Secrets of an Accidental Duchess

by Jennifer Haymore

  To obliterate from his mind the fact that Fenwicke had taken out his anger at Max on his innocent wife.

  Max swiped a hand over his brow, wiping away beads of sweat that had formed there. He rose on unsteady feet.

  “I think I’ll go home.”

  Langley rose, too, and clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m sorry I had to be the bearer of that news.”

  “I’m glad I heard the accurate version from a friend,” Max said. “Far better than an exaggerated version from an acquaintance, or the gossip that I’m bound to hear soon enough.”

  Pressing his lips together, Langley nodded.

  Max made his good-byes and went downstairs, took his heavy greatcoat—there was ice in the air tonight—and hat from the porter, and left White’s. He turned right and took St. James’s Street and hooked across Piccadilly to Dover Street, dark at this time of night but for the streetlamps burning, casting a cold light over the street—just enough that Max could see where he placed his feet. He liked how close the house was to White’s—he imagined within a few months, he’d know every step of this path.

  As a silence descended over the street that would be bustling in a few hours, he paused to study the heavens. There was no moon tonight, nor any stars. The soft glow of the streetlamps lent a gloomy, otherworldly glow to the mist swirling about the edges of the buildings across the street.

  He continued down the road as the clomping and rattling of a carriage sounded behind him. As it neared, the driver slowed the horses until they walked at Max’s speed, a few steps behind.

  He scowled over his shoulder. The silhouette of dark-colored horses and the sleek, black carriage emerged from the fog. From its elegant lines and the flashes of polish on its finish, he determined it was a regal affair and not someone out to rob him.

  Was it someone he knew?

  A blast of cold wind slapped him in the face as he turned back toward Hay Hill and his destination. He picked up his pace, striding through the mist created by his breath. Whoever they were, whatever they wanted, he was not in the mood. He wanted to be with Olivia. Since that wasn’t an option right now, he wanted to be home. Alone. He didn’t want to see anyone else.

  Max turned onto Hay Hill, and the carriage drew to a halt behind him. A harsh, gritty voice came from close behind him. “Your Grace?”

  Had the man come out of the carriage? Max reeled to a halt, pinching his lips together in annoyance. Heaving an exasperated sigh, he turned.

  Pain exploded in his face. He reeled backward, pinpricks of light bursting in his vision.

  “Bloody hell!” He clutched his nose. His fingers slid over hot, slick blood. Blinking rapidly, he made out the shadows of at least four men in dark coats.

  So they were out to rob him, after all.

  Max made a quick assessment of the enemy. The one in the front was the tallest by far—probably half a foot taller than Max, who had always been considered rather enormous at just over six feet tall—and his fists were clenched, ready to fight. Max spread his legs, adopting a battle stance. If he wanted any chance of getting out of this, he’d have to fight through this man first.

  His waistcoat and tailcoat were too tight to give him a decent range of motion, but he doubted the giant would allow him to prepare properly. His valet would be highly inconvenienced by this, but there was no way around it.

  Max gave a hoarse yell and attacked, balling his hand just before his punch met its target. His greatcoat remained intact, but buttons popped on his waistcoat, and his tailcoat screeched in protest, ripping along the side seam.

  Max’s fist met solid flesh, and the large man let out a strangled “Oomph!” and staggered backward.

  It was then that the other men closed on him.

  Max fought. He was a good fighter—he’d done his share of sparring in the boxing ring. But these men were coarse—he could tell from their smell, from their muttered grunts and curses, from their shabby clothes—and they didn’t follow the rules of gentlemanly conduct in a fight. They hit him below the waist, anywhere their fists could make contact with his flesh.

  Two of them managed to yank his hands behind him, and someone twined rough rope around his wrists. He strained hard, nearly twisting free, but one of the men wrapped his arms around Max, holding him in a headlock as the others finished their job.

  Well, if they wouldn’t fight like gentlemen, neither would he. He swung his knee upward, striking the man who held his head in the ballocks. With a yowl, the man let him go, his hands flying to his crotch as he sank to his knees.

