Chapter 18 #3
Milton smirked. “If you saw the invoice they sent me for their legal work, you would know they could buy your manor twice over. You have already paid them in blood, sweat, and coin.”
Damon laughed, a deep sound that had not escaped him in months. But it faded quickly, and his face sobered.
"It is not enough," he said quietly. "Money is not enough."
Milton studied him for a moment; something in his old friend's face had shifted, subtle enough that most men would have missed it entirely. "That is not simply gratitude talking," he said. "That is a man circling something he has not yet said aloud. Out with it."
Damon looked at the glass in his hands. Then, slowly, he nodded.
Milton set his brandy down with a soft thud. "You didn't."
"I did."
"You did not—"
"With Miss Whitaker," Damon finished, meeting his friend's eyes without flinching.
There was a pause. Then Milton blinked. "Charles's niece?"
Damon's smile was faint. "Yes."
Milton studied him a moment longer, then raised his glass, grinning.
"Well. Look on the bright side. You are poorer, considerably less rested, and rather more brooding than when I last saw you — but you have acquired yourself a thrilling redemption arc in the process. Women love that sort of thing."
Damon chuckled despite himself. "Do they?"
"They will devour it. The Tarnished Duke returns. Haunted by injustice. Humbled. Seeking comfort." Milton's grin widened. "Half the ballrooms in London will be lining up by autumn. Including her."
"I don't believe I require quite that much assistance," Damon said dryly.
"Of course you don't." Milton laughed. "You never did, where women were concerned. Old habits, old reputations — the world has not yet caught up to whatever it is that has happened to you this past year, my friend. I daresay it is about to."
Damon was quiet for a moment, gathering the words.
"I do not know how to handle this properly," he admitted finally.
"I want to marry her, Milton. I have known it for some time now — longer, I think, than I let myself admit even to Charles.
But I find myself uncertain of the proper way to go about it. "
Milton did not look surprised — only pleased, in the quiet way of a man who had suspected something for a while and was simply glad to hear it confirmed aloud.
"That part is simple enough," he said. "Go to her uncle. Ask him properly, as a man ought. If you intend to commit to something as heavy as this, commit to it properly, from the very first step."
"Damn right I intend to," Damon said, and there was no hesitation in it at all.
Then, more quietly: "But what if it changes how people see her.
The lawyer's assistant. The niece who is not even permitted her own name on the record of the case that freed me.
Marrying the duke she saved — people will talk. "
"They will talk regardless," Milton said.
"But I do not think it will go the way you fear.
" He leaned forward slightly. "A great deal has changed since this morning, Damon.
You stood on those steps and declared war on two of the most powerful men in England, in front of every reporter in the city.
The narrative around you is no longer scandal and suspicion.
It is triumph. It is a man wronged, standing up, and fighting properly for what is right. "
"And Elizabeth?"
"Marrying a commoner — particularly one so directly tied to the very case that saved your life — will not diminish you in the eyes of London.
If anything, it will do the opposite. It makes you human to them.
It gives them a reason to feel close to you, rather than simply in awe of you.
People do not distrust a duke who loves the woman who rescued him.
They find it rather difficult not to adore it. "
Damon considered this for a long moment, turning the argument over the way he might once have turned over a difficult hand of cards.
"You may be right," he said finally. "I will speak with Charles. Present him the case properly — lay out precisely why this stands every chance of succeeding, for her sake as much as mine."
Milton laughed. "You sound like a proper barrister."
"I have learned a few things," Damon said, allowing himself a small smile. "Just in case."
They sat together a while longer in the old, familiar quiet — the fire low, the brandy warm, two men who had known each other since boyhood settling back into the easy rhythm neither prison nor scandal had ever quite managed to break.
"I will come by the manor tomorrow," Milton said eventually. "I have a whole ledger of things to return to you. Books. Heirlooms. Some truly ridiculous cufflinks. Everything I gathered up to keep the wolves from the door while you were away."
"Thank you, Milton," Damon said. "For all of it. Every piece."
Milton gave a short, warm bow of his head. "Welcome back to the world, Your Grace."
Damon smiled, and rose, and left him there in the familiar library — stepping out at last into the golden light of afternoon, toward a home he had not yet properly reclaimed, and a conversation with Charles he intended to have before the day was through.