The Runaway Duchess

by Jillian Eaton

  “Ye ain’t at all like he says you is,” the maid blurted out.

  “Who?” Her eyes narrowing, Charlotte took a step forward. “Who says, Beatrice?” As if she did not know the answer. Dobson, she thought furiously. The man was a tyrant and he needed to be stopped. Enough was enough. It was high time she took control of her own household and she already knew what her first act of business would be: tossing the butler out on his ear. She was tired of the sideways glanced and the whispers. Tired of the maids scattering when she entered a room as though they were little mice and she a big angry cat. She knew most women would have complained to their husbands and been done with the whole messy affair weeks ago, but she was not most women. Charlotte preferred to handle her own problems, thank you very much, and if she needed to physically escort Dobson from the estate she would bloody well find the means to do so.

  Realizing she was scowling, she carefully smoothed her features and even managed a pleasant smile. “You can tell me,” she coaxed the nervous maid. “You will not get in trouble. I promise.”

  But Beatrice had clapped a hand over her mouth and was already shaking her head. “Mr. Dobson would like to see ye,” she said between her fingers.

  “Oh he would, would he?” Picking up her skirts, Charlotte marched to the door. This was finally going to end, she decided, once and for all. “Where is he?” The mangy cur, she thought, silently repeating Dianna’s preferred name for him.

  Lowering her gaze, Beatrice stepped to the side. “In the back parlor,” she murmured. Spinning on her heel, she all but fled across the hall and disappeared into another room.

  Dobson was indeed waiting for Charlotte in the back parlor. A small, windowless room with a meager collection of mismatched furniture, it was rarely used for anything save a place to store unwanted belongings. Charlotte was considering turning it into a water closet, but with so many other renovations still ongoing it was on the bottom of a rather long list. Stepping around a high backed chair that needed new upholstery, she fixed Dobson with the coldest of stares.

  “What do you want?”

  Dressed in his customary attire of a black jacket, vest, white shirt, and pressed trousers Dobson looked every inch the respectable butler… until you glanced into his dark, squinty eyes and saw the belligerence and disgust he did not bother to hide. “I never liked you.”

  Refusing to be intimidated, Charlotte crossed her arms and lifted her chin. “The feeling,” she said scathingly, “is quite mutual. This will not continue on, do you understand? I have given you every opportunity to—”

  “Oh, shut your damn trap.”

  “E-Excuse me?” she sputtered.

  “You heard me.” His gaze deliberately insolent, Dobson looked her up and down, and when his eyes lingered on the curve of her breasts Charlotte could not suppress her shudder of revulsion. “You haven’t stopped talking since the moment you arrived. Changing this, changing that.” His lip curled. “Shire House was perfect before you and your meddling husband took over.”

  “Shire House was falling apart and were it not for my meddling husband you would have been out of work months ago! You need to leave, Dobson. At once. Your employment here has ended.” He was making her extremely uncomfortable and very, very aware that with Gavin away and the rest of the servants under his control instead of her own, he could whatever he liked.

  She had always thought of Dobson as harmless. Horrible, certainly, but harmless all the same. Now she suddenly saw the butler in a different light, and the prickle of awareness at the back of her neck had her taking a step closer to the door.

  “My employment was over the moment Graystone purchased Shire House. Lady Susan and Lord Richard would be rolling in their graves if they knew their estate had fallen into the hands of a half blood mongrel and his whiny bitch.”

  Charlotte didn’t slap; she punched.

  Without a thought to the consequences she rushed forward, balled her right hand into a fist, and swung it wildly at Dobson’s head. It glanced off his cheek and she felt a second of immense satisfaction before he retaliated. She tried to jump away, but her heel caught on a piece of furniture and she stumbled, wind milling her arms in a desperate attempt to find her balance. Dobson was on her in an instant.

