The Forgiven Duke (A Forgotten Castles Novel)

by Carie, Jamie

  He was too confused to even continue the line of thought. Taking Jane’s hand he led her over to the settee, sat her next to their mother, and handed her a snowy handkerchief. She dabbed at her plump cheeks whose dimples when she smiled were such an endearing quality. They wouldn’t be seeing those for a very long time.

  Blasted senseless tragedy. He wanted to fall on his face and beg God’s help, but that would have to wait for later. If he flung himself on the floor and cried out like he wanted to do, his mother would think he’d gone mad. Instead, he rang for his butler with whispered directions to call in the doctor. Dr. Bentley would know the best thing for Jane right now.

  Gabriel sat across from the women, leaning toward them with elbows braced on his knees. “I can’t begin to express my sadness for you, Jane. For all of us. Matthew was the best of men. I can’t believe he’s gone.”

  Jane spoke and Meade hurried to the desk to write down what she said. They’ve brought his body to the house. I don’t know what to do with it. What do I do next?

  His mother answered before Gabriel could, and he supposed she was giving Jane directions as to the funeral arrangements; it was what she would do in this case. But Jane needn’t worry about all that. “Meade and I will take care of everything, Jane. You must stay here where we can care for you. I’ll have some footmen go to your house and pack up your things. Does that sound all right?”

  She sniffed and nodded, looking at Meade with tear-filled eyes of gratitude. “Thank you, Mr. Meade. You have been so kind . . .”

  “I’ve called for Dr. Bentley to come and call on her,” Gabriel said to Meade. Their family doctor was almost exclusively theirs. He had known Matthew well and would be as devastated as the rest of them. “Alert the rest of the family to come. We must surround Jane with our support.”

  It was only two weeks until Christmas with all the family celebrations and events. Now he wasn’t sure they would have a Christmas this year. Perhaps something small, for the children.

  If only Jane had some children. The thought came from seemingly nowhere, making a terrible event deepen in despair. He banished the thought.

  Jane leaned back against the sofa cushion and closed her eyes. Silent tears continued to trickle down her cheeks, but her breathing had evened out and she looked a little more in control of her emotions. His mother rose, her face looking to have aged a decade in the last few minutes.

  “I will call on you all tomorrow. I feel the need to lie down now.”

  “Are you all right, Mother?” The strain on her was unmistakable.

  She nodded and waved him away, but Gabriel didn’t feel much better. She was more fragile than usual. He must treat her better, he realized, spend more time with her. Life was a fragile thing indeed.

  “A LETTER, YOUR GRACE.”

  Meade walked into his study a week later, waving a piece of paper, the first note of happiness since Matthew’s death lighting his eyes.

  Gabriel’s heart leapt. Could it possibly be? A letter from Alexandria?

  Meade passed it over the desk and settled himself across from Gabriel, looking as if he fully anticipated reading it himself. Gabriel was too excited to dissuade him. He lifted the cream-colored paper, smudged on the outside, and looked at the address. The moment he saw the elegant scrawl of that familiar handwriting he knew. It was from her. The Icelandic postmark made it certain.

  He carefully pried up the wax seal with the Featherstone coat of arms and turned away from Meade. “A moment, Meade, and then I promise I will tell you everything.”

  Meade blushed scarlet and hurried from the room. Gabriel sighed. He hadn’t meant to chase him away entirely.

  My dearest guardian duke,

  I have smuggled out this letter in secret as my now-fiancé, John Lemon, would be devastated to know I am writing to you. When I saw you had come for me on the docks of Dublin’s shore and I was finally able to see your face, I was overcome with feelings I have never felt before. I do not know what you planned to do should you have me within your grasp, but I think because of my lack of faith, both in you and in God, I have made a terrible blunder. When John presented the idea of marriage, I was desperate to continue my journey to find my parents. He is so encouraging and helpful on that account that I confess I leapt at the chance, not due to feelings of everlasting love for him, although I do care for him. Oh, I am not saying this as I wish to! My dear duke, I think I have made a terrible mistake. I desperately need your advice and I miss your letters dreadfully. I confess that I hope you haven’t given up on finding me. I just need more time to find my parents. Please trust me in this.

