Chapter 3 #2
“If you don’t stop, I absolutely will!” Seraphina hissed, glare for glare, her eyes blazing with defiance.
She couldn’t believe the absolute nerve of this man, admitting to it so casually.
She gently swatted his hand away from her body and stepped forward.
“I will write an exposé that will make your noble name a laughingstock from Mayfair to the docks! How dare you do this to us? How dare you target my family? Have we not been targeted enough? We have suffered enough at the hands of the ton, my sister, Euphemia especially, and we did nothing to you!”
“Target your family?” William’s eyebrows shot up. He stared down at her, his entire expression shifting into one of profound bafflement. “What are you babbling about? I do not care who your family is. Alice is my family; you must be mistaken.”
Seraphina blinked, her fury pausing mid-breath. The name stalled her momentum completely. “Who on earth is Alice? I am talking about the letters.”
“The letters?” William repeated, as his confusion deepening, his brow furrowing as he looked at her. “What letters? What do letters have to do with how you found out about Alice?”
“I found out about you because of the letters!” Seraphina said, entirely exasperated.
She threw her hands up in frustration, though they only succeeded in hitting the infuriating expanse of his shoulders.
“The letters you sent to me. The ones threatening to expose me and drag my sister Euphemia’s new household through the mud.
The ones with your private crest embossed directly onto the paper. ”
William froze. He stared at her for a long moment as if trying to decipher a foreign language. He stepped back a pace, shaking his head.
“I have never sent you a letter in my life,” he said flatly. “I don’t even know who you are.”
Seraphina arched her eyebrows. “I’m... one of the Byron sisters. For the past year, the ton has talked about my family ceaselessly.”
William crossed his arms. “What?”
Seraphina wanted to explain further, but she was starting to wonder if there was any point to it. “Seraphina Beaumont? Euphemia Vane? Leonora Ashcroft? Three ladies raised by Lady Byron with a... complicated past?”
“Are you unwell?” he questioned so suddenly, it made her swallow. “What does that have to do with me and Alice?”
“Who is Alice?” she retorted.
William pressed a finger to his nape and shut his eyes briefly. “I will personally see to it that the Bow Street Runners are summoned to drag you away for housebreaking. They can extract your identity in a holding cell.”
“No, wait,” Seraphina said, her voice dropping as she tried to force a sense of logic into the escalating chaos.
She shook her head, gesturing frantically between the two of them.
“You do not understand. I came here because I found a crest… your private family crest, embossed right onto the corner of a letter threatening to ruin my life by revealing that I write for the column under a pseudonym. I only snuck into this study because I was looking for proof that you were the blackmailer!”
“Why would I care about your columns, let alone go through the trouble of blackmailing you over them?”
“Because...” Seraphina gestured wildly toward the desk behind him, her voice rising.
“Because you have every single one of my articles archived on your desk! All the articles, my columns... all written by E. R. Voce. I know how many I wrote in the past year and you have all the editions. You’ve been collecting them for a year!
Don’t lie to me, you have been tracking me down. The proof is there.”
William looked over his shoulder at the stack of newspapers, then turned back to her, a look of utter disbelief crossing his face. “I collect them because I read them, you ridiculous woman. Having a complete set of the gazette does not make me a blackmailer.”
Seraphina’s jaw dropped. The wind was completely knocked out of her sails. “You... you read them? For pleasure?”
“Yes! More importantly, I have no earthly reason to threaten your household. I do not even know who you are.” William paused and slowly tilted his head to the side. “You said these letters carried my family crest. The Norwyn crest?”
“Yes,” Seraphina said, her voice finally losing its defensive heat. “A blind stamp. I have never seen anything like it before, but I can show you.”
Reaching into the deep pocket of her linen apron, she pulled out the folded page she had carried with her. She stepped forward, holding it out between them like a fragile peace offering.
“Look right here,” she murmured, her thumb guiding his attention to the bottom corner. “Touch the edge where the fibers are pressed. You have to catch the light just so to see the emboss.”
William frowned, his fingers reaching out to take the page from her hands. His fingertips brushed against hers for a fleeting second, sending an unexpected jolt up her arm. He turned the paper toward the window, his thumb lightly grazing the exact spot she had indicated.
Seraphina watched his face intently. She had expected his features to remain entirely cold, but she caught the exact moment the realization hit him.
His eyebrows drew together in a knot. He read the lines of the blackmail threat, his expression remaining outwardly composed to any casual observer, but Seraphina could see the subtle, furious tension locking around his jaw.
“Who on earth would dare cross me like this?” he muttered to himself.
“It is your crest, is it not?” Seraphina took a tentative step closer, her anger entirely dissolving into a strange, hollow confusion. “You truly did not know about these letters?”
William turned, leaning his weight back against the edge of his desk. He crossed his arms over his chest, looking down at her with a look of exhaustion. “Give me one good reason, Miss, as to why I would go through the trouble of sending you threatening letters.”
Seraphina opened her mouth to argue, then closed it.
She looked away toward the rows of leather-bound books, her mind racing as she tried to construct a logical motive.
She couldn’t come up with a single one. Furthermore, if a powerful Duke actually wanted to ruin her or her sisters, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to use his own highly restricted, family stationery to do it.
A real blackmailer would have hidden their tracks perfectly.
“So,” William said, his voice cutting through her thoughts. “This entire intrusion had absolutely nothing to do with Alice?”
“I don’t even know who Alice is,” Seraphina cried out, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “But if you aren’t the one holding this sword over my family’s neck, then can you at least point me in the right direction? Who else has access to your private seals?”
William did not answer right away. Instead, he stared at her, his gaze tracking the frantic rise and fall of her chest beneath the drab maid’s uniform. Slowly, a look of profound, incredulous disbelief washed over his face.
“Tell me something,” William said. “Are you entirely insane?”
Seraphina blinked. “I am perfectly sane, thank you very much.”
“You just admitted to sneaking into the estate of a Duke, a man you fully believed was a ruthless, dangerous extortionist who held your family’s future in his hands.
You put on a fake uniform, bypassed my household security, and walked directly into my private sanctuary.
Have you absolutely no survival instincts? Or are you just exceptionally stupid?”