The Duke

by Katharine Ashe

He captured both of her hands and lifted them to his lips.

  “My lady, good day.” His voice caressed the formal words. Then, turning her hands over and placing kisses upon each palm he added less smoothly, “Judas, you’re beautiful.”

  “Why did you ask Nathaniel to accompany you, not your cousin?” she said, drawing her hands away.

  “Jonah knows Scots. I’ll send him to Inveraray. ’Tis the closest port, an’ Mick’s got a hankering to sail.”

  “While you search in the direction of Haiknayes. Yes, that is wise.” She moved toward the door. “We should—”

  His arm came around her waist and he pulled her against his chest.

  “First things first.” He bent to her and kissed her. It was no quick caress but tender, and then lasting, as though he had all the leisure in the world to stand in his drawing room in the midst of a crisis and make love to her.

  When he separated their mouths, his gaze went from one feature of her face to the next, slowly.

  She said, “I am not a thing.” And smiled.

  “No. You’re no’ a thing. You are the only thing,” he said soberly. “An’ for robbing me o’ five and a half years o’ you, I plan to give my cousin the bruising o’ his life.” He kissed her again, pressing his lips to hers, his arms tightening momentarily. Then he released her and went to the door.

  There he paused and turned only partially toward her. He bent his head. “You will be here when I return?”

  There was a quality to his voice, a raw vulnerability that burrowed into her memory.

  “Gabriel?” she whispered.

  Dropping his hand from the door frame, he came to her in swift strides, took her face between his palms, and brought their mouths together. He kissed her deeply, fiercely. Like a goodbye.

  As he pulled away, her fingertips slipped over his coat, needing to stretch the contact, to hold him. Then he was gone, and she was alone again.

  Chapter 29

  A (Desperately Conceived) Plan

  From the uppermost story, she watched him and Nathaniel ride along the river until they entered the woods and were no longer visible. Then she found Thomas in the carriage house, lashing luggage onto the Tates’ traveling chaise.

  “Where has your uncle gone, Thomas?”

  For an instant he seemed surprised. Then his features crumpled.

  “Loch Irvine has told you, hasn’t he?”

  “No.”

  “You needn’t deny you are in his confidence. I saw how the two of you were last evening, when you came into the drawing room after dinner.”

  “He has told me nothing. Now you must. Your uncle hasn’t gone after Cynthia, has he? Where then did he go in such haste this morning?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Thomas.”

  “I tell you, I don’t know.” His hands came up around his head. “But even if I did know, it would change nothing. You care about him—Loch Irvine—don’t you? You mustn’t, Amarantha. Steal your affections back from him as swiftly as you can now. As your friend, I say protect yourself for what is to come.”

  “Thomas, tell me what is happening.”

  “I believe he has sent Cynthia away,” he said. “Done away with her, even.”

  “Done away with her? The duke?”

  “My uncle! I have reason to believe he paid that servant, the stable boy, to seduce my cousin and carry her off to God knows where to—Good Lord. She could be already—She is lost to us already,” he said harshly. “All because of my cowardice.”

  “Your uncle was displeased with Cynthia for your aunt’s accident. But she is his daughter. How could he—”

  “So that he can blame it on Loch Irvine! Uncle told me he might blackmail the duke.”

  “Blackmail? Sacrifice his own daughter? For money?”

  “I tried to dissuade him from it. But I have no weight with him. I am entirely at his mercy, Amarantha, through a mistake I made years ago.”

  “What mistake?”

  “I cannot tell you. I am unable to halt him now.”

  “But why would he wish to blackmail the duke? Doesn’t he wish Jane to marry him?”

  “Loch Irvine declined. Weeks ago, long before we all met at Haiknayes, my uncle told me that if he could not force the duke to wed Jane he would take him for everything he’s worth. I thought it was all bluster. I never imagined he would see it through. Then last night he spoke of the duke’s harem here and how he would expose it, and then I knew my uncle had lost all reason. Harem!” he exclaimed. “Why, I’ve never seen an estate run so smoothly with so few servants. If that is the result of hiring mostly women, then I say everyone should do it!”

