The Gypsy Duchess

by Nadine Miller

  The foreign minister leaned forward, his arms on the desk, his face tense. “These same men are attacking me as well—raising the old saw about the danger of placing so much power in the hands of Irishmen like Wellington and myself.”

  “We have hard those rumors and more,” Devon admitted. “We arrived in London late yesterday afternoon and spent the evening at White’s with a view to picking up the current stories making the rounds.”

  “What do you want us to do, my lord? Tell us and it is done,” Stamden interjected.

  A grateful smile wreathed Castlereagh’s tired face, and for a brief instant he looked far younger than the forty-six years Devon knew he had to his credit. “I need someone to lead the fight to retain Wellington as commander in chief of the British forces. He assures me it is a task for which you two are ideally suited, and I agree with him. You both have the Prince Regent’s ear as well as that of most of the influential members of Parliament.”

  Devon rose to his feet. “I believe I speak for the Marquess of Stamden, as well as myself, my lord, when I say we will be glad to spearhead the effort for Wellington,” he said, feeling an odd combination of relief and deflation that his services were required as a diplomat rather than a soldier.

  Castlereagh studied his face and as if reading his mind, remarked, “Splendid, for though you were two of Wellington’s ablest aides, it is unthinkable that you should return to the battlefield when you are both without heirs to carry on your titles.”

  Stamden rose to stand beside Devon, a decided twinkle in his deep-set eyes. “I believe I speak for the Earl of Langley, as well as myself, my lord, when I say we plan to devote our efforts to solving that problem as well once Bonaparte is put to rout.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Luck had not been with Viscount Quentin of late, unless one counted bad luck. Then it could honestly be said he’d had more than his share. He shuddered, contemplating the disastrous month he’d just suffered. First there’d been those two failed attempts to kidnap the duke. Then he’d spent a revolting three weeks courting that ridiculous old gaby, the dowager countess—an exercise in futility which had turned out to be as fruitless as it was expensive.

  Furthermore, he dared make no more attempts on the duke’s person for fear the Earl of Langley might carry out the frightening threat to call him out. The man’s skill with a pistol was legendary. Unless he could think of some way to dispose of the earl, that avenue was closed to him at present.

  He shuddered again, remembering the hatred in the earl’s eyes when he’d ordered him from Langley Hall, and the humiliation and discomfort of that ghastly trip from Cornwall to London in a public coach. Finding a Bow Street runner waiting on the steps of his St. James lodgings to haul him off to debtors’ prison had almost seemed an anticlimax. Still, if he hadn’t spotted the pawky fellow in time to tell the hackney driver to turn a quick corner, he could be sitting in prison this very minute.

  But all that was past history now. His fortunes had changed for the better beginning with the moment he’d remembered the duchess and her entourage had recently vacated the Duke of Sheffield’s London town house. Desperate circumstances required desperate measures and he prided himself on the boldness with which he’d pounded on the door and demanded a bedchamber be readied for him as a member of the duke’s family.

  Chawleigh, the ancient butler, had been too cowed by his title to seriously question his right to move into his cousin’s vacant residence. “She won’t like it. Won’t like it at all,” the old codger had whined, and Quentin had instantly deduced from the sour look on his face that he held no great affection for the present duchess.

  “And what, pray tell, does that signify?” Quentin had asked in his haughtiest tone. “The woman is common as dirt. Everyone of consequence knows she gained her title and wealth by tricking my senile old uncle into marrying her.”

  “Exactly what my missus has said all along.” Chawleigh agreed, his satisfied smile giving him the appearance of a well-fed bullfrog. “Isn’t there nothing proper folks of quality can do about such a thing?”

  “I have my solicitors working on it,” Quentin had answered vaguely and watched the old fool scuttle off to tell “the missus” that a true member of the noble family was about to depose the pretender.

