“I do not wish to outshine my friends from the very beginning,” Samuel retorted, through clenched teeth. How he wished he could aim his next ball at Edward’s head! Instead, he turned the ball over in his hand, thoughtfully surveying the ground of their game before taking his shot. This, too, fell short but was at least a clear intention towards victory.
“Well done!” Joanna called, her own compliment sounding genuine and true compared to Edward’s brash teasing. Emboldened and feeling as if he were challenging for more than the hollow victory at a simple game between friends, Samuel threw again, this one striking the marker where it lay, and declaring him immediately the winner.
“Foul!” Edward thundered, striding forwards. “I do not know how, but I am sure there must be a foul somewhere in such a move!” He turned towards the group, his face breaking into a smile. He laughed, but Samuel sensed the sound was humourless and hollow, something put on for the benefit of the ladies and to disguise his very real annoyance at being bested - again - at so simple a game.
“Tis a fine thing there was no wager at stake,” a voice called from the tree line. Samuel turned to see a particularly gruff-looking fellow stride towards their group. “It is surprising there is not, for Mr Nicholls here is fond of a wager or two, is he not?”
Samuel’s eyes went immediately to Edward’s, whose features flattened into a mask of indifference.
“I would not know, sir,” he said, his voice taut. “Are you acquainted?”
“Not by more than reputation.” The man bowed, the expression appearing vaguely mocking on so stout and menacing a fellow. “My name is Briggs.”
“Samuel Rowe.” Edward tipped his head. “The Duke of Edgmont.”
“Indeed!” The fellow’s thick eyebrows lifted, his eyes dancing between the two gentlemen.
“If you’ll excuse me, Mr Briggs, my friend and I have already detained our companions far longer than is polite. Miss Devereaux, Miss Barnes, we ought not to take up any more of your time. Won’t you allow us to escort you home?”
The ladies readied themselves to go, but before Samuel could follow them, he felt a thick hand fall on his forearm.
“You’ll not mind delaying a moment or two longer, will you, Nicholls? I have a small matter of business to discuss with you, pertaining to our mutual friend Mr Black.”
Samuel frowned, turning to Edward for an explanation. If he knew this Mr Black, or indeed possessed any notion to what this Briggs fellow was talking about, he made no sign of it, busying himself in walking the ladies back up the slope towards the Royal Crescent. Indeed, Samuel thought, either he had been struck by a sudden, inexplicable bout of deafness or he was feigning ignorance, leaving Samuel alone to bluster his way out of this interaction as best he could. Lodging yet another private complaint in his account against his friend, he vowed he would put an end to this farce before the day was out. If he must endure one more conversation as Edward Nicholls before that happened, then he would do it.
“How can I be of service, Mr Briggs?”
He barely had a moment to focus his attention on the man before him, to notice the way that the disingenuous smile had dripped from his face like wax. There was no chance to acknowledge the scowl that became a snarl or to avoid the clenched fist that flew directly towards his temple.
“Mr Black does not take kindly to debts going unpaid, Nicholls. Consider this your last warning.”
As Samuel reeled back from the first blow he felt another and another and heard the shocked cries and shouts of people around him as he slumped to the ground, curling up to avoid the blow that struck him on the head and made everything fade into darkness.
Chapter Nine
He must have only been unconscious for a moment or two before a rough hand shook him by the shoulder.
“Be careful, George!” a matronly voice warned.
“Back up, Sophie, this is no business of yours!” her male companion replied, his voice curt but not unkind. “You don’t want him bleeding on your nice new frock, now.”
There was an obedient feminine gasp and Samuel blinked his eyes, wincing against the pain and the light as his eyes struggled to focus.
“There we are, man. Here.” The brusque hand released his shoulder and shoved something under his nose. “It’s snuff. Take a pinch. It’ll help.”
Foggily, his limbs moving as if they were not his own, Samuel did as the stranger suggested and a moment or two later the snuff worked its magic. The ground felt steady beneath him, and he looked around him, reaching a hand up warily to probe the contours of his face, already bruised and swelling from the surprising assault by the brutal Mr Briggs.
