Falling for the Heartbroken Duke: A Historical Regency Romance Book

by Bridget Barton

  “How long did they keep you?” Mary was wide-eyed. “This story sounds as fantastic as any that might be in one of our ladies’ magazines. You poor darling.”

  “I was rescued six months ago by the man who is now my husband, Jorge. We have been unable to come to London until now ... I didn’t know what had happened to me. Because of the shock I’d endured over the death of my mother, and my subsequent abuse at the hands of the landlord and his wife, I’d blocked my memory.

  Jorge was a friend of the neighbours of the landlord. The neighbours had seen me and the way I was being treated. They feared something untoward and confided in Jorge.

  Jorge befriended Senor Martinez and his wife. Eventually, he rescued me. But I can tell you the details another time. We must make a plan to find and rescue your Phoebe, Robert. Do you mind to send your boy around to Mivart’s in Mayfair? Jorge will come and help you with anything you might need in procuring your wife’s freedom.”

  Atwater checked his watch. It was six o’clock. Phoebe had been missing since sometime between nine thirty and one thirty, probably closer to nine thirty as it had been clear she’d been taken straight from the bathtub. “Yes. We’ll get a message to your husband. Tom, I’d like you to take me to the wilderness path outside the forgotten door.”

  He rang one of the bells, and Mrs Crabtree, her eyes red from crying, appeared. “Mrs Crabtree.” Atwater hugged the kindly lady. “Please stay here with Lady Mary and Lady Judith. Ask Cook to prepare a little something for them for early supper. And you must eat something as well. Do I make myself clear? I need you to stay strong, Mrs Crabtree.”

  The elderly lady curtsied and hurried from the room, unable to speak through her tears, to say “Very good, Your Grace.”

  *******

  Jorge arrived before the men went out to the bridle path. He knew from Atwater’s note what was happening. He said nothing, merely kissed his wife, kissed Mary’s hand, bowed to Atwater, and shook Tom’s hand.

  The men had decided to forego the carriage, and Dan saddled three of Atwater’s newest thoroughbreds for the men to ride instead. Jorge’s horse would be tended to and stabled in the mews.

  They went through the thicket and along the unused bridle path. Where the thicket and the path met, it was clear that a carriage of some sort had been there. And definitely on that very day. The tracks were fresh.

  “What’s next, Robert?” Tom’s voice was anxious. “May I see the ransom letter?”

  Atwater absentmindedly reached into his vest and withdrew the paper. He handed it to Robert.

  Robert began to read until they heard someone calling. The three men looked up as a young woman ran down the passageway from the front of the house and waved to them from the other side of the thicket. It was not lost on the men that Olivia found her way through the little thicket as if she’d done it before.

  “Your Grace. Wait. Oh thank the Good Lord in Heaven.” She caught up to them.

  “Olivia?” Atwater didn’t know if it was good or bad news that she should show up here at this time.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.” The girl curtsied.

  “You have quite the nerve, girl, to show up here after what you’ve done.”

  “Your Grace, there’s no time for me to apologize for that now, although I recognize the error of my ways. Right now, we need to save Her Grace. I didn’t know the full details of Charlotte’s plan. She told me if I didn’t kill Her Grace, then I would be killed. I daresay she’s planned to kill me all along. I’ve never seen …”

  “Where is she? Is she at the Charing Cross Inn?”

  “She is, Your Grace. I was in the room when your note to Charlotte arrived. She means to have me kill Her Grace. Her Grace is alive because Charlotte is waiting for the promised documents confirming parentage and primogeniture.”

  Atwater and Tom exchanged looks.

  “Quickly, please. You must follow me. I’ve drugged Charlotte. We must summon the authorities. And we must save the baby also.”

  “She’s keeping the child in that wretched place?”

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  “Hurry then. Tom, Jorge, let us go.” He reached down and pullet Olivia up behind him. “Best get to explaining, girl.”

  *******

  As soon as they left the mews, Atwater sent Terence to get Colonel Drake. “Give him the details, Terence, and ask him to bring a couple of soldiers.”

  Terence bowed his head, “Yes, Your Grace,” and he was off.

  The party now consisting of Olivia, Atwater, Tom, and Jorge, headed to Covent Garden.

  “Tell me, Olivia, who is the child’s actual father?” Atwater questioned the girl as gently as he could. While he wanted her arrested for her treachery, he was grateful that she’d realized she was in with Charlotte too deep. Olivia was an impressionable girl. Charlotte was a cold blooded criminal.

  “His name is, er was, Jacob, Your Grace. He stopped coming around to see the baby. He’d asked Charlotte to marry him. It was most peculiar. After he proposed, he never stopped by to visit again. She has a new mister now.”