  But that was three days past, and while he had temporarily solved the problem of food and lodging, he was still without sufficient funds to pursue the lifestyle he favored. The viscount gazed about him at the elegant bedchamber in which he slept during the day—leaving his nights free to try to recoup his fortune at the hazard tables in the East End gambling halls. Until his miraculous discovery yesterday, he’d had little hope of accomplishing that end, but tonight his prospects looked much brighter.

  As he’d been wandering through the house looking for objects d’art small enough to carry out beneath his cloak and sell to a pawnbroker, he had come upon it quite by accident—the old duke’s heavy iron safe hidden away in a dim corner of the library.

  His breath had caught in this throat. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? Time and time again he’d watched his uncle remove the priceless Sheffield emeralds or diamonds or rubies from that very safe to adorn the neck and ears and arms of the previous duchess when they’d attended some ton affair.

  To the best of his knowledge, the present duchess had never worn any of the collection. Peasant that she was, she probably had no concept of their worth or of the social prestige a woman could gain by wearing such, expensive baubles. If and when she returned to London, he doubted she would ever even open the safe to discover it had been looted.

  The clock on the mantelpiece struck two o’clock. “The appointed hour,” he said to himself, and shoes in one hand, candle in the other, he crept silently through the maze of hallways separating the many bedchambers on the second story, then down the vast circular stairway to the library. Old Chawleigh and the few servants left in the town house were all asleep in the servants’ wing, but still, it didn’t pay to take any chances.

  Like the rest of the rooms in the massive town house, the library was dark and cold and shrouded in a ghostly collection of dust covers. Quentin removed the cloth from a corner of the writing desk, set his candle down, and made his way to the French windows. Moments later, a figure detached itself from the shadows and entered the window he’d opened.

  With utter dismay, Quentin surveyed the “master cracksman” who’d come to him through the madam of the brothel he’d patronized the previous night. The dim candlelight illumined a broad, hard-jowled face with heavy brows overhanging dark, protuberant eyes and a thin, red knife slash of a mouth. He was as ugly a fellow as one could hope to meet and what’s more, the top of his head, hat and all, stood no higher than the average man’s waist. Quentin swore under his breath. He’d tipped the woman five quid and she’d sent him a scurvy dwarf!

  “Where is this safe you want cracked?” the dwarf asked in an oddly cultured voice for an inhabitant of the stews.

  Quentin pointed. “Over there in the corner.”

  The dwarf, who was rather nattily attired in a topcoat and trousers of dark blue superfine, toddled to the safe on legs no longer than those of a child still in leading strings. He eyed it briefly and nodded his oversized head. “Piece of cake,” he declared, then turned to Quentin, held out his hand. “I believe Madame Rose told you my fee. I’ll take it now, if you please. It’s cash in advance in my business.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Quentin snapped. “If I had cash on hand, do you think I’d hire such scum as you? You’ll be paid, and far too much to my way of thinking, as soon as I sell the first piece of jewelry in the blasted safe.”

  The dwarf gave a brief, insulting salute with the middle finger of his right hand and toddled toward the open window.

  “Wait. Where are you going?” Quentin demanded. “We’re supposed to be doing business here.”

  “Not on credit, we’re not, my lord—and I’ll give you a piece of advice that will save yo
u wasting your time in the future. There’s not a peterman in London who’ll tumble a crib for you without seeing the color of your money first.”

  Frantic, Quentin stepped to the window and cut off the dwarf’s exit. “Here, take this,” he said reaching into his waistcoat pocket to withdraw his jeweled snuff box. “It’s worth ten times your fee.” He hated to part with one of the few mementos he had left of his more affluent days, especially to such a creature as this, but he would be able to buy a dozen such knickknacks once he got his hands on the Sheffield jewels.

  The dwarf studied the box in the light of the candle, then without a word, pocketed it and toddled back to the safe. He put his ear against the door, turned the dial a few times to the right and left until the tumblers clicked into place, and with a turn of the handle, opened the safe.

  Quentin rushed forward, pushed him aside, and peered into—he gasped—an empty metal depository.

