Page 25 of Code Name Duchess
“Uncle Ezekiel asked that I use money from the business to pay the ransom. In all honesty, Seth, 10,000 pounds is ever so much money. I don’t even know that I would be able to raise it from our personal funds alone. I am a woman, I do not have any involvement in financial matters. Leo takes care of all of it.”
Seth swallowed hard and looked away, out of the window to where the outline of London was coming back in view. He did not venture outside of the city very often, and he hadn’t been to Clerkenwell in years. When he did travel, it was for business, never for pleasure. He found comfort in his routine.
“The business is worth much more than that. Besides, Leo has his personal fortune, as do I. Paying the ransom is not a problem one way or the other. However, I should like to know what happened to my sister before we make any choices.”
Winnie’s beautiful pale face looked up at him, and the sun streamed into the inside of the carriage. For the first time, he noticed the sprinkle of freckles that stretched across her nose. They were so pale, almost invisible. Maybe that’s why he never spotted them before. Perhaps it was simply that he hadn’t been this close to her in a long time, if ever.
“We will search your sister’s belongings again. We will find a connection. If nothing else, perhaps if we free Leo, he will be able to help us. I mean, should we find they are not together, against what it currently looks like.”
“I can only hope,” Seth sat quietly. “I wish Rose and I were closer. We used to be. Never as close as David and I, but we were… amiable.”
Winnifred wetted her lips. “It changed after your brother died?”
He gave her a nod but did not look directly at her. It was difficult for him to talk about those days, and the days and weeks that followed.
“I was so wracked with guilt over what happened to my brother. If it weren’t for me, he wouldn’t have been out there in the storm, he wouldn’t have been in the path of that horrible, horrible lightning strike that felled a centuries-old oak tree. If it weren’t for me, he would be Duke. As he should have been. And I? I suppose I might be out at sea now.”
The atmosphere in the carriage was quiet, save for the sound of her steady breathing. Neither spoke for a long time, but when Winnifred gently cleared her throat, he looked around at her. There was a sympathy in her eyes that was entirely devoid of pity. Something he had feared to see. Pity.
“You mustn’t blame yourself. You couldn’t have known. That is why these things are called accidents. Everything happens for a reason; we must accept that.”
He scoffed, “You sound like a fortune teller, Winnie. I never took you for one interested in crystal gazing and cartomancy and such.”
“Jest if you must, Seth, but I sound like a reasonably-minded young lady. And I will not have you calling me anything else.”
He knew that the resentment in her voice was not genuinely felt, she was attempting to draw him out of his melancholy state. And for that, he was grateful.
“Very well, young lady. I appreciate your words of wisdom. I will acknowledge that I have heard them. But I do not believe them. Not now, not ever in the future.”
“You are a challenge….” She said through clenched teeth. Her exasperation made him smile.
“That, I’m afraid, is one of the character traits that has remained the same from before David’s death. I was always a challenge. Although I suppose my moods have gotten significantly worse since David passed. I have never been able to explain to anybody what it was to lose him.”
Winnifred’s gown crunched as she shifted in her seat so she could face him properly.
“I cannot imagine what it would be like to lose a twin. Leo and I… You know how close we are. But we are not twins. The thought of losing him—it’s devastating. These past two weeks have been so horrific for at the most inopportune moments I am overwhelmed by the idea that I will never see him again. That I will have to identify his remains one of these days. Or that I will never find out what happened to him. These thoughts—they haunt me, Seth, they haunt me.”
Her words tumbled one over the other as she spoke, and he realized she was on the verge of crying. He twisted his upper body so he fully faced her as well and did what he swore he’d never do again. He took her hand.
This time, he placed her small, thin hand between both of his and held on. As he squeezed, he looked her straight in the eyes.
“Listen to me, Winnifred. That will not happen. I promise you it will not come to pass. We will find him. And Rose. We already have a lead. We have hired the best investigator in all of London. We will gather the evidence we have, combined with anything we find at my house, and take everything back to Mr. Markham tomorrow. He will advise us what to do. If he says to pay the ransom, then we shall do that. Do not fret. I know it’s difficult, but thanks to your tenacity, you are not alone in this. And neither am I. We will recover them. Trust me.”
They looked at one another, lost in each other’s eyes. Seth lifted his right hand and gently cupped her face. The desire to kiss her overwhelmed him as he leaned forward. He needed to comfort her, and at the same time, required her comfort.
At the last possible moment, he sat upright, withdrawing from her, and dropped his hand.
“Trust me,” he muttered once more. Winnie blinked at him as if coming out of a trance and squeezed the one hand still holding on to hers.
“I do trust you. And I am so grateful that you are here on this journey with me. I was afraid you would be upset when I told you the truth about what my uncle told me.”
“Upset? Why?”
She shrugged and averted her eyes away from him and out the window. They were just arriving back in St. James.
“I thought that you would blame me, blame my family, for Rose’s disappearance.”
His thumb caressed the back of her hand, and suddenly, Seth was utterly grateful that Winnie’s maid, Mary, was not in the carriage with them. He would not have been able to touch Winnie in this way had she been there.
