When a Duchess Says I Do - Grace Burrowes Page 0,118
given you leave to address her otherwise.” Duncan spoke patiently, as if Papa were a servant new to his livery.
“And who are you, to be instructing me on the—?”
Duncan held up a hand. “Her Grace was not finished.”
Not nearly. “I sent you three messages, Papa, and you never replied. I waited, I hoped, I prayed. I had no idea for whom you were spying, or if one of your abundant staff was the party responsible for landing me in such trouble. You made no effort to find me, no effort to bring me to safety. I was bait in another one of your little games, and I need to hear what mattered to you more than my life.”
Matilda’s voice was shaking, and her knees were shaking, but it was Papa who subsided into a chair.
“Your life was never in danger, Matild—Your Grace.”
Duncan held a chair for her. “I beg to differ, Wakefield. When I first met Her Grace, a ferocious snowstorm was bearing down on the shire. The duchess was alone, had obviously not eaten well for weeks, had no decent shelter. Those challenges she’d have met, but two armed felons were roaming my woods in search of game. They would have delighted in trifling with a woman weakened by deprivation and hardship. A woman far from home whose plight was ignored by the very man responsible for it.”
To hear Duncan recount her own situation, his voice calm to the point of dispassion, affected Matilda as living through the experiences had not. She sank to her seat, lest she advance on her father and do him a grievous injury.
“Papa, how could you do that to me? How could you do that to anyone?” Matilda might have descended into shrieking, except that Duncan stood silent and steady behind her chair.
Papa sat not at the head of the table, but in the seat to the left. He looked to have aged, now that Matilda studied him, and yet, he had not missed meals, had not shivered his way through nights spent in haylofts and sheep byres, had not fended off the advances of knaves and blackguards.
“I could not find you,” he said, “and by the time you sent those messages, Parker was all but sleeping on my porch steps. We knew Parker was involved with the wrong people. He lives quite well on his officer’s pay, never seems to be short of blunt, and kept mistresses who reserved their favors for wealthy men. When we realized he was in the pay of foreign powers, we alerted the marquess. Parker’s brother did not believe us. His lordship demanded proof.”
“So you manufactured it,” Matilda said, “dropped the bait in his lap, and then I got in the way. There was no plot against France, and there certainly wasn’t any affection on Parker’s part for me.”
Papa tried for a smile. “I wouldn’t go that far. You are a duchess. Parker doubtless esteemed you on that basis alone.”
Matilda closed her eyes and fisted her hands in her lap. “To covet the benefits of my worldly station is not the same as to feel affection for me.”
She was enraged at her father, enraged at foolish games played on a chessboard she’d never sought to understand, but amid all of that anger she also realized that Duncan Wentworth had not been enamored of her station. Duncan had not known he courted a duchess, had not cared that her problems might cost him his life.
“Tell her the rest of it,” Duncan said. “Her Grace’s time is precious and you have wasted more than your share.”
What rest of it?
“You ask why I could be prevailed upon to engage in these stratagems,” Papa said. “I told myself that I wanted you to be secure when I went to my reward, and that was a fine argument, until it became apparent you’d have no trouble finding a proper match.” His gaze fell upon a porcelain vase on the mantel, a vividly detailed blue dragon swirling across a glaze of white. “That’s Ming Dynasty, you know. Worth a fortune.”
“Wakefield, get to the point.”
“I like…I cannot resist beautiful art. Being a keen observer and careful listener allowed me to have beautiful art while serving my country. When certain people asked me to ensnare the marquess’s brother, I was not in a position to refuse them. I knew Parker had not engaged your emotions. I did not know you’d find the evidence that was meant for him and disappear with it.”