“I’d tell you the other fellow was worse off than you but I’m afraid that would be a lie, and deceit is a somewhat unbecoming trait in a clergyman.”
“George!”
The invisible Sophie made herself visible again, hurrying forward with no thought spared for her frock, new or otherwise, to lay a counselling hand on her husband’s arm. At least, Samuel supposed hazily that they must be husband and wife, for there was something fitting about the pair, the way they communicated more in a silent, wordless look than most people managed with an hour of discussion.
“Don’t tease the poor man! Can you not see he is in distress?”
She bent down a little closer to Samuel, who still sat on the soft, green grass of the Crescent’s sloping grounds and addressed him in a whispered kind of a shout, slowly sounding out every word as if he were not merely dazed, but deaf as well. “Do you know where you are?”
“On the ground,” Samuel said, stupidly. He went to push himself to his feet, but the world swayed uncomfortably beneath him and a queasy feeling rose up in his stomach.
George - for that was the only name Samuel had heard his rescuer given - laid a gentle hand on his wife’s shoulder, silently ushering her back and bent to slide one arm under Samuel’s, helping him slowly, carefully, to stand and half-steering, half-carrying him towards a tree, whose gnarled trunk gave him adequate support while he waited for the world around him to cease from spinning quite so quickly.
“Right, man. On the ground no longer. You’re in Bath, if you can credit it.” The ghost of a smile crossed a kind, thin-cheeked face, marked by small round glasses and greying sideburns and a kindness that Samuel could only put down to his aforementioned calling. Clergyman.
“Bath, yes.” Samuel reached a hand up to his head, massaging the bump that must already be forming beneath his hairline. “The Royal Crescent, I remember. My friend -”
“Your friend?!” Sophie - Damn it all, Samuel would dearly love to know their surnames, so that he would not be forced to think of them in these strange, too-familiar terms - trilled, hurrying to his other side.
“I do not think such a fellow could be considered a friend who would treat you in such an abominable way! I told my husband, George, I said, you must detain that man, for he has the very look of a criminal! A robber, even. Tell me, sir, are you missing any possessions? A purse, perhaps? Or -”
“Sophie!” George barked, his voice still soft but betraying the hint of annoyance that suggested he had often had the task of reining in her more effusive questions before on occasions such as this.
“Do you often come to the aid of people getting a beating?” he asked, wincing as his fingertips probed a particularly delicate spot. “I am indebted to you, sir.” He reached into his jacket and found that Mrs George’s words had been prophetic: his coin-pouch was, indeed, gone. “A debt that’ll have to go unpaid for now, I am afraid.”
“There is no debt!” George said, with a cheery laugh. “It is the business, as they say. Orphans, widows, aliens and strangers...” He peered over his glasses, his pale blue eyes twinkling as he regarded Samuel carefully. “Which one are you, if you don’t mind me asking, Mr...?”
“Rowe,” Samuel asked, biting down hard on the inside of his cheek as he realised his natural mistake. “That is, Nicholls. I mean -” He shook his head, instantly regr
etting the motion as the world spun faster once more. He let out a sigh, seeing both husband and wife exchanged a confused, wary glance. “My name is Rowe. Samuel Rowe. The Duke - The Duke of Edgmont.”
George removed his hat in a state of surprise and his wife dipped in a polite, albeit clumsy, curtsey.
“Well, your grace! I’m pleased indeed that my wife and I were able to be of service to you in your hour of need. Is there anybody we can send for? A doctor, perhaps.”
“No, no,” Samuel said, waving off their concern and struggling to force his features into a smile. “I’m quite well enough now. At least, I will be. My friend -” His voice trailed off, as he realised his error. He could hardly go straight to Edward now, not when these very injuries had been won on his account. Mr Black does not approve of debts going unpaid. He had known Edward was loose with his money but he had never imagined it was as bad as all this!
“Perhaps...” he frowned, struggling to conjure the name of a place, any place where he might go and be at least a little inconspicuous. He found none.
