Truly a Wife

by Rebecca Hagan Lee

  Jonathan set the pair of boots on the floor beside Daniel and grinned.

  Daniel looked up at him. “Thanks.”

  Jonathan shrugged. “It’s rather nice to be able to loan you something for a change.”

  “That’s good to know,” Daniel drawled. “Because I also need a place to stay.” He lifted one boot and leaned forward to pull it on, only to be brought up short by the stiffness in his back.

  “Leave ’em off for a while,” Jonathan advised. “So long as you’re staying, I’ll help you put them on later.” He studied Daniel. “Aunt Lavinia was right. You have been avoiding her.”

  Daniel nodded. “Quite right. I’ve been avoiding Mother, Weldon, Travers, Malden, and everyone else at Sussex House.” He looked at his cousin. “Especially Mother and Malden.”

  Jonathan sent him a questioning look.

  “I’m avoiding Mother because I don’t want her to ask questions I can’t answer, and I’m avoiding my valet because he cannot keep a secret and I can’t hide this one from him.”

  “Why? What happened?” Jonathan asked. “I caught sight of you at the Gala, but Aunt Lavinia pressed me into substituting for you in the receiving line, and by the time I got through, you’d disappeared.”

  “I got hit by a rifle ball during the Channel crossing.”

  “Bloody hell!” Jonathan swore. “Going or coming?”

  “Coming back.”

  “How badly? Are you all right? Was anyone else injured?” Jonathan was instantly concerned not just for his cousin but for the crew. He worked with the brave crew to smuggle men and supplies across the Channel as often as Daniel did and knew that most of the men Colin and Jarrod had recruited hailed from the villages of Pymley and Coldswater, not far from the Dover coast.

  “Shavers caught one through the flesh of the arm and Pepper’s got a new part in his hair, but I got the worst of it,” Daniel said. “The ball cut a groove through my side and cracked a rib or two, but it missed the vital organs.” He smiled. “I’ll live. But I wasn’t as certain of it at the party the other night.”

  Jonathan exhaled. “I can’t believe you made the journey at all. It must have hurt like the very devil.”

  Daniel shook his head. “Mistress Beekins stitched me up, bound my ribs, handed me a flask full of Scots whisky, then sent her son, Micah, along with a large jug of the stuff with me to London.” He flashed his grin at his cousin. “My wound barely pained me at all once I had that much whisky in me. But because I had that much whisky in me, I had Micah memorize the phrase and sent him to Shepherdston’s house with the dispatch pouches and the round of cheese. Did he get them?”

  “He got them. Gillian decoded them and Jarrod has reported the findings to the men at Whitehall.” He grinned at Daniel. “Job well done.”

  “Except for getting shot.” Daniel thought for a moment. “And something bothers me about that. There was something odd. Something I can’t quite put my finger on.”

  “Give it time,” Jonathan advised. “You’ll come up with the answer.” He shook his head in amazement. “I know you hold your spirits well, but to drink all the way from Dover to town …”

  “I had to,” Daniel replied. “It was the only way I could endure the trip.”

  “Good God, Daniel, why didn’t you just stay the night with the Beekinses?”

  “And miss making an appearance at the Duchess of Sussex’s annual gala?” He threw a glance at his cousin. “Would you?”

  Jonathan shook his head. “And she’s only my aunt. Not my mother.” He smiled at Daniel. “But by the time you arrived at your mother’s party, you must have been drunk.”

  “As the proverbial lord,” Daniel replied. “I’ve never had so much whisky in my life.” He gave a little laugh. “I still have an aching head and gaps in my memory.”

  “No wonder you found it necessary to avoid your mother.” Jonathan whistled through his teeth. “She’d have known you were foxed the minute she saw you.”

  “Which is why I left you to stand by Mother in the receiving line,” Daniel admitted. “Still, I could have avoided her and muddled through, but I accidentally tore Mistress Beekins’s stitches open and started bleeding. With no way to hide that, I was forced to prevail upon Miranda to waltz me out of there. Fast.”

  “Miranda?” Jonathan was only partly surprised. “St. Germaine?”

  “She’s the only Miranda I know.”

  “So, you’ve been staying with Miranda for the past two days?”

  Daniel glanced up at Jonathan’s clock. “Until a half hour ago.”

