Chapter Twenty Four

The Orchestra started up, and the conductor asked the Bride and Groom to step into the centre for the first dance. Ella and Christopher took the space in the middle of the dance floor, still hand in hand with each other and the orchestra began to play.

I recognised it instantly.

It was the first waltz played at the ball, the one where Ella and Christopher had danced together for the first time. We all watched them again spellbound.

Their eyes never left to others. They were perfectly in sync, one body, one mind, one heart. It did look exactly like something out of a fairy story. When the dance drew to a close, Christopher bowed and Ella curtsied, and then Christopher pulled Ella up so she was standing face to face with him, and drew her in for a kiss.

It was only brief. Christopher then turned to the crowd and announced, 'I have the pleasure of Introducing, My Wife.'

The crowd applauded, and my clap was fairly pronounced. The Happy couple then walked away, back towards the guests as they had a duty to greet them all.

'Excuse me my lady, but I think we agreed you owe me this dance.'

I spun around to James' voice.

'I believe you are correct sir.' I said. He reached out to take my hand, and gave a small bow over it. When he stood upright again he gave me a look of shock.

'Did Marion Brown just admit I am right? What a Joyous day this is!'

'I said you were correct about the dance, theirs no need to be so smug about it.'

'Well I am after all Lord Smug, I think as you like to call me?'

'You're not all the time.'

'True, but I will own to the title you have given me. It is far superior to my current legal title.'

We began make our way to the dance floor.

'You were the one who pointed out how smug I was, the least you could do is support me as I come to terms with my own personality.'

'Very true,' I told him. 'How hard for you to have to face your true reflection of self.'

'Ah, my lady, it is slowly eating away at my soul having to face my own arrogance.'

'Then I will endeavour to support you.'

'Will you indeed?'

The music began and I fell into a curtesy.

'I will try, Lord Smug.'

We began to dance.

'Could you not call me by my real name?' He asked me. 'We were doing so well, to go back to formal titles will set back my progress at recognising myself.'

'So, Sir Thorne.'

'James.'

'Sir James'

'Please?'

'Alright, James.'

'And if I must call you James, then you must call me Marion, not my lady.'

'May I still be permitted to say my lady, if I choose to?'

'If it suits you to, then you may. But I don't know why, I am neither yours nor a lady.'

'Well,' started James, but he was cut short by the dance forcing us to change partners. I wondered how exactly he planned on finishing that sentence.

The man who I was now dancing with was much older than me and looked familiar. It was only when I turned my head fully to look at him, did I realise it was the Duke. His face still held the same stern expression that I always saw, and he scared me a little still.

I tried to be as polite as I could, I asked him how he was enjoying the celebration, but either he did not hear me or chose to ignore me. I was grateful when the dance returned us to our original partners.

James' roguish grin could be felt before it could be seen. I knew he had come up behind me, and I could sense the smile on his face.

'Enjoying your dance with the Duke?' He asked.

'Yes immensely!' I replied. 'In fact, we really bonded and I think I'm falling in love with him!'

'Don't you think he's a little old for you?'

'Well, as his son is no longer available, he seems quite the catch.'

James roared with laughter.

'My Lady Marion, a fortune hunter! Whoever would have guessed it.'

I didn't respond, only batted my eyelids in a mocking manner. We fell into a comfortable silence for the rest of the dance.

Towards the end, one question tugged at my mind. The music ended and I curtsied to James and he bowed to me, before taking my hand quickly and bestowing a light kiss on it. I tried to keep the blood from rushing to my cheeks but I failed epically.

He began to escort me away from the dance, when I had to ask this question, so I began to direct the both of us to the secluded corner of the room. James looked a little confused by this, but didn't question it.

'I have to ask.' I said. 'Yesterday, when you arrived, you were about to announce something to Christopher before you stopped.'

'I stopped because I saw you.'

'I apologise for being curious, but what were you going to say? Whatever piece of information you gave Christopher, it clearly made him very upset, and I was wondering what it was.'

'Really Marion? You don't know? You were the one who suggested it in the first place!'

'I beg your pardon?'

'It was the day we rescued Ella. You mentioned that her Stepmother had made her a slave in her own house. The key phrase there was 'her own house.' Christopher asked me to do a little digging both on the day of the rescue, and a little since.'

'And you discovered what exactly?'

