Chapter 6
The morning sun streamed through the tall windows of the Fairfax breakfast room, casting golden rectangles across the polished mahogany table where the Earl of Derby sat with his newspaper and coffee.
The familiar rustle of pages turning was the only sound until Catherine appeared in the doorway, still wearing her morning dress of pale blue silk.
"Good morning, Papa," she said, settling into her usual chair across from him. A footman immediately appeared to pour her tea and offer the morning selection of toast and preserves.
"Ah, Catherine, perfect timing," the Earl said, folding his newspaper with obvious satisfaction. "You simply must see this."
He turned the paper toward her. The headline blazed across the front page in bold type: "THE ENIGMATIC DUKE: London's Most Mysterious Bachelor Returns from the Dead."
Catherine scanned the article, her eyes catching on several particularly breathless passages:
"His Grace possesses an air of worldly mystery entirely foreign to our London drawing rooms..
. The weathered countenance speaks of exotic adventures in lands we can scarcely imagine.
.. His reluctance to discuss the particulars of his survival only deepens the intrigue surrounding this most fascinating of men. .."
"They have made him sound like a character from a novel," Catherine observed, setting the paper aside.
"He is playing the game very well indeed," the Earl said with approval. "Mystery sells better than mundane truth, and he is giving them just enough intrigue to keep them hungry for more."
Catherine frowned, remembering the weight she had seen in Alexander's eyes, the careful way he had spoken of things he clearly wished he could forget. "Perhaps he simply does not feel ready to discuss what happened to him, Papa."
The Earl gave her a long, measuring look.
"Catherine, I want you to observe him carefully.
Not because I doubt your judgment, but because a man with his experiences has learned to guard himself completely.
It will take considerable time to understand what is performance and what is genuine. Be patient with that process."
Something in his tone made Catherine look up sharply. This was not the dismissiveness she had expected, but genuine paternal concern wrapped in political wisdom.
"You think he may have been sincere," she said quietly.
"I think," her father said, "that a man who has survived what he has survived does not reveal his true self in a single evening.
Whatever you saw in him, whatever you felt — hold onto it, but do not mistake it for complete knowledge.
People are complicated, Catherine. Especially people who have seen what lies beneath the surface of our polished world. "
Catherine absorbed this, feeling something settle in her chest. Her father was not dismissing her instincts. He was asking her to be strategic about them.
"Either way," the Earl continued, "I am pleased that you shared such an obvious connection. The Pemberton ball next month will give you an excellent opportunity to further the acquaintance."
"If he attends," Catherine said, though something in her chest tightened at the thought of waiting weeks to continue their interrupted conversation.
"He will attend," her father said with certainty. "A man in his position cannot afford to appear antisocial. He will attend every significant social event for the next several months, carefully rebuilding his place in society. Mark my words — he will most certainly be at the Pemberton ball."
Catherine stirred her tea thoughtfully. One particular thing Alexander had said kept returning to her mind, no matter how she tried to set it aside: Seen.
And done. Those three words contained entire worlds she could not access, experiences she could only imagine.
What had he done in those missing years?
And more importantly — what did he intend to do now that he had returned?
◆◆◆
The Harrington Diamond Works occupied a substantial building in Clerkenwell, its facade modest but well-maintained, its windows clean and regularly spaced along three floors of solid brick construction.
Alexander and Anthony arrived just past ten in the morning, their carriage joining several others in the small courtyard where raw materials were received and finished goods dispatched.
"I had forgotten how good of a businessman my father was," Alexander said as they descended from the carriage.
"He most certainly was. And the operation has grown considerably in the past years," Anthony replied. "The profit margins are extraordinary. You will see why."
They were met at the entrance by Mr. Gerald — a thin, efficient man in his fifties who had managed the operation for nearly two decades. He bowed with the precise deference appropriate to a Duke while maintaining the confident bearing of a man who knew his own expertise was irreplaceable.
