by Alyson Chase
A scratching at the door interrupted his thoughts. “Yes?” he called out.
Mr. Todd entered, his face as reserved as usual. If his eyes didn’t quite meet the duke’s it could be accounted for in a myriad of ways. Disapproval of the duke’s recent actions didn’t have to be its cause. “Your Grace, there is a man here to see you. A Mr. Harding. He says it’s important.” His steward’s tone sounded doubtful, but Todd had always been leery of the rougher crowd Marcus kept company with in service to the Crown.
“Show him in. We won’t need refreshments.” Settling himself behind his desk, Marcus waited for the spy. A distraction from his love life was welcome. Even if the distraction came in the form of treason. He’d spent too much time thinking of his maid and not enough on who was responsible for leaking England’s secrets.
Todd showed Mr. Harding into the room, his lip curling faintly as one of the spy’s unsewn trouser cuffs dragged on the floor. Marcus had to admit that the man’s hygiene left much to be improved upon, but his ragged appearance allowed entry into a class of citizens the duke could never access. The man was efficient and trustworthy, and that was more than could be asked of most spies.
Marcus heaved a breath. Perhaps a new suit would not go amiss as a Boxing Day present this year, however.
“Harding, please have a seat.” When the man dropped into the sturdy chair across from him, Marcus nodded to Todd, who bowed and left the room, closing the door behind him. He turned back to the spy. “What have you learned?”
“Bloody hell, what haven’t I learned. There’s a skeleton in each of you aristos’ closets. It’s a wonder the House o’ Lords gets any work done, what with the way you lot run on.” Harding shook his head in wonderment.
“And I’m sure the lower classes are morally pristine,” Marcus said dryly.
Harding smiled. “Nah, I guess people are people, no matter how deep their pockets.” He cleared his throat and pulled out a folded piece of paper from his trousers. “I found out that the Viscount of Kent has entered into a marriage contract with a wealthy American to wed his sister. All his debts will shortly be a thing of the past. He’s been working on this marriage business for months and was spending before the ink was dry.”
Marcus nodded, relieved. He liked the gregarious little viscount who always had a quick smile or a kind word for those he met.
Harding poked at the next line on his paper. “The Marquis of Stanwick got himself a nice loan from one of his compatriots to cover his debts. Nice friend he’s got there,” the spy muttered to himself. “Now this one”—he flicked the page with his middle finger—“this one here is interesting.”
“Who?”
“The Earl of Westmore. Before I told you he was spending more than his income.” Harding scratched his head. “That wasn’t quite right.”
Marcus leaned forward, put his elbows on the desk. Liz had clutched that spot when he’d bent her over it, smacked her ass until it was a lovely pink. Shifting in his seat, Marcus silently cursed. He had to stop thinking about her. “His finances are in order?”
“Not hardly.” The spy snorted. “His spending isn’t just more than his income. He’s trying to outspend Prinny.”
At the man’s pause, Marcus swirled his hand, impatient for him to proceed.
Harding scooted forward to the edge of the chair. “Right. Well, aside from six Hanoverians bred from the king’s own horse stock, six horses that he bought at a cool ten thousand pounds, he’s also bought himself five ruby and diamond necklaces”—the man held up five fingers to emphasize the amount—“and three gold statuettes.” Placing the piece of paper on his lap, he held one hand over the other, palms facing, about ten inches apart. “They aren’t that big, about yea high or so, but still. Gold.”
Marcus steepled his fingers. Five necklaces, three gold statuettes. He couldn’t imagine one man having four mistresses, assuming Westmore would even give his wife one of those necklaces. But jewels and gold made your wealth awfully portable. Even the horses could be loaded onto a ship easily enough, and their stud fees would be enormous.
“Anything else?” he asked the spy.
“Yeah, and here’s the kicker.” Harding scratched his head, a tuft of greasy hair standing straight up. “I’ve found title documents showing that Westmore bought some property two months ago using a middleman.”
“That’s not unusual for an earl.”