“You must come home with us, your grace,” Sophie said, with a defiant look at her husband. George, for his part, shrugged his shoulders, an almost imperceptible surrender. “It is not a fine house, to be sure, and certainly nothing compared to the type of living you are no doubt used to, but it is clean and comfortable and will enable you to get a little cleaned up before you go on your way. George!” Her voice grew in confidence as she spoke, and she addressed her husband in a sharp staccato that demanded obedience. “Find us a carriage, for we shall not make his grace walk.”
“Sophie...” the clergyman began, but she dismissed his concern with an imperious toss of her head.
“You need not start having doubts now! Where were your doubts when you leapt into the middle of the attack on the poor duke, sparing not a single thought for your weak heart, or what I should do if you were to find yourself killed by some miscreant, thieving -”
“Sophie!”
“In any case,” she continued, swallowing the rest of her lecture and saving it, no doubt, for a later hour. “It is nought but our Christian duty to ensure his grace is properly looked after. You may not wish us to call a doctor, your grace.” Her voice rose to that same shout-whisper, the same slow, over-enunciation of every word that made it harder, not easier, to understand her. “But I shall not rest easy until we have had someone to look at you. The vicar, here, has a doctor in town. It is the reason we are here, after all, for his gout. Oh, very badly he suffers with it too, and -”
“Sophie!”
“What are you still doing here, George? Or do you intend to summon a carriage by prayer alone? Go and fetch one, do, and I shall stay here with the duke to ensure no worse harm comes to him. Hurry, now!”
And hurry the poor man did, shaking his head in disbelief and no small measure of pride at his unshakeable, kind-hearted wife.
Samuel swallowed a smile at this endearing picture of kindness and domesticity and sank a little against the thick trunk of the tree.
“You are very kind, Madam,” he said, wheezing a little against a pain in his chest that he now feared might be damage to his ribs. “You must forgive me, I do not even know your name.”
“Oh, well that hardly needs forgiving! We go by Carter, your grace. My husband is vicar of a small parish out in the Cotswolds. This is our first time in Bath, and I assure you if we had known there would be crime, violence and assault on persons of your position, why, we might have braved the streets of London and thought it safer!” She smiled, her eyes twinkling in unknown mirroring of her husband. “Come, now, can you walk? There is a way back to the road just a little distance this way and that is where my husband will bring the carriage to.”
To his surprise, Samuel found that he could manage to walk and keep a respectable distance from his kind, motherly saviour and he did so, glad that he had not managed to keep up the lie with these good, Christian people and making a private decision that, now broken, the wager would be dissolved completely by the time the sun set this evening. Once I have had words with Edward, he vowed, determined to get to the bottom of just what his friend had done to deserve so cruel a beating and how he had managed to visit it, wholly knowingly, upon Samuel instead.
TO BOTH YOUNG LADIES’ surprise, Mrs Barnes was at home when they reached the small set of rooms they had taken for the duration of their stay in Bath.
“Mama!” Edith exclaimed, as they reached the parlour and found the older lady sitting quite contentedly sewing with another lady of her acquaintance.
“Good afternoon, Edith,” she said, without looking up from her stitching. “Do not say “Mama” like that as if you are surprised to see me here. Is this not my own parlour? Am I not permitted to sit in it with my friend, Mrs Radcliff, just as you and Joanna are permitted to go out and about and enjoy all that Bath has to offer...oh my! The Duke of Edgmont! That is, your grace!”
She leapt to her feet, letting her poor sampler slip unnoticed to the ground and turned a simpering smile upon the young ladies’ escort. “Welcome to our home! Do, please, sit a moment with us.” She clapped her hands and a servant stepped lightly into the parlour just long enough to be ordered to bring tea.
“Oh, the duke does not intend to stay, Mrs Barnes,” Joanna began, before the duke calmly interposed with a response of his own.
“That is not to say I cannot be persuaded.” He shot the older two ladies a smile that could only be described as rakish and claimed for himself the most comfortable-looking chair in the parlour. “At the promise of tea with such charming company, who could refuse?”
