Gayle Wilson - His Secret Duchess

“That’s the merchant’s version,” the viscount said dismissively. “The few villagers who had contact with the woman, however, are openly doubtful of that sequence of events. For one thing, it doesn’t explain the blow to her face.”

“And what do they believe?” Vail asked. His eyes were not on the speaker, but rather on his fingers, which, despite the sudden pounding of his heart, still appeared relaxed, idly playing with one of the cards from the now forgotten game. Ironically, he noted, the card was the queen of hearts.

“That Mary Winters was defending herself from Traywick’s unwanted sexual advances,” Salisbury said succinctly. “His wife had recently died, and the merchant is deemed to be a man of strong and…somewhat strange sexual appetite. He has an unsavory reputation for cruelty among the local prostitutes. Despite the death of the wife, the governess was still living in his home. She has no family, no one to offer her protection. Maybe he thought he could get away with assaulting her, or that a spinster in her situation would welcome his advances in the hope that eventually, if she pleased him, they would lead to an offer of marriage.”

“But she was dressed,” someone reminded him. “Remember that. She was fully dressed when she came into the village to get help.”

“With a torn nightgown left behind as proof of his attack.”

“Which she could have torn herself to back up her version of events.”

The excited babble of argument grew and expanded, each speaker repeating assertions that had already been made innumerable times since news of the country scandal reached the capital. No one could have explained why, but the circumstances surrounding the case had fired enough interest that the trial of Mary Winters had become something of a cause célèbre.

“Consider that the child cannot speak,” Alton said. “Sure evidence that something untoward occurred.”

“Perhaps evidence that he had watched his beloved governess being attacked by his drunken father.”

“Traywick had been drinking. There’s no doubt of that. The constable found the empty decanter of port overturned in his room.”

“The woman poured it out to give weight to her version.”

“Why was she fully dressed?”

“Would you have her run into the village naked? Use your head, man.”

“And no one knows whether or not the child is capable of verifying either story. Traywick won’t allow anyone to question him.”

“And the outcome?” Vail asked. The quiet authority in the duke’s voice broke through the confusion. There was silence for a moment as they considered the surprising question, but after all, they gradually realized, Vail had been out of the country. He could not be expected to know the details they were so familiar with.

“Well,” Alton admitted, “there has been no outcome. Not yet, at any rate. The charge of attempted murder was too serious for the local magistrate to hear, so it’s been put over until the assizes. The trial is to convene…” He paused, uncertain.

“This week,” someone supplied.

“The location?” Vail asked. The gray eyes lifted to the speaker who seemed to have more factual knowledge than the rest. Somehow the duke’s face had changed, its planes reset into granite, as cold and as hard as the gaze he was wont to direct at those who had dared through the years to encroach upon his fiercely protected privacy.

“Penhurst,” Harry Caldwell supplied. He was better versed in the controversy than anyone, since his father’s manor house was the largest in the district where the assizes would be held.

The duke’s mouth moved slightly. It was a location less than forty miles from his own estate. Despite the failure of the searches he had launched, Mary Winters had not traveled far in the intervening years.

“Then, gentlemen, if you will forgive me, it seems I have a journey to undertake.”

The duke rose. Despite the hours he had sat at this table, the black coat and trousers, the silk waistcoat and the snowwhite stock were perfect, just as they had been when he left his valet’s hands. He adjusted his sleeves, and then glanced up to find shocked curiosity manifested on the faces of the gentlemen who had sought to entertain him.

“Journey?” Harry Caldwell repeated carefully.

“Penhurst, I believe you said,” Vail affirmed.

“To the trial? You plan to attend Mary Winters’s trial?” The question was one they all had, but only Alton had the presence of mind to give voice to it.

“It seems, gentlemen, rumor has erred in asserting that Mary Winters is without protection,” Vail said simply.

He inclined his head politely, at the same time fighting the urge to smile that their slack-jawed shock had evoked. He could imagine, given the ardor with which they had argued the case, how his declaration would be bandied about over dinner tables and hands of whist in the days to come.

Let them gossip and be damned, Vail found himself thinking. Perhaps it would add some semblance of importance to the meaningless chatter with which they usually entertained one another. Of course, none of them would ever know the real story.

“Again, gentlemen—I bid you good-night.”

They watched in stunned silence as His Grace, the Duke of Vail, made his unhurried exit from the club.

Mary Winters had been told what to expect only because she was persistent enough to ask and ask repeatedly. She had had no idea how such affairs were conducted, and when it was all explained to her by the local constable, her intellect had easily seen through the flaws in the process, but, of course, the fact that she found them to be vastly unjust would have no effect on the proceedings.

