Chapter 20
The same night, Damon returned to the manor still carrying something of the evening's conversation with him — a lightness in his step that Paul noticed the moment he crossed the threshold.
"Your Grace." Paul set aside the estate ledger he had been reviewing. "You are in remarkably good spirits."
"I am." Damon dropped into the chair opposite him with none of his usual composed restraint. "I have made a decision this morning. One that will change my life considerably. Our lives, I should say — this house's, and everyone bound up in it."
Paul studied him a moment, then simply nodded. "I will not ask for the particulars, Your Grace, unless you wish to give them."
Damon looked at him with something like gratitude for exactly that restraint. "Not yet. Perhaps not for some time. But I need you to understand the shape of what is coming, even without the details of it."
"I am listening."
"There will be enemies," Damon said. "Real ones.
Harwood and Alderton have already shown what they are capable of when they feel cornered.
" He paused. "I was left standing alone once, with no one in my corner when it mattered most. Then a few people appeared, and everything changed because of it.
I do not intend to stand alone again. I need more people beside me from now on — to protect myself, and to protect the people who matter to me.
That includes you. Milton. And, in the coming while, some new faces you have not yet met. "
Paul was quiet for a long moment, absorbing the weight of it rather than the specifics.
"You mean to build alliances," he said finally. "Properly, this time. Not merely defensive ones."
"I mean to build a wall," Damon said. "One wide enough, and strong enough, that no single man — however powerful — can find a gap in it."
Paul considered this, then leaned forward.
"There is something my father used to say — well, not my father, precisely.
Yours. When he wished to secure loyalty quietly, without demanding it outright, he would send a bottle of the best French wine to the households whose support he wanted.
Nothing flamboyant. Simply thoughtful. A message delivered without a single word needing to be spoken aloud. "
Damon's eyes lit with recognition. "Chateau du Lierre. He only ever opened that vintage for ministers, or visiting dukes he wished to keep close."
"Precisely." Paul leaned forward further.
"A gift of that kind now — from you, freshly cleared, freshly resolved — would remind every drawing room in London that you are not merely restored, but building something considerably stronger than before.
It asks nothing outright. It simply becomes difficult to refuse, once offered. "
Damon sat with that for a long moment, and then something settled into his expression — the particular stillness Paul had come to recognize as the look of a man assembling the pieces of a plan.
"Paul," he said, "you are a genius."
Paul allowed himself the smallest, proudest smile. "I only serve the house that raised me, Your Grace."
"There will be changes in the coming days," Damon went on. "More allies. More weight behind my name than I have troubled myself to gather in years. Every measure of it will go toward keeping the people I care about safe. We will do this properly, and we will do it soon."
"I will draft the list of households tonight," Paul said. "And I can visit the wine merchant myself in the morning, if you—"
"No need," Damon said, already rising. "I am a free man now, Paul. I intend to start behaving like one. I will go myself, tomorrow morning."
◆◆◆
The little brass bell above the door chimed softly as Damon stepped into the shop.
The air inside was rich with oak, cork, and the faint tang of aged reds.
Racks of gleaming bottles lined the walls like sentries, and behind the counter stood the owner, Armand, alongside a boy who looked to be his son, barely older than fifteen.
The moment they saw Damon, their expressions stiffened. Politeness draped over them like ill-fitting coats.
"Your Grace," Armand greeted, bowing with professional formality. "A pleasure."
Damon gave a gracious nod, pretending not to notice the way the boy shifted uncomfortably behind the counter, his eyes flicking between his father and the duke standing in front of him.
"I would like twenty bottles of Chateau du Lierre," Damon said. "The 1807 vintage, if you have it."
Armand blinked, surprised, then nodded quickly. "Of course. An excellent selection. Claude — help me with the cellar crates."
They disappeared down the stairs together, a little too quickly.
Damon's gaze lingered on the cellar door.
Below, muffled voices drifted upward.
"He is a murderer," the boy hissed. "He should not be allowed in here."
"Claude — enough." The father's voice sharpened. "He is a duke. A paying customer. Keep your tongue and your face straight. We do not speak our feelings out loud when they cost us our bread."
Damon stood very still, his hands folded behind his back. His face betrayed nothing. Inside, something old and cold twisted quietly behind his ribs.
