A Duke by Default: Dangerous Dukes Vol 3

by Wendy Soliman

  ‘Harriet my dear, are you awake?’

  Harriet sat up, her heart hammering against her ribs, petrified that Marc must be in danger. ‘Yes, what is it?’

  ‘I am an early riser, as you can see. I don’t sleep well and love to watch the sun come up over the river on fine days like today.’

  Harriet tried to appear interested, but failed to see what Katherine’s insomnia had to do with her. ‘I see,’ she said politely.

  ‘It’s your little dog. I know how fond you are of him.’

  ‘Freddie?’ She looked around, realising the puppy wasn’t occupying his usual position on her feet. ‘What about him.’

  ‘He’s down by the river, terrorising the ducks. I tried to get him to come away but he wouldn’t listen to me.’

  Harriet smiled. ‘He loves to do that. I wonder how he got out of this room. Never mind, if you give me a moment to slip into a gown, I shall come down myself and save the ducks.’

  ‘I will wait for you outside and go back with you.’

  ‘There is no need to inconvenience yourself.’

  ‘No, I should like to.’

  ‘Very well then. Thank you.’

  Harriet pulled on an old gown she could tie without help, and pushed her feet into the first slippers that came her way: the emerald green ones she had worn the night before. The ones which Marc had removed from her feet, kissing each instep as he did so, before throwing them across the room in his haste to relieve her of the rest of her attire. She had teased him, telling him Martha was in a taking because she no longer had any duties to perform.

  She ran through the house in Katherine’s wake as fast as her injured thigh would permit.

  ‘I left the side door open,’ Katherine said, opening it and standing back to let Harriet pass through it first.

  Without a second thought, she rushed through it and straight into a pair of rough arms. A hand was clamped over her mouth to prevent her from screaming. Something was tied over her eyes and the hand over her mouth was replaced by a gag. She felt herself being lifted against a coarse tunic and carried away from the house.

  ‘Morning, Your Grace.’ Harriet’s heart quailed. She would recognise Sanderson’s nasal tone anywhere.

  ‘Be silent!’ Katherine’s harsh tone was devoid of all friendliness and rife with authority. ‘You’ll rouse the entire household. Make haste and get her down to the river to join her wretched dog.’

  ‘Right you are. Now stop struggling, Your Grace.’ Sanderson sounded alarmingly sure of himself. ‘It won’t do yer no good.’

  Too stunned to react at first, Harriet’s mind made up for lost time by whirling into action, racing with possibilities. She was damned if she would permit herself to be abducted without putting up a fight. She continued to thrash about, doing everything she could to make Sanderson’s task more difficult. But her legs were still weak and she was unable to catch his shin. Her arms pummelled impotently against his chest but at least she had the satisfaction of hearing his sharp intake of breath as her fingers sank into his throat. A hissed curse, followed by a sharp blow to the area where she had struck her head twice already, caused her senses to reel. She ignored the ensuing dizziness and continued to put up spirited resistance.

  Her gag prevented her from crying for help but that didn’t mean she intended to make life easy for her captors. Knowing they were bound for the river gave her an advantage, of sorts. Disregarding the pounding in her temple as she struggled to retain her grip on consciousness, she pushed one of her emerald slippers to the edge of her toes, using her other foot to lever it into position. By the evenness of Sanderson’s footsteps, she judged they must be crossing the main lawn, which was always smoothly cut, and ought to be roughly adjacent to the drawing room windows by now. She pushed the loose slipper free, trusting to luck that Katherine, whose gown she could hear swishing against the grass as she walked beside them, wouldn’t notice. When a search was made for her, the slipper was bound to be discovered, lending a clue as to her whereabouts. It wasn’t much but was the best she could do.

  They had reached the river. Harriet could smell the fresh water and hear it in full flood. Marc had told her it had a strong current and gentlemen had to take care when fishing it not to be swept away. Leaving her gag in place, Sanderson removed the blindfold and she blinked to clear vision rendered cloudy from the duel effects of the rough cloth and the heavy blow from Sanderson’s hand. She looked towards the river and gasped around the gag. Freddie, her dear little puppy, was stranded on an island in the middle of the fast-flowing river, trembling and whimpering with fear.

