The Remarkable Myth of a Nameless Lady: A Historical Regency Romance Novel

by Linfield, Emma

  She moved without thinking, wanting to see him better, needing to understand this man whom she had been ordered to make her adversary. This was the man she had been raised to hate, yet could not find the emotion within her now as she watched him slumber. He seemed only a man, and a tired one at that. The few times she’d spoken to him, he had been kind.

  He is English, she reminded herself, but even that word did not hold the condemnation it should have. Even among his guests, had she been treated rudely by any of them? The ladies had been insistent, even urgent in their desires, but there had been several who had smiled and thanked her when she’d accomplished the task they had given her.

  The Duke’s mother, though, was another matter. But was it fair to condemn all of these British invaders for the actions of a handful of people who had proven, at worst, unpleasant? They had certainly not seemed entirely evil as she had been led to believe.

  It was a confusing moment, triggered by lips that were parted in repose that left her with a yearning to find what a kiss upon those lips would mean. Alicia took another step, not away from the man, but toward him, feeling a yearning within her that she had never before experienced.

  The Duke was a beautiful man. Kind. Powerful.

  Evil. Her enemy.

  Her hands bunched into fists at her sides, clutching the soft material of her apron. She had a job to do and here she was wool-gathering when she could have used this time to find what she needed. He had stayed asleep this long, would it really be so difficult to get what she needed and to leave? How hard should it be to find a list?

  Alicia turned to regard the desk. The stack of books arranged in a neat tower were meaningless to her. It was the papers strewn across the top that held information that might be of use. If she were quiet enough, careful enough, then it was fully possible she could find the list after all.

  The Duke shifted again, another soft snore. She jumped and glanced at him, undecided. One hand rose to touch her cheek, to the ghost of the imprint of her father’s hand. He would be angry if she did not do as he asked. For all she knew, the Duke would remain here the entire night. Would she have another chance?

  Why must this be so complicated? She bit her lip anxiously. By not doing what she was told she was betraying her father whom right now she hated, but it also meant betraying the memory of her brother.

  With a muffled cry that she only just bit back, Alicia moved toward the desk, her feet treading lightly and carrying her there in an instant. Here she paused, her hands flat upon the very stack of papers that she needed to examine, while she again studied the Duke who had not stirred so much as an inch. Breathing out a quick sigh of relief, she glanced down at the first page, and then the next.

  Nothing. Nothing but notes on wool and pigs. Schedules and shipping and a dozen other meaningless notes. Nothing whatsoever regarding the ball, save a beautifully penned invitation that she slipped into the pocket of her apron.

  Frustrated, she stepped back, realizing that she’d gone about this all wrong. A list of guests would more likely be in his mother’s desk than his own. How utterly foolish to expect him to have handled such a mundane task himself.

  With a muttered word under her breath that she would have to take to confession with her next week, that the priest might assign her due penance, she lifted her head to check her slumbering employer.

  Green eyes met hers somberly from the chair by the fire.

  “I would like to think you have an explanation for this intrusion, but for the life of me, I cannot think what it would be,” the Duke of Woodworth said quietly.

  Chapter 14

  The last thing the Duke expected was to wake and find the very object of his dreams standing over him.

  No, not standing over him. That would have been altogether too much the stuff of those racy French novels that his first mate had liked to read through those long, lonely nights at sea. This particular minx was no lightskirt in an attempt at flirtation, but was rather quite brazenly going through his desk while he slept only a handful of feet away.

  “Are you a thief?” he asked, sitting up and leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, chin balanced up on clasped hands while he regarded her with no small part of amusement intermingled with the shock of betrayal.

  It was an interesting combination of emotions. But then, she was a rather interesting girl.

  “I only…I mean, I had thought I might have perhaps left the cloth in here that I used to dust the room earlier. I could not find it, and…I do not wish to be let go, but to be so careless…”

  That the girl was frightened was clear. That she was lying, equally so. She looked at him, her eyes wide and earnest as she stepped forward into the light. Had she not done so he might not have seen the bruise upon her cheek. He sat up, but spoke cautiously, thinking how to ascertain who it was who had put her up to this act, and what it was they hoped to gain by it.

  He tilted his head a little to the side, regarding her thoughtfully as he spoke. “I have seen nothing on my desk that belongs to you, as I am sure you well know. Will you give me the truth, lass, or shall I send you on your way?”

  If anything, she went so pale that for a moment, he thought she might faint. The girl was altogether too frail to be in his employ. He had thought so when he had seen her first, and thought so again as she wavered on her feet, her amber eyes welling with tears.

  “If it please you then, I will fetch my things and be on my way,” she said, her chin coming up, that she might meet his gaze with a frank honesty that took him by surprise.

  “You would rather lose your position here, than to speak the truth to me? If that be the case, then I wonder whether I might have cause for the constable after all,” he said thoughtfully, though he made no move to do so.

