Chapter 26
Back in Somerton Manor, Ellie watched Dorian’s carriage peel away from the drive again as if the hounds of hell were on its tail. During the drive home, he had not told any of the five secrets he’d mentioned before, and now all she could think about was what they were.
It was late afternoon when she was wandering through the rooms she knew, and having already engrossed herself in the books in the library for today, Ellie found herself veering towards Dorian’s study.
“It almost feels like I’m not supposed to be here…” she whispered to herself when she reached its large oak door.
With a gentle nudge, she found it unlocked, then stepped inside. The immediate scent of cigar, citrus, and musk—Dorian’s own—engulfed her, and the arousal thickened her throat when memories of last night, being overwhelmed by his powerfulness, fluttered to the forefront of her mind.
When her eyes opened again, they dropped to the mess on his desk, and she giggled quietly to herself. This man was a contradiction in himself. So orderly and strategic in his professional life, so messy and haphazard in his personal life.
In want of something to do before Dorian’s return, before they could discuss her unsolicited confession of love further, Ellie began to toil around the mess. She started by straightening up the law books, the international trade manuals, and oddly, an old children’s fable book: Aesop’s Fables.
On her last trip, her skirts brushed something poking out of a lower drawer. Pinching her brows, she crouched and pulled it out—a map. But not just any, as by the little glimpses Ellie had caught of her uncle and his work, it looked to be of the surrounding lands—and it looked rather fresh.
As she laid it out on the table to fold it, she noticed circles marked in certain places.
Leaning in, she saw they were marked as tenant lodges. In the stack of ledgers and books she had organized, she saw one marked Tenants and flipped it open.
“He proves himself to be orderly again,” she murmured, while matching the numbers on the map to ones in the ledgers.
Her hand slid to one, a Missus Thorpe, a widow with a grandchild at home. Finding another slip of paper, she wrote down the address and tucked it into her dress pocket.
As she folded the map and tugged another drawer open, something slid in the back of it. Curious, she leaned in and fished for whatever it was that had slipped behind, and found herself pulling out a small, gilt-edged portrait.
It had the hallmarks of a picture painted twenty years before, and it was of a young woman sitting on a chaise with a closed fan dangling from her hand. Sitting on a stool near her was a small boy, with closely cropped hair, but the resemblance between the two—mother and son—was uncanny.
“Is this Dorian?” she asked herself. “And his mother?”
The woman was as fair as Benedict had told her she would be, “Georgiana Yates Beaumont,” she recalled aloud. Curious enough, his father was nowhere to be seen, not in that portrait, nor in the ones scattered around the room.
Reverently, she put the portrait back into the drawer and left the room, drifting back to her own chambers. Hopefully, Dorian would come home and he would tell her what he meant by his secrets.
Dorian refrained from wrinkling his nose as he stepped into The Crown, the lackluster gaming hell Carrington owned. The place always had a seedy air to it, as if it were permanently seasoned with desperation and faux decadence.
Bypassing the main floor, he studiously ignored the heavily rouged blonde whore, clad in a gauzy shift as she sauntered past, her dimpled buttocks jiggling.
It was only last year when Carrington had seen his profits dip, he had incorporated whores to his rooms and prizefighters to his dungeons. Dorian passed by two drunks throwing dice and took the stairs to Carrington’s office.
The door was halfway open, and Dorian gave it half a knock before he strode into the room, not caring that Carrington had ill-given him permission to enter.
Fury flashed over Sterling’s face as he was pouring a glass of sherry, but it soon vanished. “Beaumont,” he said, turning. “I did not know you were coming.”
“Neither did I,” Dorian shrugged. “I do want you to know I am onto your game, however. Edgar paid you to have Rothwell attacked.”
Sterling tugged his waistcoat down and sat behind his desk. “I have no knowledge of what you mean.”
“Of course you don’t,” Dorian replied coldly. “Listen closely, Carrington, I will not tolerate your games anymore. After I find Edgar, my Judas of an uncle, you and I are done.
“If you dare target Evelina or her cousin Harriet, or as much as lay a finger on either of their loved ones, there is nothing on God’s green earth that would hold me back from hunting you down and gutting you like a raw fish before all those blackguards and whores you entertain below,” Dorian muttered in warning.
“Stopped playing coy, have we?” Carrington sighed dryly, leaning into his chair and slinging an arm over the back of it. “About time.”
“I will find the betrayer,” Dorian snarled, “And when I do, and your and his crimes are uncovered, I will make sure you both have the hangman’s noose.”
