A cynical smile crossed his lips. Apparently getting onto a quarantined ship was a damned sight easier than getting off of one. Especially when the authorities couldn’t agree if there was even anyone with cholera aboard.
In this case, the madness in his family was a help to him. No one was terribly surprised that the Duke of Lyons would do something as insane as to go aboard a quarantined ship. He’d been careful not to reveal why. He hadn’t even mentioned the names of the men he wanted to see. No point in giving the press more fodder before he knew the situation. Besides, there was the matter of Bonnaud traveling under an assumed name and being a wanted man.
It had been harder to get the authorities to agree to let Lisette on board, especially since he’d refused to tell them who she was. But a few covert bribes had convinced them.
He glanced at Lisette. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked, fighting not to grab her hand in front of the quarantine officer accompanying them. “Once we’re aboard, they may not let us leave until quarantine is lifted. What is your half brother going to think if he arrives from Scotland to find that you’re still not home?”
“I sent a messenger with a note for Skrimshaw to give to Dom, in case he returns soon.” She cast the quarantine officer a furtive glance. “I didn’t tell him where I was—just that I was safe. I didn’t want to alarm Dom over the quarantine. But I did warn him about Hucker.”
“Good idea. The man is bound to have returned to England by now, and he may very well return to watching Manton’s Investigations.”
“I know. That’s why I have to go aboard with you—I have to talk to my . . . friend about what he’s risking by coming here.”
“I understand.” That was why Maximilian hadn’t pushed her into going home. After all they’d been through, she deserved to have her concerns about Bonnaud laid to rest.
Besides, a tiny, selfish part of him wanted her there for this encounter with the man who might very well be his brother. He was too agitated to think straight at present, and he knew that she would.
“So is there anyone on board the ship with fever or not?” Lisette asked. “If the ship has been here for six weeks and everyone has a clean bill of health, it should be out of quarantine by now. Since you made me stay in the carriage for most of your visits to the government officials, I never got the full story.”
“To be honest, neither did I. At most there is one ill passenger on board. They couldn’t tell me if it was cholera or not, however. My friend on the Privy Council would only say they’d been consulting with doctors.” He shot her a quick glance. “That’s my only worry about taking you out there. The thought of you catching cholera sends a chill down my spine.”
A soft smile lit her face. “I feel the same about you. But I doubt it’s cholera, and if only one passenger has it, we may not even encounter the ill individual.”
He bloody well hoped not.
The boat reached the dock. They made the short trip out to the ship in a silence punctuated only by the slap of the waves against the boards and the swish of the oars through the water.
Once they boarded, they were met by the ship’s captain. The quarantine officer introduced them as the Duke of Lyons and his “lady companion,” which made Maximilian wince but didn’t seem to overly concern Lisette. Then the official beat a hasty retreat to the boat.
“Well, Your Grace?” the captain asked when they were alone. “I do hope you’ve come to get the quarantine lifted.”
That caught Maximilian off guard. “Actually, we need to see two of your passengers—Jack Drake and Victor Cale.”
The captain’s eyes narrowed. “Are they friends of yours?”
“You might say that,” Maximilian retorted. “Why?”
“Because Victor Cale is the reason the Grecian is still sitting here. After we were forced into quarantine, Cale got ill. My ship’s physician, whom I would trust with my life, is convinced he has pneumonia, so there’s no reason for continuing the quarantine just for him. But the damned quarantine officers won’t lift it without permission from the Privy Council, and the Privy Council is too afraid to stick its neck out. So my men and my cargo are trapped here until he recovers. Or dies.”
Maximilian tensed. “Is there a chance of him dying?”
“He’s been very sick for over two weeks. Dr. Worth is beginning to despair. And Cale’s friend Drake spends every waking hour helping to tend him.”
Maximilian grabbed for Lisette’s hand. She squeezed it comfortingly, and that settled him a little. “Then I should like to speak with Drake and the doctor.”
The captain nodded and inclined his head toward a hatchway. “They’re both below deck in the infirmary.”
