Exiled Duke: An Exile Novel

by K. J. Jackson

  His lips pursed. “When was she supposed to leave?”

  “Today at noon.”

  “Mail coaches aren’t stagecoaches. Mail coaches for Hampshire don’t leave at noon. They leave London at night. Not noon.”

  Her body froze. “Oh, well, maybe she was mistaken.”

  Strider’s forefinger flicked out to the east. “Bring me to her place.”

  “No.” Her head shook. “She must have gotten the times wrong. I trust her, Strider. She was very kind and promised me she would do it.”

  “Don’t be naïve, Pen.” He moved to the bench and picked up her valise. “Bring me to her.”

  “No.”

  He dropped her bag back onto the bench. “We’re not stepping foot outside of London until you bring me to this woman.”

  Her look dropped to her bag on the bench, her jaw shifting to the left as her lips pulled tight. “Fine.”

  She grabbed her bag and stepped around him, leading him out of the park, not once looking back to him as she weaved through the streets. Silent. Every step a stomp.

  On Newton Street, Pen pulled to a stop in front of a ramshackle building, her glare on the blue painted door that had been weathered down until only odd strips of the color still stained the wood. She set her valise down and looked to Strider, her thumb pointing at the building. “This is her door. I’m sure she is already gone.”

  Strider invaded her space and she stepped to the side, her arms clasped in front of her ribcage. He pummeled the door with the side of his fist.

  A clunk and then a thud against the wall next to the door and it opened a crack. Ole Ona saw him and she opened the door a bit wider, a provocative smile on her face. The woman thought she was thirty years younger than she was. “Hoppler, what ye doin’ here, sir?” As the door opened wider her look flickered off of Strider to Pen. Sudden fear twisted her face. Good. They both knew what was afoot and he wouldn’t have to dabble with her explanations.

  Ole Ona took a step back, trying to slam the door closed.

  Strider had already jammed his heel against the door, stopping her from closing it. “You’ll not escape me so easily, Ona.”

  Her hands flew up in front of her, waving. “Hoppler, I swear, I swear I didn’t know she was one of yers. I never would’ve done nothin’ with her if I ’ad known.”

  “I don’t doubt that.” His chin tilted down, his stare making her squirm. “Give her back the money.”

  Ole Ona’s hands started to wring. “I don’t ’ave it. Lew already been by and beat me ’fore he took it.”

  Strider stifled a sigh. Ole Ona’s husband wasn’t worth the dung on the bottom of his boot. “You still have the package?”

  “Aye.”

  She stood, frozen, and Strider had to motion inward. “Go get it.”

  She jumped, spurred out of her frozen state and she disappeared into the bowels of the building. The echoes of her footsteps running up stairs drifted down to them.

  Silence.

  Silence for too long.

  He could feel Pen’s stare on him, but he refused to look at her, his glare fixed on a long streak of faded blue on the door.

  “Is she sneaking out the back?”

  He didn’t afford her a glance. “Not if she knows what is good for her.”

  The sounds of quick steps returned and Ole Ona appeared at the door, panting, her face flush.

  She looked down at the package in her hands, wrapped tightly with twine and burlap and covered in a rough tan powder. Her fingers bumbling, she brushed off the tan powder as she handed the package to Pen. “Sorry ’bout the mess. I ’ad to ’ide it in the rotten flour so Lew didn’t find it. I swear I didn’t open it. There wasn’t time before Lew showed up.”

  Her brow furrowed, Pen took the package, her black gloves turning tan as she brushed away the mess of the flour. “What were you going to do with it?”

  Ole Ona’s eyebrows lifted as she stared at Pen for a long moment. With a slight shake of her head, she looked to Strider. “Ye got yerself a real sharp one here, Hoppler.”

  Strider ignored the comment with a pointed blink, then leaned in toward Ole Ona. “Tell Lew I’m looking for him.”