  Jonathan chuckled. “Courtland owes me ten pounds. I wagered you’d be with Miranda and Courtland wagered that you were holed up in a house somewhere.”

  “Split the difference,” Daniel advised, “because you’re both right. And tell me you didn’t record that particular wager in the betting books at White’s.”

  “Like that dunderhead Dunbridge?” Jonathan scoffed. “I’ve got better sense and better manners.” He glanced at Daniel to make certain Daniel had gotten the joke. Until he’d inherited the late Earl of Barclay’s title, Jonathan had been known as Johnny Manners. “I’m a gentleman. Dunbridge is a cad masquerading as a gentleman.”

  “Cad or not, he’s certainly caused Jarrod a great deal of trouble.”

  “That’s the truth.”

  “How is Shepherdston, by the way?” Daniel asked.

  Jonathan glanced at the casement clock. “I’m sure he’s fine. He’s either getting married or on his wedding trip by now.”

  “What?” Daniel was stunned. “Shepherdston?”

  “You said you saw the paper, Daniel. Shepherdston’s nothing if not a true gentleman. What did you expect him to do?”

  “Exactly what he’s doing,” Daniel replied. “It’s just such a shock. When I left, he was a confirmed bachelor, and I’ve only been gone a few days!”

  “I’m told that sometimes it happens like that.”

  “Marriages forced by scandal?”

  Jonathan smiled. “Those too. But I was talking about people falling in love.”

  “Shepherdston’s in love with Miss Eckersley?”

  “Head over heels,” Jonathan confirmed. “He’s known her forever, and it’s taken him this long to realize he’s in love with her.” He looked at his cousin to see if Daniel could handle another shock. “And that’s not all.”

  Daniel prepared himself for the worst. Whatever the worst was.

  “Lord Rob got married this morning.”

  Hearing Lord Robert Mayhew, Jarrod’s godfather, had gotten married after fifteen years as a widower came as an even greater shock to Daniel. Daniel had no idea Lord Rob had ever contemplated remarriage. “To whom?”

  “Lady Henrietta Dunbridge.”

  “Dunbridge?” Daniel vaguely recalled being introduced to a lovely widow several years Lord Rob’s junior who had accompanied a young lady making her presentation into society some three or four seasons ago. “There was a Lady Dunbridge. But I believe she was some relation to the current Lord Dunbridge.”

  Jonathan nodded. “His aunt by marriage.”

  “Lord Rob married Reggie Dunbridge’s aunt?”

  Jonathan smiled. “She also happens to be Miss Sarah Eckersley’s maternal aunt. She was born Miss Henrietta Helford. She became Lady Calvin Dunbridge upon her marriage, but she and her husband were later estranged, and he insisted that she not be styled with his given name, so on her rare occasions in London, she became known as Lady Henrietta Dunbridge.”

  “You’re joking!”

  “Not at all,” Jonathan answered. “Imagine, several days ago, Jarrod had no family except the Free Fellows League and Lord Rob. And today, in addition to Lord Rob and us, he’s getting an aunt by marriage and a bride.”

  Daniel began to laugh. He’d only been gone a few days, and the world as he knew it had been turned on its ear. Everything had changed. He couldn’t have been more surprised if Jonathan had told him the dowager duchess had gotten married.
“So, Johnny Manners,” Daniel drawled, “tell me everything that’s happened since I left for my trip to the coast. And start with the duel I read about in this morning’s papers.” Daniel took his feet off the leather ottoman, stretched his legs, then propped them up again.

  “Despite what you read in the papers,” Jonathan explained, “there was no duel. Jarrod, Griff, and Colin waited at the dueling oak for over an hour past the appointed time, but Dunbridge didn’t appear.”

  “So I heard.”

  Jonathan arched an eyebrow in query.

  “Miranda’s footman heard it at the Cocoa Tree when he stopped for coffee this morning. He told us that nobody knows why Dunbridge made it a point to challenge Jarrod, then failed to appear.”

  Jonathan snorted. “Somebody knows.”

  “That’s exactly what I thought when he told me,” Daniel said. “And that’s exactly why I came to you.”

  “Well, it’s one story you won’t be reading in the papers.” Jonathan glanced disapprovingly at a copy of the Morning Chronicle on the table beside his favorite chair.

