Chapter Two #3
The pronoun landed between them, and she watched Ravenshaw register it. The word me opened a door he had not considered.
“Your sister,” he said, very slowly.
Beatrice did not confirm or deny it. She simply looked at him, and her silence this time was not evasion. She had given him enough to see the shape of the truth, and she was trusting him to recognise it without making her say the words.
“I have learned my lesson about trusting charming men too late, Your Grace, and I have learned it on someone else’s behalf. The person who paid the price is not here to benefit from the education.”
“And the man who extracted the price? Is he likely to come looking for the evidence?”
“He will come, Your Grace. It is only a question of how soon, and of what face he chooses to wear when he arrives.”
“Lord Voss is a man who does not leave loose threads. A child is a very conspicuous loose thread. So, we agree on the nature of the danger, if nothing else.”
“We agree on a great many things, Your Grace. We merely disagree about how much of the truth I am obligated to provide before breakfast.”
Ravenshaw was quiet. The fire cracked and settled. Ned shifted in the cradle and made a small sound, and both adults turned towards it with a swiftness that would have been comical under different circumstances.
“I will not pretend to be satisfied with what you have told me,” Ravenshaw said at last. “But I will accept that you believe the concealment is necessary, and I will not press further this morning.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.”
“Do not thank me. I am merely postponing an argument I intend to win.”
“Then we shall both have something to look forward to.”
Martha looked at them but said nothing, though the quality of her silence suggested she was storing observations for a later conversation that would not include the duke.
Ravenshaw turned towards the door, and it opened before he reached it.
A man stood in the doorway, thin and upright and dressed in the dark livery of a senior butler. His face was composed of angles and restraint, and his eyes took in the duke, the woman in the bed, and the baby in the cradle with a single comprehensive glance.
“Forgive the interruption, Your Grace.”
“What is it, Keene?”
“A gentleman has arrived at the outer gates. He gives his name as Lord Adrian Voss, and he claims urgent business with a Lady Beatrice Ellingham, whom he asserts is a guest of this house.”
The air in the room changed. Martha straightened from the window, and Beatrice’s face went pale.
Ravenshaw had gone very still.
“How long has he been at the gates?” he asked.
“Approximately ten minutes, Your Grace. He arrived in a carriage and has made no attempt to leave.”
“Did he say how he knew Lady Beatrice was here?”
“He did not, Your Grace. He said only that the matter was urgent and that he was confident you would understand the nature of his concern.”
“I understand the nature of his concern perfectly.” Ravenshaw’s voice had gone quiet in the way that Beatrice was learning to recognise as considerably more dangerous than his coldness. “Tell Lord Voss I will receive him in the formal drawing room.”
“Very well, Your Grace.”
“And Keene.”
“Your Grace?”
“No one enters this wing without my direct instruction. No one comes close to Lady Beatrice, her maid, or the child. Am I perfectly understood?”
“Perfectly, Your Grace.”
Keene withdrew and closed the door without a sound. He realised that what he had just carried into the room was very dangerous.
Ravenshaw and Beatrice looked at each other. Between them, Ned slept on in the cradle with his fist against his cheek.
“Stay here,” Ravenshaw said.
“He is here for me.”
“He is here for whatever he can take from you. They are not the same thing.”
“Your Grace, I will not hide in a bedroom while two men discuss my future in a drawing room.”
“You will stay in this room, Lady Beatrice, because you collapsed some hours ago and your hands are shaking and the child needs someone beside him who is not a duke about to have a very unpleasant conversation with an old enemy.”
“He is right, my lady.”
“I did not ask, Martha.”
“You did not need to. Please allow him to pursue his intended course.”
He turned to Beatrice. “Lock this door behind me. Do not open it for anyone whose name is not Martha, Alder, or mine.”
He left. The sound of his boots on the corridor floor grew fainter and disappeared, and the house went quiet with the quality of a place holding its breath before something dangerous happened in a room Beatrice could not see.
Martha crossed to the door and turned the key.
“Well,” she said. “What a fine turn of events.”
“I should not have chosen that description myself.”
“No. You would have chosen something with more syllables and less optimism.” Martha returned to her chair as though Lord Voss were a household inconvenience rather than a threat. “But the duke has gone to meet him, my lady, and he did not go because we asked him to. He went because he wanted to.”
Beatrice looked at the locked door, at the cradle, and at the fire.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I noticed that too.”