“Thank you,” Maximilian said.
Once they descended the hatchway, they didn’t have to go far before finding the infirmary. It was the only cabin with a light burning from beneath the door. Before they could even enter, however, a man stepped out into the dim passageway, the lantern light from inside briefly illuminating his face.
“Tristan!” Lisette cried, apparently forgetting all about her brother’s alias as she squeezed past Maximilian to launch herself at the man.
“Lisette?” he said in clear bewilderment as she hugged him. He pulled back to look at her. “Good God, it is you! What the devil are you doing here?”
“I should ask you the same thing!” She lowered her voice. “Have you lost your mind, coming to England? George has had a man snooping about Dom’s, and if he should learn that you’re so close . . .”
Bonnaud flashed her the cocky grin that Maximilian remembered from their chat at the races years ago. “Surely you and Dom were too careful for that.” Then he peered past her. “How did you know I was here? Is that Dom with you?”
Maximilian moved into the light. “No, it’s the Duke of Lyons.”
Bonnaud gaped at him. “You found me!”
“It took some doing,” Maximilian said, “but yes.”
Bonnaud glanced back into the room behind him. They could hear violent coughing coming from inside. “This way,” he said, pointing down the passageway. “We can talk.”
“I want to see him first,” Maximilian snapped.
Not needing to ask who he meant, Bonnaud said, “He’s very ill.”
“The captain told us as much,” Maximilian said.
As Maximilian entered with Lisette at his side, he stared at the emaciated figure in the bed. Next to the bed sat a young man who was trying futilely to get the patient to drink a chemical-smelling draught.
“Your Grace, this is Dr. Worth,” Bonnaud said. “He’s been looking after Victor.” He glanced at the doctor. “Dr. Worth, this is the Duke of Lyons, a . . . possible relation of Victor’s. And the lady with him is my sister, Miss Bonnaud.”
When Maximilian shot him a sharp glance, surprised that he’d given the man her actual name, Bonnaud shrugged. “The doctor and I have spent days together. We no longer have any secrets. He’s the one who arranged for me to be smuggled off the ship last week.”
“We couldn’t wait for quarantine to be lifted,” Dr. Worth explained. “The possibility that Mr. Cale might die became more pronounced with each day, and Mr. Bonnaud thought you might wish to see him before . . . he got too ill.”
Bonnaud scowled. “That cursed quarantine officer wouldn’t let me go beyond the docks or reveal to you that we were from a quarantine ship, for fear that you would show up here and get him sacked. He got sacked anyway, smuggling contraband off a couple of days later.”
He shot Maximilian an apologetic glance. “I really thought I’d have a chance to speak to you, or I wouldn’t have been so secretive in the letter. But the damned officer got spooked when he saw soldiers and insisted that I return with him at once, since we’d already waited a while for you.”
“I know, I’m sorry.” Maximilian’s eyes were fixed on the man in the bed. “I was out when your message came. But I remembered your connection to Manton and went to his lodgings. Manton
wasn’t there, but Miss Bonnaud was, and she eventually figured it out.”
No point in revealing how—or the fact that they’d spent the last several days alone together.
Victor began another fit of coughing, and Maximilian tensed. Lisette tucked her hand in the crook of his arm. “Are you all right?”
“No.” Raw fear tightened his throat. “He looks very ill indeed.” He squeezed her hand, then stepped nearer the bed. “How long has he been like this?” he asked Dr. Worth.
“He’s been sick for two weeks, Your Grace,” the physician said. “It wasn’t too bad at first, but then he took a turn for the worse a week ago, and he’s been feverish and insensible ever since. The next few days are crucial. He’ll either survive it or die. I’ve seen men of his youth and vigor survive pneumonia with no ill effects after treatment. And I’ve seen men stronger than him die under the same treatment. At this point, it’s hard to know which he will do.”
“Is that you, Father?” said “Victor,” fretfully pushing away the doctor’s cup. “Don’t want any more gruel. Hate gruel.”