  ‘You are a very difficult lady to do away with,’ Sanderson complained.

  Harriet looked at Katherine, a question in her eyes.

  ‘You want to know why?’

  Harriet nodded. She wanted to know, and she also wanted to delay these two for as long as possible. It would give Marc the opportunity to come home and find her missing. At a gesture from Katherine, Sanderson removed her gag.

  ‘If you scream, there is no one to hear you.’

  ‘You really must be desperate,’ Harriet said scathingly. ‘Using a poor little puppy to get your way.’

  ‘It was necessary.’ Katherine waved a hand dismissively. ‘Besides, such a nondescript mutt has no place at Endersby. You were sound asleep and it was easy enough to entice from your chamber with a pork chop.’

  ‘All right, you have me here. At least save Freddie now.’

  Katherine brushed the suggestion aside. ‘That is what you are here to do.’

  ‘You…you want me to go in that river?’ Harriet felt the blood drain from her face. “But I cannot…I don’t like—’

  ‘Oh, I am so sorry. How thoughtless of me. You are frightened of water and can’t swim. Well, I have heard it said that you’re headstrong so no one will believe you didn’t attempt to rescue the miserable creature anyway.’

  Harriet eyed Katherine with intense curiosity and unadulterated fear. She really should have listened to Marc and not been taken in by her. ‘What have I done to cause you to hate me so much?’

  ‘Did you really think we’d allow someone like you to become a part of this family and do nothing about it? How can you be that obtuse?’ Katherine looked at her with incredulity. ‘It is bad enough that Marcus deliberately killed my brother.’

  ‘He did no such thing!’

  ‘He deliberately killed Jonathan so he would succeed to the dukedom. Jonathan was no great loss. He was weak and indecisive, so we might have forgiven Marc had he done his duty and married me. My mother had intended all along that he should.’ Katherine pushed her hands through her loose hair and glowered at Harriet. ‘He always was too obstinate for his own good.’

  Harriet intuitively understood it all at that moment. Katherine’s bitterness and her vitriolic assault upon Marc’s character failed to disguise her genuine love for him. She must have been sure they would marry. By refusing her, Marc had not only injured her feelings but also kept the family’s fortune away from her mother’s control.

  ‘If you were so suitable, why didn’t he marry you instead of me?’

  ‘Because he is ungrateful, unfeeling and doesn’t understand the meaning of family loyalty.’

  ‘Oh, he certainly doesn’t lack for feeling.’ Harriet produced a knowing smile. ‘But you must take my word for that.’

  Katherine inhaled sharply and her expression hardened ‘Did you really suppose we would sit back and permit my father’s by-blow to be the next duchess? Or the mother of the next duke?’ Her features twisted into a mask of hatred, rendered ugly by jealousy. ‘We would become a laughing stock.’

  ‘Does Marc know you are in love with him?’

  ‘Me? Love him?’ Katherine emitted a shrill laugh. ‘That’s utter moonshine.’

  Harriet merely smiled. ‘And so you and your mother planned to do away with me.’

  Katherine looked surprised. ‘My mother is no longer strong and Marcus’s unfortunate marriage to you has hi
t her badly. Unable to talk him out of his decision, she decided there was nothing more she could do to uphold the family honour. She suffers excessively as a result of his ingratitude and I can’t bear to witness her decline. So it has fallen to my lot to salvage what I can of our former respectability. She is unaware of the particulars of my plan. I am the only one with enough backbone to do anything about it. Sanderson and I planned the whole thing.’

  ‘With your husband’s assistance?’

  She tossed her head, and laughed. ‘Why would I bother him about it? He couldn’t find his way beyond the bottom of a whisky bottle.’

  ‘If you kill me, what’s to stop Marcus marrying someone else? Whomever he chooses, I am perfectly sure she won’t come up to your exacting standards.’

  ‘Oh, my dear, did I not make myself clear?’ Katherine’s smile would have given a wolf pause. ‘We fully intend for him to leave this world, too.’