She was the accused, which meant, as it had been explained to her, that she would not be called upon to give testimony. Indeed, she would not be allowed to tell her version of the story at all. She had been accused of a crime, and it was assumed, therefore, that a crime had been committed. The only investigation of the events in question would be conducted on that premise. She had been asked if she wished to engage a serjeant-at-law to represent her, but since she had no funds with which to hire counsel, she had simply shaken her head in bewilderment.

There would, therefore, be no one to speak on Mary Winters’s behalf, and she would not be allowed to speak for herself. The justices could be trusted, everyone assured her, to get to the bottom of the affair, but since only three people knew the truth of the matter, and since, it appeared, only one of those would be allowed to give testimony…

Mary had found her mind running in the same fruitless circle in the weeks she was confined, waiting for the justices to arrive to hear her case. She had been accused by Marcus Traywick of attempted murder, and he would be allowed to prosecute her, but she would not be allowed to defend herself.

So startling did she find the information that she had forced them to repeat the parameters of her situation several times. They had explained patiently, but with no understanding, seemingly, of her concerns. This was the way English justice had been conducted for hundreds of years. It was the job of the judges to get at the truth, they repeated, and Mary had been assured again and again that she might trust them to do just that.

She had been confined in the small county gaol since the winter dawn when she stumbled into the village to seek help for her master. That morning her face had already begun to darken where he had struck her and her nose had been grotesquely swollen, but her concern had been all for the man she had injured, lying near death, she believed, in his tall brick house.

She had not understood at first what they were saying when they returned. Out of some mistaken sense of gratitude, perhaps, she had made no accusations against the man who had sheltered her and her son for six years. And she could never have imagined, of course, the story Traywick had devised to explain away the events of the previous night.

She had had three long months to contemplate what a fool she had been not to blurt out the shocking truth when she first confronted the sympathetic women who ministered to her injury. By the time their menfolk returned from the errand of mercy on which she had sent them, it had been too late.

During her imprisonment, she had been allowed her needlework and her Bible. She had been visited by the vicar of the parish church, who apparently felt obligated, despite her crime, to offer her what spiritual comfort he could. He knew nothing of her story, past or present, and Mary did not choose to enlighten him.

She had not, of course, been allowed to see Richard— not since she left him in the cold darkness, standing watch over the body of the man whom he believed to be his father. The possibility that she might never again be allowed to see her son was a constant weight upon her spirit. All else she might bear, but the thought of Tray wick’s control over the boy was like a spear through her heart.

She knew the nature of the merchant too well to expect that Richard would completely escape his wrath at what she’d done. Her best hope for her son was that Tray wick would carry out the threat she had once feared above all others. She hoped desperately that he might marry again and send the boy away to school. There alone might the child be safe from the merchant’s vindictive spirit.

So she had prayed through the remaining days of the winter and in the weak sunshine of the arriving spring for her son’s safety. The prosperous merchant who had been injured in the incident and who had brought the indictment against her was certainly her social superior, even if he was engaged in trade. There was no one she could turn to for help against his accusations. She had made her appeal for help once before, and it had gone unanswered. There was no one to speak for Mary Winters—and, of course, there never had been.

The hall where the trial was to be held was crowded with curious spectators. The sensationalism of the testimony about the attempted rape had lured onlookers from miles around, it was even said from as far away as London.

Mary had spent a sleepless night attempting to prepare herself for the ordeal of listening publicly to the lies Marcus Traywick had devised. Although at one time she had hoped that Traywick’s appearance to prosecute his claim might allow her a glimpse of her son, she had come to recognize that the merchant’s refusal to allow the child to be questioned was far better for Richard—and, of course, damning for her own cause.

Richard, had he been allowed to give evidence, would undoubtedly have corroborated her version of the events. But having her son forced to sit in open court and listen to the proceedings would be horrifying. If she could not devise a plan to free him from Traywick’s control, it would be better that she suffer whatever punishment the courts might give than to have Richard exposed to that sordidness.

She had not expected the size of the crowd. Although she attempted to remain outwardly composed, she could feel the avid eyes of the curious examining her features. Finally the proceedings began and then swirled around her, voices coming at her as if in a dream.

She allowed herself no outward reaction to the sight of Marcus Traywick’s brutally scarred profile. He had lost weight, his wool suit fitting loosely over his thick body. His yellow-brown eyes flicked over her once with contempt, and then he listened to the proceedings without again glancing her way. He never even looked at her as he repeated the same lies he had been telling since the morning the constable arrived at the house to find him fully con scious, suffering agonies from his burns, and insanely furious.