Maximilian caught his breath. Gruel had been Mother’s favorite cure for illness. Had it been Uncle Nigel’s, too, for the boy he’d treated as his son? Or was Victor possibly even remembering further back, to his childhood illnesses at home?
The man looked as if he could be Peter. He seemed the right age, and he faintly resembled Father. Peter had been blond as a child, whereas Victor’s hair was a medium brown, but Maximilian’s was only a shade lighter than brown, and he’d been blond as a boy, too.
“What color are his eyes?” Maximilian asked.
When the physician blinked, Maximilian realized that must seem a very odd question. “They’re hazel,” the doctor said. “Why?”
Peter’s eyes had been hazel.
He gripped Lisette’s hand. Could it be? Or was he grasping at straws, desperate to have his brother back? “Is there nothing you can do for him?”
“I’m making sure he drinks saline and sulfur draughts. Some doctors insist on cupping and bleeding the patient as well, but I’ve never been fond of such a treatment.” The physician sponged the man’s brow with a damp cloth. “It would help, however, if he could leave the ship. The air here is too wet for his lungs, and the noise of the sailors disturbs him. He needs to be in a calm, dry, quiet place.”
“You’re sure he doesn’t have cholera?” Maximilian asked.
Dr. Worth snorted. “He’s not vomiting, he’s not voiding his bowels every hour . . . of course he doesn’t have cholera. I have explained that to the quarantine officers repeatedly, but they will not act.”
“They will now,” Maximilian said grimly, “if I have to bring every damned member of the Privy Council down to the docks to ensure it.”
The doctor flashed him a tired smile. “Thank you. Lifting the quarantine would do him a vast deal of good, I think.” As Victor went into another fit of coughing, Dr. Worth mopped his brow. “I swear I’ll do all in my power to save him, Your Grace.”
“If you succeed,” Maximilian clipped out, “I’ll gain you any medical appointment you desire.”
The physician said gently, “Whatever happens will be his own choice, I fear, not mine or even yours. He’ll have to fight it if he wants to live.”
Maximilian nodded, but felt the same helpless despair come over him that he’d felt during Father’s madness and Mother’s last days before death. What good was it to be the bloody Duke of Lyons if he couldn’t save the ones he loved?
Assuming that this man was one of the ones he loved.
He turned to Bonnaud. “It’s time we had that talk.”
With a nod, Bonnaud led them from the room and down the passageway to a small cabin. Apparently it was the one Bonnaud had shared with Victor, for it contained two bunks fitted one above the other.
Bonnaud dropped wearily onto the lowest bunk and Lisette hurried to sit next to him. Maximilian understood why, but it made something lurch in his chest to see the two Bonnaud siblings ranged against him.
It did, however, reinforce how uncanny was the resemblance between brother and sister. Both had eyes of crystal blue, both had pointed jaws, and both had dark curls, though Bonnaud’s were cut to just under his chin.
One thing was certain—Bonnaud looked wrung out. He did not look like a man engaged in some sort of fraud.
“I suppose you want to see the handkerchief first,” Bonnaud said, reaching under the bunk for a small trunk.
“No.” Maximilian crossed his arms over his chest. “I want to know why you risked your very life to return to this country with a man you believed to be Peter Cale. You and I met only briefly years ago—why go to so much trouble for me? Because I don’t believe it’s out of the goodness of your heart.”
Though Lisette shot him an injured glance, Bonnaud met his gaze evenly. “It’s not. I don’t know how much Lisette has told you, but I’m wanted in England for stealing a horse when I was seventeen. I was hoping that if I could reunite you with your brother, you would use your influence to get the charge against me dropped.”
Maximilian blinked. He hadn’t expected that. And he had to admire the man for not only admitting his crime, but not trying to excuse it.
“Don’t misunderstand me,” Bonnaud went on, “I enjoy my work in France for the Sûreté. But I miss England.” He took Lisette’s hand in his and squeezed it. When he went on, his voice was choked. “And I miss my brother and sister. With Lisette and Dom both here, I have no one. My landlord, Eugène Vidocq, is very good to me, but—”
“He’s not family. I understand that.” Especially as someone who’d been left alone for the past few years, with no one to share his pain and grief.