  Before she could even draw the breath necessary to scream he had his hands wrapped around her throat and she was slammed against the far wall. Her head bounced painfully off the hard plaster, sending bits of it crumbling into her hair like newly fallen snow. She bit her tongue and the taste of blood flooded her mouth, hard and metallic. In front of her Dobson looked like a man crazed. His eyes were rolling, his face a deep, mottled purple. He shook her like a dog would a bone, jerking her side to side.

  “Bitch,” he snarled. Long lines of spittle flew from his mouth and covered her forehead, nose, cheeks. “Whore. This house doesn’t belong to you. It will never belong to you. NEVER!”

  Dobson continued to rant and rave until his voice was only a dull buzzing in Charlotte’s ears. She clawed frantically at his hands, her throat convulsing as she tried to suck in air. “Killing… Me…” she wheezed. For one horrifying moment she thought Dobson was going to tighten his grip and end it, but with an exclamation of disgust he let her go.

  She collapsed to her knees in a fit of coughing that wracked her entire body. The floor seemed to swim in front of her eyes, the colors of the room blurred and distended. Grasping her bruised neck she massaged the trembling muscles and knew the skin would be bruised to black by evening. She peered up at Dobson. He towered above her, his face a mask of tightly controlled fury, his arms held in rigid lines at his side. A light blazed in his eye that was not completely sane. It spoke of anger and greed and madness. She had once thought him bitter and high on his imagined power. Now she knew he was more. So much more, and the thought of what he could do to her, alone in the house, chilled her to the bone.

  “I have been patient. I have waited and watched. Your husband is a stupid fool grasping beyond his means.” The muscles in Dobson’s face tightened and twitched. “He should be the one bowing and scraping to me!”

  “You hate him.” Charlotte’s voice was a painful rasp, her forehead lined with creases as she attempted to puzzle out the reasons behind Dobson’s madness. Shifting onto her hip she leaned against the wall, too weak and dizzy to stand. “All this time, you have always hated him.”

  “Of course I have!” the butler howled, throwing his arms wide. “He doesn’t deserve this house. He doesn’t deserve this life. He is not a lord. He is nothing. He is no one!”

  Even after being half strangled to death, Charlotte could not help but leap to Gavin’s defense. “He worked for what he has. Lord or not, he has earned every bit of it. Why would that matter to you?” she asked, bewildered beyond reason. “He let you stay on as head butler. He paid you fair wages. You have no reason to complain. No reason to… to do this.”

  “Because it should have been me,” Dobson whined. Sinking down into a chair, he buried his head in his hands. “It should have been me,” he repeated. “Me, me, me.”

  Charlotte glanced past him to the door. It wasn’t so far away. Three yards at the most. At least now she knew why he had wanted to meet her in the back parlor. It was isolated from the rest of the house and the street beyond, but if she could somehow get through the door and down the hall… “Why should Shire House belong to you?” Keep him talking, she thought. Keep him talking and you will have a chance at escape. Going so slow as to barely be moving, she began to inch her way to the left, keeping her eyes trained on Dobson the entire time. “You are not a lord either.”

  “Not a lord?” The whites of his eyes flashed. More spittle flew from his mouth. “He was my father. His blood is in MY veins.”

  “Whose blood?”

  But Dobson did not seem to hear her. He was muttering to himself again, lost in a world Charlotte could not begin to fathom, let alone understand. She had always known he was a mean man. Ill tempered and short with his word. But h
ow had he hidden such madness? From her. From Gavin. From the rest of the staff. Unless they knew… and that was why they obeyed his every word without question.

  The door was so close. It would be now, or not at all. Carefully positioning herself into a crouching position, Charlotte moved her skirts to the side, gave one more cautious glance at Dobson, and sprang to her feet.

  She heard his chair crash to the floor as he lunged towards her. She darted to the side and he slammed into a desk with a howl of fury, his shins cracking sharply against the polished mahogany. Her breaths came in shallow pants as she raced for the door. She collided against it at full speed, her fingers scrambling frantically across the smooth wood to find the knob.

  The creak of a foot on a floorboard was her only warning.

