Chapter 21
Emmeline stood frozen in shock, her dainty wedding bouquet dropping from her trembling fingers. Viscount Grey—for it had to be him, the father of the real Maria Grey—stared her down, eyes flashing murder.
“This woman is not Maria Grey,” he loudly proclaimed, unleashing a torrent of gasps and whispers.
He looked at Daniel. “I don’t know whom you’re marrying, Farenham, but it’s not my daughter!
” At the last word, his voice broke, and he lunged forward, grabbing Emmeline by the shoulders. “Who are you? What did you do to her?”
A commotion rose among the guests. The priest tried to pry Grey from Emmeline with a half-hearted attempt, but it was Daniel who reached between them and lightly pushed the viscount away. “Lord Grey, control yourself!”
The viscount let go of Emmeline, if only to redirect his attention to Daniel. “Did you know of this? Was this a grand conspiracy—”
“Grey!” The duke’s voice, while still calm, reached above the crowd. “I will not have such accusations against my family. We shall resolve this in private.”
The viscount grunted like a wild animal. The duchess had fainted into Louisa’s lap, and Louisa and another lady were frantically fanning her and rubbing smelling salts under her nose.
“This way.” The duke’s tone left no room to argue.
Grey grabbed Emmeline by her upper arm and yanked her after the duke, while Daniel positioned himself on her other side. Emmeline glanced at the crowd. Theo was still in the back, his gaze piercing her with shock and confusion before she was dragged away.
“Don’t worry, we’ll sort this out,” Daniel murmured to her, but the slight frustration in his voice only put her more on edge.
She was in deep, deep trouble.
The duke gestured them into the first available room: a small space with a few half-filled bookshelves and a neatly arranged writing desk. He closed the door. “Would you mind explaining yourself, Grey?”
“She is the one who owes us an explanation!” The viscount’s face colored red. “I don’t know how she did it, but I will have the truth, and I will have you”—he wagged his finger at Emmeline—“rotting in prison!”
“How many drinks did you have that you’re not able to recognize your own daughter?” the duke asked. “For God’s sake. She arrived in your own carriage with your driver and servant!
“I’m not drunk!” Viscount Grey shook his head, reminding Emmeline of an angry bulldog. Only it wasn’t all anger. This man was desperate. And how couldn’t he be? His daughter was gone, and he had no answers.
“He’s right.” Her voice shook so badly the words barely came out.
Daniel whipped his head to her. “What?”
She clutched the silver lamé of her dress, almost tearing the delicate net with her nervous force. “I—I—I’m not Maria Grey. But I can explain—”
“And you will!” Grey said.
“Let her talk,” the duke said. His tone remained calm, but he turned to Emmeline with the look of a stern father. “Your name, dear?”
“Em … Emmeline Marshall.”
The duke stared at her, blankly.
“I didn’t mean to do it!” She gulped. “The duchess mistook me for her because I arrived in her carriage—the driver picked me up on the way—and I had nowhere else to go and didn’t know what to do …”
“What do you mean?” Daniel asked.
“I have no family here. No home.”
“Liar,” Grey said. “This is a scheme! You assumed my daughter’s place so you could marry into the family. What did you do to her? Where is she?”
“I don’t know!” Emmeline looked from one to the other, silently begging them to believe her, if only in this one matter.
She couldn’t tell them she transported Maria Grey to some other time.
They’d put her straight into an asylum. But she couldn’t leave Grey without any answers, either.
“On the day I arrived, I met her driver, who asked me to deliver the message about Maria falling ill. I intended to, I swear! But the duchess thought I was her, and I … I went along with it. I thought it would only be for a few weeks, until I fixed my situation. But then I went to visit Maria in town, and she …” Was about to run away? “She disappeared.”
Grey shook his head. “My driver came back. He told me she’d been ill for about a week, but she’d recovered and had been taken to the estate.”
“I know,” Emmeline said in a small voice. “I left that note when I realized she was gone.”
“You covered your tracks,” Daniel said in slow realization.
“Why didn’t you tell us of your problems, child, instead of continuing this charade?” the duke asked. “If it was a simple misunderstanding …”
“Her servant.” Daniel narrowed his eyes at Emmeline, but spoke to the viscount. “You said you’d sent a driver with her, yes? And a servant?”
“A lady’s maid, Hannah. She returned with the driver.”
“But you didn’t arrive with a lady’s maid,” Daniel now said directly to her. “Mother said you came with that manservant. Theo.”
“I’m not employing anyone by that name.” Grey’s eyes widened. “He must be her accomplice!”