“No. But where he bought it is.” He paused for dramatic effect. Marcus gritted his teeth and reminded himself this man was a valued asset. He was allowed a bit of pomp. Harding waggled his bushy eyebrows. “A large villa. In the south of France.”
Marcus sat back and narrowed his eyes. Not definitive proof, but definitely suspicious. And combine that with . . .
“What about Miss Smith? Did you find out anything about her?” His heart galloped in his chest, but he kept his face impassive. Of course the man had found out nothing. His Liz would never—
“I sure did. That one ain’t no maid.”
Marcus couldn’t draw air. It felt like an anvil sat on his chest.
Harding continued. “The housekeeper and the upper servants kept to the story that she had been a trusted employee for two years. But over a pint with some of the lads who work in the stable, I found out the truth. She was never in service to the earl, leastways not as a maid.”
Montague ground his teeth together so hard his jaw ached. “Do you suggest she was in his service in a different manner?” Liz had never been any man’s mistress, and the insinuation made him want to tear Harding’s head from his body.
“Well, one of the lads who worked in the kitchen says he saw a woman of her description coming and going a couple of times.” The spy scratched at a scab on his nose. “Always used a side door. Always at night. There aren’t many reasons for an unrelated female to do that.”
No, there weren’t. If Marcus eliminated the obvious, which after last night he bloody well could, that left only—He shot up, the chair tipping over behind him. “Stay here!” he barked at Harding. Reaching the door in three strides, Marcus bolted from his study and ran for his chambers. He would find her still resting in his bed. She would have an explanation.
He skidded to a stop outside his door, and bent his head to the smooth wood, trying to control his breathing. It was madness to think otherwise.
Dread coiled in his stomach as he depressed the latch. The anteroom was silent, empty. Of course it was. She was in his bed. He walked through the room as though walking through water. He passed through his changing room and into the quiet bedroom.
A lump behind the bed’s curtains calmed the panic that had been clawing at his insides. She was still there, curled up under the covers. With each step closer, his brain understood what his heart didn’t want to accept. It wasn’t a person in his bed, only a twisted pile of sheets.
She was gone.
Of course she might be back in her own rooms. It was possible she remained his sweet Liz. But even his heart didn’t believe that optimistic tripe any longer. He stalked back to the anteroom, to the settee where he had tossed his coat the night before. Knowing what he would find, but going through the motions regardless, he reached into the inside pocket and pulled out a small bundle.
The paper was different, cheaper than it should have been. The lack of a seal told him the rest. He unfolded the pages and stared at blank white sheets.
The anger started in his chest, a ball of rage and heat that shot to his extremities. He crushed the papers into a ball and hurled it at the wall.
Goddamn her straight to hell.
His strides were even, controlled, as he made his way back downstairs. But his face must have told a different story. Every servant who saw him hastily backed away from his approach.
As he passed his steward’s office, Marcus bellowed, “Todd! My study. Now.”
The man was hot on his heels when Marcus entered the room. Harding was in the chair he’d left him in, cleaning his nails with one of the du
ke’s letter openers. He tossed the letter opener down on the desk casually, as though the Duke of Montague hadn’t just been yelling to bring the building down.
“Todd, I want you to send out men to search for Miss Smith again. Send as many men as we have horses. I want her found.”
The steward nodded, and started to back away.
“And bring me Mr. Pike,” Marcus said. “He’s supposed to be her relation, but I think we’ll find that’s a lie, too.” He frowned at the older man’s paunchy frame, graying hair. “Take a couple of footmen with you. Pike might not want to see me.”
One of Todd’s eyebrows twitched, but he didn’t ask any questions. “Yes, Your Grace,” he said, and rushed from the room.
Marcus turned to Harding. The other man got to his feet. “Same orders for me? Find Miss Smith?”
“No.” Marcus walked to the bay window and watched as a small boy raced across the lawn to the stable. “I’ll take care of that. I want you to focus on finding evidence of Westmore’s treason. Go through his communiqués. Search his rooms and his office at Parliament. Have him watched twenty-four-seven. Have his associates watched. I don’t care how many men you need to put on this.” Opening the bottom drawer to his desk, he removed a cloth bag. Its contents clinked softly when he handed it to Harding. “I don’t care what it costs.”
