Page 64 of A Family Bargain with the Duke

“I have no intention of leaving, Your Grace. I have already heard it once. I would rather stand beside you while you hear it properly.”

The study door opened, and Thomas Whitmore entered, a leather folio tucked beneath one arm, his bearing every bit as careful and measured as Louisa remembered, though his expression carried a wariness that had not been present when he’d spoken with her at Henswick House.

“Your Grace.” He bowed correctly. “Thank you for receiving me.”

“Mr. Whitmore.” Julian’s voice was even, courteous, though Louisa could see the careful control it cost him. “Please, sit. My wife tells me you have something significant to share with me.”

Thomas settled into the chair Julian indicated, the folio resting across his knees, and glanced briefly at Louisa before returning his attention to Julian.

“I confess that when the Duchess first sought me out, I did not expect I would ever find myself sitting in your study, Your Grace. I have spent a great many years imagining this conversation differently.”

“I imagine you have every reason to.” Julian lowered himself into the chair opposite, his posture rigid with the particular discipline of a man bracing himself for something he already suspected would be unpleasant. “Please, tell me what you told my wife.”

Thomas opened the folio slowly, drew out the same yellowed letters Louisa had read at Henswick House, and set them one by one on the low table between them.

He retold the same story he told Louisa, his voice dropping with every word he said.

Julian’s face had gone pale, and he scanned the letters without reaching for them, as though touching them might make the whole account irrevocably real.

“May I?”

“Please.”

Julian lifted the first letter, and Louisa watched his eyes move across the lines, watched his jaw tighten as he read his own father’s hand instructing Vane to destroy the original manifests before any audit could reveal the alteration.

He set it down and reached for the next, and the next, working through each in turn with the same careful, disbelieving attention, until he had read all five and sat back in his chair, absorbing something that had rearranged some fundamental part of his understanding of himself.

“I knew nothing about this,” he finally said. “I want you to understand that, Mr. Whitmore, before we go any further. I was a boy of perhaps twelve when this happened. I have heard my father’s business partnerships spoken of only in the vaguest terms my whole life, always framed as misfortune rather than misconduct.”

“I believe you, Your Grace.” Thomas’s voice had softened, some of the earlier wariness easing. “I have never once believed the present Duke complicit in his father’s actions. I only feared, given what Sir Edmund Vane has apparently already attempted with you, that the truth might be buried a second time rather than properly heard.”

“What is it you want, Mr. Whitmore? Precisely and plainly, so there can be no confusion between us. Is it revenge?”

“I want my father’s name cleared.” Thomas met his eyes steadily. “I do not seek revenge against your family, Your Grace, nor compensation for what was taken from him, though God knows there was a great deal taken. That is what I have always wanted.”

Julian was quiet for a long moment, the letters still spread across the table between them. Louisa saw the stillness that came over him whenever he had reached a difficult decision and required only a moment to properly settle into the shape of it.

“You shall have it,” he declared.

Thomas blinked, his composure faltering for the first time. “Your Grace?”

“Your father’s name will be cleared, publicly and thoroughly, even if it costs my family.” Julian’s voice carried none of its earlier strain now, only a steady certainty. “I will not protect my father’s memory at the expense of an innocent man’s, Mr. Whitmore. Whatever else he was to me, I cannot in good conscience allow his sins to go on ruining a family that has never deserved a single day of the suffering they have been made to bear.”

“I did not expect—” Thomas stopped, something raw moving across his face before he mastered it. “Forgive me, Your Grace. I confess I came here prepared for considerably more resistance than this.”

“You came here with proof, Mr. Whitmore, and an honest grievance, and I have no wish to be the sort of man who looks at both and chooses his own comfort over the truth.”

Julian glanced briefly at Louisa, warmth passing between them before he returned his attention to Thomas.

“I will need to consult with my solicitor about the proper means of making this public, and I imagine Sir Edmund will not receive the news gently, given his interest in keeping the truth buried. But you have my word, Mr. Whitmore. Your father’s name will stand where it always should have.”

* * *

Thomas remained seated for a moment after the last of the papers had been gathered, his hand resting lightly on the neat stack as though he scarcely trusted himself to disturb them.

“I do not know how to thank you, Your Grace.”

Julian shook his head. “Do not thank me. I have done nothing extraordinary.”