“Will you go fetch him?” The duke said to Daniel.
“No!” Emmeline burst out. “He has nothing to do with this.” Too late—Daniel had already left. So she turned to the duke. “Your Grace, please.”
“What kind of a despicable being are you?” Grey spat out.
Emmeline flinched, as if his words were a physical slap to the cheek.
She was despicable, wasn’t she? She’d kept up the pretense because somewhere along the way, she’d convinced herself this life was hers.
She’d paid no heed to real problems, real suffering she caused, or what her deception might do to Theo.
Daniel returned with Theo, who stared at Emmeline with his best poker face.
“Here they are, the two criminals,” Grey said. “Conveniently gathered so I can call the constables on them.”
“Sir?” Theo said, his glance shifting between the viscount and the duke.
“Who are you, boy? Tell us,” the duke prompted gently.
“We know you’re not my daughter’s servant, because she isn’t my daughter,” Grey added.
Theo opened his mouth, but as his eyes passed uncertainly over Emmeline, she jumped in. “I hired him as a servant. He doesn’t know I’m not Maria. You can do what you want with me, but don’t punish him. I deceived him as much as I deceived all of you.”
“But why?” Daniel turned her to him. “Why drag him into this? Why the charade?”
“I’m tired of your excuses!” Grey wagged his finger at her. “If you won’t tell me the truth, you’ll talk to the police. And then you’ll hang for what you did!” He stormed out of the room, leaving behind a thick, electric silence.
Emmeline hugged her middle, her stomach twisting and sending nausea to her throat. Her lovely delusion was over. They were going to take her to the authorities. And from there, she only had two options—to tell them the truth or to omit it, but either way, it wasn’t going to end well for her.
Not an undeserving ending, though. Her books would tell her the same. She wasn’t the sweet, plucky heroine; she was the schemer, the deceiver, the villain. One of those who lied and killed to get what they wanted. She wasn’t Christine, torn between Raoul and the Phantom—she was the Phantom.
“Your Grace, if I may speak with you in private,” Theo said.
The duke nodded; he and Theo left the room, and Daniel followed soon after, not gracing her with another word.
Emmeline swallowed a lump in her throat, but she couldn’t swallow the tears streaming down her cheeks. Her whole body shook in convulsions, and she turned to the desk and leaned on her elbows to steady herself.
She was left unguarded, but escape—even if her feet could carry her—was the last thing on her mind.
***
Theo barely registered his surroundings as the duke led him into another, smaller room. The walls, the furniture, even the light itself had blurred somehow, as if the only clarity in this world were its people, and in the center of them, Emmeline.
Or, as she was apparently known to others, Maria. The servants had always called her Miss Grey; Theo hadn’t even considered that identity was false. Emmeline—Emmeline who? A deceiver? A liar? Her reveal implied so, but something in his heart rebelled, insisting she couldn’t be a villain.
The duke turned to him. “Go on, boy.”
“Your Grace.” Theo folded his clammy hands behind his back. “Whatever she’s done, please, don’t punish her.”
“It’s not up to me. This is Grey’s conundrum to solve.”
“But you can sway him.” He had the money, the influence—more than the viscount.
“You’ll have to give me a good reason.”
Theo scrambled through his confused mind, trying to put together something sensible and truthful. “I’m not innocent. She only stayed here to cover for me.”
The duke inspected him from underneath bushy, twitchy eyebrows. “For you? A servant?”
Theo closed his eyes for a second. “I’m not a servant. I’m the nephew to the Earl of Wescott.”
The duke’s eyebrows shot up.
“I was here undercover by his command.” Oh, the hole he was digging for himself! If Wescott found out, he was done. Not dead; he meant too much to Wescott. But he would suffer, in surely horrible ways, for the rest of his life.
“Why?” the duke asked.
“To take this.” Theo brought the Starry Night pendant out of his pocket.
The duke pursed his lips until they were white in anger, but then slumped his shoulders. “I see.”
“Please, accept it back. You may privately charge me for any inconvenience I caused to you, and for the harm Emmeline’s deception had done. She’s not to blame. Only me.” He’d pay, either through the pocket money Wescott would give him, or through other means.
With a tired sigh, the duke collapsed into a chair. He hid his face in one hand and waved off Theo’s offered pendant with the other. “Keep it. Take it to him, if he desires it so. Let him be content at last.”
“But—”
“I’ll speak with Grey. I’ll help him in whatever way I can in locating his daughter, and I’ll make sure the young lady is not punished.”
Theo clamped his mouth shut.
“Now, go.”
After a second of stunned surprise, Theo shuffled backward.