Edith’s simpering laugh echoed her Mama’s and even the stiff, starchy-looking Mrs Radcliff softened a little in the presence of such charm.
“Sit down, Joanna, dear!” Mrs Barnes cooed. “Look, here is space on this sofa next to me and you might be quite close to his grace, then!” She made this remark as if it had just occurred to her, and she exchanged a knowing glance with her friend that indicated this arrangement was in the furtherance of a romance that was clearly only days away from being formalised.
“Yes, Joanna, you sit there, for the light is good. I know that you will wish to attend to your embroidery while we take tea. It is upstairs in our room. Wait a moment, I shall go and fetch it!”
Before Joanna could stop her, Edith disappeared, so she perched obediently on the edge of the seat she had been directed to and smiled, first at the ladies and then at the duke. His own smile widened as their eyes met and she felt a warm blush creeping into her cheeks. She dropped her gaze to the floor and realised, with a start, that Mrs Barnes had begun addressing her once more.
“I did not realise you had planned to meet the gentlemen today, dear. Where is your friend, your grace? Mr Nicholls? Where is he?”
She looked around as if expecting poor Mr Nicholls to be crouched, hiding somewhere between a piece of furniture or otherwise posing as a hat-rack, unnoticed in the shadow of his eminently more interesting friend.
“He’ll be along shortly, I’m sure,” the duke said, with a vague note of indifference ringing in his voice, rendering it rather quieter than usual. Joanna turned to look at him, but at that instant, the door opened again and Edith hurried into the room, clutching both her work bag and Joanna’s, which she thrust at her friend.
“You must show the duke your embroidery, Joanna.” She turned to him, her eyes bright. “She is so talented, your grace, and puts me quite to shame! What a pity we have no piano, for Joanna is ever so accomplished in playing, as well, and I know she would dearly love to play for you.” She giggled. “For us. For all of us.”
“My daughter, Kitty is also rather talented -” Mrs Radcliff began, eager to offer her own daughter praise in her absence, but was prevented from saying any more by Mrs Barnes rather loud, pointed ahem.
“I begin to wonder if there is an end to Miss Devereaux’s accomplishments,” the duke marvelled, as he looked obediently admiring over what was, in truth, a rat
her plain and unremarkable sampler that Joanna had been working on in intermittent bursts for quite some years now. His voice lowered to little more than a whisper, designed to draw Joanna closer to him that she might discern his words. “Indeed, I am delighted that Chance saw fit to introduce us to one another.”
“Chance?” Joanna replied, arching an eyebrow. “I thought it was Mr Nicholls who introduced us?”
The duke’s smile fell a fraction, but before he could counter her question with one of his own, Mrs Barnes spoke again, addressing her daughter, but speaking at such a volume that one could do nought but listen.
“Edith, dear, I was just telling Miss Devereaux that it was quite mischievous of you to tell me you were going shopping when you had in fact made plans with the duke!” Her eyes danced as if this delicious detail rather tickled her and would be trotted out for gossip the very next day at the pump rooms amongst her friends, also mothers of daughters who might despair and delight in equal measure at the activities of young people seeking to meet and marry before the season’s end.
“But we did not!” Edith protested, biting her lip and reading criticism in her Mama’s gentle teasing. “It was quite by chance that we ran into them!”
“Yes, Mrs Barnes, I must take my share of the blame. Alas, your young ladies were all propriety and quite agreeably engaged in the purchase of - now, remind me, Miss Devereaux, was it lace? Ribbons?” His eyes danced merrily as he fixed them on Joanna, and she squirmed a little under his attentions. “Nicholls and I distracted them from their quarry with the promise of a walk along the Royal Crescent and there went all their plans, for we found diversion after diversion. For example, did you know, Mrs Barnes, that your daughter possesses a prodigious throwing arm?”
Mrs Barnes looked rather horrified, as if the duke had just diagnosed Edith with some unfortunate and unsightly malady but before she could quiz him on it further, he produced the roll of parchment that Joanna had almost forgotten he had been holding onto.
A Duke in Disguise (Westham Chronicles Book 3) Page 7