  Max lunged away, but his movements slowed without the use of his arms. He’d taken only a few steps before one man hooked his hand between Max’s wrists, using the rope to yank him backward. He stumbled, trying to keep his footing on the slick, icy ground, but hands seemed to be everywhere, thrusting him down. He kicked, skidded, and finally lost his balance.

  The last thing he heard was the sound of his head hitting the pavement with a crack.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Some time later, a loud screech awoke Max. Damn, but he was cold. And deuced uncomfortable, to boot. It felt like blunt fingers were poking into his brain.

  He opened his eyes to a blinding light, and pain slashed through his head. He closed his eyes with a low groan and shifted, trying to get more comfortable on the hard surface he was lying on. Just as he realized his range of motion was limited—that he couldn’t move his arms—he heard voices. Memories streamed through him, and he froze.

  He squinted toward the sound of the noise. A blurred figure of a man was approaching him.

  “Good morning.”

  The voice spurred Max into action. He knew this man. He despised this man. This was the man who’d beaten an innocent woman.

  Fenwicke.

  His wrists were still tied behind his back, so he stumbled awkwardly to his feet, blinking hard to focus on his adversary and to try to dispel the dizziness that made his head swim.

  The first thing that snapped into focus was the gun aimed at him. Again, he froze.

  “You might wish to sit, Wakefield.”

  Slowly, the figure of Lord Fenwicke cleared as, keeping the gun solidly aimed at Max, he knelt to lower a lantern onto the floor. The figures behind Fenwicke emerged, too. Their sizes and shapes matched those of the four brutes who had accosted him on the street… was it last night? They clustered beyond the door’s threshold, glowering at him with threatening expressions.

  “I do not wish to sit,” Max answered, his voice hoarse. “What the hell is going on, Fenwicke? Where am I? Why are you pointing a damned pistol at me?”

  Fenwicke raised his dark brows. “It isn’t necessary to play stupid.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Max ground out.

  “You’re in my cellar.”

  For the first time, Max glanced at the room. It was small and windowless, with gray-tinged cement walls and a rutted wood floor. The only piece of furniture was the moth-eaten faded blue chaise longue that he’d been lying on moments before.

  Pressing his lips together, Max gave a sharp nod. “Very well. I’m in your cellar. My hands are tied behind my back, and you’re pointing a weapon at me. I understand all that. What I don’t understand is, why?”

  “Because I wish to speak with you.”

  “If you wished to speak with me you could have met me at White’s or come to call on me at my house.”

  Eyeing him over the gun, Fenwicke chuckled, an evil sound that raised the hairs across the back of Max’s neck. He’d never heard Fenwicke laugh like that before.

  “If I’d thought I had any chance of you granting me my just due by simply calling on you, Wakefield, I would have done so, but alas, these lengths were necessary.”

  “What do you mean by your just due?” Max asked.

  Holding the gun steady with one hand, Fenwicke reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a folded sheet of stationery. “It’s all here.” He reached forward as if to hand Max th
e note and then chuckled again. “Oh, that’s right. I forgot. You’re having some difficulties with your hands at present.” He dropped the sheet, and it fluttered to the dirty floor. “I’ll leave it to you to open it and read it, Your Grace. Adieu.”

  Keeping the gun trained on Max, he backed through the door. As he stepped into the corridor, Max said, “Wait.”

  Fenwicke stopped.

  “Once I read that”—Max gestured with his chin to the folded piece of paper on the floor—“what then?”

  “Then,” Fenwicke said pleasantly, “I shall return with pen and ink, and you will sign it.”

  He snapped the door shut, and Max heard the scrape and thud of a heavy bolt being drawn into place. He stared at the door for a long moment, still too stunned to consider how he should be reacting to this.

  Fenwicke had kidnapped him? Had locked him, hands bound, in his cellar, and aimed a gun at him?