  “I knew it!” Daniel crowed.

  “Knew what?” Jonathan tried to look innocent and failed.

  Daniel recognized the look on his cousin’s face. “I knew you wouldn’t allow your hero to face a duel alone, and since you weren’t with Shepherdston, Avon, or Grantham at the dueling oak, I knew you had to, behind Dunbridge’s failure to appear.”

  Jarrod Shepherdston had been Jonathan’s hero since Jonathan had occupied the cot beside Jarrod’s at Knightsguild. Back then, Jonathan Manners had been a lonely and frightened boy of seven. He’d whined incessantly and cried for his nanny nearly every night. The other boys at Knightsguild had made him their whipping boy, but Jarrod Shepherdston and the other Free Fellows had gone out of their way to be kind to him and to protect him as best they could—if only, Jarrod had confessed when they’d invited Jonathan to join the Free Fellows League a year ago, to bring an end to Manners’ whining and crying.

  Jonathan had grown into a strong, fine, principled man, who stood shoulder to shoulder with Jarrod and Colin and was only slightly shorter than Griffin and Daniel. He had never forgotten the kindness Shepherdston and the others had shown him and had been thrilled to finally be asked to take his place beside them in the League. Daniel knew that Jonathan would do almost anything in the world for Jarrod Shepherdston, including deliberately hindering his enemy.

  “So, Johnny, what did you do?”

  Jonathan stood up and gestured for Daniel to do the same. “Step into my bedchamber and I’ll show you.”

  Daniel followed Barclay into his bedchamber and discovered that nearly every surface in the room was covered with men’s clothing of every description. The floor, the bed, the chairs, the tables, even the top of Jonathan’s massive armoire was covered in clothes.

  Jonathan plucked a garment from the pile. “It’s a shame you didn’t come to borrow a waistcoat,” he said, tossing it to Daniel. “I’ve a few dozen of those to spare.”

  Daniel caught the waistcoat. “As if I were desperate enough to borrow anything as gaudy as this.” He stared at the bold green and purple pattern, then tossed it back to Jonathan.

  “Well, there are plenty of other garments from which to choose,” Jonathan continued. “As you can see, we’ve enough men’s clothing here to open a haberdashery.”

  “Only if one’s tastes run along dandyish lines.”

  Jonathan quirked an eyebrow. “In any other town, I’d say that might present a problem. But not in London.”

  “Unfortunately, I have to agree,” Daniel replied, eyeing the room with a mixture of disgust and awe. “It looks as if you helped yourself to Lord Dunbridge’s wardrobe.”

  “So I did,” Jonathan confirmed.

  “It must have taken you a while to collect all this.” He swept his arm through the air.

  “It took us hours.” Jonathan tossed Dunbridge’s waistcoat back onto the bed and motioned Daniel out of the bedroom, back into the main sitting room. Closing the bedroom door to keep from having to look at the mess, he followed him.

  Daniel walked over and helped himself to coffee from the urn on the buffet, then turned and offered to refill Jonathan’s cup.

  “Yes, thank you.” Jonathan handed Daniel his empty cup and saucer. “There are pastries from Gunter’s in the box by the urn. I picked them up this morning. I just got the coffee before you arrived, and I haven’t cut the string on the pastry box yet. Bring those, too, if you don’t mind,” Jonathan instructed, before adding, “Your Grace.”

  Daniel brought Jonathan his coffee and the box of pastries, then made a second trip to the buffet to get his own coffee. He settled back onto his chair, set his cup and saucer on the table beside it, then reached for a pastry and propped his feet back up on the ottoman. He took a bite of a cherry tart.

  “You were saying it took you and someone else hours to collect Dunbridge’s garments. Who was the someone?”

  “Alex Courtland.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “People are not always what they seem.”

  —Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, 1729–1797

  “Of course.” Daniel grinned. “Who else but Courtland would agree to help you with something like this?”

  “Thank God he did,” Jonathan said. “Else I’d still be picking up clothes from Dunbridge’s lawn.”

  “Surely you didn’t take all of his clothes?”

  “How else were we going to be certain he wouldn’t appear at the dueling oak at the appointed time?” He grinned at his cousin. “And even then, we couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t go buck naked. Courtland wanted to tie him up, but I thought it better just to leave him as he was and with nothing to wear.”

