Chase Family Collection: Limited Christmas Edition

by Lauren Royal

  “Well, that’s good, then. He’s coming back day after tomorrow. You heard him say that, didn’t you? If he isn’t needed here in London, then surely he’ll take you back to Windsor.”

  “I think not.” With a great effort, Ellen choked back the last of her tears. “He told me today that Thomas will never see a penny of my dowry.”

  Rose didn’t think Kit would follow through with that threat, but it wasn’t her place to tell Ellen. “Is that what this is about?”

  “No. Well, maybe.” She bowed her head, looking up at Rose through damp lashes. “What if Thomas doesn’t want me without the money? We’ve spent so much time dreaming of the day when—”

  “Don’t be a goose.” Rose reached to lift Ellen’s chin. “I know the look of love in a man’s eyes, and I can assure you Thomas is besotted. He doesn’t want you for your money, Ellen—you need to put that right out of your head.”

  Ellen looked like she wanted to believe her. “Do you think?”

  “I know.” Rose felt her age and then some. Ellen was so young. So vulnerable. Rose remembered Kit’s concerns and her promise to watch over his sister. “Would you like to sleep in here instead of the other room? We can talk all night like my sisters and I used to when one of us was upset.”

  Tears leaked again as Ellen nodded. “You’re so kind, Rose.”

  Nobody had ever described Rose as kind. Her own eyes felt watery as she rang for her maid to prepare them both for bed.

  Thirty-Five

  “GOOD MORNING, Ellen.” Rose stretched beneath the quilt, then slowly rolled over. “Ellen?”

  Ellen wasn’t there.

  Rose sat up and squinted at the clock on her mantel. Seeing it was only seven in the morning, she groaned. Breakfast wouldn’t be served until nine.

  Yawning, she absently lifted one of the bottles off her bedside table. The cork came free with a soft pop, and she inhaled deeply, closing her eyes.

  Frankincense and myrrh. Kit. Almost. Something was missing. That woodsy something. She’d have to locate and add that elusive ingredient before she gave the bottle to the duke.

  Thinking she’d better find Ellen, Rose yawned again and slid from the bed. She tied a red wrapper over her white night rail, slipped her feet into a pair of quilted satin mules, and padded out of her chamber, taking the bottle with her.

  Ellen wasn’t in the room she’d been assigned, either. Through the open door of her mother’s sitting room, Rose glimpsed two maids busy about their day’s work, one opening the shutters while the other cleaned the fire grate.

  “Have either of you seen Ellen Martyn?” she asked.

  “Nay, my lady,” they chorused in unison. “Perhaps she’s still abed?” one of them guessed.

  “No, she’s not.”

  For one panicked moment, Rose wondered if Ellen had escaped and gone to Thomas after all, but then she shook herself and headed for the staircase. Just because the upstairs maids hadn’t seen her didn’t mean that Ellen wasn’t here. She could easily be in the dining room having an early breakfast. Or perhaps in the large basement kitchen. Their cook would be long awake, baking the day’s bread, and she wasn’t the type to let anyone in the house go hungry.

  There was no need to fret. In fact, Rose thought, pausing in front of the perfumery and looking at the bottle in her hand, maybe she could take the time to perfect this scent. Half guilty knowing her mother would be a much more solicitous hostess, she pushed down on the door’s latch and shoved it open.

  The bottle crashed to the planked wood floor. “Ellen!”

  Tears welling in her eyes, Ellen held a dropper in one hand and a vial in the other. Looking away from Rose, she tilted her head back and deliberately emptied the last glistening drop into her mouth.

  “Ellen!” Skidding on glass and perfume, Rose ran to her, not wanting to believe what she’d just seen. “Whatever are you doing?” She grabbed the vial from her hand. “Pennyroyal?” Her heart pounded. “Are you trying to kill yourself? Essential oils are poison, pennyroyal most of all!”

  Ellen’s skin looked as white as her night rail. Sweat beaded on her forehead. As her red-rimmed eyes met Rose’s, the glass dropper fell from her slack fingers and shattered on the floor.

  She doubled over. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “It’s just as well, else I’d stick my finger down your throat and make you sick!” Rose ran for the chamber pot that sat beneath a sideboard and rushed back to plunk it on the worktable.