  You can still write to me. Please write to me in Reykjavik.

  Yours,

  Alexandria

  The breath whooshed out of him and his heart thudded as if he had been running. She wanted him to find her. She asked him not to give up. And she didn’t even realize that he had decided to discard his duty and choose faith instead—faith in her, faith in God. Something he’d never done since knowing the responsibility of his family line, the St. Easton motto Foy Pour Devoir: “Faith for Duty” ever before him. If she had known that, she would have waited for him. She would have never accepted Lord Lemon’s suit.

  Gabriel wiped new tears from his cheeks realizing, as if awakening from a dream, that they were there. In the aftermath of Matthew’s funeral, the stark minute-by-minute reality of Jane’s grief ever before them, he had hardly known what he felt toward God.

  And now this gift.

  So undeserved and yet its value undid him, laid bare and stripped him of every shred of pride and rebellion. Overwhelmed, he fell to his knees. “I can’t make sense of it! Help Alexandria. Help Jane. Help me. I don’t know what else to pray.”

  He clutched the letter to his chest and hoped Meade hadn’t heard him. Just a few more moments basking in the wonder that she needed him as he needed her.

  Chapter Eleven

  The aged man was surprisingly nimble as he scurried down the rock face of the cave like a pale monkey. He landed with a little grunt and hobbled over to where Alex and John stood. His eyes were such a pale blue that Alex wondered if he could see. His hair was sparse and white, sticking up here and there, making him appear as if he’d just rolled out of bed, and he was holding something under his arm. He peered up at them and gave Alex a toothless grin.

  “I know who you are,” he said in a voice that creaked with age. The words caused a shiver to run down her back. John took a step closer. The little man matched John’s step and stabbed John’s chest with a wrinkled finger. “Don’t know you, though.” He looked over at Svein, squinting his eyes. “So Svein Stephensen led you here. Wondered how she found me. She couldn’t have found me by herself. No, no, Svein did it. Svein Stephensen.” It was as if he was talking more to himself than to any of them.

  “Is your name Enoch?” Svein asked in a gruff voice. “I’ve heard of you.”

  “Rumors and nonsense. That’s what I say.”

  He pulled a paper-wrapped object from the place tucked under his arm and stared at it, turning it over and over in his hands and mumbling some incoherent phrases. “Must do it,” Alex finally caught. “Must, must, must.”

  As if he had made a decision, he thrust the package out to Alex. She took it, looked down, and saw through the dim light of the cave that parts of it were soaked in blood. An involuntary squeak came from her throat as she dropped it on the cave floor.

  The little man groaned. “What did you do that for?” He leaned down, his back rounding in a stoop, and picked it up. Dusting it off, he looked sideways at Alex. “Aren’t you hungry?”

  “What is it?” Alex shrieked.

  “Lamb for dinner right here. You cook it up nice for us, eh?” He held the package out toward her with a hesitant, suspicious gaze. When Alex reached for it a second time, he pulled it away and cackle
d with glee. He held it back toward her. Again, she reached for it and again he snatched it away. Goodness gracious, the man was stark, raving mad!

  “Come now,” she coaxed, “if you’ll just show me where you keep your pots and where to build a fire, I’ll help you cook it.”

  He grumbled some more under his breath and waved them all to follow him. A little ways into the cave he picked up a lantern, lit it, and led them deeper into the cave. They twisted and turned down and around rocky outcroppings and low arches. “You’ll find what you need in here, you will, you will, you will.” The cave opened up into a vast space, the pool behind them. He stood aside and held up the lantern.

  All three of them gasped. The space, as big as her bedchamber back home, was filled with every kind of imaginable item. There were tools and furniture, mostly old and broken, dishes and pots, bottles and jars, ragged and dirty-looking clothing, blankets and bedding, papers and books, even a broken wagon wheel still attached to a wooden axle the size of small tree.

