Page 84 of Wedded to the Ruthless Duke

Philip stared after her into the empty hallway, having quite forgotten all the ledgers in front of him on his desk. Even as he fought it, he had a longing to follow her. In the end, he won that fight and stayed where he was.

* * *

Grace came down the stairs the next morning to find the house eerily empty. The dining room was set up for breakfast, but there was no sign at all that Philip had used it or even that it was being staffed. The teapot on the table was still lukewarm to the touch, but it was as if a footman had deposited it there and darted from the room quickly.

Grace sat down, waiting for a minute in the strange silence for someone, anyone to appear. Even Mrs. Williamson didn’t appear to greet her that morning with cheery ‘good mornings’ as she so often did.

Eventually, Grace poured her tea and reached for some toast which had been laid on the table. She was halfway through the slice of toast, staring around the room in the silence, when something caught her attention.

Beside the chair at the head of the table, she could see something yellow beside the leg, as if it had been dropped there. She reached down, finding it trapped beneath the chair leg. She had to stand and shift the chair then reached down and picked up the scrap of paper that had been discarded.

She turned it over, feeling her heartbeat picking up in pace when she saw it was another scandal sheet. Fearing she knew why the breakfast room was so empty and perhaps why the staff had run for cover, to hide from Philip’s fury, she slowly unfurled the sheet to read the story.

The headline that met her eyes made her gasp in alarm.

“The only reason the Duke of Berkley married his less than graceful Duchess is revealed…”

She turned the page, eager to read what secret the scandal sheet writer purported to know.

“So many secrets the Duke and Duchess of Berkley must be fighting to hide though this is the greatest yet. All of us who thought the Duke of Berkley one of the most affluent in the land were clearly sorely mistaken. This writer can now reveal to you that the Duke of Berkley is actually nearly penniless.

His father, a man who has sometimes made the crowds whisper about supposed affairs, turns out to have committed even more disgraces. He gambled away the dukedom’s fortune, a significant sum indeed considering the dukedom owns much land and has many tenants in the country. All are surviving on minimal sums and are on their last legs as the Duke of Berkley fights to keep them within his care.

Yet, the Duke of Berkley’s misfortune is not just that of his father’s gambling secrets. It seems that his wife, the daughter of the Marquess of Garton, is further punishment. The Marquess of Garton, a man who knew about the late Duke’s gambling, blackmailed the new Duke into marrying Lady Grace under the threat of his father’s dark secret being revealed to all.

How awful! An unhappy man must the Duke of Berkley be, not only for the secret he guarded so carefully to be revealed at last but to be forced to be bound until his dying day to the daughter of his blackmailer, a woman so disgraceful that scarcely a day goes by without her name appearing in these pages.”

Grace broke off. She had read the meat of the article, and as far as she could see, the rest of the page just wallowed in her and Philip’s misery.

With her hands shaking, Grace darted from the room. She didn’t release the sheet but carried it with her, running all the way down the corridor as she searched for Philip. She thrust open every door she could find and even went to the back of the house, opening the door to his boxing room.

Instead, she found one of his punching bags on the floor, but there was no sign of Philip.

She headed back into the main body of the house where she heard muffled voices. She hastened toward them, opening Philip’s study door without knocking to find the source of those voices.

Philip was in his study, but he was not alone. His mother, the Dowager Duchess, was seated in a chair beside him. She was crying with one of Philip’s handkerchiefs pressed tightly in the palm of her hand.

The Duchess didn’t notice Grace’s entrance at first. She was too lost to her tears, great gasping breaths overtaking her body, but Philip noticed.

He stood straight from where he was beside his mother’s chair. Folding his arms, he turned to face Grace. Never had she seen him looking at her before with such a glower. The stare was one full of censure. She felt tiny, as if he wished to squish her like some beetle beneath his boot.

Silently, she held up the scandal sheet, her hand still clutching it and quivering to show what she had found.

“Your poor father,” the Dowager Duchess cried, her words stuttering with her tears. “He is ruined.”

“Mother —” Philip tried to interrupt her, probably trying to tell her that Grace was here, but she was too absorbed in her despair to possibly notice.

“He will be the talk of the town forever,” she wailed. “They will enjoy his misery, his ruin. My poor husband. He will be turning in his grave.”

“The reason for it has just walked in.” Philip’s cool voice made Grace stiffen.

CHAPTER28

There were tears in Grace’s eyes. Philip was torn between moving toward her and embracing her and demanding she leave the room.

She did this. Who else could have done it? Who else knew? Only her father. And she went to see him yesterday…

“What?” His mother looked up from where she was crying. Philip nodded toward Grace in answer.

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