“And yet you faced down an angry mob alone and unarmed. That sounds like a lost cause to me.”
“Don’t think it was by choice! It’s just that, well, I had to do something, so—” He broke off, shrugging.
“Still, I stand in your debt, Theo. You saved the mill, and I won’t soon forget it. But if we’re to talk of letters, what of my letter to you? I wrote to tell you probate’s been granted. You’re free to claim your in’eritance anytime you please.”
“Yes, it came three days ago. But by that time, I’d discovered something ugly was in the wind and, well, I couldn’t leave with things in such a state.”
Sir Ethan gave him a long, searching look. “I think per’aps you’ll make a duke, after all.”
Theo suddenly recalled something else his brother-in-law ought to know. “Oh, I should tell you—at the start of the trouble, I sent Daphne—Miss Drinkard, that is—to your house, to the safe room.” He set his jaw. “And you might as well know that I intend to marry her.”
“Yes, your grace,” replied Ethan with a meekness in his manner that was utterly belied by the twinkle in his eye. “And is there anything else you intend to do?”
Theo considered the matter. “I think—I think I should like to take up my seat in the House of Lords. I know it’s expensive—I daresay that’s why Papa never bothered with it—but I think I should like to be a voice for men like Ben and Tom and Davy—men who don’t have a voice of their own. That is, I’d like to try,” he added with unaccustomed shyness, “if you think I can.”
Sir Ethan clapped a hand to his shoulder. “I not only think you can; I think you’ll do very well, Reddington.”
“Reddington,” echoed Theo with a self-conscious little laugh. “You never called me that before.”
“You never acted like it before,” said Sir Ethan, and together they left the mill, dark and peaceful in the moonlight.
FOR DAPHNE, IT WAS the most frightening, most glorious, most bewildering night of her life. To be sure, the butler at the Brundy residence had seemed a bit taken aback by the appearance of a young lady clad in evening attire and requesting to be shown to the safe room, but at the mention of the Duke of Reddington, any misgivings he might have harbored were apparently banished. He ushered her at once to a small windowless chamber comfortably furnished with everything one might need for a protracted stay, but when he expressed his intention of bringing her some light refreshment, she felt compelled to protest.
“Oh, no, pray do not! That is, I should not want to put you to any trouble.”
Evers bestowed an avuncular smile upon her and assured her (quite truthfully, as it was his employers’ larder, and not his own, which would be diminished) that it was no trouble at all.
Daphne was surprised to discover that, her fear for Theo’s safety notwithstanding, she was in fact quite famished; she had eaten very little at the fête, so intent had she been on watching the door for his arrival. And so, when Evers arrived a short time later with the tea tray, she was emboldened to ask him if she might perhaps have some bread and butter.
“Of course, miss, if you have no objection to sharing the servants’ board. I regret that Lady Helen is at present in London, and so cannot receive you.”
But in this, it soon proved, he was mistaken. For Daphne had hardly finished spreading her second slice of coarse brown bread with creamy butter and orange marmalade when the door to the safe room opened and Lady Helen Brundy herself entered the room.
“Good evening, Miss Drinkard,” she said, extending one gloved hand. “I’m sorry you have been left to cool your heels all alone for so long. I should have come to you as soon as Evers informed me that you were here, but my naughty son William, having slept most of the way from Stockport, must needs decide it is now time to play! But tell me, how may I be of service to you?”
Daphne suddenly found herself tongue-tied. Lady Helen Brundy was scarcely more than five years older than she was herself, but she possessed a forcefulness of character and an elegance of person that Daphne found daunting. “I—that is—Mr. Tisdale—I mean—I was told to say that the Duke of Reddington requested that I be allowed to stay in your safe room until further notice.” This, at least, had the virtue of being true, so far as it went. “There was trouble at the mill, you see, and he—he—”
“Yes, we saw the flames from the road,” Lady Helen said. “But—”
“Flames?” Daphne seized upon the word. “They did it, then? They set the mill afire?” In fact, her concern was less for the mill than it was for the gallant Mr. Tisdale, but if the mob had succeeded in torching the mill, it must surely bode very ill for the one man who had tried to stop them.
Lady Helen hastened to reassure her. “No, at least not—but—‘Mr. Tisdale,’ you say?”
“H-he was going to stop them. He—”
She broke off as the door swung open. She had been prepared to make some excuse for being there uninvited (although, in truth, these sounded feeble even to her own mind), but Sir Ethan Brundy appeared utterly unperturbed by her presence. In fact, he acknowledged her with only the briefest of nods before addressing himself to his wife.
“A word with you, ’elen.”
“Of course.” Lady Helen excused herself to Daphne, then followed her husband from the room. He closed the door behind her, leaving Daphne to wait in a silence so complete as to be oppressive; one of the unique features of this room, it appeared, was that it blocked all sound. The return of