  She screamed when she felt Dobson’s hands tangle in her hair. Screamed again when he yanked her backwards. Pins scattered, pinging off the walls. With a strength Charlotte never dreamed Dobson possessed he flipped her onto her back. She landed on the floor hard enough to knock the air out of her lungs and bright flashes of light flew in front of her eyes. Then he was on her, his larger body easily pinning her down. Still she fought, kicking and slapping at any part of his anatomy she could reach. Sucking in a mouthful of air she screamed again. Dobson brought the backside of his hand crashing down across her face, stunning her into silence.

  “You’re only making it worse for yourself.” His eyes were unfocused. His tone mild. He even smiled slightly, his lips pulling back to reveal a line of crooked teeth.

  “What do you want?” It was, Charlotte realized dimly, the first time she had asked. Most likely because she was afraid of the answer. Dobson must know what he risked by attacking her. Gavin’s wrath was no small thing. He would see the butler beaten within an inch of his life, or worse. Which meant Dobson did not care what happened to him. Which meant he did not care what happened to her. “Just let me go,” she whispered when he continued to stare blankly at her. “Let me go and I swear I will not tell anyone. I swear it.”

  His smile widened. “Do you think I am stupid?”

  “No, no of course—”

  “Yes you do. You do,” he insisted even as she shook her head from side to side, “and in your blind ignorance you have sealed your own fate. I won’t be able to stay in London. I know that. But he’s given me the means to buy my own estate in America where I will have the respect and recognition I deserve. And Shire House will burn,” he said dreamily. “She will be turned to ash and your husband will never touch her with his filthy hands again.”

  Charlotte’s vision was going in and out; one moment clear, the next blurry. Her ears rang and her head pounded as though someone were striking her repeatedly with a sledgehammer. It was difficult to focus on anything except the pain of being held to the ground against her will and the knowledge that she was at the mercy of a madman.

  “Who?” she croaked, her voice little more than an aching rasp that burned up through her throat and spilled out the side of her mouth. “Who are you doing this for?”

  “Who am I doing this for?” Dobson’s head tipped to the side. He seemed oblivious to the fact that his knee was digging into her abdomen and his forearm was pressed tight against her neck. They could have been discussing china patterns in the drawing room, and the nonchalance of his tone frightened Charlotte far more than anything else. “For myself, first. You’ve had your nose stuck up in the air since you came here. Nothing has been good enough for you. Shire House hasn’t been good enough for you.” He leaned his weight into the arm he held against her throat. The foul scent of his breath clogged her nostrils and she gasped for breath, her body writhing and contorting against the floorboards. Just as her vision began to darken completely, Dobson sat back on his heels.

  She gasped and sputtered, sucking in air and crying out when her chest burned as though on fire. “I’ll give you whatever you want.” The plea tasted sour in her mouth, but she had no other option than to beg for her life. Hating him, hating herself, she whispered, “Please don’t hurt me. I swear on my mother’s life I will not tell Gavin.”

  “Hurt you? I am not going to hurt you.” Dobson rocked back on his heels and stood up. Wiping his sweating palms on his vest, he straightened the lapels on his jacket and leered down at her. “Well, no more than I already have. But this will be child’s play compared to what he has in store for you.” The butler made a tsking sound and wagged his finger at her. “You never should have tried to run from him. He’s giving me a fortune for your return. I’ll never have to open another door for the likes of you and your husband again.”

  Charlotte thought she had been afraid before. It was nothing compared to the terror that consumed her now. Her blood turned to ice, chilling her to the bone. She felt all the color drain from her face and her fingers, even though she willed them not to, trembled violently when she raised them to her lips.

  How could she have lulled herself in a false sense of security? Crane was not a man who gave up easily. He had seen two wives dead and buried. He wanted a third by fair means or foul. What was he going to do with her? What was he going to do to her?

  Months had passed since that day in his garden when she spurned his advances and he laughed in her face. A sane man would have moved on. A reasonable man would have forgotten, if not forgiven. But the duke was neither sane nor reasonable, and Charlotte shuddered to think what fate awaited her if she were delivered into his hands.