Until Lisette had come along. “I assure you, Bonnaud, if Victor Cale proves to be my brother, I’ll do everything in my power to restore you to England and your family. It’s the least I can do.”
“Thank you, Your Grace,” Bonnaud said as Lisette cast Maximilian a melting smile that warmed his heart.
“So how did it begin—your finding Victor?” Maximilian asked.
“I’ve known him off and on for a few years. I never connected him with your family because I didn’t remember that your surname was Cale. When I met you, everyone referred to you as Lord Maximilian.”
That had been before the fire, when Maximilian was still only a second son.
“Besides,” Bonnaud went on, “neither Victor nor I talked much about our pasts. To be honest, I thought he was an orphan. He’d spent some years after the war serving in Prussia’s standing army, having fought with them against the French at Waterloo.”
“Peter would only have been eighteen then.”
“I think Victor was seventeen when he joined, yes.”
Maximilian mused a moment. “That would probably have been right after my great-uncle died. The timing fits.” He stared at Bonnaud. “But how did he escape the fire? Who was the boy killed in the fire if it wasn’t Peter? And if Victor is Peter, why did he change his name?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t know enough details about the fire even to be able to ask him the right questions, and he won’t talk about it anyway. He says he’ll only tell his family about it.”
That roused Maximilian’s suspicions. He needed to be careful here and not let his desire for this stranger to be Peter take over his good sense. “Tell me how you met him.”
“A few years ago, I was on a case in Antwerp. I needed an interpreter and I was referred to Victor, since he speaks several languages and he’d left the army to work on his own. After he helped me with that case, I used him whenever I needed an interpreter. Most recently he aided me in tracking down a forger.”
Bonnaud took a long breath. “One night during that investigation, Victor and I went drinking. He pulled out a handkerchief, and I recognized it as being just like yours—down to the fancy embroidery. That’s when I remembered that your family name was Cale.”
“Show me the handkerchief,” Maximilian sa
id.
Dragging out his small trunk, Bonnaud removed a folded piece of linen. With shaky hands, Maximilian took it and held it up to the lantern’s light. It was worn and frayed and dingy, but the embroidery was still intact, and it was exactly like that on Maximilian’s handkerchief. He didn’t really need to see the swath of white showing through it. He’d already felt the thickness of the extra fabric in the middle.
His heart began to pound.
“Well?” Lisette asked softly.
He handed it to her. “It’s Peter’s. At the very least Victor knew him, or knew someone who knew him.” He stared Bonnaud down. “So when you saw the handkerchief, you told him what? That it belonged to the heir to a duke?”
“God, no! I’m no fool. Victor’s a decent enough fellow, but he has led a rather rough existence. Ever since he left the army, he’s been a soldier for pay for whoever hires him. I thought it wise to be circumspect.”
Relief surged through Maximilian. Now he knew why Vidocq had spoken highly of Bonnaud.
Then something occurred to him. “But you told the doctor who I was.”
Bonnaud rubbed his bleary eyes. “Once Victor worsened and grew delirious, there seemed no point in keeping this affair secret from Dr. Worth. I didn’t tell him that Victor might be your brother; I just said he might be related to the Duke of Lyons. Victor doesn’t even know his own name right now, much less what we are saying. Most of what he babbles is nonsense. And I had to confide in someone, if only to gain help in getting off the damned ship.”
That made sense, especially under the circumstances. “Go on then, continue your story. You were drinking in a tavern, you saw the handkerchief . . .”
“I asked him how he came by it. That put him on his guard. He wanted to know why I asked, and I told him I’d seen one like it in England. That got him excited. He said he’d had an English father, who’d died in a fire at Gheel a few months before Waterloo.”
Excitement coursed through Maximilian. It didn’t get much plainer than that. But how could that bloody investigator have missed that Peter was still alive? Damn him! Maximilian had never liked the man, and now he liked him even less.
The Duke's Men [1] What the Duke Desires Page 23