Two Brides and a Duke: A Steamy Regency Romance (Parvenues & Paramours, Book 4)

by Tessa Candle

  After a few hands of cards, the ladies retired. Delville made to do the same, but Frobisher held him back. “A moment, if you please, Delville. I have something to discuss with you that I did not wish to broach in front of my wife.”

  Delville sighed and sat down again. So she had told him about his talk with Lucy. Women could never keep their mouths shut. His shoulders slumped and he resigned himself to his fate. It was irritating, but not insurmountable. Delville did not even have to lie. He could tell Frobisher enough to satisfy him without revealing the details.

  Frobisher surprised him, however, by coming out with, “It has come to my attention that you have been posing as one of my workmen and hanging around the pirate cave.”

  How could he have found out about that? Miss Dawling had probably mentioned their encounter when she was accosted by Auchdun, but how did they connect him to the project? Workmen were usually invisible to the upper classes.

  He laughed as though the very notion were amusingly absurd. “A workman? I realize I was not well dressed today, but I had plans to pass myself off at the wedding dinner, just as Rosamond and Miss Dawling were doing. There is no need to insult a fellow—I am sure my things will be arriving soon.”

  Frobisher’s lips flattened. “And I will be happy to send them along to you, wherever you should go when you quit Fenimore—as you most certainly will do if you do not make a clean breast of things.”

  Delville knew that Frobisher did not speak lightly. He was over-reacting, of course, but he meant to protect the women under his care, and Delville could respect that. How much should he tell his friend? He had lived a life of secrecy and false identities for so long that the very idea of revealing even a small part of his plan met with instant resistance in his heart. And if Frobisher knew what Delville was doing he could be implicated, made culpable. After all, imprisoning someone and forcing information out of them was not exactly legal.

  No, he had to think up a lie. Delville let his shoulders fall. “I know I have been secretive and it must seem quite bizarre to you that I would pose as a workman, but the truth is, I am a workman.”

  “What nonsense. You are the heir to a duchy. And you have always been in the top circles. I have never seen you do so much as put on your own jacket.”

  “When I went away, things were rather hard with me. I was a foolish young man, and I soon ran out of what funds I had left. I wound up sleeping in someone’s stables, and one of his men took pity upon me, taught me how to do something useful, and helped me to get some work.”

  Frobisher looked aghast. He must believe at least some of it. “You mean you… you actually did menial labour?”

  It was all Delville could do not to laugh at the deep shock that Frobisher was experiencing. Delville hid his face in his hands until he could control his mirth. “It is shameful, I know. But I came to like it. True, I do not think of it as shameful anymore, Frobisher. It made me feel like I had some purpose for the first time in my life. Can you not understand that?”

  He peeked through his hands at Frobisher, who looked as though he was trying to assess whether Delville were out of his mind. A glimmer of sympathy crossed his features. “Perhaps I can.”

  This was clearly a lie, but Delville was encouraged. Fake sympathy was even better than true sympathy. Retracting the sympathetic lie risked revealing one’s insincerity and deception. People really committed to their pretences in ways that they never did for their true emotions.

  “Then perhaps you can understand why I wanted to be doing something useful again.” Delville looked up, pleadingly. He could see his friend was struggling between incredulity and the obligations created by his sympathetic facade.

  “Well,” Frobisher thought for a few moments before coming down on the side of reinforcing the lie, “Yes, I suppose I can. So you really went down to the pirate cave to do work? Merely to feel useful?”

  “Indeed,” Delville lied, “and also because I find doing something with my hands frees up my mind to think. I had a lot of thinking to do, you know, what with having to get out of this engagement with Miss Fitzpatrick.”

  “Ah, yes.” Frobisher’s face held real pity now. “And did you come up with any solution?”

  “Only one. It is not much of a solution, for it rather relies on a lot of good luck.”

  “Do not keep me in suspense.”

