A Duchess a Day

by Charis Michaels

  When they left Lusk House, Declan hailed a hackney cab and they clattered across London squished beside each other on the seat, clutching both hands.

  “What made you change your mind?” she finally asked.

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Ever the romantic,” she said. “I do want to know. Tell me.”

  He looked down at her. “If I marry you now, in the Catholic church, and if we do not consummate the marriage, then you may annul the union later.”

  “I will no—”

  “Stop. You asked for a reason, and I’m giving it. I’ll only do this if you have choices. You cannot predict what you’ll want.”

  “I can predict what I want—how very hard is it to know one’s own mind?—and I’ve been predicting it from the beginning. You’ve been the only one to listen. Until now.”

  “I am listening,” he said, “but so must you. For once.”

  They traveled another block. Helena weighed the odds of challenging him. Finally, she said, “Is that what you want? To marry now and seek an annulment later?”

  “It is the best I can arrange for now,” he said. “I cannot, in good conscience, bind you to me in my . . . current situation. I want you to have a way to be rid of me, just in case you—”

  He stopped. Finally, he added, “Just in case.”

  “So you are marrying me for the moment?”

  “I am marrying you, Helena. Please let us leave it at that. The decision to do it was exceedingly hard-met, and very soul-wrenching, but I’ve found a way.

  “And I’ve located this priest,” he added. “He even knows a clerk who will sign the license.

  “And we don’t have much time,” he finished. “Unless you’ve changed your mind?”

  “No,” she said at once.

  She elected to leave it. She would not needle him about his “hard-met and soul-wrenching decision.” She would not demand that he explain his current situation.

  If she was married to Declan Shaw, even a rushed-up marriage, in total secrecy, by some middle-of-the-night priest, she would be safe from marrying the duke. It would be enough.

  And Declan would be hers. Whether it was “for the moment” or forever—fine, he couldn’t say for sure. Helena could.

  She knew.

  As for consummating the marriage, she would also say nothing.

  Here again, she knew.

  They arrived at St. Patrick’s in Soho Square. Just as Declan said, the church was presided over by a priest called Father Thomas. He was a slight, irreverent man who was putting cream in bowls for mewing alley cats.

  Declan called out in greeting. The priest squinted at him as if he’d forgotten which midnight favor he’d promised this night.

  “It’s me, Father. Declan Shaw. Peter’s son?”

  “Oh yes, so it is,” said Father Thomas. “The couple in the very great rush. I remember now. Lovely. So be it, better rushed than wasting anyone’s time. Right this way. Do mind the cats.”

  The small church bustled with activity. The corridors were crowded with what appeared to be street urchins asleep on cots, watched over by a snoozing nun. A bright kitchen bustled with more nuns serving hot soup to exhausted, ragged-looking vagrants. The door to a room marked “Infirmary” opened and closed to admit a doctor. More nuns followed, carrying basins of steaming water, bandages, and finally a red, mewling infant.

  “But your church is so active at this early hour, Father?” Helena asked.

  “Oh yes. God’s children sometimes feel the most desperate in the middle of the night. If we intend to be ‘a light in the darkness,’ midnight is our busiest hour.”

  “So very noble,” she said, “thank you for . . . accommodating us.”

  “There are all kinds of desperation, aren’t there?” He winked at them. “We don’t stand on ceremony at St. Patrick’s. I became a priest to serve. Now, should we have a witness?”

  Helena and Declan were married in view of two nuns, three street vagrants, and a prostitute with hair the color of an orange. Father Thomas managed the whole thing in thirty minutes.

  Despite the rush, despite Declan’s clear preference for the reversibility of the thing, tears filled both their eyes when they spoke their vows. They repeated the ancient words solemnly, with the feeling and emphasis that sounded like a Heart Oath to God and each other.

  When they finally spilled, hand in hand, from the walled churchyard and into Soho Square, she whirled on him, took his face in both hands, and kissed him.

  He sighed blissfully and pulled her to him. She whispered, “Make love to me.”

  He answered with an anguished moan and kissed her again. They fell against the church wall, locked in an embrace.

  “You’ll see your error now,” she teased, rolling away from him, panting against cool stones. “You’ve married me. You’ll not escape my . . . my—”

  “Relentlessness,” he provided. He sought her hand between them. They leaned side by side on the wall.

  “I was going to say, ‘superior reasoning and clear logic,’ but alright. You cannot drive me away.”

  He did not answer, which meant he did not deny it. She smiled into the moonlit square. After a moment she said, “Declan, I want you to tell me whatever it is. This thing. Whatever you feel would cause me to annul this perfectly lovely wedding.”

  He turned to her on the wall. “You deserve a real wedding. Befitting the daughter of an earl.”

  Helena stuck her tongue out and made a gagging sound. “I deserve to know what great horrible secret you harbor that will drive me away.” She made the gesture of her fleeing in terror.

  Another silence. He turned away, studying the stones of the wall.

  “You are mad, Declan Shaw,” she said, “if you believe there is anything you can tell me that will drive me away. I love you.”

  “I haven’t told you, because you’ve enough of a struggle already. It is out of love that I haven’t told you.” He pushed off the wall. His playful mood had dissolved, but he held tight to her hand.