  She held Ellen’s head—and her own tongue—while spasms wracked the younger woman’s body, purging her of the poison. Over and over, but it wasn’t enough for Rose. When Ellen swallowed convulsively, holding back another spasm while she slumped against the table, Rose couldn’t hold her tongue any longer.

  “All of it,” she demanded. Ellen’s knees buckled, and Rose held her up by sheer force of will. “More! I want to see that there’s nothing left in your stomach. Nothing, Ellen, you hear me? Else my finger will go down your throat. More!”

  At long last, a series of dry heaves left Rose satisfied. She slung an arm around Ellen’s shoulders and led her to a chair.

  Still shuddering and frightfully pale, Ellen sank down. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, a shaky hand to her mouth. Tears spilled and ran down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry.”

  Rose took the chair beside her, a hand to her still-racing heart. She thought she’d caught Ellen in time. She’d call her mother and a doctor to make sure, but first she had to catch her breath.

  She’d never been so scared in her life.

  “Good God, Ellen, I know you’re unhappy, but surely things aren’t bad enough to end it all.”

  The younger woman’s eyes widened. “I wasn’t trying to,” she whispered. “I swear it. I didn’t know pennyroyal was that dangerous.”

  Cautious relief sang through Rose’s veins, but something still didn’t fit. “Why, then?” Suddenly chilled, she hugged herself, running her hands up and down her arms. “Pennyroyal is a powerful herb. Did you know that pregnant women shouldn’t eat or drink anything containing pennyroyal, for fear of bringing on their courses?”

  Ellen clenched her hands together in her lap and stared at them. “How do you know that?”

  “I’ve all kinds of foreign books to practice my languages. Many of them are herbals…”

  Rose’s voice trailed off as she stared at her friend’s miserable, huddled form—and understanding dawned.

  “You’re with child, aren’t you?” she breathed, not a question, but a statement. “You were trying to rid yourself of it.”

  Ellen’s fingers clenched harder; her tears flowed faster. Words spilled out between sobs. “The midwife said to brew pennyroyal tea, but I didn’t have any leaves, and then I saw your mother’s oils…”

  “Oh, Ellen!” Aghast, Rose slid from her chair to kneel at Ellen’s feet. She grabbed her hands. “How could you?” The younger woman’s tears fell warm on all their clasped fingers. Looking up, Rose searched her face. She hadn’t been attempting suicide, thank heavens, but… “How could you even think of doing something so wrong?”

  Ellen blinked and met her gaze, a sudden spark of anger making her eyes flash green. “There are worse wrongs,” she returned vehemently. “How about bearing a child out of wedlock? Disappointing my brother? Or defying him to marry the man I love?”

  She wrenched her hands from Rose’s and dashed at her tears.

  “Which is more wrong, Rose? A babe will leave me no choice but to go behind Kit’s back—no choice, no choice at all! I tried to talk him into letting me wed Thomas—I tried! But I cannot try anymore, don’t you see? Not with Thomas’s child growing inside me. My options are gone. I can have another child, but I’ll never have another brother. I need more time…”

  Rose swallowed, trying to understand, trying to be a good friend.

  Though she wasn’t a woman to sigh over other people’s babies, she couldn’t imagine not wanting her own. She squeezed Ellen’s fingers. �
�Don’t you want Thomas’s child?”

  “Of course I do.” Ellen’s tears flowed even faster. “But—”

  “You’re going to have it,” Rose said through gritted teeth. Ellen was her friend, and she’d promised Kit she’d watch over his sister. He wouldn’t want Ellen to lose her baby—she was sure of it. “If I have to stay with you day and night, I’ll be here to make certain you do nothing to harm your child.”

  If you haven’t harmed it already.

  A heavy silence descended as the words hung between them, unspoken.

  Only time would tell. Until a day or so passed without Ellen’s menses coming upon her, Rose would wonder whether she’d caught her in time.

  But a little color had sneaked back into Ellen’s cheeks. Though her face was wet with tears, her forehead was no longer slicked with sweat. Her body had stopped shuddering.

  Rose saw reason to hope.

