LITMIR.BIZ

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she was Coop’s only true confidante.

      How very lovely.

      “I’m sure I couldn’t say, ma’am.”

      “Minerva. I’m Minerva to you unless I tell you otherwise. Can’t say, or won’t say?”

      Clarice put her hands on the back of Dany’s chair. “Be careful. I’ve never known a woman who could ask the same question so many different ways, until you simply give up and tell her what she wants to know.”

      “I don’t know, so it doesn’t matter how many ways she asks me,” Dany said, putting all her conviction into her words. “Wherever Cooper is, I do know this—he is in control of the situation. He’s the hero of Quatre Bras, if you’ll all recall, and knows no fear.”

      Surprisingly, this caused Mrs. Townsend to pull a large white linen square from her pocket and dab at the corners of her eyes. “That’s just what I’m afraid of, my dear. I know my son, and if he ever did experience fear, it would be because you were with him when the shot came. That poor Harry was hit, that either one of you could have been killed in his place? No, I’m convinced Cooper is not feeling fear. He’s angry. He’s incensed. I’ve never known him incensed. It’s never prudent to anger a normally calm man. Someone has poked a stick at a sleeping bear. God only knows what will happen now.”

      “My Jerry’s with him, Minerva,” Clarice soothed quickly. “And where they are, Darby’s sure as check to be, as well. Our job is to be strong, and to finish what we were commissioned to do. Aren’t I right, Your Grace?”

      “Yes, my dear, you’re correct. Sadly. Come, Minerva, we must get back to work. We’re nearly done, but then the whole must be gotten to Paternoster Row by this evening if it is to see publication tomorrow.”

      Dany looked to Clarice, who was already seating herself behind the writing desk once more. “You...you’re writing a chapbook?”

      “Indeed, yes. Took a devilish long time to come up with a new title. Viv, read the girl the title.”

      “Certainly.” The duchess extracted a pair of diamond-studded spectacles from the bodice of her gown, and carefully wrapped the ends around her ears before sorting through the small pile of papers until she found the correct one. “Here it is.” She cleared her throat, and read, “‘The Chronicles of a Hero: Wherein the Hero of Quatre Bras Is Tried and Tempted to the Limits of His Endurance, and Boldly Decides on His Future and His Rightful Place in Society: Third and Final Volume.’” She looked to Dany, who did her best to summon a compliment, and decided to simply lightly applaud instead.

      The duchess removed the spectacles, tucking them back into her gown. “Yes, it might still need some work, I agree. But we had to move on.”

      “My Jerry thought of it,” Clarice said proudly, picking up the quill once more. “He and I spent all day yesterday visiting the print shops up and down the road, offering a tidy sum to the owners if he could purchase a print of the handsome hero of Quatre Bras as it appeared on the cover of Volume Two. For me, you understand, who would die, simply die, if I didn’t have one for my very own.”

      Dany was amazed. “And that worked? You found the print shop that has been producing the chapbooks?”

      “We did. On only our very second try. I cry most convincingly, you understand.” She grinned, and then patted at her ample and well-displayed bosom.

      “Nothing like a perky young pair to convince a man to do what he wouldn’t believe he would. Cooper should have thought of that on his own,” Minerva said, obviously recovered. “Not the method, of course. That wouldn’t have worked for him. But he should have thought to trace down the printer. Still, hard to believe he was outthought by Rigby, of all people. The printer admitted rather proudly that he had been commissioned for the other two, and had actually been in the process of readying his presses to print Volume Three.”

      Dany clapped a hand to her mouth. “Were you able to stop him?”

      “We were. I told you Rigby had brought along a purse. It was a comfortably heavy purse. The man was also promised something else to print, another Volume Three to replace the handwritten one he was setting in type. Would you like to see it? We’re keeping most of it the same, but making drastic changes to the ending, because that certainly did not flatter the baron.”

      “Coop was right. Volume Three’s planned ending was to brand my son as a despoiler of women, including allusions to doing so at the direction of the Crown for some ungodly reason. I only skimmed, since it was all nonsense. Quatre Bras wasn’t even mentioned save for a demand Coop be stripped of his land and title and cast out of Society.”

      The duchess was pouring herself another measure of gin. Her cheeks had already gone rosy, and she was smiling, pretty much to herself. “The populace is expecting an end to the hero’s story, and we are going to give it to them. Otherwise, there would always be speculation, and poor Coop has suffered enough. Minerva, I’ve just had the most delicious idea. Instead of sneaking out into the gardens for a clandestine assignation—so very done, my dears, by others—we could write about the time Basil and I tiptoed past the guards and up into the bell tower of Saint Paul’s. We had to hurry with what we were about, of course, because of the bells, you understand. Our heads would have rung right off our necks. So what we did was—girls, leave us. Minerva and I will finish up here.”

      “But...but won’t we just be able to read the chapbook when it’s published?”

      “Yes, Clarice,” the duchess said. “What I’m going to say to Minerva is not going to be published anywhere. Titillating as it might be otherwise, in our Volume Three the assignation leads to yet another silly young twit being rescued from her own idiocy by the hero, who then returns to his estate, to live out his days—what was that he’s going to live out his days doing, Minerva?”

      “Cultivating a new variety of turnips in order to feed more of the masses,” Mrs. Townsend answered dully. “We’ll have to work on that, as well, won’t we? Ah, well, we’ll think of something. So long as London knows that Volume Three is the very last volume.”

      The duchess clapped her pudgy hands (with much more enthusiasm than Dany had been able to muster). “Yes, that’s it. The turnips stay. We’ll first titillate, and then bore them to flinders, that’s what we’ll do. They’ll have some other nonsense to engage them soon enough, and your son can get on with his life. Ah, we’re brilliant. Go on, girls. Minerva and I needs must create.”

      Dany was more than agreeable to leaving the room, taking Clarice’s hand and all but dragging her back to the hallway.

      “Where can we be private?” she asked her.

      “We could walk in the square.”

      Dany shook her head. “No, that’s not good. Coop wouldn’t approve.”

      “Would he approve of you being here?” Clarice asked, winking at her.

      “Probably, if he thought about it long enough. He would not approve of me being foolish, putting myself in possible danger.”

      “And walking in the square would put you in possible danger?”

      “We were shot at earlier today, Clarice, remember?”

      “Crikey, you’re right. No sense in the chicken stretching out her own neck on the block all helpful like, while the farmer sharpens the ax, hmm?”

      Dany put a hand to her throat. “Yes, that seems to about sum up the matter. Now tell me where they are. I have something I must tell him. Where did they go?”

      “I don’t know.”

      “You don’t know, or you’re not supposed to say?”

      “I don’t know, Dany. I’m so sorry. I just don’t know.” Then she put out her arms and Dany walked into them, at last giving in to the fear that had settled in her heart earlier, and let herself cry.

      

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