Read Chapter 6: The Missing Heir

The letter bore her mother’s precise, sloping hand, and Cordelia knew before she broke the seal that something was wrong. Her mother never wrote. She dictated. The arrival of a letter in the Dowager’s own script meant either triumph or catastrophe, and there was no triumph to be had in Yorkshire.

Cordelia read it twice in the cold morning light of the breakfast room, the only warmth coming from a meager fire that Mrs. Patch had coaxed to life an hour earlier.

*Your brother has not been seen nor heard from in two months. His last letter claimed a matter of state business in the north, but no one at Whitehall will admit to sending him. Your father is beside himself, though he will not say so. I am asking, Cordelia—not commanding, asking—whether you have heard from Benedict since your engagement.*

She had not. The realization struck her like a splash of cold water. Benedict had written a brief, cheerful note congratulating her on her betrothal—*a marquess, Cordelia, well done, though I cannot imagine he deserves you*—and then nothing. No wedding congratulations. No teasing missive about the joys of married life. It was unlike him. He had been her closest confidant, the only member of her family who knew about the gift and had never once flinched from it.

Two months. He had vanished two months ago, and she had been so consumed with her own turmoil—the bargain, the curse, the brooch, Sir Hugh—that she had not noticed her brother’s silence.

The shame of it burned in her throat.

She folded the letter carefully, then unfolded it and read it a third time. *A secret mission.* That was what her mother suspected, though she had not written it in so many words. Benedict had always been too curious for his own good, too willing to chase a mystery into danger. They had that in common.

The breakfast room door creaked, and Cordelia looked up to find the Marquess standing in the doorway, still in his riding coat, gloves in hand. He had been absent for three days—she had counted—and had returned without announcement, silent as a ghost through his own ruined halls. He looked tired, shadows beneath his eyes that had not been there at the wedding.

“You are up early,” he said.

“I could say the same of you.”

“I rode before dawn. The estate boundaries need walking.” He hesitated, then stepped fully into the room, letting the door close behind him. “You received a letter.”

It was not a question. His gaze had fixed on the paper in her hands, and something flickered in his expression—wariness, perhaps, or calculation. Cordelia could not read him. She never could.

“From my mother,” she said. “It concerns my brother.”

“Lord Benedict.” The Marquess crossed to the sideboard, poured himself a cup of cold tea, and did not drink it. “He did not attend the wedding.”

“He was detained. Or so I was told.” Cordelia heard the edge in her own voice and did not soften it. “It seems he has been detained for rather longer than anyone realized. Two months, in fact.”

The Marquess set down the cup. His face betrayed nothing, but she saw his fingers tighten briefly against the porcelain. “Two months is a long time to be detained.”

“My mother believes he was sent on a secret mission. The kind a young man with more courage than sense might volunteer for without telling his family.” She paused. “You have connections in the north. You must know people who might hear things.”

“I have connections,” he said slowly, “that are less extensive than they once were.”

“But you have them.”

He looked at her then, and for a moment she saw something beneath the mask—not warmth, precisely, but a kind of reluctant acknowledgment. She was his wife. Whatever else their marriage was, it was a partnership of debts and obligations. Perhaps he understood that she was asking for help, and that help, in this house, was a currency more precious than gold.

“I will make inquiries,” he said. “Discreet ones.”

“Thank you.”

He nodded and turned toward the door, then stopped with his hand on the latch. “Cordelia.”

She looked up.

“Your brother,” he said, and his voice was lower now, almost gentle. “What was his mission? Did he tell you anything before he vanished?”

Cordelia searched her memory. Benedict’s last letter had been cheerful, brief, full of jokes about the weather and the quality of the hunting in Northumberland. But there had been a postscript, she remembered now, a line she had dismissed at the time as typical of his restless nature.

*If I find what I am looking for, I shall write to you with proof. If I do not, you will know I was chasing ghosts again.*

“He wrote that he was looking for something,” she said slowly. “He did not say what. Only that he would provide proof if he found it.”