  “Your uncle intends to make these accusations without proof?”

  “He has proof. Just now, when Jane and Iris were packing their belongings, they brought to me garments Cynthia had left behind.” His throat worked. “Stained in blood. Blood. I’ve no doubt my uncle put the blood on them. Even after so few days in Loch Irvine’s company I can see that the rumors about him are balderdash. He is a much finer man than Calum Tate, certainly! Can you see now what my uncle intends? If he cannot have the Loch Irvine title and lands for Jane, he will see the duke hanged, simply for defying his wishes.”

  “That seems . . . extreme. To say the least.”

  “Men have done far worse in pursuit of their desires.” Jonah Brock’s voice came behind her. “And the people of Edinburgh still seek justice in the mystery of the two missing girls.”

  “But those girls—” She halted her words.

  “Surely came to harm in some other manner?” Mr. Brock said. “Undoubtedly. Yet my cousin has done nothing to dissuade everyone from the conviction that he is at fault.”

  “Do you believe he has gone searching for Cynthia, as he said?”

  “Do I believe he has gone off to rescue the damsel instead of pursuing the man bent on his destruction?” A grim smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “Of course he has, Mrs. Garland. My cousin is a hero. An actual hero. And heroes never think of themselves first.” The smile faded. “But you already know that.”

  She did not understand his meaning, but there was no time to decipher it. Cold panic sluiced through her.

  “We must do something,” she said.

  Mr. Brock entered the carriage house and went to the gig.

  “How much time do you require to pack, my lady?” He looked over his shoulder at her.

  The panic disintegrated. Purpose filled its place.

  “Thomas,” she said, “I need your help.”

  “Whatever you require. I should never have given my uncle reason to come here, but I—when you asked—and Mrs. Aiken was in such obvious distress—I thought only of myself. I must now make it right. Give me instruction.”

  “Be quick about your journey to Haiknayes, Thomas. I will meet you in Leith in two days. Mr. Brock, a quarter hour.”

  For the first time since she had known him, his smile seemed genuine.

  They halted on the journey only to change horses. The road was rough and the gig as unsuited to it as it had been a sennight earlier in the opposite direction. By the hour she stumbled from the carriage and rang the bell until Dr. Shaw’s manservant woke and opened the door, Amarantha was frozen and sore and muddled with weariness.

  Moving toward the stairs, she passed the foyer table and in the candlelight caught a glimpse of her mother’s hand on the face of a letter. She took it up and went to her bed.

  Exhausted from too many hours in the saddle—and pushed beyond even a patient man’s endurance by the theatricals to which he had been treated when he found Cynthia Tate and Mick huddled in an abandoned hut, theatricals that had ceased abruptly as soon as he told the pair their fate—Gabriel entered his house to find Cassandra and Pike waiting for him with news of every one of his guests’ departures and a note.

  A note. From her.

  Three lines on a sheet of paper folded and sealed to deter prying eyes.

  Unnecessarily so. Anybody co
uld read the message and have no idea that she was anything more to him than a casual acquaintance.

  Scraping a hand over his face, he squeezed his eyes shut.

  She had gone. With Jonah.

  That history was refashioning itself, albeit with a cruel twist, did not especially bother him. That she trusted his blast cur of a cousin—despite all—did.

  “Miss Finn!” he bellowed. “Miss Pike!”

  “We are standing right behind you, Your Grace,” Pike said.

  The hour was after midnight. Yet here they were, awaiting his orders in the light of a single candle.

  “Is everyone well?” he said. “None the worse for the upheaval?”

  “Aye,” Cassandra said somberly. “We’re all well.”

  “Good. Excellent. As soon as my horse has rested, I’ll be off.”

  “To Haiknayes?”

  “To Edinburgh.” To deal with Tate. “Beginning at this moment, we will proceed as I informed you an’ Miss Cromwell this morning.”

  She nodded.

  “Go to bed now,” he said. “I’ll be out o’ your hair before you wake, as you’ve long wished,” he added with a forced grin at Pike.

  He turned toward the fire.

