Her Stepmother Married Her Off as Punishment to a Ruined Man — But His Ruin Was a Disguise, and Her Dying Father’s Secret Deed Made Him the Only Husband Who Could Restore Her Inheritance and Avenge Them Both

 PART 8

The fifth obstacle was the disappearance of the one witness who could have saved them.

Mr. Havverstock had been recovering. His health, while fragile, had been improving, and he had been preparing, with Sir Aldis’s help, to bring the trust deed and his sworn testimony before a magistrate. He was the one man whose word could confirm both the deed’s authenticity and the truth of who had signed it.

And then one morning, Mrs. Hales sent word. Mr. Havverstock was gone. Not dead, not ill — gone. His house was empty, his bed unmade. The only trace was a note in his hand — which Rosamund recognized immediately — reading: “They know. Forgive me. I have told them everything. Do not come after me.”

“He wrote it under duress,” Rosamund said, her hands shaking as she held the note. “He would never — he would never have told them willingly.”

“It does not matter whether it was willing,” Sir Aldis said. His voice was heavy. “What matters is that they have taken the one man who can swear to the deed and to my identity both. The deed itself is safe — we have it. But a trust without a trustee to confirm it, and a marriage without a witness to confirm the groom, is a case we cannot yet win. They have silenced him.”

“Then we get him back.”

“We cannot get him back without knowing where they have taken him. And we cannot know that without the records in your father’s study. The ones Cecilia is hiding. The ones that tie Cobb to the syndicate — and possibly Crew himself, and whoever supplied the poison.”

Rosamund met his eyes. “Then we go to Ashgate Hall.”

“It is a trap. They will be watching for us.”

“Of course they will.” She said it with a quiet, steel calm that surprised even herself. “But they will be watching for Sir Aldis Blackwood, the ruined man, and his timid wife. They will not be watching for the Duke of Marlo. And they will certainly not be watching for a woman who has already lost everything and has nothing left to lose.”

The sixth obstacle came before they could move, and it was the most dangerous of all. They were preparing to ride for Ashgate Hall when a letter arrived, delivered by a runner in Peetton’s livery. It announced, in the most courteous and devastating language, that the syndicate’s lawyers intended to contest the trust’s release on the ground that no instrument on record established Sir Aldis Blackwood, Baronet, to be one and the same person as the Duke of Marlo — and that until such identity was proven before the court, to the court’s satisfaction, the trust’s single condition remained unsatisfied, whatever vows had been exchanged.

The full weight of the blow settled over Rosamund like a shroud. The marriage itself could not be touched — it was lawful, plainly, under a name that was truly his. But the syndicate did not need to touch the marriage. They needed only to keep the two names apart forever, on paper, and the trust would sit locked for as long as they could manage the delay. A frozen claim was as good as a lost one.

“They have not tried to defeat the trust,” she said slowly. “They have tried to keep you two men instead of one.”

“And to prove I am both,” Sir Aldis said, his face gray, “I must abandon the disguise that has kept me alive for five years — stand up in a courtroom as Elias Daring, Duke of Marlo, in front of every enemy I have spent five years hiding from.”

For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

“Then we go to Ashgate Hall for the records,” Rosamund said at last. “And we go to the court as ourselves — as the Duke of Marlo and his duchess — and we make them look at us, and at the deed, and at the proof that my father was murdered to keep it from ever being used. They have spent five years hiding in the shadows. It is time we brought them into the light.”

They went to Ashgate Hall in the dark, and they went as servants. It had been Sir Aldis’s idea — the discipline of five years of invisibility. They dressed as laborers — she in a plain gown with her hair tucked under a cap, he in rough clothes with his face darkened with dirt. They approached the house not from the front drive, but from the kitchens, where a scullery maid named Agnes was waiting for them.

Agnes had been a friend of Rosamund since childhood — a kitchen maid who had grown up in the house and had watched with increasing horror what Cecilia had done. It was Agnes who had sent word of the forged will. It was Agnes who had told them about Cobb’s affidavit before it was made public. And it was Agnes who now let them in through the back door, her eyes wide and frightened, and led them through the dark corridors to her father’s study.

“The room is kept locked,” Agnes whispered. “Cecilia has the key. She keeps it on her person day and night.”

“Then we do not need the key.” Rosamund reached up and, from the top of the door frame, drew down a small iron key hidden there for as long as she could remember. “My father kept a spare. He used it when he locked himself in to work. Cecilia never thought to look.”

The lock turned with a soft click. They slipped inside, and Rosamund closed the door behind them. For a moment the three of them stood in the dark, listening. The study smelled of dust and old paper and her father.

She crossed to the desk, her hands finding the familiar drawers, and began to search.