Chapter 6 - The Trap Snaps Shut
Lady Augusta stepped into the sitting room, her sharp eyes scanning every detail with predatory precision—the single candle, the tears glistening on Magnus's cheeks, and Lavvenia standing just a few feet away in her simple grey dress.
A wicked, satisfied smile spread across Augusta’s pale face.
"So this is your 'exhausted traveler,' Magnus?" Augusta sneered, her voice dripping with poisonous contempt. "A servant woman wandering into your late wife's private chambers in the dead of night? How absolutely scandalous."
Magnus’s posture instantly shifted, his tall frame straightening like drawn steel. The vulnerability he had shown just moments before vanished beneath a wall of cold, imperious rage.
"Mind your tongue, Lady Augusta," Magnus commanded, his voice deep and echoing off the walls. "You are a guest in my home, but my patience with your insolence is at an end."
"Insolence?" Augusta laughed, a cold, sharp sound. "I am trying to protect you, Magnus! Look at her! She is a common vagrant, a beggar who has wormed her way past your gates!"
Augusta took three deliberate steps toward Lavvenia, squinting at her face in the candlelight. Suddenly, Augusta's pale eyes widened in shock, followed immediately by a look of sheer, venomous triumph.
"My God," Augusta gasped, clutching her chest. "I know who you are! You are the deserter’s wife! Lavvenia Ashby!"
Lavvenia’s breath hitched in her throat, but she stood her ground, raising her chin high. "My husband was no deserter, Lady Augusta."
"Silence, woman!" Augusta hissed, turning back to Magnus with a dramatic gesture. "Magnus, do you have any idea who you are harboring beneath your roof? Her husband was Sergeant John Ashby—the traitor who stole four thousand pounds in King’s gold and left my nephew, Major Sir Arthur Vance, to face the French alone at Alba de Tormes!"
Magnus looked at Augusta, his dark eyes narrowed into cold blades of iron. "Major Vance was your nephew?"
"Yes!" Augusta declared proudly. "Arthur was a hero! He brought honor to our family name! And this woman’s husband ruined the regiment! I had her thrown out of her village three weeks ago, and now I find her creeping into my future son-in-law's house!"
"Your future son-in-law?" Magnus repeated, his voice dropping into a dangerously quiet register. "I have never offered for your daughter, Augusta. Nor shall I ever."
Augusta’s face flushed a deep, ugly red. "That is beside the point! This woman is the wife of a criminal! She is a vagrant! I shall have my footman ride to the village at first light to fetch Magistrate Holbrook! She will be arrested for vagrancy and trespassing, and her wretched children will be sent to the parish workhouse where they belong!"
"You will do no such thing," Magnus said smoothly, stepping directly between Augusta and Lavvenia.
Augusta blinked, stunned. "Magnus! Have you lost your senses entirely? She is a traitor's wife!"
"She is my guest," Magnus declared, his voice ringing with absolute authority that shook the very foundations of the room. "And while she is beneath the roof of Mardell Manor, she is under my personal protection. If you speak one more insult toward Mrs. Ashby, or make any threat toward her children, I will have my groundskeeper throw you and your daughter out into the snow before the sun rises."
Augusta stared at him, her mouth opening and closing like a landed fish. She had never seen the Duke of Mardell look so fierce, so powerful, or so utterly ruthless.
"You... you would choose this pauper over us?" Augusta spat out, her voice trembling with rage. "Over the nobility of this county?"
"I choose honor over arrogance, Lady Augusta," Magnus replied coldly. "Now return to your room. You will leave my estate at seven in the morning. And you will never step foot on my lands again."
Augusta glared at him, her pale eyes burning with a deep, murderous hatred. She turned her icy gaze to Lavvenia.
"You think you have won, Mrs. Ashby?" Augusta whispered, her voice laced with pure poison. "You think a grieving Duke can save you? By tomorrow night, the entire county will know that John Ashby’s widow is sleeping at Mardell Manor. I will ruin your name so completely that not even a Duke’s gold will save your children from the gutter."
With a sharp rustle of her silk dressing gown, Lady Augusta turned on her heel and swept out of the room, slamming the door behind her with a thunderous bang.
Silence fell over the sitting room once more.
Lavvenia looked at Magnus, her chest heaving, tears finally slipping down her pale cheeks. "Your Grace... I am so deeply sorry. I have brought scandal to your door. I will pack my children's things and leave now, in the storm—"
"You will leave nowhere," Magnus commanded softly, turning to look at her.
His eyes were no longer cold. A bright, fierce fire burned within them—a fire that had been dead for four long years.
"Your husband was accused by Major Arthur Vance," Magnus said, stepping closer to her. "Tell me, Mrs. Ashby... did John ever mention a Captain Lord Robert Thorne in his letters from Spain?"
Lavvenia paused, her brows furrowing in confusion. "Captain Robert? Yes... John wrote of him often. He said Captain Robert was the bravest officer in the 40th Regiment. He said Lord Robert died trying to save the regiment’s chest from being captured by French dragoons."
Magnus felt a cold shiver run down his spine.
"Robert was my brother," Magnus whispered.
Lavvenia gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. "Lord Robert... was your brother?"
May you like
"Yes," Magnus said, his voice shaking with a sudden, electrifying realization. "And if your husband was with Robert when he died... then the story Major Vance told the War Office was a lie."
Magnus grabbed the single brass candle from the table. "Come with me, Lavvenia. It is time we unlocked the truth."