  “You are welcome to visit any time, Your Grace,” his footman said. “We might even give you the best guest bedchamber.”

  A smile cracked his lips.

  When he turned around, they were gone.

  Amarantha slept fitfully, and upon waking had one certain plan: she must finally call on Emily’s influential friends in Edinburgh.

  As she gulped down a cup of tea, she opened her mother’s letter.

  15 March 1823

  Willows Hall

  Darling Daughter Amarantha,

  Your father is at wit’s end. (In truth, I am, but he tells me I may write that he is as well.) We cannot endure another moment of your absence from the bosom of your family. Nearly six years are too many to never see our precious child!

  And now your sister, Emily, has told us an Extraordinary Tale (which she should have told us immediately but did not! Oh, disloyal progeny!!) that last autumn you made your journey to the Duke of Loch Irvine’s castle alone, without escort, without even a single servant—across the breadth of Scotland!! My heart gives me horrid palpitations when I think of it—the travails you must have endured on the road—the wretched food—and of course all of those dreadful Scots everywhere! I fear, darling, precious daughter, that the Tropical Sun baked your brain and you no longer recognize Civilized society. I am persuaded, however, that if you come home now you can be encouraged to recall it.

  To entice you, (on your elder sister’s strong recommendation) I am withdrawing my insistence that you marry—immediately, at least. By year’s end will do. And I will button my lips as to your choice of husband: you may marry entirely as you wish (although, since the Unfortunate Incident of the amphorae which was found filled with an Unmentionable Substance, I much prefer Sir Elliott to Lord Brill). Your father promises to settle upon you a dowry of whatever amount you wish, and only insists that it must be grander than your first dowry. (My lord has been investing in the dreadful ’Change again, and is dancing about the house tossing guineas left and right, when he is not weeping and moaning the continued absence of his second-eldest daughter). All we ask is that whomever you choose, he intends to give you a home on this island and none other.

  Do come home now. Let us see your face again and hold you to our bosoms. We miss you, we love you, and we wish only for your happiness.

  With love,

  Your Fond Mother & Father

  Amarantha blinked away tears and went to summon a hackney coach.

  The home of Constance and Saint Sterling was in the heart of Edinburgh’s New Town, austerely elegant on the outside and beautifully warm and comfortable within. Its mistress was three or four years Amarantha’s senior, tall and luxuriously gorgeous, with tumbling golden hair and eyes as vivid as the Caribbean Sea. Even a trio of thin scars across one cheek did not mar her beauty, and her gigantically distended belly made her even more striking yet. A duke’s daughter and substantial heiress, she knew everyone in high society from London to Edinburgh.

  As she crossed the parlor to Amarantha without any evidence of discomfort in her ninth month of pregnancy, she extended both hands.

  “Amarantha!” she said, her voice as voluptuous as her figure. “How happy I am to see you again. Why have you remained away so long? You only moved to Leith, not to the Orient!” She chuckled and drew her to a sofa. “How are Libby and the doctor? You must tell me every little detail about you these past three months.”

  “Libby and Dr. Shaw are at Haiknayes.”

  Constance’s golden lashes fanned. “Haiknayes Castle? Well, I suppose they have been fond friends of Haiknayes’s master. I did not know he had returned from—from wherever he had gone,” she said with a chuckle. “If they have left you entirely alone in the house, you must come stay here until their return.”

  “I was at Haiknayes as well.”

  “Oh, delightful! How do you like the duke? Isn’t he a great big dark wonder of a man?”

  “I believe he is being blackmailed.”

  “Blackmailed? Good heavens.”

  “My own family is too far away, but I must try to help him. I understand that you and he parted on good terms.”

  “Despite my scandalous behavior that precipitated the end of his courtship? We did. He is a forgiving man. And a man of honor.” She tilted her head. “But perhaps you are already aware of that? Amarantha, has he—”

  “He is in danger. Constance, will you help me?”

  Vibrant eyes subdued, she nodded.

  Amarantha told her only what was needed—no more than she had told Thomas and Mr. Brock. Constance vowed her assistance, and her husband Saint’s as well, and promised to send a rider to her father at Castle Read immediately.