  They began to walk.

  “You knew it would come to this,” said Helena. “You knew I would insist.”

  “Yes. That is—I didn’t think one way or the other. It took effort to find Father Thomas. It is why I stopped searching the park. If we meant to do it, I had only this afternoon to arrange it. I allowed the details of the priest and the church to carry me away. I didn’t want to reckon with . . . with your relentlessness.” He glanced at her. “But I am inclined to tell you. I am so bloody exhausted from telling you no.”

  “On this, we are completely agreed.”

  “Fine,” he said, pulling her down the street. “We have several hours before sunrise. We’ll keep to the shadows, we’ll keep our voices low, and we’ll walk. I will tell you.”

  They walked half a block, and he said nothing.

  “If you’re trying to frighten me,” she said, “it’s not working.”

  He leaned down and kissed her once, hard, and then again harder. “God, I love your courage,” he said. “You will need every ounce of it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Perhaps, Declan thought, he’d always meant to tell her tonight.

  Deep down.

  If she demanded to know, and if she went so far as to marry him, he might as well tell her the stakes.

  He’d done his part and given her a way out. After she knew, she would stop asking to consummate the marriage.

  He took a deep breath. “When Titus Girdleston hired me—No, let me go further. The reason Titus Girdleston hired me is because I was incarcerated in Newgate Prison. That is, at the time.”

  “What?” she asked. “What time? When was this?” She stopped walking. He tried to release her hand but she held on.

  “The day you arrived in London,” he said. “I came to Lusk House from my cell in prison.” He spoke to their joined hands. “I am an accused felon—not convicted, but accused. Girdleston hired me for money, I’ve said this. But he
also holds the threat of returning to prison over my head. A sharp ax he threatens to drop.”

  He looked up, bracing to see fear, revulsion, disgust.

  Her green eyes were bright with . . . excitement?

  Oh God. Well, he thought, at least he always had that.

  She asked, “But in prison for what?”

  “Nothing I did. And if you believe that, you are among a very small group. But it’s true.”

  “I do believe you.”

  “I’ve been accused of kidnapping a young noblewoman,” he said.

  “No.” There was heartfelt pain in the word.

  Declan nodded. “A client of mine went missing, the woman I mentioned at the Wandsworth market. Knightly Snow.”

  “The girl you were hired by St. James’s Palace to escort to France?”

  “Yes. It all happened very quickly. Too quickly.” He chuckled bitterly. “One moment I was being summoned to the palace to meet with the sons of the king, the next I was en route to France with this volatile young woman.”

  “And she—what? Opposed you?”

  Another chuckle. “If only. She was difficult, but she never challenged me. If we’d gone toe to toe, I believe I could have made her see reason. No, it wasn’t her. Or at least I did not believe her to be the opposition. The palace hired me to take her away, but what they really wanted was for me to get rid of her.”

  “As in . . . kill her?”

  “Probably,” Declan said. “Which perhaps she knew. I would have never done it, but maybe she ran away because she feared for her life? I cannot say. I’ve not been allowed to investigate what happened because they tossed me in jail.”

  He thought about the night he was summoned to the palace and his meeting with the brothers of the future king.

  “The royal dukes have denied that they wanted her killed. Not that it matters. They are sons of the king. I am hired staff—or more accurately, I was a pawn.”

  “But what do you mean?”

  “The prince’s brothers were intentionally vague with their orders. This is not uncommon in my work, so I wasn’t alarmed. Sometimes I’m hired to make something happen with detailed precision, other times my employers prefer that I work out the details and don’t tell them how. This was one of those times. The suggestion was essentially, ‘Take her to France and make certain she doesn’t come back.’ ”

  “Oh dear.”

  “Indeed. But I made it very clear that I would not harm an unsuspecting young woman—I would not harm any woman.” He sighed. “I’m not in the business of violence toward innocent people, no matter how irritating.”

  Helena snorted. “Was she horrible? Totally unsuited to be the future queen?”

  “So horrible,” he confirmed. “Based on my very brief time with her, I’d wager she’ll be a disruptive force, whatever she becomes, and that includes time on any throne. But I’ve no interest in palace intrigue. I told the dukes that I’d escort her to France but I would not harm her. They assured me that harm was never their intention. They told me Miss Snow had agreed to go. She was excited to travel to the Continent and enjoy her aunt’s villa in Nice. Honestly, I think they gave her money to go away.”

  “So, you escorted her, and—”

  “And when we reached the French seaside, she gave me the slip.”

  “This I cannot believe,” said Helena.

  “It does no good to deny it. Believe me, I’ve tried. The crushing regret will be with me forever.” Declan stared into the dark street, shaking his head.

  He went on. “Knightly Snow was a difficult charge but hardly someone I considered a flight risk. I underestimated her, a stupid, amateur mistake.”

  “But how did she do it?”

  “Bribery. I suspect she had collaborators.” He exhaled heavily. “We’d been under way for nearly two weeks. We had another day’s travel to reach her aunt’s villa—this was near the town of Marseille. I’d arranged for rooms at an inn just south of town.

