The Unusual Story of the Silent Duchess: A Historical Regency Romance Novel

by Linfield, Emma

  “I do not,” Julian said through gritted teeth. He did not have time for such distractions. He was here to get his bride, and that was all. “And my family is no concern of yours, sir, let me tell you.”

  “Beg your pardon.” The coachman snorted, poking about the coins in his palm. “I didn’t mean to offend,” he slipped the handful of money into his pocket and brushed his hands together, evidently satisfied with his wages. “Evening then, sir,” he said, and climbed back onto the coach, spurring his four-horse team back along the road whence they had come from.

  Julian moped into the common house, bringing in with his large body a gust of the cold autumn air for all attendants to feel.

  “Shut the door!” someone called, and Julian swung closed the heavy oak behind him, blinking his eyes in the poorly-lit place.

  There was a large, crackling hearth against the far wall set in a brick fireplace, that illuminated the majority of the space with that dancing orange glow, bouncing all around the scorched walls of its confines.

  A large number of tenant farmers filled the space, drinking their ale joyfully. On each of the round tables sat a fleeting candle, which hardly did anything at all to light the space. The bar ran down the wall beside the fire, and behind it stood a grouchy old man with the thickest of mustaches he had ever witnessed. His dirty clothes played tricks with the shadows beyond the lip of the fireplace, and this gave him a rather brooding appearance. Julian waddled to a stool and sat down.

  “Ale for you, sir?” the tavern keeper asked. “We got a good bit of baked bread for a gentleman such as yourself if you like.”

  “Yes fine, ale and bread,” Julian replied, planting a pound on the countertop.

  “Will you be needing a room as well sir?”

  “I should imagine so,” Julian replied, taking the ale he was handed.

  “Right back with your bread,” the tavern keeper said, and turned to tend the fire.

  Julian looked around the room sceptically. He did not see any rooms for lending, but the ale was good enough. He hated these lowly places, frequented by the delinquently poor. He had grown above all that and sitting in such a common house reminded him of his humble beginnings. If he were a modest fellow, this would matter very little to him. But Julian was not modest in the least, however, so he despised the occupants of these impoverished walls.

  “Bread for you sir,” the tavern keeper said, returning with a small plate of deliciously piping rolls.

  “Where are the rooms?” Julian asked, moving to sample a roll of bread, but finding it far too hot to touch. The tip of his finger was left a bit blistered, and it annoyed him.

  “Downstairs sir, Room 3 for you.”

  “Downstairs?” Julian looked around again, locating a narrow staircase down. I have to sleep in a blasted cellar, he thought, I cannot wait to be well away from here and all of this house’s failings.

  “Aye, sir, downstairs,” the tavern keeper confirmed, taking the heavy coin from the bar. “Should you need anything, I’m Glover, I will be here all night. You are, sir?”

  “Bastable,” Julian said.

  “Right then, Mr. Bastable,” Glover said, pouring him another pint of ale.

  Julian sat and watched the dirty farmers drink and laugh and hit each other on the back. The sight was deplorable. Julian enjoyed a drink as much as the next person, perhaps he enjoyed it a good deal more than the next person, but he never allowed it to keep him poor. These poor grubs, he thought, they will spend the rest of their lives in this place.

  After a while, the door swung open again, and again the newcomer was hailed to shut it. Julian turned over his shoulder to take a look, just because he had nothing better to stare at. It was a young man, thin and strapping, who seemed to be loved by everybody.

  “Oliver! Come and have a pint, lad!” Glover shouted, and the room gave him a collective cheer, rising from a rattle. People were pounding on tables and throwing their heads back in utter drunkenness.

  “Fill it up, Glover,” Oliver called back, sauntering up to the bar and sliding in beside Julian. He gave him a short once over, and a nod of his head.

  “Here you are Master Hanson,” Glover said, sliding a mug his way.

  “Cheers,” Oliver said and drank deeply.

  “Got a lot to drink about, eh?” Julian asked. Randolph had mentioned an Oliver Hanson, who worked in the Duke’s household. This was his way in. He had to press it, but he had to be careful. One wrong move could upend the entire operation.

  “Hmm?” Oliver sloshed down the rest of the ale and passed it back to Glover for a refill.

  “A lot to drink about, I said,” Julian turned to face the young man who was wiping the foam from his lips.

  “I suppose,” Oliver chuckled, taking back his mug.

  “Bastable, Julian Bastable,” Julian extended his hand, concealing his dread of touching someone as dirty and destitute as Oliver.

  “Oliver Hanson,” they shook hands.

  “So, tell me of your troubles, Master Hanson.”

  “Why should I?”

  “We both have nothing better to do,” Julian countered.

  “Are you some kind of Mason?” Oliver raised his voice a bit, squinting his eyes.

  “Lord no,” Julian laughed. “Far from it.”

  “Well enough,” Oliver laughed back. “I am to be married.”