  She got to her feet, bringing Ellen up with her, and wrapped her into a fierce hug. A hug that encompassed both the woman and the new life within her. “You won’t have a child out of wedlock,” she promised into Ellen’s wavy dark hair. Drawing away, she offered her friend a shaky smile. “Now Kit will have to allow you to marry Thomas.”

  “He won’t.”

  “He will. Once he hears you’re with child—”

  Ellen stepped back. “I cannot tell him that.”

  “What do you mean, Ellen? You must.” Rose’s gaze dropped to the other woman’s middle. “He’ll figure it out soon enough in any case, so you might as well tell him now.”

  “I couldn’t. He’d kill me.”

  “He wouldn’t!”

  “He thinks I’m his virginal baby sister. Have you any idea how he’d look at me? He’d think it his failure, and—”

  “You’d rather lose your child than confess to your big brother?”

  “No!” Ellen had gone white again. Into the tense silence that followed, she released a long, shuddering breath. “I just…I cannot tell him,” she whispered.

  Rose didn’t understand—couldn’t understand—but she wanted to be a good friend. And she could tell Kit anything.

  “Then I’ll tell him for you,” she said simply. “But first, we send a footman to fetch the doctor.”

  Thirty-Six

  “GOOD AFTERNOON, Mr. Martyn,” the guard at Windsor Castle’s gate greeted.

  “Afternoon,” Kit muttered back.

  After all, there was nothing good about it.

  He’d arrived at Harold Washburn’s meager rooms on Peascod Street only to find them empty. The only neighbor he could locate informed him that Washburn had carted his belongings out days before.

  Of course. As he walked from the Lower Ward to the Upper, Kit cursed himself for a fool. It was obvious enough that if the man had set fire to Whitehall, he’d left Windsor in the time since Kit had dismissed him. Kit had assumed Washburn would return home, but without employment, there was no longer anything to hold him here.

  He could still be in London—or anywhere.

  Though Kit itched to confront the bastard, he hadn’t the time to mount a full-scale search, not while seeing his projects to successful completion. He would have to hope that the arson at Whitehall had satisfied the man’s thirst for revenge—that he wouldn’t try anything more.

  When he finally reached Windsor’s dining room, he breathed a sigh of relief. Here, at least, everything seemed to be going right. The ceiling was nearing completion. The scaffolding was coming down, and new plaster was going up. Over in a corner, men labored to put a fine finish on the last pieces of oak paneling. Pleasant aromas of fresh-cut wood and sawdust filled the air.

  The scent of building. It never failed to invigorate him.

  “Well done,” he told his new foreman. They spread out the plans and went over them together, then discussed the final schedule.

  “Seen Washburn lately?” Kit asked when they were finished.

  Though he hadn’t expected an affirmative answer, the foreman nodded. “Just yesterday, in fact. Been parading about town with some mighty fancy doxies.”

  Celebrating his successful revenge, Kit thought, seeing red. And spending the money he’d pocketed by purchasing inferior materials.

  Through the anger, though, the new knowledge lifted his spirits. Apparently Washburn was here in Windsor, after all.

  “Saw him not an hour ago,” another man volunteered through nails held between his teeth. “At the Old King’s Head on Church Street.”

  Better news yet. Kit thanked the men for a job well done, then hied himself off to Church Street, feeling more optimistic than he had in days.

  As he strode through the castle grounds, his thoughts turned to Rose and what had happened last night in the square. Lord Almighty, she’d made him all but lose his head. He’d never been with a woman so forward, or so responsive.

  Unfortunately, he wasn’t at all sure she was as ready to surrender mentally as she was physically.

  “Good afternoon, Richards,” he said to the guard this time.

  “Afternoon,” the man returned with a gap-toothed smile.

  Within sight of the castle gates, The Old King’s Head was a typical inn—a few chambers above a darkly paneled taproom. It was known as the place a group of Parliamentarians met in 1648 to resolve that King Charles I “should be prosecuted for his life as a criminal person.” One would think the current King Charles, the beheaded king’s son, would avoid the street, but the opposite was true. His favorite mistress, the “pretty, witty Nell Gwyn,” owned the house next door, where she stayed—and he paid nocturnal visits—whenever the court was lodged at Windsor.

