Page 3 of The Dueling Duchess

Shame flared in her; she had just insulted a dying man—a man who’d taken care of them like family over the past few years. “I’m sorry, Your Grace. I didn’t—”

“Hush, child. I can hardly expect you to be joyous about marrying a corpse.” His faded blue gaze flickered to the priest and back. “I’m afraid we have little time. Other than scattered, distant relatives, I am the last of my line, Manon. When I die, everything I have will go to those same jackals who’ve harried me for years. It is likely my will may be invalidated, but a spouse has rights that cannot be gainsaid, even by the godless rabble who’ve seized our great country by the throat. This—this nightmare will not last forever. And when it is over, you, Manon, will have all that remains to my name.”

Her father squeezed Cecile’s arm when she could only stare. She would be a duchess?

Perhaps there had been a time—when she was a little girl—when such a thing would have brought joy, but now? Now possessing a title was a death sentence.

“Speak, Cecile,” her father whispered, anger pulsing in his voice.

“Of course, I will do it—I will be honored,” she amended when her father squeezed her arm so hard, she winced.

The duke’s proud face looked so grateful that she felt guilty for a moment. After all, he was doing this to leave her wealth.

Their lives were nothing but lies, hiding, and secrets. What did one more secret matter?

Two weeks later

The wind was blowing so hard that the tattered tricolor outside the shack was horizontal.

Cecile had to shout to be heard. “Surely he won’t sail in this weather?”

“He will be here,” her father yelled back, and then doubled over with another of the coughing fits that had become worse and worse over the past week.

“Papa! This isn’t safe—let’s go back to the village. We have enough—”

He made a familiar slicing gesture with one hand: enough!

Cecile sighed and pulled her ragged black shawl tighter around her. Her father had promised her this was the last time she’d need to wear this horrific disguise. She was tired of looking fifty when she was barely fourteen. She was tired of hiding day and night. She was tired of—

“There!” Her father pointed to where a tiny boat was struggling to get to shore.

Cecile stared. It looked like the flimsy paper boats she used to make when she was a child. “Mon Dieu! Surely we cannot go in that?”

Either her father didn’t hear her or didn’t care to reply. Instead, he strode toward the boat, his posture telling her that he was fighting another bout of coughing.

She hurried after him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, which had narrowed and slumped with terrifying speed. Only a month ago he had been her sturdy, fierce Papa. It was true he’d always been a small man, but he’d been strong. Now he was a shell, becoming hollower with each day that passed.

But so stubborn. They should stay here—he should be in bed.

Cecile gritted her teeth when her father tried to go into the water to catch the little craft. “You stay,” she shouted. “I’ll help him.”

He nodded, coughing.

Cecile pulled her skirts between her legs and tucked the hem into the bodice, baring her legs to mid-thigh. It would have been shocking under other conditions, but nobody cared just then.

The boat was even smaller when she got closer. Was her father insane? The two men inside were so big they took up most of the room. Although both would be needed to row because they could not use the tiny sail in this howling storm.

Cecile helped her father in before she climbed in after him, pushing the boat off the pebbled beach. Regardless of the fact she’d pulled up her skirts, she was soaked to the hips and the rest of her wasn’t faring much better.

They crouched together in the bow of the boat while the two behemoths pulled the oars.

Her father pressed something into her hand and she looked down to find the small leather purse he habitually carried.

“Papa, what—”

He shoved something else into her hand; it was the oilskin packet that he always kept on his person. It contained his gun designs, a few family documents, and Cecile’s wedding lines, along with a copy of the duke’s will.

Rather than argue with him—impossible in this weather—Cecile shoved the purse into the pocket in her petticoat, which had three buttons to keep it closed. The packet was too big, so she tucked it into the battered leather satchel that held her change of clothing and a miniature of her mother.