  “Married? Congratulations, sir, that is no trouble.”

  “No, the wedding is not the troubling bit,” Oliver confessed over another ale. “It is the child.”

  “Ah I see,” Julian cooed sympathetically. “It is no trouble that people cannot overcome.”

  “Yet, I find myself in need of much more money than I possess,” Oliver went on. “There is no other way to make more of it. I work in the Duke’s house, and it pays more than the farm ever did, yet still, I must find another way.”

  “What ways have you considered?” Julian could not believe his luck. This young lad would play the role perfectly. It was only a matter of time until he had Mary-Anne Barnes in his grasp, and this boy would help him.

  “I have thought of the army, for I know I could do well there, and I have always longed to see the world.”

  “It is a dangerous world,” Julian cautioned. “Especially the places the army will bring you to, yet you are right to think that there is great success to be made there. The practice is an ancient one, everlastingly efficient. Yet, the risk that accompanies it is a brutal one, prone to all sort of strange diseases and savages.”

  “So many have told me the same, yet none acknowledged the greatness that can be achieved,” Oliver said.

  “Yet there are far better ways to make one’s fortune,” Julian went on. “Ways that do not involve getting shot at in Africa. I am a businessman, myself, and I could teach you a great deal.”

  “What sort of business are you in?” Oliver asked, leaning in.

  “The wool business, until very recently,” Julian sighed. “But all that is in the past now. I am onto something new, something exciting and fresh.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Gemstones, perhaps, diamonds I think,” Julian said, with a twinkle in his eye. “There is great profit there, greater than wool in any sort. Africa awaits me, Master Hanson, and all her riches.”

  “How do I get into that business?” Oliver asked. “It seems impossible.”

  “That is where you are wrong, Master Hanson, dead wrong,” Julian sat up straight, engrossing Oliver with his yarns. He almost had him, ripe for the picking. Julian leaned in close to the young man and spoke in a hushed voice. “I look around this room, and do you know what I see? Go on, take a look around.”

  Oliver scanned the room. “They are farmers,” he said. “Having a drink.”

  “Exactly that,” Julian said. “Farmers. And they will forever be farmers. But out of all the people here, Master Hanson, it is you who will not be a farmer. I can see something in you, a drive that no one else here can realize, something that
I have myself, something that will take you all the way to the top.”

  “What do you see in me?” Oliver seemed bewildered by the speech.

  “The strength to do what you must,” Julian said. “To make money, it often lends that one must invest a great deal of it, do you understand?”

  Oliver nodded his understanding through a mouthful of ale.

  “But where to find that first loan, that first investor, therein lays the greatest challenge to all who seek their own enterprise. Do you think the East India company started on loans from the King? God no! They built themselves from the ground up, stone by stone, until they owned the world.”

  “They own a sure lot of it,” Oliver said.

  “Indeed,” Julian smiled patiently. He could not ruin this for himself. He had this boy in the palm of his hand, but he had to proceed cautiously. “Do you know how I earned my first investor, Master Hanson?”

  “You know I don’t,” Oliver countered.

  “Ah! Quick with the wit, I like that,” Julian complimented. “I was in India, you see, just after my contract with the service had expired.”

  “You were in the army?” Oliver perked up.

  “For a time,” Julian waved it away. “It is of no importance.” In truth, Julian had deserted from the army in India, just as they were to ship off to England, but that bit made for a poor story. “I had just become a free man, and so, I went to the shipyards and found work with the harbor master. I worked, and I worked until finally, I found the confidence to ask for more responsibilities. The harbour master obliged, and I took delight with my new tasks, exceeding where those before me had shirked, because, like you, I had the courage to succeed.”

  “What happened then?” Oliver asked.

  “One day, the harbour master died, and he left me a small ship as a thank you gift for my years of faithful service. I was delighted, but his sons were not. I made preparations with a bank to contract a loan for my new shipping company, but the harbour master’s sons got me most foully drunk one night and torched my boat. It was a complete disaster. My loan request, was, of course, rejected. What shipping company had no ships? Not even one?”

  “Did you get revenge, on the sons?” Oliver said, leaning closer to hear the whispers.

  “I received justice,” Julian said. “I went to the sons and demanded that they provide me with a ship, funding for my company, and a large shipment of Indian dyes that I knew they kept hoarded in one of their warehouses. I threatened them with the full extent of His Majesty’s law. I told them that I had already sold the ship to the East India Company. Therefore, it was insured by the crown’s retribution. India having become a fresh colony, they would be subject to a hanging. I told them that I had already written the magistrate of Ceylon and that they could not kill me now to keep me quiet. So, they yielded,” Julian concluded the tale.

  The story was a well-constructed analogy, and not at all a true picture of Julian’s time in India. Yet the tale did impart the idea that he was an immovable force, and that was how he had crafted it.