"Your Grace, what an honor. Lord Anthony mentioned you wished to tour the facilities and review the operational details."
"I did," Alexander said. "I would like to understand every aspect of the business I have inherited."
Mr. Gerald's expression registered faint surprise — most aristocratic owners never bothered with such particulars — but he recovered smoothly. "Of course, Your Grace. If you will follow me."
They moved through the building floor by floor.
Mr. Gerald explained the process with obvious pride: raw diamonds arrived from suppliers in the Cape Colony, were sorted by quality and size, then passed to the cutters and polishers whose skilled hands transformed rough stone into the glittering gems that adorned London throats.
The finished stones were then sold to jewelers throughout Britain and the Continent.
"We handle only the refinement and distribution," Mr. Gerald explained as they entered a workroom where a dozen men sat at individual stations, each focused intently on the stone before him.
"The extraction and initial processing are managed by our suppliers in South Africa.
We purchase the raw materials and add the value through expert craftsmanship. "
"And these suppliers," Alexander said, his voice carefully neutral. "What do you know of their operations?"
Mr. Gerald looked puzzled by the question. "Very little, Your Grace. Such details are not typically part of our concern. We verify quality and negotiate price, but the particulars of extraction are handled entirely on that end. Why would we need to know more?"
Alexander said nothing. His eyes moved across the room, taking in the skilled workers, the gleaming equipment, the organized efficiency of it all. Clean. Professional. Entirely removed from the brutal reality of how these stones came to be here.
Mr. Gerald led them to a small office where samples were kept for quality verification.
He opened a velvet-lined case containing perhaps two dozen uncut diamonds, ranging from the size of a pea to the size of a walnut.
Even in their rough state, they caught the light with the particular promise of what they would become.
"These are from our most recent shipment," Mr. Gerald said with satisfaction. "Exceptional quality, all of them. The cutters are quite excited about the possibilities."
Alexander reached into the case. He lifted several stones, held them in his palm, brought them close to his face. The room went very still.
Then he began to speak.
The language that emerged was nothing anyone in the room had ever heard — complex, guttural, with sounds that seemed to require shapes the English tongue never learned to make.
Alexander's eyes remained on the stones in his hand, and his voice carried something that was not quite prayer and not quite lament, but existed somewhere between the two.
The words continued for perhaps twenty seconds. Then silence.
Every man in the office had gone motionless. Mr. Gerald's face had drained of color. The workers who had been close enough to hear had stopped their tasks entirely, staring at the Duke with expressions ranging from shock to something approaching fear.
Alexander looked up. His eyes moved slowly across the assembled faces.
The expression he wore was the same one Anthony had seen twice before — at the ball with Cavendish, and in the ballroom when Catherine had made her dangerous observation.
Something that suggested the distance between polite civility and actual danger was considerably smaller than anyone wished to believe.
"Your Grace," Mr. Gerald said carefully, "I confess I do not understand—"
"No," Alexander agreed. "You do not."
He set the stones back in their case with careful precision. "Thank you for the tour, Mr. Gerald. I have learned what I needed to know. If you will excuse us, Lord Anthony and I have other matters to attend to."
They departed before anyone could formulate a response.
Neither of them spoke until they had reached the privacy of the upstairs office and the door had closed behind them. Anthony crossed to the decanter he kept for important clients, poured two glasses of brandy, and pressed one into his cousin's hand.
"Your face," he said without preamble, "went absolutely black when you looked at those stones. And that language — what in God's name was that?"
Alexander took the brandy but did not drink it. He stared at the amber liquid as if it contained answers he did not particularly want to find.
"I prayed," he said quietly, "for all the hands that suffered so those stones could arrive here. Clean. Polished. Ready to adorn the throats of ladies who will never know what they actually cost."
Anthony was quiet for a long moment. "The conditions in those mines," he said slowly. "I imagine they are not exactly ideal."
"No," Alexander agreed. "They are not exactly ideal."