke!”
Henry pulled himself together and tried to throw out his chest in the imperious way he had been taught as a child. This was it. Once he uttered these words, there was no going back.
How could he, now he knew it was thanks to Minny Banfield that his sister’s prospects for matrimony were essentially over?
“My name is Henry Everleigh, Duke of Dulverton,” he said impressively, his voice carrying around the forge. “And I will never forgive you, Minny Banfield, for what you have done.”
Minny stared as though she had never seen him before. Pain flickered in her eyes.
Most unaccountably, as far as Henry was concerned. She was not the one who had been wronged. She was the one profiteering off the demise of others. She had lied, kept secrets, broken his heart—
There was only one thing this pain in his chest could be, wasn’t it? His heart ached, broken under the pressure of the discovery.
“I was right,” Henry said as though holding onto that fact would provide sanity. “I knew it was coming from here. I knew the smithy had something to do with—”
“You’re a duke?” Minny interrupted, her voice cracking. “A duke—you lied to me all that time, came to me under false pretenses, and you believe what I have done to be wrong?”
Just for a moment, Henry could have forgiven all if she had dropped into his arms and wept and told him she regretted it. That perhaps she had been goaded into it, did not know the import of what she did.
But hearing those words, he knew it was over. Whatever they had shared, whatever he had…had hoped could be.
“You scoundrel,” he said quietly. “You miser. You cruel harpy—you villain!”
His sister Peggy swam before his eyes as Minny opened her mouth in shock.
“I return to London immediately,” Henry said stiffly, striding past her and out of the forge. “Expect to hear from my lawyers.”
He did not look back. Not even as he heard the door slam and after it, a sob.