  “You’ll find what you need in here,” he repeated.

  Alex turned and looked wide-eyed at Svein and John. Compassion filled her for the man but she wasn’t sure what to do.

  There was a little path running through the middle of all the objects which he hobbled down, digging through this pile and that, until he came upon a large metal pot. He turned toward them with glee, brandishing it high above his head. “Told you so, I did.”

  Alex took the pot and placed the paper-wrapped meat in it. “I think we should build the fire outside, don’t you? We wouldn’t want to harm your things.”

  “Smart!” He grinned at her in that vacant way that made her flesh prickle. “Wait, we’ll need some of these.” He went to one corner and on a broken-down table leaning against the cave wall sorted through some food stores. He brought back two big turnips and a few dusty potatoes. Without a word, he led them back again toward the pool and then outdoors.

  Alex lingered at the back, her gaze darting among the piles for books. Her heart sank as she noted how sadly kept they were. If there were any books with a mention of Augusto de Carrara in this mess, she didn’t know how they would find it.

  The light faded as the men moved away, so she hurried to catch up with John’s shadowy form. Soon, they came into the brighter area of the pool. John took the pot from her while she climbed up, then handed it up to her while he came up last to the top where they all stood outside again.

  Bright and cold after the warm snugness of the cave, Alex pulled her fur tighter around her. The three of them lingered in a group as the old man took off toward some spot to build a fire.

  “Is he mad?” Alex whispered to the men.

  “Quite.” Svein nodded. “He is a hermit and moves about from place to place in this area. I hadn’t remembered him or thought to connect him to the clues you are looking for, but perhaps he has spoken with your parents.”

  “That might explain why he thinks he knows you,” John suggested. “Didn’t you say you resemble your mother?”

  “Yes, that might explain it.” Alex bit her bottom lip in concentration, looking at the old man’s back getting farther and farther away from them. “Let’s go along with him, try to ease into a conversation.”

  “He might be volatile, even dangerous.”

  Alex frowned at John. He didn’t seem dangerous, just touched in the head.

  “And that might not be lamb in that package,” Svein said in a teasing, scary voice. “We might be dining on his last visitor.”

  Alex paled but gave a weak laugh.

  “Stop it, Svein. There’s no use frightening Alexandria,” John warned, then added with unease. “You were joking, weren’t you?”

  Svein chuckled low and waved them to start after Enoch. “We’ll know after the first bite, won’t we?”

  They all pitched in to make a fire and get the stew going over the low flames. It would be some time before it was ready, so they crept back down to the warmth of the cave and sat around the pool.

  “Enoch,” Alex began, “you said you know who I am, but we’ve never met. How can that be?”

  He made several motions of his hand toward her, huffing and smiling and turning aside as if embarrassed. He almost turned pink, but Alex couldn’t tell for sure as he hid his face against his shoulder.

  “Did you meet my parents?”

  His rheumy eyes turned suddenly toward her, his chin uplifted, his toothless smile alight with joy. “She saw me.”

  He was like a child. A newborn in an old, shriveled body. Alex blinked back sudden tears, the meaning slamming into her. Her mother saw him? How? How had she seen this man and not ever seen her?

  “I’m so glad.” Alex stretched out her hand and clasped his frail one. She gently squeezed his withered hand. “What did she say to you?” Alex’s voice was careful and soft.

  “She said a great thing is hidden in my things and we must find it . . . together. She said if we find it, we will change the world together. She looked at me and said . . . I have the key.”

  Alex leaned in, very calm and still. The men remained as quiet as statues in the background. “Did she say what it was they were looking for? Did you find it?”

  He gazed at the crevice overhead, a streak of light in the stone-bound ceiling. He looked around the cave and at them, up and around again, and then he leaned toward her, his bushy white eyebrows raised. “I have the key.” He chuckled with a low sound—mad but alight with joy—then he quieted, still rocking.