  “I have done nothing wrong!” She stepped toward him, her expression one of fierce fire and determination. “I have only done my job here, every task that was given to me!”

  “And one besides, given you from someone else. Someone who left that mark upon your cheek. Yes, I see it there, though you try to hide it now with your palm since I have spoken. You were bid to come into this room to look for something, were you not? You did not to expect to find me here.” He stood, shifting so that he was between her and the door. “You did not find it, either.”

  “How did…?” She spoke without thinking, stumbling to a halt, lips parted in shocked surprise. “Well, what matter is it if I have? As you said, I have not found what I was looking for, so there is no harm done to you or your own. I have lost my position, so what do you profit by delaying my leaving? You will not see me again—”

  He stepped closer to her, stepping within an arm’s reach of her. Surprisingly, she held her ground, arms crossed firmly, her head tilted up to meet his gaze without flinching. Jacob was no giant, but he felt one as he stood there, looking down at this waif who dared so much, and could not help but admire the way she had so much heart, more so than half the men who had served under him. Would that he had had a crew of men such as she!

  “Perhaps that is the problem,” he said softly, his voice little more than a growl. “It would be a shame to let you go. Especially when you might be of use to me…”

  She backed away so hastily that she thumped soundly into his desk. “I am not a girl to be trifled with,” she warned him, reaching for one of the heavy books, holding it in such a way as to make clear her intention to throw it at him.

  “Do not bother yourself so,” he said in irritation, putting up his hands before him in mock surrender. “I was not thinking along those lines. My intent is more honorable than that.” Though this was in part a lie. Those flashing eyes, that heaving breast, the fire with which she faced him down was unexpectedly attractive. He wondered what it would be like to crush her in his arms, to take her lips with his own.

  He cleared his throat, forcing the image away. “I have a more subtle plan in mind. I suspect you are here to spy upon me. Likely sent by that lout of a father of yours. That is
his handprint upon your face, unless I miss my guess. The fact that he struck you tells me you were not eager to do his bidding, which leads me likewise to think you might be amenable to an agreement of sorts.”

  She glanced at him sharply, a wary look coming into her eyes. “For a man who is beset upon by enemies, you are remarkably casual about the situation.”

  He chuckled at this. “Miss Price, I have been ‘beset upon’ as you call it, since I formally took service to His Majesty. You will find I prefer to choose the battlefield as it is generally more to my advantage to do so.”

  “You seem to care little for ideologies and politics. How do you know that I am not a staunch Irish patriot who would happily see you dead?” she retorted, standing stiffly now that her fear of him had passed.

  “I fully expect you to be all of those things. Do not think I am proposing for you to come amiably over to my side. I am proposing a bargain. An exchange of sorts. I help you in your endeavors, in return for your help with mine.”

  She stared at him. “You cannot be serious.” She pushed away from the desk, pacing around in a short agitated circles. “You would feed me false information, making me to be a fool, in hopes of revealing those who have sworn themselves to be your enemies.”

  He laughed again. “Girl, I care little for your plots or allies. I would give you God’s honest truth, I think very little of your plots and plotters. Let them come at me. What care do I have for a dozen Irish revolutionaries? My word might not mean much to you, but it means everything to me.”

  She whirled on him, those amber eyes blazing in the firelight. “You would risk harm? To what end? What is it you would have me do in exchange, that is worth so high a price?”

  “I would know why my brother is so loath to let go of the estate. I would know which men are loyal to him and not to me.”

  She blinked. “You suspect him of treason?”

  “Nothing so grand as that. I suspect him of using the estate to his own ends. There is a hesitation there and a reaction that seems more than idle jealousy. How can I take command of this particular vessel without first understanding the underlying principles that sail her? But he gives me nonsense…ledgers without true information. A crew that listens only to him. A captain in such a situation should expect mutiny, should he not?”

  “You treat your estate as a ship, forgetting it’s a vessel that by all rights should never have been your own. To follow your analogy, to the Irish you are nothing but a pirate that has seized what you had no right to,” she said, and she heard the clear bitterness in her voice.

  “Be that as it may, it was a ship destined to wreck upon the rocks otherwise. What say you? Will you become my eyes and ears within this house? Become my confidante and ally?”

  “You are a fool!” she muttered and paced again, her hands restless, bunching against her skirts. “More the fool I to even consider it. They would have the guest list for the ball. That is what I am sent to find!”

  He stared at her in surprise. “So small a thing? It is hardly information that is not already public knowledge if one knew where to ask. If your compatriots are intent upon causing mischief for my guests, they will find they have another thing coming. You realize I will protect those who come under my roof.”

  “Will you give it to me then?” she asked, and he saw the flare of hope within her eyes.

