Chapter 15: The Valet

The valet came back at nine, through the front door, in the coat he had been wearing when he went out of the window.

The footman who opened it was so astonished he forgot to announce him.

He stood on the black-and-white marble in front of the whole household.

Gervase was on the stairs with a napkin in his hand.

The Dowager stood in the breakfast room doorway, and Kitty had her head through the banisters.

He was fifty, stooped, and grey as a candle.

He had not slept, and he looked as if he had been sick in a hedge.

"Your Grace," he said. "I've come to tell you what I've done."

"Then tell it," said Gervase.

"Here?"

"Mina's rule," said Gervase, "is that we say true things where people can hear them. I'm told it saves time."

The valet looked at me.

"Lord Brayne's agent came to me three weeks ago.

"He had a paper from a solicitor, and a purse.

"He asked if I had ever, in nine years, seen a woman in your Grace's rooms."

"And you said?"

"I said I had not.

"It was true.

"I didn't see the harm in a true thing."

I heard my husband stop breathing on the stairs.

"He asked whether your Grace had ever, in my knowledge, been with a lady."

"I said no, when I should have said it was not mine to tell."

His voice cracked.

"I didn't know what I was giving him until he laughed.

"He wrote it down in a little book, and he said, Excellent, and gave me forty pounds."

"What did he want next?" I said.

"That I should swear to a magistrate that the Duke has never entered the Duchess's bed."

He turned to me with his hat crushed in both hands.

"I see the sheets go down every morning, Madam.

"I've seen them for three weeks.

"I couldn't swear to a lie like that.

Keep reading free with an account. Start I Proposed to London's Wickedest Duke, and He Said Yes from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.