  “Imagine that,” Daniel said. “A dandy with nothing to wear.”

  “Right,” Jonathan agreed. “The joke was on him. But Courtland and I didn’t count on the man having so many clothes. We were picking up clothes until the small hours of the morning as it was. I swear Dunbridge must have a thousand neck cloths and handkerchiefs.”

  “I can’t believe you took his neck cloths and his handkerchiefs.”

  “You saw it for yourself.”

  And he wouldn’t have believed it otherwise. But Daniel had seen the mountain of linen on Jonathan’s floor. “Did you leave him with anything?”

  “One pair of brief drawers,” Jonathan answered. “And that was only because I dropped them when we were shoving everything into the coach and neither one of us wanted to bend and pick them up.”

  “I’m impressed by your complete and thorough ruthlessness.” Daniel laughed. “And curious as to how you and Courtland managed to get into Dunbridge’s house and abscond with his clothes?”

  “His butler let us in.”

  “Dunbridge’s butler let you in to steal his clothes?” Daniel bit back a smile. “It appears the man has more enemies than he knows.”

  “I’m sure there are a few hundred people in town who hate him for his taste in clothes alone. But in all fairness to his butler, the man let us in because he thought we were doing his employer a favor by bringing him home.”

  “From where?”

  “Madam Theodora’s,” Jonathan answered, helping himself to a cream puff. “He was at Madam Theo’s after the ball last night boasting about his upcoming duel with Shepherdston.”

  “And?” Daniel prompted.

  Jonathan grinned. “I thought Madam Theodora was going to faint. I know she’s fond of Jarrod, but she must be even fonder of him than we thought, because she turned as pale as a ghost.”

  “Maybe she’s fond of Lord Dunbridge,” Daniel suggested, playing the devil’s advocate.

  “She doesn’t give a fig about the current one,” Jonathan said. “But she apparently adored the previous one. It seems Madam Theo’s house originally belonged to the previous Lord Dunbridge, who happened to be the late husband of Lord Rob’s bride.”

  Daniel recalled the name. “Lord Calvin Dunbridge
.”

  Jonathan nodded. “There’s a history there I’m not privy to, but suffice it to say that Madam Theo has some attachment to Miss Eckersley and to Lady Dunbridge and is very protective of both of them. Any road, Madam Theo recovered from her shock or fright or whatever it was soon enough. She called the girls together in the parlor and told them that as long as Lord Dunbridge remained in the house, the night’s entertainment and drinks were free. It must have cost her a bloody fortune, because the house was bursting at the seams all night long.” He shook his head. “It was quite a party.”

  Daniel stared at Barclay’s pallor and red eyes and agreed. “I don’t doubt it a bit.”

  “As you can imagine, no one wanted him to leave. Every time he attempted to go, someone pulled him back inside and handed him a drink. He put up a good argument for a while. Kept telling everyone that he had to go home and prepare for his duel, but it was hard to say no to all his well-wishers.” Jonathan paused to polish off his cream puff before resuming his story. “When he finally passed out, in the arms of the new redhead, Mina, Madam Theo came to me and asked me to assist her in removing him. I sent for Courtland and asked him to assist me.” He smiled a wicked smile. “Together we hauled him down the back stairs of Madam Theo’s, shoved him into my coach, and took him to his town house.”

  “Where his butler let you in.”

  “Right. We didn’t have any trouble there because Dunbridge’s butler was glad to have us there to help his master up the stairs.” Lifting his cup and saucer, Jonathan took a long swallow. “And once we gained entrance, it was a simple matter of dismissing the butler and carrying Dunbridge up the stairs to his bed.” He smiled at the memory. “I have to say it was the best adventure I’ve had since university days that didn’t involve smuggling.”

  “I don’t even know the fellow and I would have paid money to see you and Courtland carrying him up the stairs.” Daniel smiled.

  “Especially when we were none too steady on our feet, either.” Jonathan threw back his head and laughed. “We had to have been drunk to do what we did, and I have to say it was a first for me.” He looked at Daniel. “I hope he’s the last drunken lord I ever have to strip naked.” He shuddered in mock horror. “Carrying him up the stairs was hard enough. But getting his clothes off him while he was asleep was worse. I swear it felt as if he weighed a ton, and it was all dead weight …”