  Max broke his stare from the door, shaking his head in complete confusion. His gaze snagged on the sheet of stationery on the floor. Maybe that would contain the answers.

  It was a little more complicated than simply picking it up and reading it. With a sigh, he sat on the floor, turning his back to the note and moving his fingers until he had a firm grasp on it. Clumsily, he broke the seal, folded the sheet open, and smoothed it flat. He turned around to read it, using his boot to nudge it closer to the lantern Fenwicke had left.

  I, Maxwell Buchanan, Duke of Wakefield, do hereby declare the following:

  As a product of my personal spite and malice directed at the humble and deserving Leonard Reece, the Marquis of Fenwicke, I have intentionally blackened his name throughout Britain. I’ve done so by spreading false rumors that he has abused his wife—an accusation that is an utter lie and the opposite of the truth.

  This is my letter of confession, for I can no longer bear the heaviness of the leaden guilt upon my soul. I was the one who used the marchioness with an evil brutality beyond what most respectable people can possibly imagine.

  I, the Duke of Wakefield, am guilty of misusing a lady, a wife of a man who has always treated me with the utmost respect and admiration.

  The Marquis of Fenwicke greatly admires his wife and protects her with the full power of his name and position. I denounce anyone who would label him as anything other than a perfect gentleman and a doting husband.

  I hereby swear that everything in this statement is the unqualified truth.

  There was no signature, of course. Simply a blank area where Max was expected to sign.

  Max stared at the letter for a long time.

  God, was this some kind of a joke? Could Fenwicke possibly be serious? If he was, the man was mad as a March hare.

  As he gazed at the sheet of paper, a sick feeling tightened in Max’s gut.

  This wasn’t a joke. Fenwicke was not the kind of man to perform elaborate jokes. Especially not about as serious a matter as beating his wife.

  There was no way Max would ever sign this letter. No way in hell. Fenwicke could take his body apart, piece by piece. He could flay him or stretch him on the rack, but Max would never allow his name to go on this piece of rubbish.

  Never.

  He rose to his feet and paced the room for what seemed like hours. He tried to extricate himself from the thin, rough ropes digging into the flesh of his wrists, to no avail. Whoever the hell had tied him up must have been a sailor.

  His mouth was dry and his stomach was empty, and he needed to relieve his bladder, but he ignored all those inconveniences and focused on what he was going to do.

  The only way out was through the door, but upon clumsily rattling the handle, he found that it was indeed bolted from the outside, and quite sturdily, too.

  He might have tried lunging at Fenwicke and knocking the gun out of his hand if the men hadn’t been behind him. God help the marquis if he ever came to Max alone.

  If Max pretended to sign the letter, perhaps he could fool Fenwicke into releasing him somehow.

  Was Fenwicke fool enough, however, to believe that Max would admit to such a falsehood and then slink away with his tail between his legs like a defeated pup? Surely the marquis knew him better than that.

  Max lowered himself onto the chaise longue, rolling his shoulders. His arms, frozen in this position for God knew how long, had grown stiff and sore.

  No, Fenwicke knew very well that Max wouldn’t tiptoe humbly away.

  There was only one reasonable assessment of Fenwicke’s intentions. He planned to force Max to sign the incriminating letter. Then he planned to kill him.

  Dressed in her new red satin opera gown, Olivia parted the curtains and looked through the window up and down the empty street. It was nearly ten o’clock. Blinking hard, she turned back to Lady Stratford.

  “He’s not going to come, is he?” she whispered.

  “No,” the dowager said in a kindly voice. She rose and, walking forward, took Olivia’s hands in her own. “I’m sure there’s a very good explanation.”

  “He must have changed his mind. Decided he didn’t want to go to the theater tonight.”

  “Nonsense. If that were the case, he would have sent us a message saying so.”

  “Are you sure? I know he’s very busy. Perhaps he was caught up in work and forgot our plans.”

  The dowager shook her head. “I doubt it, my dear. It’s unlike a gentleman to simply forget his theater plans with a beautiful young lady.”