Pure malice radiated from Carrington’s eyes as he met Dorian’s gaze. “Good luck with that.”
With his piece said, Dorian turned to the doorway, only for Sterling to throw at his back, “Oh, and do tell your pretty wife, there was no hunting party at Sir Alexander DuPont’s home. Lord Lettuce is an utter milksop. Was she mistaken by any chance?”
A ripple of cold ran up the back of Dorian’s neck. “She is a socialite. It’s possible she misremembered,” he murmured vaguely.
“Aye, but you’re not,” Sterling taunted him. “You do not have the flighty brain of a featherweight. I don’t know why you would spin a lie to me and not think I wouldn’t check. You’re playing a dangerous game, Beaumont, and you won’t win. Not on a board that I designed.”
With his back still turned to Carrington, Dorian gritted, “Not if I have rewritten the rules.”
With that, he stepped out of the room and headed back to his club, eager and ready to scrub away the slimy feeling that covered his skin.
The following midday, with Dorian not returning from the night before, Ellie was in her carriage, off to meet Missus Thorpe.
She had to trust that Dorian must have had a good reason not to return that night.
So instead, she decided to spend her day as Duchess of Wolfthorne—one of many days she hoped now—by finally taking up her duties for once.
The Thorpe residence, seated on plot C of Dorian’s tenant holdings, was one of at least three dozen cottages on the lands.
The bungalows had slate roofs instead of the older thatch, and wells every ten houses or so. Fresh coats of paint covered the doors and walls while new shutters covered the windows.
The tenants did their part, keeping upkeep on their properties' fronts, with cut grass and trimmed flower bushes. When the carriage stopped at Number Fourteen, the footman helped her down.
“I hope they like pie,” she murmured to herself, eyeing the exterior of the house.
Faltering at the doorway, she berated herself, of course, they like pie.
Everyone likes pie. Stop being so damned nervous, Ellie.
You are Duchess of Wolfthorne and could perhaps remain so forever if all goes well. Act like it for once!
Knocking on a cheerful, bright blue door, she stepped back, waiting for it to open. When it did, a short, older woman with neatly combed grey hair and bright brown eyes gazed up at her from under a pinned cap.
“May I help you, me lady?” she answered.
Ellie smiled warmly. “Missus Thorpe, I take it? I am Evelina Beaumont, the Duche—”
“Oh, bless me stars!” the woman gasped before dropping into a curtsey. “Good afternoon, Yer Grace. Please, come in!” She stepped aside, and Ellie entered the humble abode.
The cottage was clean and neat, with most of the main room split between the kitchen and the small sleeping quarters to the other side, separated by a small door. Above them was another small sleeping quarters in the attic.
“May I get ye somethin’, Yer Grace?” Missus Thorpe puttered around, stirring the stew on the wood stove. “Ye are beautiful. I’d hoped he’d find a lovely woman one day.”
“No, but thank you,” Ellie smiled gracefully while setting her basket on the small prep table, where diced onions and carrots were waiting for the pot. “Though… there is something you could do for me.”
“Anything, anything at all,” the widow bobbed her head while wiping her hand on her apron. “How can I ‘elp?”
At that instant, her grandson ran in from the backyard, his pants covered in dirt, while holding his elbow. “Ma, I slipped playin’ wif Rolfie and fell.”
“Westley,” Missus Thorpe gasped, aghast. “Where are yer manners? Don’t ye see we ‘ave a lady present. His Grace’s wife.”
The boy pouted but bowed his head, “’Ullo, me lady.”
Missus Thorpe slapped her grandson upside his head. “Lord Almighty, what did I tell ye about proper titles?”
Wrinkling his nose, Westley added, “Er… Yer Grace.”
Amused, Ellie replied, “Yes, Westley. That’s right. How old are you?”
“Six, m’lady, er, Yer Grace.” He scuffled his foot.
“Let me see your elbow,” Ellie coaxed the boy gently. When he presented the skinned limb, she winced. “Oh, that must hurt. Do you have bandages and a salve, Missus Thorpe? I can—”
“Goodness no!” Missus Thorpe shook her head frantically. “I’ll take care of it.”
“I’ll mind the pot for you then,” Ellie smiled.
“Yer Grace—"
“I insist,” Ellie repeated as she rose. “And when you return, you might even get a piece of the pie I brought you.”
The little boy’s eyes widened, “Pie? Ye brung me pie!
“I did,” Ellie laughed, then lifted her basket and lowered it to his gaze. “Now, go and let your grandmother tend to your little wound.”