  Ole Ona’s dull eyes went wide and she nodded. “Will do.” She closed the door.

  Strider moved away from the door, picking up Pen’s bag in his left hand and he started west toward his house. He wasn’t exactly sure what to do with Pen until he was ready to leave, but his townhouse seemed like the obvious choice. He couldn’t exactly take her to the Den again.

  Five paces and he realized Pen wasn’t following him.

  He stopped, turning around to her. “Pen?”

  She hadn’t moved away from the door, her stare fixated on the handle. “But…but…”

  “But what?”

  She looked to Strider, her green eyes huge. Huge and scared. “But I need that money I paid her.”

  “It’s gone, Pen. There’s no getting it back. Already pissed away on a gaming table, knowing Lew. You’ll need to try again and maybe don’t be so gullible next time.”

  “But I—I don’t have any more money to hire anyone else. To even buy the ticket to Hampshire—I gave it all to her.”

  His left eyebrow arched. “That was all your money?”

  She nodded, her face in shock. “It was all I could find on the streets over the years. Every penny, every shilling, every coin I had ever touched as my own. All of it. It’s gone and I have…I have no way now.”

  “The Flagtons don’t pay you?”

  She shook her head. “They never have. I get food. Clothing. That is all. They don’t pay family, Mrs. Flagton always said.”

  That made Strider pause, and he turned fully toward her. “They’re your family?”

  Her shoulders lifted, her look sinking to the walkway between them, her voice a whisper. “They’re all I’ve ever known, Strider.”

  “Pen.”

  Her eyes closed, her head shaking.

  “Pen.”

  She looked up, finding his face.

  He took two steps toward her. “You’ve known real family, Pen. You’ve lived it.”

  Her eyes winced as though he had just struck her, a palm hard across her face. “No, you told me yourself, Strider. I wasn’t your family. I was charity. Pity.” She paused, drawing in a shaking breath as her bottom lip slipped under her teeth for a long moment. “I don’t know what that time was—when I had your mama, your papa…you.” Her hand lifted helplessly at her side. “A dream, a fairy tale. Mama June…” She shook her head, her eyes filling with tears. “A dream was what that was, when I was with them, with you. A dream. Nothing more. Nothing real.” She shrugged, expelling the threatening tears with a long exhale.

  Before he could say a word, she tucked the package into the fold of her forearm against her body and she stepped forward, reaching out to grab her valise from his grip. Their knuckles collided, but he didn’t let go of the bag.

  “Where are you going, Pen? I thought we were leaving for Bedfordshire.”

  “No, I need to leave.” She tugged at her bag. “I have to figure out a way to get to Hampshire and deliver this, or Lady Flagton will know. Bedfordshire will have to wait.”

  She yanked her bag from his grip and turned around, walking away from him.

  A pang sliced across his chest. Regret—guilt—of what he’d said to her seventeen years ago. Told her she was nothing. A burden.

  He stilled.

  Guilt?

  He didn’t feel guilt. And regret was for the weak. For those that didn’t know how to move forward.

  But there it was, speeding his damn heart in his chest. Guilt. Pity. Regret.

  He didn’t care for it. Didn’t care for how the weakness of it seeped through his veins.

  He stared at the back of her retreating form. The skirts of her black dress barely moved about her legs. The way she walked without sway, her shoulders so tight they were made of marble.

  He needed to help her.
/>   With real intention.

  Today.

  That was the only way to take this brick out of his chest.

  His long legs went into full stride and he caught up to her in seven paces before she stepped onto the busy side street.

  He grabbed her shoulder, pulling her to a stop as he rounded her and planted his feet in front of her. “I’ll find a carrier to bring the package to Hampshire.”

  “No, I cannot ask you to do that.”

  “I’m doing it.”

  “I will find a way, Strider. You don’t owe me anything. I can see how wrong it was of me to approach you—to invoke the memories of your parents to get you to help me in the first place.”