  “Well done!” Oliver clapped, clearly a bit foxed in the cheeks.

  “Do you see what I mean, lad?” Julian asked. “If you want something, you have to take it.”

  “Unfortunately, I do not have a harbor master to threaten,” Oliver laughed. “But I take your point. What I say to you is this: I know not where to take it from.”

  “That is where I come in,” Julian said, smiling wide and patting Oliver on the shoulder. It was time to strike. “I would like to make an investment in your future, Master Hanson, in you and your unborn child’s future.”

  “An investment?” Oliver sat back, startled. “What are you talking about?”

  “You deserve a head start, don’t you think? On whatever it is you apply yourself to.”

  “I know how to tell an opportunity when I see one,” Oliver said. “Yet, I also know when a thing is too good to be true.”

  “Come now,” Julian said. “Listen to what I have to say.”

  “Very well,” Oliver conceded, easing back into his seat, no doubt compelled by the thought of money. “Keep on it.”

  “I need something done, something I cannot do myself. For this task I will pay you handsomely, well enough indeed to get that investment wherever it needs to go, do you follow me?”

  “What would you have me do?” Oliver asked hesitantly.

  “You work in the manor, is that correct? The Duke’s house?”

  “Aye, as a house servant and a groundskeeper.”

  “So, it is safe to assume you know everyone who works in the manor?”

  “Aye sir, I know everybody there is to know.”

  “That, I believe,” Julian admitted eagerly, glancing around to ensure they were left well ignored. The common house’s population was rather oblivious to everything, it seemed, as they carried on in their own little circles of balding heads. “What do you know of a woman who began there only recently, in the past month or two?”

  “You mean Emily?” Oliver asked.

  There she is! Julian thought. I have found you, ‘Emily’.

  “Tell me about her,” Julian said.

  “She’s a mute,” Oliver said. “Can’t speak a word. Never heard her speak at least, everyone else says she can’t.”

  “A mute?” Julian was very curious. It had to be her, yet, a mute?

  “Mr. Marton said that they found her down by the river, come out of some terrible storm,” Oliver continued. “She took her time waking up, and when she did, she wasn’t speaking to anyone. Don’t know if she was like that before, I only just moved into the house last month.”

  “She came out of a storm?”

  “Yes sir,” Oliver replied. “Don’t know much beyond that.”

  “What are her duties, in the house?”

  “She cares for the old lady mostly,” Oliver sighed and twiddled his thumbs. “That’s a sad state of things, truly.”

  “Yes, yes,” Julian said, not caring about the Duke’s mother’s mental health. “It is very sad. How has this Emily taken to the manor?”

  “I suppose well enough, Mr. Thomas has an eye out for her though. I don’t suppose he trusts her entirely.”

  “Does he trust you?”

  Oliver leaned back his head, clearly evaluating his experiences with Thomas and reviewing their relationship.

  “I would say so, more than her in any case.”

  “Good, that is good,” Julian said. “That is what is needed.”

  “What is needed?” Oliver blinked. “Is that all you wanted? Some questions about Emily? Didn’t know I could make a coin off of gossip.”

  “One can make a coin doing just about anything imaginable,” Julian said, sliding a few pounds across to Oliver, who snatched them up with attention.

  “I’ve never held this much money before,” Oliver remarked. “It’s heavy.”

  “This is heavier,” Julian handed him a small purse full of like weighted coins.

  “Mary Mother of God,” Oliver gasped, as the weighted purse came into his lap.

  “That is what I mean by investment,” Julian smiled. “This is what I need of you: tomorrow evening, just before the family supper, you will take a fine piece of silver from the family sets, and you will stow it with her belongings. Then, you will bring it to this Mr. Thomas’ attention, in full view of all.”

  “Why sir? That’s a horrid thing to do.”

  “It is not a horrid thing,” Julian replied. “It is only a necessary thing. You must do what you must do to ensure your family’s future, will you not? And I will tell you something else, something to put you at ease. There is much more to that woman than meets the eye. She has her dark secrets. She is not all innocent. Will you help me?”

  “I will,” Oliver confirmed, determined. “Yet, this is a strange, ill act.”

  “It is an act alone, Master Hanson, and nothing more,” Julian plucked the jingling purse back from Oliver’s lap, as his fleeting eyes watched it g
o. “What is the name of your wife to be?”

  “Lucy,” Oliver just blinked out the answer reactively.

  “Well,” Julian stood from the bar and chugged down the rest of his ale, collecting his overcoat on his arm. “The choice is yours whether to help Lucy or not,” Julian went on. “But should you decline my offer, as is your God-given right, then I should not ever expect to hear any wind of this rumour, in Rutland or otherwise. If I do, then perhaps Lucy and Oliver Jr. will merit a visit down the road,” Julian spat out the last line and turned to make away. “I will be in Room 3,” he said in parting. “In case you find the gumption for what is required.”