  “Do you think she killed Jacob?” Tom asked the girl.

  “I do, My Lord. Just as she will dispose of me when she’s through with me. She meant to use me to kill Her Grace. I realized then that as soon as something like that were to transpire, Charlotte would no longer have need of me.”

  “I fear you are right. It was foolish of you to trust her in the first place.”

  “At least I will not die because of my foolishness. I will go to prison, but I will not die. I thought Charlotte could help me to rise up out of servitude. Like Lady Mary, My Lord.”

  “Ah. I see.”

  Atwater spoke. “We’re getting closer now, Olivia. Which way?”

  The church bells began to call the time. The first chime of nine o’clock rang out over the city.

  “Go the back way, Your Grace. Through the mews. There is a cellar door on the side of the building.”

  “Her Grace is being held in a cellar?”

  “Yes, Your Grace.” Olivia didn’t have to go into detail about the state of the cellar. Most knew that the cellars of London were no better than primitive dungeons. They were the haven of rats and every manner of damp and cold.

  Atwater said nothing, only shaking his head.

  *******

  Phoebe had put one the clothes Olivia had left with her. She knew her face must be dirty. There was a cut over her left eye. She sat, back against the blanket she’d wedged between her back and the wall.

  She thought Charlotte must be mad to think she could get away with such an evil plan. Her eyes began to grow heavy.

  In the near pitch blackness of the cellar, something scurried by her, and she heard the rats fight over the piece of bread she’d thrown in the corner to keep the vermin away from her.

  Would no one ever come? Maybe Charlotte meant to leave her here to starve to death. If Charlotte killed Olivia, then there would be no one to save Phoebe. Maybe she would just languish here, starved to death, her dead body becoming rat fodder.

  No. She refused to think that way. She knew Atwater would find her. He must. He simply had to. A slow tear made its course from her eye to her chin. She sniffed and rested her forehead on her bent knees. The first toll of the nine o’clock bell shattered the night air.

  The chime was followed by another, the sound ringing out and echoing over the cobbled streets. As soon as the sound died out completely, the next bell took up.

  On the fourth bell, Phoebe heard sounds outside the cellar room. Olivia. Phoebe breathed a sigh of relief then stood, taking a minute to get her bearings.

  She shook her legs to relieve them of the stiffness from sitting and sleeping in the cold, damp chamber. How long had she been here?

  The door opened a crack.

  “Olivia?”

  Chapter 19

  “So, it’s my guess you didn’t expect me, huh, Your Grace, did you?” Charlotte entered the cellar room illuminated by a lanter
n and followed by Bruce, the thug she’d recruited to do the heavy work.

  “It looks like Olivia has gone and abandoned you, Your Grace.”

  Phoebe’s eyes blinked against the light. She stood back against the wall, her arms hugging her torso. “You’ve killed her, haven’t you? You evil wench.”

  Charlotte’s dusky chuckle filled the room. “Well, aren’t you the sassy one? Bruce, do you see what a lively, sassy minx our little Duchess is. I daresay she won’t be so in a short while.”

  The man smiled in reply, his broken teeth rotten, the clump of snuff in his jaw distorting his face.

  “So, you’re going to kill me as well? I should have expected as much from one such as you.” Phoebe’s eyes were narrowed in rage. She had no fear. She knew she was to die, so she spoke as freely as she wanted. Caution is lost when one has no hope.

  “Oh, but you underestimate me, Your Grace. Why would I kill you? You know I am a businesswoman. Bruce, how much will your man down at the riverfront give me?”

  “For a real live Duchess, My Lady? You’re looking at some good money. He’ll give you gold for this one, he will. Of course he’ll have to take her out of the country. But a real Duchess, why if I didn’t love you like I do, I might like to try her meself.” The man’s eyes roamed up and down looking Phoebe over as he ran his tongue along his lower lip.

  Charlotte slapped the man’s face. Phoebe gasped. “That will be enough, Bruce. You’ll do fine to remember who’s been keeping you out of jail and in the pub.”

  The man looked down. “Yes, My Lady.”

  “Well, we might as well get her out of here. Come on you, or I mean, Your Grace.” Charlotte’s hand squeezed around Phoebe’s arm.

  “I will not.”

  “You’ll do as I say. You have no rank here, Phoebe.” Charlotte pulled her arm, and Phoebe wrenched it free.

  “Bruce.”

  Without another word being said, Bruce walked over to Phoebe and punched her in the face rendering her unconscious. He picked her up and hoisted her over his shoulder. Charlotte tucked the blanket around Phoebe’s limp body then led the way out of the cellar.