  But the king had moved to Hampton Court, so enchanting Nelly wasn’t here now. Kit could only hope Washburn still was.

  He pushed open the door and scanned the dim taproom. Few patrons sat at the long wooden tables this quiet afternoon, and the man Kit sought was nowhere to be seen.

  “Can I get you something, milord?” A buxom blond serving maid sidled up to him, eyeing him appreciatively. “Mayhap an ale…or something else?”

  Her expression made clear the “something else” involved herself, but Kit wasn’t interested. “I’m looking for Harold Washburn.”

  “Ah, His High and Mighty.” The girl rolled her pretty blue eyes. “He’s staying above.” She gestured up a staircase. “Shakespeare’s chamber, no less.”

  It was said the Bard had lived here while writing The Merry Wives of Windsor. Kit wasn’t sure he believed that, but he was sure the inn charged a pretty penny for the room purported to be the playwright’s.

  Washburn had apparently come up in the world. He must have embezzled even more money than Kit had feared. Money that would be coming straight out of Kit’s pocket.

  He saw red again as he took the stairs two at a time.

  “Wait, milord!” the serving maid called, lifting her skirts to run after him. “You cannot just go up there!”

  Try and stop me, he thought as he reached the top and began pounding on the first door. “Washburn! Are you in there?” When nobody answered, he tested the latch and found the room open and empty.

  He strode to the next, rapping so hard he bruised his knuckles. It was a welcome pain, one that fueled his emotions higher. “Washburn!”

  The serving maid caught up and tugged on his arm. “Milord, the proprietor—”

  “A pox on the proprietor!” Shaking himself free, he opened the door. Finding this room vacant as well, he moved on, banging his fist against the next. “Washburn!”

  A loud, startled squeal came from inside. A female squeal. And then Washburn’s voice, a low hiss. “Shut your trap, you damnable wench.”

  For the costliest room in the house, Shakespeare’s chamber sure had a thin door.

  Kit tried the latch and found the door locked. “Washburn, open up!”

  Again, the serving maid tugged on his sleeve. “Milord, you cannot—”

  “I can, my dear. Watch me.” His patience at an end, Kit ra
ised a booted foot and rammed it into the door.

  It gave incredibly easily, slamming back against the wall and making the cheap porcelain knickknacks dance on Shakespeare’s marble mantel. Another squeal followed, snapping Kit’s gaze to the gaudy purple velvet–draped bed, where a blowzy woman sat straight up, the counterpane held to her bosom.

  An obviously naked bosom. And beside her, Washburn wore nothing but the evidence of a day-old beard. Sweat gleamed on his bald head. The tiny red veins on his oversized nose seemed to pulse. Huddled under the covers, he looked, if possible, even more horrified than the doxy. Under other circumstances, Kit might have burst out laughing.

  But these weren’t other circumstances.

  “I swear,” he gritted out, “by God and all that is holy, if you set fire to one more of my projects—”

  “What fire?” Washburn squeaked, sounding more pathetic than the whore.

  “In the Chapel Royal at Whitehall,” Kit spat, moving closer. “Are you so sotted on women and drink that you’ve lost your half-witted memory?”

  The man rose, taking the counterpane with him and baring the doxy in the process. She squealed again and slid off the mattress to cower on the far side of the bed.

  The purple velvet clenched in one fist, Washburn brandished the other threateningly. “To the devil with you, Martyn. I’ve no knowledge of a fire at Whitehall, and I damn well didn’t set it.”

  Something in the man’s dark eyes gave Kit pause. “Where were you four days ago?”

  “Here,” Washburn snapped.

  “And what fine, upstanding citizen can you find to vouch for that?”

  The ex-foreman swung to glare at his woman. “Me,” the doxy squeaked, peeking over the edge of the bed.

  Kit snorted. “You think me maggot-brained to believe such as her?”

  “How about me?” the serving maid said from behind him. “Will you believe me?”

  Kit turned to her. “About what?” In his red-hot rage, he’d forgotten she was there.

  “Him.” Pointing at Washburn, she nervously licked her lips. “He’s been here since last week. Hasn’t left except to buy some gewgaws for his ladies. An hour here or there.”