  “Well, I was hoping that we might perhaps find a way of engaging Fitzpatrick’s interest in someone else.”

  “Do you have a candidate in mind?”

  “No. Part of the problem is that everyone knows her too well.”

  “What of Auchdun? He is not terribly high in the ton and seems rather prone to romantic delusion. Might he not be persuaded that he is in love with the deviltante, if we could pry him away from Miss Dawling?”

  Delville found the idea immensely appealing. “The man is a monomaniac about Miss Dawling—still, he is a total idiot. He might be weak-minded enough to exchange an angel for a ravening harpy.”

  Frobisher gave him an amused look, but said nothing.

  Delville ignored his friend’s unspoken jibe. “But how to persuade her? Auchdun is not nearly as handsome as me, but that would hardly signify with a girl like Miss Fitzpatrick, so long as there was something to be gained. Perhaps if he had a bit of a fortune…”

  “A great deal depends upon whether or not she knows that you are still alive.” Frobisher tapped his fingertips together in thought. “Yes, she could not have guessed that you are resurrected. Her reason for remaining unwed might simply be that there have not been any other offers.”

  “I see what you are thinking.” Delville’s breast filled with hope. “If she is desperate, she might take Auchdun anyway.”

  Frobisher nodded. “The only problem is how to bring them both together.”

  “I must add to the problem.” Delville frowned. “It is a question of how to bring them both together without revealing my existence, which becomes more difficult if you were to invite Miss Fitzpatrick here, for example.”

  “Well, you could go conceal yourself somewhere else and let your friends do the work for you.” Frobisher was trying to look more helpful than hopeful, but Delville was not taken in.

  He wished to be rid of Delville. It explained why it had been almost too easy to distract Frobisher from his fit of pique. He wanted Delville to talk himself into leaving without a scene. And here he was, fancying himself to be the master manipulator, all the while he was being subtly turned in another direction, as Frobisher very adroitly suggested a way in which Delville’s problem might be solved by leaving Fenimore quietly.

  A new admiration sprouted in Delville’s breast. Good old Frobisher. He was only trying to protect Miss Dawling’s reputation, after all. That was not such a bad thing. Despite his recent behaviour toward her, Delville wanted to protect her too.

  In fact, he found his good will for her was growing, now that he knew she had not cried rope on him about his meeting in the cellar. If Frobisher knew Delville was hunting for a child in London and using one of Red Martha’s prostitutes as an informant, he would come to all sorts of surmises, and it would totally give the lie to Delville’s implausible story about becoming a workman. The whole situation in the pirate cave might unravel.

  But why had Miss Dawling kept her mouth shut? Had he actually succeeded in making her afraid of him? He recalled only too well her pert looks and sarcasm. She showed no sign of fear. He smiled. Perhaps she had not given him away because she had enjoyed the kiss as much as he did.

  Frobisher brought him back to the ground. “I think we know what we must do. You go find some other place to hide yourself, and I will see about bringing Auchdun and Miss Fitzpatrick together. I am acquainted with Laurentian, after all, and so is Rutherford. Between the two of us we should be able to work something out.”

  Delville allowed himself to be persuaded. It was probably a good solution. And even if it wasn’t, it suited Delville’s purposes to remain hidden from society and
believed dead by as many people as possible. This way Rutherford and Frobisher would keep quiet and stay out of the way of his work. He could lay low in some out building or other and continue working on extracting information from Wormshit.

  He smiled. “Frobisher, I do not know how to thank you. If you can remove from me the curse of Miss Fitzpatrick’s hand, I will be greatly in your debt.”

  “All I ask in return,” Frobisher gave Delville an arch look, “is that in the future you forbear from mistaking any of my lady guests for birds of paradise.”

  Delville laughed this off as though it were a joke. “From now on I shall be ever so courteous, no matter in what dark corner I meet any damsel of your acquaintance.”