  *******

  The hotel manager’s boy, Smothers, was returning to the Charing Cross Inn after running some errands for his father. One of the recipients of a note had tipped him a whole shilling, which he’d nearly immediately spent at the pub.

  He walked down the street; the chimes of the nine o’clock church bells had faded away, and he looked forward to an early night. He whistled as he walked, then stopped abruptly.

  He’d happened to glance down the passageway to the mews as he approached the area of the hotel. His father’s and his own rooms were in what had once been the housekeeper’s and butler’s rooms of the house that had been renovated to a hotel.

  Something was moving in the dark, and the boy pressed against the dirty stucco of the building on the other side of the alley. He squinted his eyes. It appeared to be a woman and a man coming out of the cellar with a large package over the man’s shoulder that appeared to be a rolled up rug.

  The door had been locked. Had robbers broken in and stored their loot in the cellar? No one ever went down there, so no one would ever know if that had been the case. He pulled back quickly and slid into the doorway of the building he leaned against. The robbers were coming his way.

  They didn’t see him in their haste to get a hackney. Who were they? He thought he might’ve seen the lady somewhere before, but the man was a stranger to him.

  They hailed a cab and were gone before he was sure he’d even seen them. He’d been to the pub as it were, and the blue ruin he’d drunk coursed through his blood and brain.

  He walked down the passage to the cellar door. The lock was undamaged. “Well, will you look at that?” He went in and down the dark steps into the main cavern-like room. There was a coal bin, and three doors off the main area. One of the doors was open. Smothers walked inside the room.

  It was nearly pitch black in the room. He couldn’t see anything and waited for his eyes to adjust.

  *******

  Atwater, Olivia, and George waited impatiently while the man loaded the rug into the waiting hackney. Even though they were on horseback, there was not enough room for them to pass the carriage.

  After what seemed an interminable time, they veered into the alley. Atwater went with Olivia into the cellar while Jorge stayed with the horses.

  They made their way down the steps in the darkness, taking care not to fall. Olivia knew the way in the dark and reached back to take the Duke’s hand. “Pardon me, Your Grace.”

  “Just get me to Phoebe.”

  “The room is right here.” She pressed open the door. A hand grabbed her arm in a steel-like grip and pulled her into the room. She gasped, about to scream when the other hand smashed against her face in a backhand that left red knuckle marks.

  “Stupid, stupid girl.” Charlotte Evans stood next to Olivia twisting her arm behind her back so hard, Olivia was sure it would break. A small lantern sat on the windowsill in front of the boarded up window and threw some small light on the room. “How dare you drug me. Who do you think you are? Did you think I would wake up and not know I’d drunk laudanum?”

  “Did you really think I wouldn’t come down here? You believed that story about the rats. La! So stupid. I told you that story to dupe you, fool. Now, it shall be your dead body that lays here for the rats to have their way with.”

  “Not so fast, Charlotte.” Atwater stepped into the room.

  Olivia watched Charlotte’s face go white.

  “Unhand Olivia this instant. Where is my wife?”

  Charlotte, never one to admit defeat, smiled. “Your Grace,” she purred and curtsied to the knee. “I’ve been trying to get the truth out of this wretched girl, Your Grace.” She took Olivia’s arm once more and held it behind her. “Olivia is a wicked girl, Your Grace. She has kidnapped the Duchess.”

  “It’s over Charlotte. Where is she? Where is Phoebe?”

  “Surely, I don’t know what you speak of, Your Grace.” Charlotte smiled again, her fingernails piercing into Olivia’s skin.

  “Surely you do. Your game is over.”

  “My game? Are you so sure, Your Grace? I do not play games.”

  There was a slight waver in Charlotte’s eyes and a widening of Olivia’s. In the dim light from the lantern, Atwater detected a pale shadow of something rising up. Something Robert was sure was meant to strike the back of his head.

  He spun around and punched the man in the stomach sending him sprawling into the main room of the cellar. He turned back and went to Charlotte. He grabbed her by the arms and was just about to bind her hands when Bruce came back at him. Olivia wrenched free of Charlotte and jumped on Bruce’s back.

  The man stumbled, turning in circles in an attempt to cast Olivia from him. He fought to regain his balance. He threw Olivia off just as Robert’s fist slammed into his snuff-filled jaw.

  Charlotte fled from the room, and Bruce made another try at beating the Duke. He lunged forward, punching out towards Atwater and coming up short. His afternoon at the pub was catching up to him. He and Atwater got into a close scuffle, Olivia trying to decipher how she could help the Duke.