  “Like every night along the journey, I’d posted men outside her door for her own safety. It never occurred to me that she would bloody run away. She’d given me every indication of being a willing traveler, eager for a holiday in the care of her aunt.”

  “Declan,” Helena pleaded, “why didn’t you tell me all this before?”

  “My legal problems are not yours to bear, Helena,” he said. “You’ve enough to sort out.”

  “I piled my burden on you. I didn’t give it a second thought.”

  “Yes, but—”

  She held up a hand and interrupted. “Tell me the rest. Say what happened, and we shall bear it together.”

  Declan took another deep breath. “I took the first shift outside her door at eleven o’clock and the last shift at sunrise. She slipped from her room in the intervening hours. The men guarding the door were trusted members of the palace staff. They’d been added to her retinue to smooth the way. The dukes wanted her gone, not uncomfortable. We traveled with ten servants in all. I’d not worked with these men before—they were glorified footmen—but they’d proven themselves trustworthy to this point. And again, she’d given no indication of anything but compliance. It never occurred to me that she needed to be contained.”

  “So these men abducted her?” Helena guessed.

  “No. They allowed her to leave the inn. They denied everything and claimed she crawled out the window, but I scoured the room and saw no sign of this. I believe she paid them to allow her to go. They resigned from service as soon as they returned to London and both men are currently enjoying a pleasant retirement with a fat pension no one can explain.”

  “But what did you do when you discovered that she was gone?”

  “I did what I’ve always done: I began to hunt her down. But first I sent word to the palace. It felt like the responsible thing to do. What if she turned up back in London?”

  “Did the royal dukes seem . . . alarmed? I suppose they’d wanted this all along.”

  Declan shrugged. “I was occupied trying to find her . . . drumming the ground, shaking every tree. They made no reply.”

  “So why were you arrested?”

  “When I failed to deliver Miss Snow to her aunt’s, her family became distressed. They appealed to the palace first, and the royal dukes feigned ignorance. When the family became incensed and demanding, the palace cast around for a scapegoat.”

  “And they chose you,” realized Helena.

  “It was so very convenient. They dispatched royal guards to Marseille to arrest me. My defense fell on deaf ears.”

  “In France or in London?”

  “Everywhere. I am hired muscle and my accusers were the sons of the King of England. A girl in my charge is missing, and I could not account for why or how. Arresting me appeased her family and stifled the story of the future king’s vanishing paramour. The entire incident was deescalated, and I was stashed away in Newgate with very little access to my lawyers. Hell, they barely allowed me to speak to my father. I poured my entire savings into my defense, but the palace’s accusations and cover-up trumped anything I tried. Things were simpler if Knightly Snow remained a missing girl, likely kidnapped by her bodyguard, now safely in jail. The king’s son mourned her ‘death’ and moved on to a more suitable courtship. Her family held a funeral. And I sat in jail awaiting a long-postponed trial,” he finished. “Until the day Girdleston turned up to hire me to ‘contain’ you.”

  “My God, Declan,” she breathed, “it’s unbelievable. And entirely unjust.”

  Declan shrugged. “It is yet another example of the upper class orchestrating what they want, when they want it, with no regard for damage to inconsequential people along the way. As far as I know, Knightly Snow is alive and well and frolicking about France. As far as I know, no one has even bothered to search for her since I’ve been locked up.”

  “You think she . . . survived? But why did she run in the first place?”

  “Yes, I think she survived,” he exclaimed. “I had almost trac
ked her down . . . I was half a day away . . . when the palace sent guards to arrest me.”

  “But did you tell—”

  “Helena, I have told anyone and everyone who will listen. I’ve explained what I believe happened and where I think Knightly Snow might be found. No one cares about anything but keeping this girl away from the future king. They don’t want to find her. The more lost she is, the better. My freedom means nothing.”

  “But her poor family . . .” whispered Helena.

  “Think of your own family, Helena. I’m sure they do not wish you dead, but they are focused on their own prosperity. Surely Knightly Snow’s family mourns her, but they’d allowed her to enjoy life at court with no chaperone and then waved her off to France without coming to London to say a proper farewell.”

  “That poor girl,” said Helena, shaking her head.

  “Oh no. Do not seek a victim in Knightly Snow. She is impetuous and demanding and self-involved. If she’d not run away, I’d not be in this predicament.”

  “But why would she run?”

  “God only knows. The South of France is a playground for European society. The closer we traveled to the seaside, the more revelry was on display. She begged me daily to pause our journey so she might cavort with holiday seekers—men she met in the dining rooms of inns or at scenic overlooks where carriages clustered to take in the view. We passed castles that she wished to explore, and she read notices about country assemblies she wished to attend. I refused because I’d not been hired to squire her around France on a whim. The aunt was expecting her and I intended to deliver her. I told her repeatedly that she could do what she liked after I’d gone. Best I could tell, based on locals I spoke with after she disappeared, she could not wait.”

  “My God,” marveled Helena. “It’s no wonder my grandmother wanted me raised in the forest.”

  “No forest could contain Knightly Snow,” grumbled Declan.

  They walked a moment in silence and then she asked, “So, in the end, what was the charge against you?”