  Chapter 13

  Eleanor opened her eyes as the maid threw back the heavy drapes. The cold light of dawn revealed indifferent weather, but her heart filled with great hopes for the day. She had been happy, almost jubilant, ever since her recent victory over Delville.

  Could that be the source of her joy? If she was honest, it could not. She had a lot of experience wielding her sarcasm and sharp tongue to take people down a peg. This was different. She was happy because there was more to come. It was like a game, and it was Delville’s turn. She was curious to see what he would do next, but also enthralled by her own plan to get a leg up on him. Of course, she had not seen anything of him for days—she suspected that this had been arranged for her sake.

  Her maid dressed her simply and warmly, and brought her buttered toast and tea to tide her over for her morning walk, which she was most eager to take. She was now certain that Delville was the one keeping the prisoner. Strangely, as her certainty about it grew, so did her conviction that, whatever he was up to, it was not as sinister as it had first seemed. Was she growing fond of him?

  Preposterous. It was only that she needed to keep an eye on things for the sake of Frobisher and Rosamond, for she could not bring herself to tell them. It was not for Delville’s sake. Whatever was going on in the cave, they simply could not be told of it, for their own good.

  And that left Eleanor in charge. Someone had to find out what was going on, and she fully intended to discharge that duty herself. She finished the last of her tea, tied her own bonnet and made her way quietly downstairs.

  The cold air and nervous tension made the hairs stand up on her arms as she wandered her way along the path leading to the pirate cave. Eleanor was eager to be on an adventure, and she was excited about the possibility of seeing Delville again. She hoped to arrive before him, but she was sure he would show up. He had to check on his prisoner, after all, and she reasoned that he would do it in the early morning, before the household awoke.

  As she neared the cave, she picked out a faint whiff of smoke in the air. Had she smelled it the last time she was here? Perhaps, she had not been on her guard then and might have missed it. She trained her eyes to the sky above the cave, but could see no tell-tale plumes against the grey clouds. If there was a smoke tail, it was faint.

  Inside, the passageway did not feel heated, but as she made her way to the spot where she had overheard Delville and the prisoner before, the air seemed ever so slightly warmer.

  He was warming the space, at least. That was good. She was disinclined to believe Delville truly a villain, so the prisoner could not be a saint, but Eleanor did not like to think of him freezing.

  The tunnel became darker, the further she went, and eventually there was so little light that she had to feel her way along the wall. There must be a secret door or something, in order to remain concealed from the workers for all this time. Her hand encountered a coarsely woven fabric. A tapestry, perhaps? That would be just the thing to conceal a doorway. Finding that it was suspended from the top and hung free below, she slipped her hand behind it to explore. There was only open space.

  With a shiver of exhilaration she slid behind the tapestry and felt her way along a short passage. She could now smell the smoke again, but only barely. The fabric not only concealed the entrance, it also supressed the air circulation that would transmit the whiff of smoke into the upper passages. Her fingertips quivered with the shock of cold metal. It was a door hinge. This must be where the prisoner was held. She felt around to find some means of opening the door, but when she grasped the handle she paused.

  What was she doing? It was probably locked, but if not, would she really crawl into the cell in the dark and possibly be attacked by whoever was inside? Even if the prisoner was not a violent person, he must be wild with fright and in the darkness might mistake Eleanor for his captor. She stayed her hand. Perhaps she should reconsider fetching Frobisher, but she balked at the idea. Eleanor could not explain why, but she wished to protect Delville from discovery.

  Could she not alert Frobisher without directly exposing Delville? Yet she did not want to give up this adventure.

  Her shock at the discovery of her own selfishness was interrupted by the sound of movement in the upper hall. She had dallied too long. She pushed back the fit of nerves that threatened to paralyse her. Such silliness. She knew it was merely Delville, after all. But was there anywhere to hide? She hurried back into the main hall.

