The Duchess War (Brothers Sinister #1)

She watched him, her eyes wide and hurt—and then she shattered in a fountain of gray glass. He reached for her, but the shards only cut his hands to ribbons.

He woke gulping air, reaching for her, with the realization fresh on his mind. Oh, God. He was going to do that to her—to betray her on the stand in front of everyone, just as her father had done.

She was curled on her side next to him. In her sleep, her hand rested on his hip; her head leaned against his shoulder. Even in her sleep, she trusted him.

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do this to her.

He dragged himself out of bed instead. By the light of a flickering candle, he wrote her a letter telling her everything—what he’d planned, why he’d wanted it.

I have to tell the truth about you, he finally wrote. I can’t see my way around that. But don’t come to the trial today. I’m sorry about what must be said—but don’t come to the trial.

I love you.

His hand hovered, wanting desperately to write one last sentence.

Please forgive me.

But he didn’t know how she could. He wasn’t even sure if he could make himself ask.

Before he left to meet Oliver’s lawyers, he roused her maid and put the letter in her hands.

“Here,” he said, gesturing to a chair just outside their bedroom. “Sit here. Make sure that whatever you do, she reads this letter as soon as she awakes, and not one instant later. It is urgent.”

The rest of the morning passed in a blur. He seemed to wait forever for the trial to start, but once it did, the prosecution’s evidence bled together into a meaningless stream of testimony and examination. Robert’s sense of unease grew.

All around them, reporters made industrious notes in shorthand. The defense started their case. This was the moment when Minnie would have appeared in the room, his mother in tow. But she didn’t arrive. Thank God.

Robert was finally called to the stand, and everything else seemed to disappear—the courtroom, the jurors, the reporters watching in avid interest. There was nobody but him and the barrister conducting the examination.

The questions were simple at first—his name, his title, his age, the last time he’d sat in Parliament. And then…

“Do you know who wrote the handbills that are at the heart of the prosecution’s case?” asked the barrister.

“Yes,” Robert answered. “I did.”

A surprised murmur rose up from the crowd.

“Did anyone assist you with them?”

“I had them distributed by a man who could not read, had them printed more than a hundred miles away. Nobody in the household I set up here in Leicester knew the first thing about them. I made sure of that.”

“Nobody? What about Mr. Marshall?”

“Especially not Mr. Marshall,” Robert said emphatically. “You see, I wrote those because it had come to my attention that there has been a rash of criminal sedition convictions in town—ones that did not appear to be properly charged under the law. I wanted to draw out those who were involved in the scheme. I wrote the handbills because I could not be tried, but wouldn’t have involved another person in the jurisdiction of Leicester. I wouldn’t have wanted to put anyone at risk.”

“What would you care about Mr. Marshall?” asked the barrister. “He was only a paid employee, was he not?”

“He was not,” Robert said forcefully. “I have never paid him—I settled funds on him. And even if I didn’t care about the wellbeing of my employees, he is my brother.” Gasps and a second murmur arose. Robert had been so concentrated on the questions that he hadn’t looked out at the courtroom. He did now. For one moment, the reporters in the front row looked at him in shock. Then they grinned in delight as they realized that the story here was even more interesting than they’d supposed. To a man, their pencils begin working feverishly. He smiled, looking out over them—until his eyes fell on the back of the room.

There, seated in the last row, was Minnie. She must have come in while he was speaking. Next to her sat his mother.

Had she not received his message? What was she doing here?

“Your Grace.” The barrister’s voice seemed slow, so slow, and yet Robert could not outrun it. He couldn’t even move from his seat. “Do you play chess?”

Minnie’s eyes burned into his.

“No.” He couldn’t turn away from her.

“Have you ever played chess?”

“A few times, when I was young. Enough to know the rules of the game. But I know very little.”

“Can you explain how you came to write about a ‘discovered attack’ in your handbills—and how you did so in terms that closely parallel words in an obscure handbook of chess strategy?”

“Yes,” Robert said. “I can.”

The entire courtroom became quiet.

“As it happens, when I wrote that, I had been talking with someone who is an expert at chess. Not Mr. Marshall.”