Page 5 of The Duchess Curse

“You have, after all, provided the ton with a highly potent love potion and not been, if rumors can be believed, particularly cautious in your selling of it.”

If she’d known she would be arrested today, she wouldn’t have worn her best gown. Guin raised her cup to her lips and said just before taking a long sip, “When laws are unfair, caution matters less.”

“Ah. I thought we might come to that. I happen to agree with you. It is unfair that men can dose women with love potion without their consent while the reverse is not true. As you know, the law is meant to keep our titled gentlemen free from… influence.”

“Influence comes in many forms, Your Majesty. At times it is poured from a bottle and at other times it is found in the crook of a finger, the lifting of a skirt.”

The queen’s brow wrinkled. “You speak of… temptations of the flesh?”

My, she was young, wasn’t she. After three decades of living, Guinevere could not even remember what that was like. “Precisely, Your Majesty.”

“Yes, I see. But then, a man knows what he’s up against when he’s being… seduced.” The queen threw her chin into the air as if saying such a word were defiance itself.

It made Guin want to hug her. “True.”

“There is a man in the House of Lords who has been lobbying for you, attempting to drum up support to change the law, the same man who got you out of trouble two Seasons ago.”

Guin’s hands tightened around the teacup. Her pulse jumped into her fingertips, which were pressed breakingly tight against the china.

“The Duke of Braxton.”

“Yes.” The only word Guin could manage. The steam rising from her cup seemed to spell the duke’s name in sinuous, dissipating curves.

“I support his cause and yours. And I will be happy to organize a meeting between yourself and Viscount Melbourn.”

Guin’s head snapped up. “The prime minister?”

“Mm. It would help legitimize your cause.”

“I would be much appreciative of your support, ma’am.”

“You shall have it. If…”

Elation deflated. Of course there would be terms. She should have expected it.

“If you consider joining my little… salon. It is composed of a select group of women, all with rather fascinating… talents.”

Talent. A word usually reserved for the titled transcendent class. What did this little queen know? “I should be honored, Your Majesty. May I… know a bit more about the nature of this salon? What is the topic of conversation?”

“Science. Magic.” Queen Victoria lifted her hand and a flower bloomed on her palm.

Guin forced steady breaths into and out of her lungs. “Ah. I am afraid I must disappoint you. I possess no significant magic. Only knowledge of herbs and their uses.” Partly true.

“Is that so, Your Grace?” The queen grinned.

And Guin stopped breathing altogether. “I… wh-what did you say?”

“Will you deny your true identity to your queen, Gabriella Guinevere Lennox, Duchess of Braxton?”

Guin licked her lips. They’d gone dry. So had her throat. Her brain, too, really. Nothing but sand up there, clogging the gears. “No, Your Majesty. It is simply that I have not answered to that name in quite some time.” Not in six years.

“Well you will have to answer to it now. No more hiding, Lady Braxton.”

Duchess of Braxton. The title had never fit her right. “I have not been hiding so much as… living a life of my own. Redefining myself.”

“That is all well and good, but I need your help, and you will be able to help me best if you use your title from here forward.”

“Help? In what way?” This was clearly not about a gathering of intellectuals.