  “No. No, you do not understand. You can’t do this, Dobson. Whatever he’s paying you I’ll double it. I’ll triple it,” she said wildly. Reeling onto her elbows she scrambled back and bumped hard into a chair. With Dobson standing between her and the door there was nowhere else to go. Nowhere else to run.

  But she would be damned if she surrendered willingly.

  “Get up.” Dobson nudged her leg with the toe of his boot. “The carriage is waiting. We can do this the hard way or the easy way. I would prefer the former, but I do have orders to bring you to him in” – he smacked his lips together suggestively – “working condition.”

  Squeezing her eyes shut, Charlotte forced more tears to fall. “Please don’t do this,” she whimpered piteously. “I’ll give you anything you want.”

  Another nudge, harder this time. “I said get UP.”

  “I can’t. I… I feel like I am going to be ill. You have to help me.” Curling one hand over her stomach, she hunched forward and extended the other. She heard Dobson sigh, grumble something unintelligible under his breath, and tried not to cringe when she felt his cold, clammy skin slide against hers.

  For a moment she considered screaming, but what good had it done her so far? Taking a deep, even breath she allowed Dobson to pull her to her feet. He released her hand and she swayed back and forth, bracing her fingers to her temple as though dizzy.

  “There is no time for this,” he growled impatiently. When he reached to jerk her towards the door, she attacked.

  Gavin knew something was wrong.

  The feeling hung over his head all day. It followed him like a dark, heavy cloud threatening rain. He may not have felt the drops, but he knew the cloud was there nevertheless, and his wariness grew by the hour until he finally stood up and excused himself in the middle of one of most important business mergers of his life.

  The lord with whom he had been attempting to negotiate an alliance with that would benefit both of them greatly in the months to come stood up, his jowls quivering in indignation when Gavin gathered his coat.

  “What is the meaning of this?”

  “My attorney will handle the rest of the details.” Gavin paused at the door to look pointedly at his lawyer, a tall, slightly built man in his forties with a nervous tick and a mind just shy of genius. “I will return tomorrow to sign the contracts.”

  Lord Hansel Burn, an earl of considerable wealth accustomed to getting exactly what he wanted when he wanted it, was not satisfied in the least. “Now see here, Graystone. It’s you I am doing this deal
with and it bloody well better be you I get, not your lackey. Now kindly take off from the door and sit yourself down so we can settle this like gentleman.”

  “Ah, see, that is where you’re wrong.”

  “Wrong?” The earl’s forehead creased.

  “I am not a gentleman.” Ignoring Burn’s request to return to his seat, Gavin stepped out of the opulently decorated drawing room and into the hall. “And with all due respect, if you believe my signature underneath yours means I’ll be taking orders from you, you can take that pipe you haven’t stopped smoking for the past two hours and shove it up your arse. Good day to you, Lord Burn. Timothy, see that everything is handled accordingly.”

  “Yes sir.”

  The earl’s eyes threatened to bulge out his head when Gavin slammed the door behind him. “Is he always like this?” he asked, turning to the attorney in disbelief.

  “Oh yes,” Timothy said, nodding vigorously.

  “Well where the bloody hell is he off to in such a rush?”

  “Home, I believe. He’s a newlywed and is quite taken with his wife.”

  “Is he now.” Leaning back in his chair, Burn rubbed his chin and hid the grin that tugged at the corners of his mouth with the palm of his hand. Having been more or less happily married to the same woman for twenty-two years, the earl fancied himself a knowledgeable man where matrimony was concerned. Even so, it had taken him quite a while to figure out that if you wanted to keep your wife happy, their needs always held priority over business. The fact that Graystone seemed to know this already made him a smart man, and Burn liked working with smart men.

  “Go on then,” he said, nodding to papers scattered across the desk between them. “I do not have all day. Draw up the next contract. Does Graystone want an eight or ten percent commission on this one?”

  Timothy didn’t bother to glance at the list in front of him. “Twenty,” he said. “Mr. Graystone takes twenty percent across the board and not a shilling less.”