  “But I have time to travel to Bedfordshire today and into next week. I won’t by the time you figure out whatever it is you’re going to figure out and deliver that package. It could be another month before I can help.”

  She looked off into the street for a long moment before shaking her head. “Just forget all of it, Strider. Forget I ever came to you. I’ll be gone in another month—back to Belize. That is Mrs. Flagton’s plan, to sail back to her home there as soon as possible. So just forget you ever saw me. What I had—asking for your help—was a silly dream that I had no right to imagine.”

  “You sail back to Belize and you’ll be trapped there for the rest of your life.”

  Her head gave one tense nod. “And I just have to accept that. Accept what comes.”

  “Or you can let me have the package delivered and come with me to Bedfordshire to find your family. It’s the most efficient solution.”

  Her lips pulled inward, tight to her teeth, and she stepped to the side to go around him. “I need to leave now, Strider.”

  He jumped in front of her. “You only have one chance at this, Pen. Don’t waste it with pride.”

  “Pride?” She scoffed, her arm with the bag lifting. “I haven’t been afforded the luxury of pride in a very long time, Strider.”

  “Well, it has certainly reared at this moment. Apparently that luxury rears easily enough when I’m involved.”

  She looked to the street, her jaw shifting back and forth, indecisive.

  “I’ll get your package delivered, Pen. It is what I do, the moving of goods. This is nothing to me. Let me do this and we’ll leave today for Bedfordshire.”

  She fought it for a moment, but then her eyes lit up, grateful, hopeful as she looked up at him. “Fine.”

  Still so damn naïve.

  He wasn’t her savior and that she even dared to look at him like that just proved how ignorantly innocent she was.

  And how utterly striking when her face wasn’t long in worry, her eyes squinted to the point where she could barely see the world around her.

  Beautiful, with the sliver of sun cracking through the cloud cover reflecting a bright streak of light in her green eyes. The edges of her lips lifted in a hesitant smile.

  The brick lodged in his chest shifted slightly.

  Guilt. Guilt was the only spur to his actions.

  Not this. Not her smile that conjured up memories of a distant past that he’d buried a long time ago. Not her eyes that had once looked to him as her partner in everything when they were children.

  For how much she’d changed—grown beautiful in the years—her eyes were still the same. Canny on him, not streaked with the wary fear that everyone looked at him with.

  No, she’d always studied his every movement like he knew all the secrets in the world. That she still did so was unnerving in ways he didn’t care to explore.

  He shook his head to himself.

  Guilt.

  Guilt was the only thing in his chest.

  Guilt he would quickly rid himself of after bringing her to her family.

  Then he could be done with her. For good.

  { Chapter 5 }

  Pen stared at Strider sitting across from her in the carriage.

  The cushions felt like heaven under her behind. The glass on the doors buffed so thoroughly clean she imagined a bird would try to fly through it. The shine of the black paint on the outside of the carriage had been so bright she’d had to run her forefinger against it as she stepped up into the coach just to make sure it was real.

  Luxury.

  Luxury she’d never known. Never really imagined existed.

  Luxury at Strider’s fingertips.

  Strider had sat down opposite of her in the carriage, completely at ease with his surroundings. Taking his coat off and rolling up the sleeves of his lawn shirt. She remembered that about him, how he had always liked his arms free to the warm sun in Belize, no matter that Mama June was forever unrolling his sleeves down. She was raising a proper gentleman, she would always say.

  Strider had said very little to her since they’d sat down in the carriage, only noting that it would take two or three days to get to the Jacobson estate in Bedfordshire, depending upon how the roads were.

  Not that she minded how long the journey would take, for once the carriage had started to roll through the maze of London, she’d been transfixed by the streets getting more crowded before buildings and horses and wagons and people began to spread out, and then they were suddenly in the countryside. A revelation, for she had begun to believe the whole of England was as chaotic as London, but this—this was actually peaceful. She could hear her own thoughts in her head. Not Mrs. Flagton. Not Percival.