  ‘How?’ Harriet laughed but the sound of Freddie’s increased whimpers quickly wiped the smile from her face and she ached to rescue him. ‘I believe he’s a strong swimmer.’

  ‘No, we have other plans for him.’

  ‘Marc warned me about you but I was too foolish to listen.’

  ‘Yes, I was counting upon your gullibility to work in my favour.’

  ‘Through your meticulous planning you may have found an outlet for your resentment towards my husband but do you really imagine you can kill him and get away with it?’

  ‘Of course! We know about his plot to get us back to Matlock House. It has amused Sanderson to watch him and his cohorts spending frustrating nights there.’

  ‘It was a shame about Binstead getting caught, though.’ The sound of Sanderson’s rough voice surprised Harriet since he hadn’t spoken for some time. ‘I was making good money out of that. Still, it weren’t no trouble to get him out again.’

  ‘You will make more money still when we succeed with our current plan,’ Katherine assured him.

  ‘So it was you who supplied him with the information about my parentage,’ Harriet said. ‘We thought it must be.’

  Sanderson bowed and smirked simultaneously. ‘Happy to be of service, Your Grace.’

  ‘It was tempting to allow the nightly sojourns at Matlock House to continue,’ Katherine said. ‘But we didn’t know whether they would tire of waiting and couldn’t afford to take that chance. We know as well that you suspected Jessup of involvement. Sanderson mentioned that gentleman’s interest in rare art in Marcus’s hearing to deliberately plant the possibility of his involvement in his head. He knows nothing of all this.’

  ‘But you did not find the cartoons.’ Harriet spoke tauntingly. She might be quaking with fear inside but had no intention of giving her captors the satisfaction of knowing it. She glanced at the river. Freddie had stopped whimpering. He now lay on the tiny spit of land, lashed by river water, looking at her with a pleading expression that made her feel wretchedly impotent.

  ‘What interest were they to us? Sanderson broke into Matlock House with the direct intention of killing you, my dear.’ Harriet felt what little colour she possessed draining from her face but lifted her chin and faced her captors defiantly. ‘If Marcus hadn’t been in such a rush to go through with the marriage, I dare say we could have thought of a way to get rid of you before the wedding.’

  ‘But my death would not preclude him from marrying again.’

  ‘Which is why you must both die. This is altogether a better plan, which will result in my son assuming the title and the family’s fortune falling under my control. Things have a way of working out for the best, don’t you find?’ She smiled a vindictive smile—a smile that seemed touched by madness. ‘Marcus had the opportunity to behave as he should. Had he chosen Miss Gibbons, as my mother went to immense trouble to persuade him to do, then we would have made the best of it and been able to hold our heads up in public. But enough of this! Sanderson, we must finish our preparations. Marcus will be back at any moment. I shall meet him and tell him of your determination to rescue the mutt. He will rush to your aid and Sanderson will push him in the river. He will die—you will both die—in his valiant attempt to rescue you.’

  ‘But he can swim,’ Harriet said patiently, as though speaking to a ten-year-old. ‘Besides, Lord Merrow will be with him. You can kill him, too.’

  ‘Merrow will go directly to his room. I will wait until he does before accosting Marc.’

  Harriet watched, her despair growing, as Sanderson sent her a cocky grin and waved a heavy wooden club beneath her nose. ‘His Grace can only swim if he’s conscious.’

  ‘What makes you think Marc will calmly walk into a trap? He already mistrusts you.’

  ‘Out of fear for your welfare.’

  ‘Nonsense. He married me because we were caught in a compromising position. He has no feelings for me.’

  ‘Is that what you really think?’ Katherine raised a brow. ‘We all thought he was a cold fish, incapable of feeling anything, but one only needs to be in the same room as the two of you for five minutes to realise he’s lost his heart. He can’t keep his eyes off you!’ She let out a scornful laugh, even as a denial sprang to Harriet’s lips. ‘Who would have credited it? Not only does he have feelings after all but he chooses to invest them in a nameless nobody.’ She twirled away, her face once again twisted with bitterness. ‘Make no mistake about it, Marcus won’t allow anyone to get to you before he does.’

