Page 90 of Surrender Your Grace
“Papa and Andrew were wise to quash the matter quickly. I’m sure we’ll not hear another word.”
“Indeed.” She waved to a waiting footman. “James, pour for the duchess.”
He obeyed silently, gloved hands steady as he served from the delicate porcelain tea set they’d used since Cici was five.
They chatted idly for a time—about the weather, the latest gowns from Paris, and the cook’s new lemon scone recipe. Only when the conversation lulled did Cici set her plan in motion.
She tipped her teacup just enough to spill it—spattering the lace runner and the front of her day dress.
“Oh, dear!” her mother cried, reaching for her linen napkin and pressing it into Cici’s hand while the servants rushed forward to tend the mess. “Your gown—it’s new, isn’t it?”
Cici dabbed at the stain. “I’ll need to treat it before the tea sets. I still have some dresses in my room upstairs, don’t I?”
“Everything is exactly as you left it, though none of those girlish things are fit for a duchess.”
“It’ll do,” Cici said lightly, already rising. “Just a quick change, Mama.”
Without waiting for permission, she swept from the room and up the stairs. The second-floor hallway was empty. Her slippers made no sound on the thick rug as she slipped into Elizabeth’s room.
She stood just inside, momentarily taking it in. Like the rest of the house, her sister’s room was unchanged. Pink drapery framed the windows. Lace and frills adorned every surface. Perfume bottles stood like glass soldiers on the vanity. It was unnervingly pristine.
Cici moved to the writing desk first. The drawer held fine stationery and matching envelopes, but nothing more. She checked the bookshelf, the nightstand drawers, even ran her hand beneath the mattress, but each yielded nothing.
Planting her hands on her hips, she scanned the room again. “This is Elizabeth,” she whispered. “Think like her—secretive, manipulative, theatrical.”
Her gaze landed on an embroidery basket near the hearth. Its presence ironic and completely out of place since Elizabeth had always despised needlework.
Cici crossed the room and knelt. The basket’s contents—neatly wound skeins of thread, a pristine hoop, and folded squares of linen—looked suspiciously untouched. Beneath them, she found what she hadn’t dared hope for: a small leather-bound journal.
She opened it. The handwriting inside was unmistakable. The dramatic curls. The exaggerated loops. The flourishedE.
She skimmed the first few pages—petty complaints about hair ribbons and dress colors, minor slights, sharing attention—typical sibling grievances. But soon, the tone shifted.
The language turned bitter.
She steals with her wide-eyed innocence what I deserve. Andrew should have been mine.
Every new gown is a mockery. Every priceless jewel a dagger. Duchess—bah!
And then:
If Cecilia hadn’t been born… her life would belong to me.
She closed the book, hands trembling. A folded slip of paper slid free and fluttered to the floor. When she bent to retrieve it, in one glance, she knew.
The draft—virtually identical to the anonymous letter circulated at the Staffordshire Ball—contained the same language, the same spite, the same twisted suggestion that she was her mother’s bastard from an illicit affair.
All the circumstantial signs, the creeping suspicion, the unease she’d tried to suppress, had now been laid bare in ink.
She left the house without a word. Not to her mother. Not to the staff. Her feet carried her down the steps and into the waiting carriage, but her chest felt hollow.
It wasn’t only betrayal that choked her.
It was mourning.
Not for what had happened.
But for the sister she had once believed might love her.
