“Of course you didn’t need convincing,” Viola said, leaning over to rub her cheek against her husband’s shoulder. “You were dazzled by my mouselike self, popping out from behind the curtains.”
“No, I was dazzled by the sudden appearance of the funniest, most beautiful woman in the world,” Devin responded, his voice deep with love. “My future wife and mother of my son.”
“May I fetch your stepfather, dear?” the duchess asked. “Hugo has been waiting in the corridor.”
“Is Thaddeus with him?” Joan asked.
Aunt Knowe bustled forward. “Neither are in the hallway any longer; my brother sent a message that they retired to the billiard room. Devin will bring little Otis downstairs to meet the men in his family in good time.”
“Thaddeus is with them?” Joan asked.
Aunt Knowe nodded. “He made his goodbyes to his father. Perhaps you should join him, dear.”
Joan glanced back at the bed where Viola and Devin leaned over a little scrap of humanity, their eyes shining. “Baby Otis is perfect, isn’t he?”
Aunt Knowe put a hand on her cheek. “Just as beautiful as your baby will be.” She leaned in. “The clocks on your right stocking are running up the inside of your leg. Correct that before you visit the billiard room, unless you want your brothers to tease you for the next decade or so.”
Her rich laughter drifted into the corridor. Joan paused and then ran toward her own bedchamber. To be blunt, she had to beat Death himself to the Duke of Eversley’s bed if she wanted to carry through her plan and retrieve that horrible letter.
Thankfully, her maid was in her chamber and helped her quickly undress. “I need my prince’s costume,” Joan explained, hopping on one foot to pull off her stocking before her maid noticed her disheveled clothing.
Sometime later, she glanced at the mirror. A young prince stared back at her, regal from the top of his hat with its fashionable green feather, to the exquisite silver embroidery on his cuffs, to the diamonds on his shoe buckles.
She turned to the jewelry box on her dressing table, selecting a circlet of diamonds that she had been given by Aunt Knowe when she turned eighteen. She draped it over her neck cloth.
“That’s right odd looking, given as you’re dressed as a man,” her maid objected.
“I need to sparkle,” Joan told her. “Could you please hand me the diamond pin?”
“The one your aunt said was garish?” her maid asked.
“Yes, that one,” Joan said. She pinned it onto her hat, directly in front where it couldn’t be overlooked.
“Odd,” her maid muttered.
“Should I pin more diamonds to my coat?” Joan asked. “I need to look regal. I could run next door and borrow something from Viola.”
“The only thing left is to put a crown on top of your hat,” her maid said. “You look as if you’d emptied out of one of the goldsmiths’ shops in Cheapside.”
“Regal?” Joan insisted.
“Not that I’ve ever seen a king, but I suppose.”
Joan dropped a kiss on her cheek. “Thank you! You needn’t stay up. I can shed this coat without any help.”
She set out at a gallop for Henry VIII’s bedchamber, only slowing when she reached the right corridor. She pushed open the door and found the chamber empty but for the patient. It was blazing with candlelight, and the Duke of Eversley looked gaunt and gray against his white pillows.
He was still alive; she could hear his breathing. As Joan walked over to him, his eyes opened.
Joan held her breath, but he showed no sign of recognizing her. Instead, he craned his neck and wheezed, “Who are you?”
“Recognize us not?” she said, dropping her voice several octaves and putting on her Prince Hamlet expression.
“Said that I didn’t,” Eversley replied querulously. “There’s a cold glitter about you. Have you come to take my soul? Forgot your black cloak and scythe?”
“No, no,” Joan said hastily.
“Your coat’s old-fashioned,” he said nastily. “What are you doing in my chamber if you’re not hiding a scythe behind your back?”
“You are in our chamber,” she intoned, pitching her voice even lower.
“A ghost,” the duke exclaimed. “I never believed in ’em. Not sure I do now, even with the outdated coat. I can’t see through you.”
“At this moment, we exist on the same plane, between life and death,” Joan told him. “I am as alive as you, and as dead as you.”
“Bollocks,” the duke said. He squinted again. “You’re never Bluff Hal, are you?”
Joan had never been any good at history. She was playing a young Henry VIII, but she had no idea what his nicknames might have been.
“Old Coppernosed Harry, the eighth by that name,” Eversley clarified.
“Names that must have been given to us in later years,” she said.
“How old are you?”
“Seventeen,” Joan told him. “On a wedding trip with Catherine.” That was when the real Henry VIII visited Lindow, his older bride in tow.
“You didn’t die for years after your first wedding,” Eversley pointed out, his eyes closing as if he were losing interest. “Can’t imagine why you bother to haunt this place. The current Duke of Lindow is a bastard, a virile bastard at that, with enough sons to populate a village. Given your deficits in that respect, I’d expect you to avoid this place like the plague.”
“We are here because you are not a king and yet kinglike,” Joan said, improvising madly. “Not royal and yet royalty. You are alone. We know all . . . for example, that you would prefer to be with your real family, the family of your heart.”
Eversley’s shaded eyes flickered at her, and for a moment, Joan saw the wicked mischief of Bacchus shining at her. But he reeled into a series of painful coughs.
“She . . .” the duke mumbled, once he caught his breath. “Can’t let them see me like this, dying. Spitting and pissing in the bed. Said my goodbyes.”
Joan’s mouth fell open for a moment before she snapped it shut. “It’s estimable that you traveled to Lindow Castle in your last day on this earth to ensure that your second family will be well cared for.”
Eversley’s laugh was more of a bark than a laugh. “Revenge,” he said savagely. “It can keep a dying man alive.” He fumbled under his pillow. “See this?”
Joan’s heart thumped. Crumpled now, it was the paper that Eversley had waved about at dinner. “We do.”
“It’s my revenge.” The parchment fell from his hands. “Read it. If you can. I never heard of a ghost who did more than throw dishes around when aggravated. I assume those are females.”
“At this moment, we are on the same plane of existence,” Joan reminded him.
“Balderdash,” the duke mumbled. His eyes seemed to be glazing over.
Joan ripped open the seal and unfolded the letter. Her eyes skimmed it quickly: “In the name of God, Amen. I, Andrew Cornelius Erskine Shaw, Duke of Eversley, of Eversley Court, declare that I married the woman known as my duchess only under duress and the threat of bodily harm, after having already wed the love of my heart in solemn ceremony. I declare my second marriage a farce and a desecration of the ritual of marriage; the man known as my son is a bastard, and my dukedom should be inherited by my legitimate son, Henry.”