  ‘Sanderson can’t possibly club Marcus and expect to get away with it.’

  ‘Your concern for his welfare is touching, if unfounded. Sanderson won’t put himself in danger, which is why he went to so much trouble to spring Binstead from gaol. Are you aware he was spitting expletives when arrested, all of them directed towards Marcus? No, I can see your beloved spared you that intelligence. Well, what can be more natural than for him to seek revenge against the man who turned him into a fugitive? He’s been deprived of a lucrative career and his ambitions in respect of your mother have been thwarted.’ She shared an evil smile with Sanderson. ‘He’s hiding on the estate right now, in the boat house.’ Katherine waved a hand towards the structure in question. ‘It is he who will deal with Marcus. Sanderson will be in the house, in full view of everyone. Should anyone be caught, it will be Binstead.’

  Sanderson offered her a noxious smile as he pushed her towards the river. Harriet felt a chill ripple down her spine—not for her own safety, but for Marc’s. Katherine’s next words, articulated with a combination of satisfaction and malignant spite, recalled her attention.

  ‘Come, my dear, your poor little puppy is in need of you.’

  She placed a hand in the small of Harriet’s back and gave her a vicious push that sent her sprawling face-first into the strong currents of the river.

  ‘We’ll give it two more nights, Giles,’ said Marc, tiredness seeping through his limbs as he dismounted after another fruitless night’s watch at Matlock House. ‘If nothing comes of it, we shall have to think of another plan. We can’t go on like this indefinitely.’

  ‘I can’t think why the villains have not returned.’

  ‘Nor I.’ Marc sighed. ‘Thank you, Giles. Now get some rest.’

  ‘Until later.’ Giles waved over his shoulder and disappeared into his own room.

  Marc entered his wife’s chamber. The bed was empty but he saw no reason for alarm. She had probably been unable to sleep and he would doubtless find her curled up in a chair in the library, immersed in a book, having lost all track of time. He headed for the stairs, only to meet Katherine coming in the other direction.

  ‘Have you seen Harriet?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I observed her dashing down the lawn a moment or two ago. Her puppy escaped and I believe she though the river would be the most likely place to find him. He has a fondness for the ducks, apparently.’

  ‘Ah, of course.’

  Reassured, Marc went in pursuit of his wife, knowing about her fear of the water, worried she w
ould get too close to it. His heart missed a beat when he encountered one of her slippers, discarded on the lawn. Why wouldn’t she have stopped to put it back on? He picked the shoe up. It was one of the evening slippers she had worn the night before. He recalled how urgently he had removed it and what had occurred between them after that. Suspicion and fear clouded his mind. Why was Katherine up and dressed at such an early hour? He knew she didn’t sleep well, but even so...

  He sped towards the river at a run, cursing his stupidity. He suspected Sanderson’s hand behind this sorry business all along but he had told her she had nothing to fear from him here at Endersby. This was the second occasion upon which he had failed to protect his wife and, inchoate with anger, he vowed it would be the last.

  He reached the river bank and saw Harriet, still alive, wading towards Freddie, who was stranded on a tiny island in the middle of the flowing water. Relief and anger competed for dominance inside him. What the devil did she think she was doing, risking her life in such a foolish fashion? If Freddie had swum out there, he could damned well swim back. At least it wasn’t a sinister plot to do away with her, as he had at first thought, and he would just have to rescue her before the current dragged her away.

  About to call to his wife to return to the bank, he sensed a presence behind him. He turned in time to see Binstead raising a hefty club aimed straight at his head.

  The water was colder and a lot stronger than it looked from the bank. It didn’t help matters that Harriet’s head was still whirling from the blow Sanderson had delivered to it, and the bash—another bash—it had received when Kathrine pushed her into the river. She ignored her discomfort, intent upon reaching Freddie, who was now yapping with excitement as she drew closer to him.

  She sensed activity on the river bank and turned in time to see Marc appear. Before she could warn him, Binstead sprang out of his hiding place, wielding his club. He moved with remarkable agility, fuelled no doubt by anger, determination and desperation.