  The sound of a whistled tune echoed through the cave, and a shimmer of light bobbed into the far end of the hall as the whistler drew closer. She had to find some hiding place further down. She fled the approaching light as quickly as she could, while exploring with each blind step and following the wall of the passage with her hand.

  A solid wall brought her to a halt, and she slid down into a crouch on the floor. There was nothing to hide behind. The torch-lit face of Delville rounded the corner and descended into the lower passage.

  Cold sweat soaked into her dress as she waited. Was she far enough away to remain in the shadow?

  She watched the torchlight advance toward her with each step, but then he reached the tapestry and disappeared inside without a glance her way.

  Her heart was pounding, but when she heard the sound of the door opening, she crept her way back up the hall. Her curiosity would not be repressed. She had to hear that conversation.

  Chapter 14

  “Did you miss me, Wormshit?”

  Delville held up a piece of bread and a sealed crock of buttermilk so the old man could see them, but the prisoner maintained his sullen silence, glowering at his captor.

  He was hungry, certainly, but not desperate. There was still an alarming fierceness in his expression. His face was wan and wrinkled, and his slight frame seemed pathetic, even the shadow he cast in the torchlight seemed thin. But his eyes were aglow with a desire to exact horrific, painful revenge upon Delville, and it animated his presence with a demonic energy. Delville could believe that he had imprisoned Satan himself. These thoughts were unnerving, but he maintained the calm demeanour of one who is in charge.

  At least they had progressed to the point that Wormshit no longer cursed at Delville. Moving him to the new, subterranean location under the impediment of a blindfold had done much to frighten him. He was in a completely unfamiliar place, and it must have seemed utterly desolate. Being left alone in there for long stretches, with very little light had broken much of his defiance. Extracting information was all about preparing the mind.

  And it could be done without being overly cruel. The subject had a blanket and a little fire from the makeshift hearth and chimney Delville had dug out of the limestone mass at the back of the chamber. This part of the cave was separated from the outside by the thinnest wall, and the soft stone extended almost all the way out. Delville only had to dig though about a foot of rocky mass. It was hard enough work, but it was worth it, for his prisoner should not be made sick by his hand. The objective was only to beat his nasty little spirit down so that he would, at last, give Delville the information he wanted about Red Martha’s side business.

  Delville preferred hard manual labour of digging to the dirty work of interrogation. It was a bad business, but he told himself that he was not a monster, just determined to d
ischarge his duty.

  He gave the bread and milk to Wormshit, and while the man gnawed and slurped, Delville unwrapped the slices of roast beef that were the piece de resistance. He held them up to the torch light so his prisoner could see. “Roast beef. That would be perfect with some bread, would it not?”

  The man scowled at him, but said nothing.

  “I will make you a bargain. You do not even have to tell me anything of particular significance to get a taste. I will tear you off a piece, if you just admit that you missed me.”

  “I missed you.” He said it through clenched teeth, but he said it. Progress.

  Delville tore off a tiny morsel and handed it to him, watching him swallow it too quickly to taste it. “There. That was not so hard. You and I can work together, you know. Now, I will give you a piece twice that size, if you admit that you have assisted Red Martha in the past—you need not say with what, of course.”

  He was faster on the uptake this time. “I have assisted her.”

  Delville handed over the piece. “And you know where she keeps her records, do you not?” He tore off another piece that was a bit larger than the last.

  “I have no idea that she keeps any records.” The chains rattled as the man crossed his arms. “Why would she do that?”

  “Because she is a woman of business—rather broad business. People in business keep records. Now since I answered your question…” Delville popped the roast beef into his own mouth and chewed it slowly. “Mmmmm. There was a little bit of seared fat on that one. Perfect balance.”

  He smacked his lips loudly, and tore off a piece as small as the very first one. “Let us start again. You know that she keeps records. What I want to know is whether you know where she keeps them. If you say no, I will leave again. If you say yes, we can continue, and I will give you this.” He dangled the tiny piece.