  “Enoch.” Alex leaned toward him. He looked at her afraid, shaking his head and backing away. “Enoch, I am her daughter. She would want me to know.”

  Everyone sat still, breaths held. Everything stopped as they awaited a madman’s answer, their minds suspended as to what it might be.

  Enoch. Please. Alex silently begged with her eyes. Trust me.

  “We eat first,” he rallied. “And then I will show you the book I showed your mother.”

  THE LAMB STEW, AND SHE was sure it was lamb stew having grown up on the staple, tasted like dust in her mouth despite the ravenous hunger the overland march had placed on her stomach. There was just so much to think about. Who was this mother who could tame madmen from their hiding places? Who was this woman who knew of keys and mysteries and held within herself the wherewithal to solve them?

  The world as Alex knew it, the world she had created for her child’s self, stretched like an oddly shaped bubble around her, ill-fitting and threatening to burst, asking her to question everything she’d built in her mind. She looked over at John as an anchor, but he seemed adrift in this place too, skidding along against the craggy lava rock and wildly blue bubbling pools with an increasing air of desperation. Where had his easy camaraderie gone? The teasing answers and quick smiles of confidence? The feeling that their few kisses would stay them for a lifetime?

  Did anyone know what they were really doing? She had been so sure . . . but not now.

  Alex exhaled and bit down on her lower lip. She sat on the rocky edge of the cave’s bathing pool, took off her boots and stockings, and plunged her feet into the pool. Swishing her feet back and forth and closing her eyes, she dangled in the hot, bubbly water. She’d let the old man get to her. She needed to remain steadfast in her mission.

  Taking a deep breath, she let it all go, at least for a moment. She didn’t worry about the next movement and what they needed to find. She just leaned back her head and reveled in the warm bubbles against her toes, trusting God to show her the way.

  Something touched her shoulder.

  Her eyes fluttered open. Enoch stood next to her, holding out a book. It was in very good shape. Perfectly kept. She opened it and turned through the beautifully drawn pages in the artistic Celtic script similar to the script in the Lindisfarne Gospels. The language was Icelandic and impossible to read, but she
kept looking through it, looking for the clue he was trying to show her.

  She turned to the last page, so blue, with a pool drawn below the walls of a cave, and there sat a girl with her feet dipping into the pool. It was newer. The ink recent.

  Alex inhaled and looked up into the pale blue eyes of a half-blind madman. He tapped his finger against the page. “I know you.” He smiled deep into her eyes.

  “This is how you know me?”

  “Yes.” He reached into a pocket and drew out an iridescent green and blue feather. Then he reached into the other pocket and took out a stone of black lava. He placed them in Alex’s hand, closing her fingers gently around them. “I’ve been waiting for you to come.” He tapped again on the picture in the book. “Featherstone. She drew it here for you.”

  Alex looked up at him in question, her blood roaring in her ears.

  “The key,” he touched the book with a gnarled finger, “is there.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Jane, how are you this morning?” Gabriel came into the breakfast room, seeing his sister staring off into space, her breakfast untouched. He placed a hand on her shoulder as she turned, looked up at him with those stricken eyes she tried to hide, and gave him a wobbly smile.

  “I’m all right,” she clearly mouthed.

  It wasn’t true, of course. The clear fact that she was trying to keep her pain from him caused a pang in his chest. What Jane needed was something to do. Something to take her mind off of things for a while. Wandering around his town house, alone much of the time, wasn’t helping her at all. She dreaded callers except from family. Didn’t want to go out into society. Hmm.

  Gabriel bent down and kissed her cheek, then went over to the sideboard where platters of food were set out. “You know, Jane, I was thinking of going to the British Museum today. Would you like to accompany me?”

  She rose to fetch the speaking book, one of many that lay about in each room of his house now. She returned to her chair and patted the seat next to her, which Gabriel took, thinking it was a good sign, even though he usually sat at the head of the table.