  “And what will you give me in return?” he asked quietly, watching the girl carefully.

  She met his gaze without fear. “You would have me tell you who is loyal to you and who to him? You fail to see the obvious. It would not surprise me to find that most within this house are loyal to neither. Would you have me reveal to you those who feel the British best be removed? I fail to see where I benefit from your arrangement. As you said, the guest list is a small thing with little actual importance.”

  “You are a thoughtful creature, with an agile mind. Perhaps I need only this—I will wrest control of this estate from my brother, mark my words.” He spoke fiercely, with no small frustration. The alliance he had proposed was a poor one. They were too much at odds for this to work.

  But she surprised him by nodding suddenly. “I am new here myself, and understand little of how things work. But if your interest is solely in the production of wool and cheese, I see little enough harm in it. After all, when we take the estate from you someday, it would be better to take back what is already successful than what is not.”

  “You are truly a witch,” Jacob muttered but smiled all the same. “This is an evil bargain, to be sure.”

  “On both our parts,” she agreed and smiled as well. “A bargain then to the good of Ravencliff.”

  “With the British going to perdition?” he asked, and laughed at her expression. “You might well have said it, I heard it clear as day.”

  “So be it. May the Irish rot as well,” she replied and stuck out her tongue at him. “As I well imagine you would say.”

  “I am not entirely sure of that,” he said, smirking at her audacity. “You will find that I hold the Irish in greater esteem than you think. Now!” He clapped his hands together, feeling enthusiastic now that he had a solid plan in place. “Let us find that guest list. I will guess my mother has a copy in her desk. I expect ‘tis high time I find out just who is invited to this ball of hers.”

  Chapter 15

  The next morning, the Duke rose early and was out in the courtyard as the sun came up. Already the staff of the manor was hard at work. He could smell the scent of bread baking from the kitchens as he passed, and outside he could see several laborers hard at work with the milking of the cows and feeding of the various livestock kept close to the house.

  He dodged a sleepy-eyed girl with a basket of eggs over her arm and looked with satisfaction at the life that teemed around him. There was no denying that Owen had been a skillful overseer, for all of Ravencliff gave off an air of being prosperous and well-run.

  Jacob found the foreman with little difficulty. The man was laying out tasks for the day, sending a team of men to bring up a flock of goats to a different field, and arranging for the shearing to be finished that morning.

  It was here that Jacob ran into his first snag of the day. He listened for a moment, trying to get a feel for the rhythm of the place, and knowing that there were several duties that he had little awareness of. He asked questions, to the annoyance of all concerned, and found himself interjecting with advice that brought forth a quiet deference accompanied by a rolling of eyes that he saw once and knew he was not supposed to.

  It was not an auspicious beginning to things.

  The trouble began when he put forth that he rather thought a certain fence needed repair.

  “We will not be troubling with that field today, Your Grace,” the man said, quite flustered when Jacob brought it up. “I would suggest that were Your Grace to consult with your brother—”

  That the words were there, out in the open, shocked Jacob to his very core. There had been a sullen resentfulness all morning that he had not quite been able to put his finger on, but worded thus, there was no doubt as to where the man’s loyalty lay. He had suspected as much last night when he had talked to the girl, but now he was sure.

  Jacob bit back the reply that would have involved a fair share of language better left unspoken on land, only saying rather tersely, “I expect that wall to be seen to today. There will be no insubordination as to my command. My brother is not the master of this house any longer. You would do well to remember that.”

  He spun on his heel and returned to the house, no longer finding the setting charming or delightful as he had when he’d set out only an hour ago. Even the kitchen maid carrying scraps for the midden heap seemed suspicious now, her eyes dark and unfriendly as he passed.

  Faugh on the lot of them!

  Eschewing breakfast completely, Jacob returned to his study, giving only a terse good morning to the handful of guests he stumbled across who were planning a ride out onto the moors later in the day
. He declined their invitation to join them, too out of sorts to be in any mood for the pleasant pastime.

  For the next hour, he buried himself in the dusty ledgers, determined to get a feel for how the place was run, with or without his brother’s help. When the knock came at the door it was a welcome distraction. For a moment he had a hope that it was the auburn-haired lass with a tray, for he was becoming quite famished and a look at those amber eyes would do his heart good.

  But it was not Miss Price who graced his doorway, nor any offering of food. Instead, his brother Own stood there, glowering in a seething fury. He thundered into the room, not waiting upon an invitation and dropped his hands down upon the desk, leaning forward upon them until his face was a scant foot from that of his startled brother’s.

  “What. Have. You. Done.”

  It was not so much a question as a statement. Jacob set down his quill and leaned back in his chair, relaxed and calm as he stared up into the purpled face that bespoke of a mighty rage. “Good morning, Owen. It is always a pleasure to enjoy your company. How might I be of service this morning?”