Page 89 of His Arranged Duchess
“Yes, you did,” Benjamin responded abruptly, turning back to the stool. He settled himself down again, picking up the other boot and beginning to wax that, too. “Very kind of you to remind me. I still didn’t go to the papers with your wife’s secret.”
Lucien drew in a long, shaking breath and ran his fingers through his hair.
I believe him,he thought incredulously.He isn’t lying.
In the silence that followed, Lucien took a moment to glance around Benjamin’s pathetic lodgings. There was one single room, with a ramshackle bed set in a corner and a cracked washbasin beside it. There were a few chipped, ancient pieces of furniture, including a small table with a single chair. Shirts hung drying at the window, and a copper hip-bath was propped up beside the fireplace. A threadbare rug covered up the most rotten of the floorboards.
Aside from the shabbiness of the place, it was clean. There was no dust on the floor, and no cobwebs caught near the ceiling. He thought of Benjamin, always clean and tidy and well-dressed, and imagined him leaving this hovel of a place every morning to go into Society.
“Is this truly the best you can afford?” Lucien murmured.
He hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but then the words were out and there was nothing to do. Benjamin bristled at once.
“That is none of your concern. You’ve made it abundantly clear that you and I are not friends anymore, so perhaps you should mind your own business.”
Lucien sighed, passing his fingers through his hair once more.
“You said that you gave Lord Easton money to keep the story from the scandal sheets,” he murmured.
Benjamin glanced up, his eyes sharpening. “I did say that. Perhaps I should have been more careful with my words. I should not like you to think that you owe me anything, Lucien.”
Lucien bit his lower lip. After a moment, he stepped over to the fireplace and lowered himself into a crouch before Benjamin, forcing the man to look him in the eye.
“You’re angry at me,” Lucien murmured. “Perhaps I have not been a good friend since I first came home. But neither have you. You disrespected my wife, and you tried to get in between us. That was not fair, Benjamin.”
Benjamin closed his eyes, the motion of the cloth on the smooth leather of his boots slowly stilling.
“Your point is a fair one. But I never cast aspersions on your name or on the Duchess’.”
“I know. I was wrong to think that. But I never thanked you for what youdiddo. You prevented Lord Easton from taking the matter to the papers. I ask you again, how much did you pay him?”
Benjamin flinched. “More than I could afford but less than he would have liked.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
Lucien rose slowly to his feet. He felt tired again, as he had at the opera, but this time there would be no opportunity to rest and mull over what had happened. There would be no taking back what had been said about Frances. The secret was out and was not going anywhere.
But there was somethingelsehe could do.
“It was Lord Easton,” Lucien murmured. “He’s a pitiful, revenge-driven bastard. He accepted your money, but decided that his insult was too great. He took the story to the papers. But what about the letters? The papers said that there were letters between the Baroness and Frances’s father.”
“I think I can answer that question,” Benjamin said slowly, putting his boot and the polish aside. “He mentioned something about a source on the inside—he was rather pompous about it—and then forgot that he meant to be mysterious about the whole thing and mentioned a maid. The letters were found in the Baroness’s writing desk, carefully tied up with a ribbon and kept away. She ought to have destroyed them, naturally, but of course it can be difficult to throw away something so special, especially when the one you cared for is now gone. The letters, I assume, contained the unsent notes about the child.”
“That means that he actively tried to dig up information on Frances and her family,” Lucien muttered, a flare of anger making him see red for an instant. “He would not have agreed to marry her if he’d known, so this was something he discovered after she married me.”
“I can’t believe the wretch took my money,” Benjamin added, flushing. “What a villain.”
“He’s going to pay for it,” Lucien growled, turning on his heel and striding towards the door. He’d almost reached it when Benjamin spoke.
“Wait a moment, Lucien.”
He paused, glancing over his shoulder. Benjamin was on his feet, looking rather pale. He looked rather small and vulnerable without his vibrant waistcoats and elaborately tied cravats. Standing there in the middle of his shabby apartment, in his shirtsleeves and stockinged feet, Benjamin seemed younger than before.
“She cares for you, you know,” Benjamin said at last. “She wanted so badly to trust you. I believe that if you play your cards correctly, you might win her back.”
Lucien gave a faint smile. “I’m not so sure about that. I really did manage to make quite a mess of all this, Benjamin.”
He snorted. “Don’t you always? I’ve always said that you fling yourself into matters head-first and never think twice. The girl is besotted with you, and you are smitten withher. It’s the stuff of romance novels.”