  “I’m not—” Olivia stopped herself from finishing. Jessica was the beautiful one. Phoebe was nearly as beautiful as their youngest sister. The twins Meg and Serena had always had a loveliness about them nobody could deny. But Olivia was thin and sallow, and too small and flat-chested to capture anyone’s notice. Except Max’s, that was.

  But tonight, he’d forgotten about her.

  She took a deep breath and looked into the lady’s kind blue eyes. “I shouldn’t jump to conclusions, should I?”

  “No, my dear.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Well—” The dowager hesitated. “Propriety would dictate that you ignore the slight, Olivia. But the extent to which you adhere to propriety should be decided by you alone and should depend on how you and the Duke of Wakefield have communicated in the past.” Gently, she released one of Olivia’s hands. “I saw that you often walked the grounds together at Stratford House. I assume you and the duke had become quite…” She hesitated, then punctuated the word with far more meaning than it would have otherwise implied. “Intimate.”

  The blush rose quickly, burning Olivia’s cheeks. She couldn’t look the countess in the eyes, so she whispered, “Yes.”

  “I thought so.” The older woman squeezed Olivia’s hand. “In that case, I think you should be honest with him. Simply say that you waited and he did not show.”

  “If I do that, I will sound desperate.” Olivia’s mind was reeling. What if he’d decided that being seen with her publicly in London wasn’t a good idea? What if he was embarrassed to be seen with her? What if he’d suddenly lost interest in seeing her again?

  She took a deep breath. She wasn’t being rational. She was being a simpering fool. She needed to gather her strength and stop herself from having all these baseless thoughts.

  Smiling at the countess, she murmured, “Do you need anything more tonight, my lady? I suppose… If you don’t mind very much, I should like to go to bed.”

  With a final squeeze of her hand, the dowager released her. “Of course, my dear. And please don’t feel so sad. I can read your face as clearly as a book. As I said before, I’m sure there’s a very good explanation.” She smiled. “Would you care to go to the theater day after tomorrow? I know you were looking forward to seeing your first opera. We’ll use Stratford’s box. And”—she glanced up in the general direction of her mother’s bedchamber—“it will force Mama to have another early night. I’ve always believed that she keeps in a much better humor if she goes to bed early.”

  “That wo
uld be lovely,” Olivia murmured. “Thank you, my lady.”

  With the dowager’s kind smile blurring in her vision, Olivia turned and hurried from the room.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Two nights later, Fenwicke stood in his box at the theater, his mind churning as he stared into his opera glasses. So it was true. There she was, as lovely and composed as ever.

  The slut.

  Olivia Donovan was back in Town and at the theater, sitting primly in her seat in Stratford’s box, her hands folded in her lap and her gaze turned downward, never straying from the stage.

  Why had she come back to London?

  Well, the reasons for her sudden arrival didn’t really matter at all, did they? The point was that Max wasn’t signing the damned confession. Fenwicke had stricken the man of every creature comfort, had threatened him with dire consequences, and still he steadfastly refused to sign. The bastard was being more difficult than Fenwicke had anticipated.

  Perhaps little Miss Donovan could be of assistance.

  Not to mention the fact that it would be very satisfying to finally see her receive her just due for having chosen the Duke of Wakefield over him.

  The plan struck him like a bolt of lightning. A bolt of genius.

  It was brilliant, really. A way to kill two birds with one stone. Literally.

  Fenwicke lowered his opera glasses, a smile of victory curving the corners of his lips. He gazed at the massive cut glass chandelier hanging from the center of the ceiling overhead.

  Olivia Donovan was a solitary sort of girl, always wandering off on her own at parties and balls. That was why no one had questioned her absence for the short time he’d had her alone the night he’d met her for the first time.

  He’d wait until she was alone, and then he would strike. When it came to Max Buchanan and his warped sense of honor, a woman would serve as a more powerful weapon than any pistol.

  Fenwicke raised his opera glasses again. Soon, little Miss Donovan, you will be mine.