  It was just unfortunate happenstance that most of the thoughts flooding her mind centered on this man opposite her.

  Early in the ride, before they had even left London, Strider had leaned back on the cushions, stretching his long legs out on either side of her skirts, his hands clasped over his stomach and his head tilted back, his eyes closed. Whether he was actually sleeping, she couldn’t be sure. Though she suspected he was feigning the nap in effort to avoid her.

  Which hurt, if she was honest with herself.

  He’d wanted so little to do with her since she’d found him at his gaming hell. Like he was doing everything he could to hold himself back from physically lifting her and dumping her onto the street.

  He didn’t want her anywhere in his life. That was clear.

  Pride should have made her walk away that first night, but she couldn’t do it. She would do anything—grovel at Strider’s feet if that’s what it took—to get him to help her find her family.

  The alternative—Percival—doing every repulsive thing to her he’d whispered into her ears over the years, was not an option. Where his fingers would be. His tongue. How he would tie her down. Gag her. Whip her. Stick things into her. Turn her into an animal solely for his sick, vile pleasure.

  She shuddered.

  She’d never been able to forget a single vulgar thing Percival had whispered to her, never been able to block from her mind the imaginings of the things he described.

  Perverse to his core, how Percival was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Flagton had always bewildered her. They were the most pious people. Mr. Flagton a priest with a bible always within reach. Mrs. Flagton a paragon of moral indignation. And neither one had ever seen it—or more likely, never chosen to see it—in their son.

  Though Pen guessed that, deep down, Mrs. Flagton had always suspected what her son was. A twisted sadist. It had been Mrs. Flagton’s idea to move Pen to sleep in her bedroom years ago after discovering Percival lurking outside Pen’s room late at night after he’d been beaten for walking in on her bathing.

  Pen had to get away from the Flagtons, and not just get away—she had to either disappear completely, or she had to land somewhere where she would be protected from Percival and his threats to have her arrested and hanged.

  She knew exactly who a magistrate would believe. The son of a highly esteemed priest. Not her.

  She had no power. No options.

  So here she sat. Scraping for the smallest pity from the man that thought of her as a burden—had always considered her worthless.

  Her gaze slipped along the lines of Strider�
��s face. The hard cut of his jawline, the lines of his cheekbones, his nose that had once been perfectly straight now slightly out of alignment, the creases along his eyes. He was too young to have creases like that. To have hardened to such a state that nothing could penetrate the cold he exuded.

  He was handsome—there was no mistaking that. She couldn’t even imagine the scores of women hoping to catch his eye. And fit, as was evidenced when he’d removed his coat, his lawn shirt stretched over lean muscles instead of fat.

  But she had always known he would be a handsome man. She had loved looking at his face when she was a child and he was her best friend, and that hadn’t changed. He’d grown into a man that could steal hearts with just a glance.

  Handsome. Dangerous. One of those things God-given. The other manifested by whatever had happened to him in the last seventeen years.

  He shifted slightly, his right eye opening the tiniest crack.

  So he was awake. Just avoiding her.

  He closed his eye.

  She looked out the window, watching an undulating field of mature wheat roll by, the fat tips of the grain a golden yellow with late summer. She should leave him be. It was what he wanted at the moment.

  But then her mouth opened. “Will you tell me what you’ve learned about this family? Are you sure they are my mother’s kin?”

  “You are questioning me?” He didn’t open his eyes.

  “No…it’s just that you said in your first note that there were several possibilities you’d uncovered. I just wanted to weigh whether the family we are travelling to are the most likely to be my mother’s family.”

  “You were the one that was convinced I could find the answers.”

  “I am convinced of that. I just want to know if you are convinced as well.”

  With a sigh, he opened his eyes, his look pinning her. “I wouldn’t be in the carriage right now if I wasn’t fairly certain.”

  “Oh…fine.” She blinked hard. “Thank you.”