The bag disappeared into the man’s oversized coat. “Got it, Your Grace. If there’s evidence to be found I’ll get it.”
“We’d better.” Marcus turned back to the window. The view that had only an hour ago appeared so cheerful now brought bile to the back of his mouth. He’d only known Liz, if that was even her name, for a couple of weeks. He had no right to feel so betrayed. “You may go.” It came out as little more than a whisper, the words hard to force past the lump in his throat.
He stood at the window and watched as his stable emptied, men riding in all directions to hunt her down. He stood there until he saw Harding also climb his mount and gallop away. Only when he saw his groom marching towards Hartsworth, surrounded by three footmen and Mr. Todd, did he leave his post. His hands clenched and unclenched as he sat behind his desk, and waited for the coming interrogation.
Marcus couldn’t ever remember feeling so enraged. Someone would have to bear the brunt of it. A grim smile stretched his face. And Mr. Pike happened to be the lucky man.
* * *
Liz stood before the entrance to Newgate Prison, her legs so tired they barely held her upright. After taking one of Marcus’s horses, she’d ridden furiously for London. It had taken her six long hours, her only stops brief rests for her mount. The thoroughbred had the stamina befitting a horse belonging to a duke, but Liz couldn’t help but think it had rolled its eyes in relief when she’d finally dismounted outside the stable at Montague’s London home. Leaving the beast tied to the window, Liz had snuck away on shaking legs.
She knocked on the heavy wood door at the side of the prison. Men laughed inside, and Liz knocked harder, scraping her knuckles. Good. That minor pain could distract her from all the various aches that afflicted her, and not just from her wild ride to London.
Her face warmed when she thought of how sore she’d been when she’d rolled out of Marcus’s bed this morning. Pleasantly sore. Until she’d had to ride that blasted horse.
The small door swung inward with a screech of rusty hinges. A man with a bushy black beard stared at her. “What do you want?”
Liz gripped the straw basket more tightly to her stomach. “I’ve come to visit with my sister. Miss Amanda Wilcox, if you please.”
“You have, have you?” Leaning a shoulder against the doorjamb, the man swept his eyes down her body. He scratched at his chin, his fingers lost in the wild hair, and Liz watched with horrified fascination as a bug leaped from the untamed beard, landed on his thick shoulder, and scurried away.
“Yes,” she whispered. She swallowed, but the bile crawled up her throat. She’d been living in a ducal estate for the past weeks. Her sister had been here.
“I think we could work some’in’ out.” He raised a brown finger, to run down her cheek or beckon her closer she didn’t know. A voice from behind him halted his movement.
“Oy, let her be, Jox. That one’s all right.”
Liz peered around the hirsute guard and released a breath when she recognized one of the men sitting around a table. Playing cards and small stacks of chestnuts sat before the three seated men and at one empty chair. She took a step back from Jox. She’d interrupted his game and some men didn’t take kindly to that.
He shrugged his shoulders and turned sideways to let her pass. “If you say so.”
She scuttled past, trying to keep as much distance between herself and the flea-ridden man as possible without being rude about it. “Good evening, Mr. Mason.” She’d come to know the older gaoler fairly well during her sister’s incarceration, even going so far as to “accidentally” run into him at a nearby coffeehouse he frequented. Developing a relationship with the man who held the keys to Amanda’s cell had been one of her first goals undertaken.
She reached into the basket and drew out a thick slab of pastry wrapped in paper. “I didn’t know there would be so many men here or else I would have brought a meat pie for everyone. Next time.”
She walked over and placed the pie in front of the head gaoler. He rested a wiry hand over it possessively. “You save your coin for what you and your sister need.” He glared at the men around him. “These louts don’t need your kindness. They wouldn’t appreciate it like I do, anyhows.”