They returned a few minutes later with the crates, carefully stacked. Armand offered him a strained smile. The boy would not meet his eyes at all.
"I will take them to Jameson Manor myself," Damon said calmly. "Charge it to the household account."
"Yes, Your Grace." Armand signaled a clerk to load the crates into the waiting carriage.
Outside, Damon paused before climbing in. "Take these back to the manor," he told the driver. "I will walk from here."
The driver blinked. "But Your Grace, it is nearly—"
"I said go."
The man bowed and drove off without further argument.
Damon turned down a quieter street instead — no more velvet-lined shopfronts, only cobbled lanes, open markets, and the ordinary hum of a city that did not particularly care who he was.
He had gone perhaps two streets when he passed a pair of dockworkers, their voices carrying easily in the open air.
"The Duke of Ravenshire," one of them said, nodding as Damon passed. "Good on him, I say. The man got a rotten deal from men twice as crooked as he ever was. Glad he is fighting back properly now."
The other grunted, less convinced. "Maybe. Maybe not. A man with that much money can buy his way out of nearly anything, confession or no confession. I would not trust it further than I could throw it."
"Would you trust the two lords he named instead? The ones who never answered for anything their whole lives?"
"I do not trust any of them," the second man said. "That is my point."
They moved on, their voices fading into the general noise of the street, entirely unaware that the man they had just discussed had walked directly past them, closer than either had realized.
Damon did not slow his pace. He had long since stopped expecting the whole of London to agree on what he was. Some would always see Harwood's victim. Others would always see a lucky man who had talked his way free. He no longer needed all of them to believe him.
◆◆◆
That evening at the Barrister’s Assembly gala, the music was lighter than a ball — no sweeping waltzes, no gilded chandeliers — but the energy in the room crackled with sharp minds and louder voices.
This was not the aristocracy's affair; this was London's other elite.
Judges, doctors, scholars, merchant kings, and rising stars in every trade filled the gallery-turned-gala space with clever conversation and fine laughter.
Elizabeth stood near the refreshment table, flanked by her two closest friends from school — Clara and Jane.
"You vanished," Jane said dramatically, swirling her champagne. "Absolutely disappeared. The scandal was delicious, and you were nowhere to be found. I had to survive on gossip alone."
Clara leaned in with a conspiratorial smirk. "If by vanished you mean spent weeks alone with a certain very-not-dead duke, I would vanish too. Happily. For years."
All three burst into laughter.
Elizabeth rolled her eyes, cheeks slightly pink. "You are both insufferable."
"True," Clara agreed cheerfully. "But also right."
Before Elizabeth could form a reply, a shadow approached their circle — tall, broad, and draped in arrogance.
Godfrey Ashwell.
A long-time rival of Charles's, his presence in any room was more storm front than breeze. His smile was polished, but it did not reach his eyes.
"Well," he said, his voice loud enough for those nearby to hear. "I did not think you would show your face here, Miss Whitaker."
The laughter faded.
Elizabeth turned slowly, her expression polite, cool.
"Your uncle, at least, is wise enough to hide," he continued. "After freeing a murderer. But I must say — clever move. Fame, fortune, and a touch of danger. You have carved quite a name for yourself."
Elizabeth offered him a smile so controlled it bordered on weaponized. "I shall pass along your compliments to my uncle. I am certain he will treasure them."
Then she turned her back on him with such finality the man might as well have evaporated.
Ashwell blinked, muttered something under his breath, and walked off.
Clara made a scoffing sound. "Who does he think he is?"
"An insecure fossil with an inferiority complex," Elizabeth said bluntly. "The kind of man who trembles when a woman dares speak louder than his ego permits."
Jane studied her for a moment, head tilted. "You are on edge tonight. More than a gala warrants, even one as tedious as this."
"It is nothing," Elizabeth said, then reconsidered. "A complication with the case, that is all. A ghost has appeared, apparently, claiming to hold evidence. Nothing I am permitted to speak of, which you may take as a measure of how interesting it is."
"That sounds perfectly dreadful," Jane said, wrinkling her nose. "All those legal ghosts and threats and midnight ultimatums." She took a sip of her champagne. "Though I will admit, your life is considerably more exciting than either of ours."