  “It looks like someone else had the same idea as you, my lord, but a smidgeon sooner,” the little man jeered, his taunting laughter grating on Quentin’s already jangled nerves like a fingernail across a slate.

  The viscount knew without a doubt who that someone was. The same woman who for the past four years had stood between him and the possession of everything he had always believed should belong to him. A terrible, icy rage gripped him; once again the old duke’s trollop had outwitted him. “What now?” he moaned to himself, knowing he couldn’t hide from his creditors forever.

  “There’s always the army,” the dwarf said as he stepped through the open window. “With the Corsican on the loose again and so many of England’s finest not yet returned from the Americas, Wellington is calling up every man jack who can fire a rifle.” His face twisted into a bitter sneer. “He’d probably do cartwheels over a fine, tall fellow like you.”

  A sudden gust of wind extinguished the candle, but Quentin was scarcely aware that he stood in the dark. The queer little fellow was absolutely right, of course. There was always the army.

  Wellington is calling up every man jack who can fire a rifle. And who would be the first summoned to Whitehall? His trusted aide, hero of Talavera…Devon St. Gwyre, Earl of Langley, of course.

  Quentin threw back his head and laughed aloud. And what was the easiest thing to buy in London these days—almost as cheap as a pint of good ale? A hired assassin, of course.

  Devon had been gone a little over a month. To Moira it seemed more like a year. Or a century.

  The news from the Continent, what little reached Cornwall, was not good. Bonaparte had swept across France like a juggernaut, gathering ever more force as he went. Moira found it difficult to believe that after the hell the despotic emperor had put the French people through, they would rally around him. But apparently they had; even some of his former generals who had denounced him after his downfall, now followed him blindly again.

  Elizabeth had had one brief note from the marquess, telling her not to worry; Devon and he were safe in London using their influence to gather support for Wellington—a task Lord Castlereagh had persuaded them was of greater help to the cause than adding two more soldiers to the battlefield.

  Elizabeth had been understandably ecstatic over the news. Moira, on the other hand, had been gripped by a terrible foreboding, remembering her premonition of the danger waiting in the city for Devon. For two days after the arrival of the marquess’s note, Moira was so consumed with fear, she could do nothing but sit on her favorite rock, gaze at the ocean, and pray to both the Christian God and the ancient of gods of her childhood to keep Devon safe from the viscount’s evil schemes.

  On the third day, she pulled herself together and launched the staff of White Oaks into a week of spring housecleaning the likes of which the duke’s “pile of stone” had never seen. By the time she’d exhausted herself sufficiently to once again get a good night’s sleep, every inch of the two-hundred-year-old manor house was spotless.

  One of the fierce summer storms for which Cornwall was famous blew in off the ocean on the evening of the final day of the cleaning marathon. When Moira crawled into bed a few minutes before midnight, it had whipped itself into a frenzy and she dropped off to sleep to the sound of rain pelting the windows and wind whistling through every nook and cranny of the sturdy old house.

  Only moments later, she was awakened by a new sound that drowned out the noise of the elements and penetrated her exhaustion with the force of an arrow shot from a powerful crossbow.

  She sat bolt upright, her ears straining to identify the steady, pervasive cadence which, oddly enough, seemed to emanate from somewhere inside her head rather than outside her window.

  Footsteps. Brisk, firm footsteps. She was hearing footsteps inside her head.

  A picture of wet cobblestones flashed before her eyes. Gray, drizzling rain falling on stately houses crowded so closely together, that the exterior of one butted up against another. London. It had to be London.

  A flash of gold. Devon, hatless, his golden hair glistening in the light of one of London’s new gas street lamps. Walking alone on a deserted street.

  A flash of silver. A man moving swiftly, silently from a recessed doorway, the fingers of his right hand gripping a dagger.

  “Turn, Devon,” she cried, her heart thundering in her breast. “Look behind you. You’re in danger!”