'I found it strange how when I asked Lady Kingston to produce the deed to the property, she did not have it with her in the house. Or a copy of Sir Henry's will. She claimed she had sent it to a friend for safe keeping. Anyway, I contacted Sir Henry's man in town and he said last year he had sent him with a copy of his will to the record keepers in town. This was the day before his death. The man had promised Sir Henry that he would be along in 3 days time to collect the other copy of the will, the one that Sir Henry was going to get his new wife to sign. When the man arrived at the house, he was told Sir Henry had died and there was no need to collect it, and he found this suspicious as he knew the contents of the document. So, he hid in the house until dark, apparently in the attic and found the copy.'

'And what exactly was in Sir Henry's will'

'In a nutshell, Ella was to inherit everything, and Lady Kingston was going to be provided only a small widows income. There was a note attached to it written in Sir Henry's hand. I think he knew he was getting sick. It was dated the day he died, as was Lady Kingston's signature on the will.'

'So she knew, all this time she knew she was never going to own the house!'

I had to stop for a minute. I thought I hated the woman before, but now, words could not even begin to describe what I was feeling.

'Yes, according to the documents, that day Sir Henry arrived home, got his wife to sign the will, and explained to her she was going to get nothing from him, wrote a note about the nature of their relationship and his decisions, and then succumbed to his illness.'

'And what did the note say?'

'It explained why he married her. When he was in town staying over after a party, someone came into his room, a woman. He was about to tell her to leave when the door opened again and someone saw the two of them in the room together. The lady demanded he make this right and marry her for compromising her impeccable reputation. Sir Henry felt obligated be honour to do so.'

'So she tricked him.'

'It would appear so.'

'And Ella, what does this mean?'

'It means for the past year, she has had guests in her house that forced her into slavery. They also seemed to slowly drain away her inherited money, while at the same time never touching a single coin from their own coffer.'

'How much did they take?'

'Marion, maybe we should go...'

'How much James?'

He took a deep breath.

'Ella now has about a tenth of what her father left her.'

Pure rage erupted inside me. Lady Kingston had taken away her money, her freedom and her happiness for an entire year!

'Marion, there is no point being upset now, its all in the past. Ella doesn't know of this yet, and Christopher would like to keep it that way, until at least after the wedding.'

'Can anything be done about it?' I asked in a quiet voice, the anger evident in it.

'Christopher is debating legal action, but the evidence is the word of a dead man who wrote it as he was dying. In order to prove the charge of cruelty, Ella would have to testify and show evidence of beatings and maltreatment, and I think he wants to spare her that indignity.'

'So we can do nothing. We just let her get away with it?' I could hear my tone of voice getting higher and higher as the angrier I got.

'No, we will not do nothing. But at the moment, we have to get the facts straight, and work out how we prove it.'

I simply stood there in silent anger. I wanted to put needles through her eyes, I wanted to trample her under a horse, I wanted her to die of the fever, just like her husband and my mother, only this time she would deserve it.

My vision clouded and I tried to breathe deeply but the stupidly tight dress made that impossible. The orchestra was starting up again and I felt dizzy and slightly nauseous.

Without saying a word to James, I made for the door as quickly as I could.

The air felt cool on my face, their was a slight summer breeze that felt pleasant. I gulped down as much of it as I could. I could hear footsteps behind me, but I focused on trying to breathe. The only words that were going through my head were too rude to write. When I called her a bitch a year ago, I only scratched the surface. The monster that lay beneath was... I did not know how to finish that sentence.

'Marion, are you alright?' I didn't respond with words, only lifted my hand up to signal to give me some space.

'I'll go and find you some water.' I heard him say and felt his presence disappear. I spotted a small bench just a little way away in the garden. I made my way towards it.

The dizzying started to get better, and I could breathe again, despite my corsets best effort to stop me. Once the anger started to subside, I just felt upset.

I know that I was not the one that was being stolen from, but it upset me to know that Ella had been so abominably used. And I had done nothing to stop it. Even though I had helped rescue her a few weeks ago, I had lived an entire year and done nothing.

I had done nothing to help her. She was my friend and I had let her stay there. I may have not been to blame for her maltreatment, but I felt just as guilty. I could have got her out. I could have stood up for her. I could have hidden her away somewhere.

But I did not.

The guilt spread through me. I felt the bench move as another person sat on it. My head turned at see my brother Alexander sat there.

'Alright Arry?'

'Not really.'

'What's wrong?'

'I... I mean...I didn't do anything.'

'I don't understand.'

'I just left her! I didn't fight.' There were tears streaming down my face now. Alexander didn't ask again, he just wrapped his arms around me and held on.