“Not many men are as discerning as you, Mr. Mason.” Liz cringed internally. The man really was kind, a doting grandfather to three little girls, and a fair gaoler. But he ate up compliments like he did meat pies: voraciously and with little heed as to their quality. She had fallen under his favor by spouting any number of inanities about his generous nature and intelligence. Only half of her compliments were true.
“Ah, go on now.” He waved her towards the internal door and unwrapped his pie. “Jox, you go back and open the cell for her. And be polite about it,” he added sternly.
She took two steps back, giving the other man plenty of space to unlock the door. “Thank you, Mr. Mason.”
He took a big bite of baked dough, his eyes closing in satisfaction. “You’re welcome,” he said around a mouthful of food. “And maybe you can get your sister to talk while you’re back there. She hasn’t said a word to me or anyone else in over a week.”
The gaoler delivered the news like a doctor saying his patient had only a stubbed toe. She clenched her hands around the wicker handles of the basket, but pasted a smile on her face. “Of course. I’ll . . . I’ll see what I can do.”
She followed Jox into the darkness. The smell of unbathed bodies, urine, and worse was usually the first assault on her senses. The cold and damp the second. This time she hardly noticed them. Her sister had stopped talking. The sister whom she usually couldn’t get to quiet her chattering as they lay together in bed at nights, who always had a new story or joke to tell.
The continued imprisonment had to be affecting Amanda’s mind. This was further proof that she needed to remove her sister from these surroundings at all costs.
The jangle of the gaoler’s keys sounded loudly with each step the man took. Newgate was preternaturally quiet at this time of day. The evening bowl of gruel had been served and the inmates would stop their usual shrieking and clanging against the bars of their door to lick free every morsel of food they could get. Most of the prisoners were so weak that even that little exertion quieted them down until they’d rested. Only soft moans reached her ears. Most candles had burned out for the night, leaving the prison in unforgiving dark. It was a place of nightmares.
Jox fumbled with the large ring of keys, trying a couple before finding the one that unlocked her sister’s cell. Liz stepped into the blackness, and flinched at the breeze of fetid air that brushed her body as the door clanged shut. The low voice through the door sa
id, “I’ll be back to bring you out soon.” And she was locked into the cell, too.
Taking a deep breath, she pushed down the panic that always threatened to swallow her when she was trapped inside the prison. “Amanda? Are you here?” Stupid question. She placed the basket at her feet and felt inside for the candle and flint. “I’m sorry it’s been so long since my last visit. But I did tell you I had to go away for a while.”
Her sister didn’t respond. Liz’s hands shook, but after a couple of scrapes she was able to light the wick of the candle. A dull glow scratched at the corners of the five-by-eight cell, revealing her sister’s still form curled on the bed of straw.
“Amanda?” She tiptoed forward. “Are you awake?” Her sister’s eyes gleamed dully behind slitted eyelids. Liz ran her hand over the threadbare fabric clinging to her sister’s shoulder. “Come on, sweetie. I brought some food and wine for you.” Tears pricked behind her eyes. “I even have one of those apple cakes you like so much.”
She dragged the basket to the bed, and filled an earthen mug with the wine, spilling some drops in her haste. Putting a hand behind Amanda’s neck, she brought the drink to her sister’s lips. “Please, Mandy. A couple sips, for me.”
Her sister sighed and parted her lips. She drank a couple swallows. Liz prodded and pleaded until the cup was empty.
Putting the cup down, Liz dropped her head until her temple rested against Amanda’s. “I am so sorry I haven’t been here. I promise, you won’t be here much longer. I’ll find a way to secure your release. I’m so close.”
“Don’t bother.” The words were so faint if Liz hadn’t been inches from her sister’s mouth she wouldn’t have heard them.
She pulled back. “What was that?”
“Don’t trouble yourself.” Amanda loosed deep hacking coughs, and pressed a hand to her mouth. “This is where I belong. I resigned myself to my fate long ago.”
Liz grabbed her shoulders, and dragged Amanda to a seated position. “Why would you say that? That’s not true.”