  “In the meantime, I will send a note to the wife of the Lord Advocate this afternoon. She is always eager to come and share a good gossip. I cannot easily go out now—rather, Saint does not like me to stray too far from the house,” she said, linking her arm cozily with Amarantha’s as they walked to the door. “He imagines the moment I am out of his sight the baby will arrive. You must come stay with us until the Shaws return home. We will be able to plot more easily. It might even distract Saint from nagging me.” She smiled then squeezed Amarantha’s hand. “When you are ready, my carriage will gather you. We will foil Mr. Tate’s plan, whatever it is.”

  Amarantha’s nascent hope flew away when she returned to the Shaws’ house to find Thomas on the stoop, his face drawn.

  “It has already begun,” he said as rain pattered on the pavement around them. “When I arrived in town an hour ago I went directly to my uncle’s house. He had gone out, but his personal servant said he had been up half the night writing letters to the chief inspector of the police and the Caledonian Mercury.”

  “We must go there now and await him.”

  Hesitant admiration showed on his features. “It seems that your courage eclipses even your generosity.”

  “You are wrong on both accounts,” she said as he handed her up into a hackney coach. “For I am literally shaking with fear and I am doing this entirely for myself. How did you make such excellent time here?”

  “I took one of Loch Irvine’s horses and rode directly here.”

  “You left your cousins alone on the journey?”

  “Miss Alice and Mrs. Aiken went with my cousins, and Loch Irvine’s stable hand, Miss Byrne, rode on the box with my uncle’s coachman and a pair of pistols in her lap. My cousins were remarkably well protected!”

  The Tates’ house was large and prominent on the street. Amarantha was unsurprised by the display of wealth within, from hand-painted wallpaper to gilded lamps.

  In his study, Mr. Tate was pacing along the length of the room. An enormous marble-topped desk dominated the space and portraits of noble estates decorated the walls.<
br />
  “Nephew! Mrs. Garland? Has the party at Kallin broken up? Ha ha! Didna know myself to be the glue that stuck the thing together,” he said with a chortle.

  “You left without my cousins,” Thomas said. “Without even word to any of us.”

  “True, true! I told the duke I’d business matters o’ a pressing nature to see to here.” He slapped his palms over his waistcoat. “Where are they now? Upstairs unpacking, I daresay?”

  “Jane and Iris are at Haiknayes with my aunt. I came straight here to speak with you. Uncle, Cynthia ran away from Kallin the night before last.”

  “Ran away? Naughty puss.”

  “She eloped with the duke’s stable boy. Loch Irvine has gone searching for them, of course. I wished to search as well but I thought it best to bring Jane and Iris to my aunt, and then come inform you. We can leave for Kallin immediately if you wish.”

  “Now, now,” Tate said, tucking his thumbs into his waistcoat. “No need to go rushing around the countryside, lad. Troublesome lass. ’Twill serve her right to have a little upset.”

  “Mr. Tate,” Amarantha said, “your daughter’s reputation will be ruined.”

  “Aye.” He patted his belly. “But ’tis too late to do a thing about it now. Must do my best for my Janie instead.”

  “That is why we have come here.” Thomas stepped forward. “We believe that you intend to expose the Duke of Loch Irvine to the police on invented crimes unless he agrees to marry Jane. Is this true?”

  Tate’s eyes narrowed, “Why would I do such a thing, lad?”

  “I don’t know. You have never seemed to me the sort of man to seek vengeance. Can you assure me then, that this is not your plan?”

  “Nephew, you’re a fool.” Tate shook his head. “Did you no’ read the contract you wrote?”

  “The shipping contract?” Thomas’s face paled. “Did Loch Irvine sign it? As I drafted it?”

  “Aye.” Tate’s mouth slid into a slim twist.

  “Oh, God.” He turned to her. “Amarantha, there is a clause in the contract that gives the partners full possession of cargo and vessels in their shared venture upon the accidental or sudden death of either. It is meant to cover contingencies that might arise before the ship reaches its destination.”