“Proof of what?”

“I do not know.” She met his eyes. “He was always investigating something. Clandestine meetings, rumors of smuggling, stories of old families and older secrets. He could never let a mystery lie.”

The Marquess’s expression did not change, but something in the set of his shoulders shifted. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it and nodded once.

“I will see what I can learn,” he said, and left.

Cordelia sat alone in the cold breakfast room, her mother’s letter still in her hands. She should feel relief that he had agreed to help. Instead, she felt the prickle of unease, the same instinct that had warned her at the betrothal ball that there was more to the Marquess of Ashworth than he revealed.

Why had he asked about Benedict’s mission? Why had he cared?

She was still staring at the letter when she heard footsteps in the corridor—not the Marquess’s measured tread, but a lighter, quicker step. A moment later, Mrs. Patch appeared in the doorway, her face drawn with worry.

“My lady,” she said, “there is a man at the servant’s entrance. He says he brings word from your brother.”

Cordelia rose so quickly the chair scraped against the flagstone floor. “Send him in.”

“He will not come in, my lady. He says he must not be seen.”

The tincture was still in her pocket—small, glass, dangerous. Cordelia had not used it. She had told herself she was waiting, watching, gathering courage. But now, as she followed Mrs. Patch down the narrow back corridor to the servant’s entrance, she felt its weight pressing against her thigh like an accusation.

The man waiting outside was thin and nervous, his cap clutched in both hands. He glanced over his shoulder before speaking, and his voice was barely a whisper.

“You are Lady Ashworth?”

“I am.”

“I served your brother, my lady. In a manner of speaking. He paid me to carry letters, and I carried them, but the last one—” He swallowed hard. “The last one I never delivered. I was told he was dead.”

“Dead?” The word came out sharp, too loud. Cordelia steadied herself. “Who told you this?”

“A man in a black coat. He paid me well to keep my silence, but I have a conscience, my lady, and I have been carrying this guilt for weeks.” He reached into his coat and produced a crumpled, wax-sealed letter. “I thought you should have it. Before it is too late.”

Cordelia took the letter. It was addressed to her in Benedict’s hand, and the seal was cracked, the paper stained with what might have been water or might have been something else entirely.

“What did my brother say in it?” she asked.

“I did not read it, my lady. I was paid not to read it.” He hesitated. “But I heard him speak of it. He said it contained proof of a wrong that had been done. A wrong that had been buried for years.” His eyes flicked to the great house behind her, and something like fear crossed his face. “He said the wrong was done at Ashworth Hall.”

Cordelia’s blood went cold.

The man stepped back, already retreating toward the treeline. “I have said too much. I must go.”

He was gone before she could stop him, swallowed by the morning mist. Cordelia stood at the servant’s entrance, Benedict’s letter clutched in her white-knuckled hand, and did not know whether to laugh or weep.

She did not hear the footsteps behind her until it was too late.

“My lady.” A servant—one of the skeleton staff, a boy she did not know—bowed. “His lordship has gone out again. He left instructions that you were not to be disturbed, and that any correspondence was to be brought to him directly.”

Cordelia turned, hiding the letter behind her back. “I see.”

The boy hesitated. “He said to tell you he has sent a man north to investigate your brother’s disappearance. He said you were not to worry.”

The Marquess had sent his own man. Before she had even told him she wanted help. Before he had asked his questions and promised discretion.

He had been planning this all along.

Cordelia smiled, thanked the boy, and retreated to her chambers, where she broke the seal on Benedict’s letter with trembling fingers. The tincture sat heavy in her pocket, a reminder of truths that could not be unseen.

The letter was brief. Three sentences. It took her less than a minute to read, and an eternity to understand.

*Cordelia—I have found the records of the Ashworth entail. A second debt, buried under the first. If the Marquess fathers an heir before the year is out, everything he owns transfers to Sir Hugh. You are not a bride. You are a key to a lock he means to destroy.*

*Do not trust him.*

*Your loving brother, Benedict*