  As swiftly as it had materialized, the image vanished from her mind and she collapsed back onto her pillow, a fine film of cold perspiration drenching her from head to toe.

  Had he heard her? Was the voice of love strong enough to transmit a warning to the beloved across hundreds of miles?

  She stared, unseeing, into the darkness surrounding her. Was her golden warrior safe? Or was he lying alone and dying on a deserted London street? The last thing that had flashed before her eyes as the picture faded was a pool of scarlet blood spreading across muddy cobblestones.

  She rose, slipped on a night robe, and sick with fear, sat staring out her window until like a widow entering half-mourning, the rugged Cornish countryside shed the blackness of night to robe itself in a bleak, gray dawn.

  “By Jove, we’ve done it.” Lord Castlereagh fairly beamed at Devon and Stamden as the three of them sat together around a secluded table at White’s a few minutes before midnight. Signaling a nearby waiter, he ordered champagne. “This calls for a celebration,” he declared, alluding to the fact that they, and other supporters of Wellington, had managed to convince Parliament to support the Iron Duke and to provide the funds to enlist reinforcements for the coming battle against Bonaparte.

  “I expected Samuel Whitbread and his cronies to put up more of an argument considering their dislike of the Wellesleys,” Stamden said. “But once he read the report from our spy in Paris that every blacksmith in France had been conscripted to produce guns, he capitulated instantly.”

  Castlereagh shrugged. “Whitbread is not the fire-eater he once was. The protracted controversy over Drury Lane has taken its toll of him, thank God.” He raised his glass. “To old Hooknose. God keep him. Even with all we’ve accomplished in his behalf, he’ll have the fight of his life ahead of him with mostly raw troops under his command.”

  “When can we expect the seasoned veterans to return from America now that that unfortunate fracas is over?” Devon asked.

  “Not soon enough to join Wellington before he faces Bonaparte in a major battle, I fear.” Castlereagh looked Devon straight in the eye. “But don’t even think of boarding one of the troop ships leaving Harwick, my lord. I will order you forcibly constrained if necessary.

  “England’s need for statesman is every bit as great as her need for soldiers. When this war is over, she will need sane men with sound judgment to administer her government. I am counting on you and the marquess to be among that number. Right now the best thing you can do for your country is produce the necessary heir to your title and your seat in the House of Lords.”

  Devon nodded, smiling to himself when he envisioned Moira’s slender
body swelling with child. His child. “I bow to your wisdom, my lord,” he said. “But still, it galls me that I shall not be there to see the Corsican madman trounced once and for all. Pray God, your counsel is heeded this time as to his fate. I remember how strongly you opposed exiling him to an island so close to Corsica.

  “It will be heeded, my lord. This I guarantee,” the foreign minister said grimly.

  A few minutes later, Devon bade good night to his two companions and departed for home. He had spent every waking hour of the past month pleading with, cajoling, even arguing with influential members of Parliament to bring them around to his way of thinking. What he needed more than anything else was a little time alone to recover his equilibrium.

  The breeze that had been freshening earlier was blowing in earnest when he stepped onto the darkened street outside White’s, and a warm spring rain lashed his face as he searched for his carriage. It was nowhere to be found. Where was the blasted thing? His coachman had never before failed to wait for him in the designated location.

  He thought of hailing a hackney but there were none in sight. Finally, though his leg was acting up a bit from sheer exhaustion, he decided to walk the few blocks to his town house. He moved along briskly, keeping a careful eye on the street ahead. Except for an occasional carriage, it was deserted and with times as hard as they were, not even the better sections of town were free from marauding cutpurses and hoodlums.

  A sudden gust of wind blew his favorite beaver from his head just in time to have it trampled beneath the hooves of a passing team of horses. Swearing under his breath, he vowed to give his young coachman a tongue-lashing he’d not soon forget when next he saw the beef-witted fellow. He paid his servants extremely well and in return, he expected them to perform the tasks he assigned them without question.