by Mason, Nina
“Not especially.” She stood, came to his bedside, and bent to retrieve the chamber pot. As she gave it to him, she looked uncharacteristically somber. “Well, I’d best get on with it, hadn’t I? We’re not going to find out what the Duke of York wants with you by sitting here wagging our chins about humankind’s intractable stupidity.”
She left him then and, a few hours later, returned with an elegant suit of clothes over her arm. Green velvet with elaborate gold embroidery round the edges.
They were clearly meant for him. The Duke of York must have given them to her.
Still abed, he arched an inquisitive eyebrow in her direction. “Which am I? Dangerous criminal with a price upon my head or scandalous rogue who has ruined one of his daughters?”
“Neither.” She laid the garments out across the foot of the bed. “You are already married to one of his daughters. And that only scratches the surface of what I’ve learned about you.”
“Oh, aye?” He was so stricken by the news he’d not married his Rosebud, he was finding breathing difficult. Feigning lightheartedness to hide his distress, he said, “Well, keep me in suspense no longer. Who might I be? Butcher, baker, or candlestick maker?”
She plopped down in the fireside chair, but her dreamy expression suggested she still floated on the air. “First, let me say His Royal Highness proved the most amiable of men. A little long in the tooth, perhaps, but clearly up for it.”
He could not help but wonder if she’d treated the Duke of York for excessive seminal humors during her visit. “His Royal Highness is married, I might remind you. Not that being so has put blinders on his roving eye. Nor his brother’s, for that matter. Now, do get on with it. I should like to at least know my name before the sun sets upon this day.”
“Very well.” Her elation suffered a slight deflation. “Your name is Robert Armstrong and you are not a page to the king.”
“Am I not?”
“You were at one time—before you became a duke!” The light returned to her eyes. “Can you believe it? You are no less than the Duke of Dunwoody, a hamlet in the border shires of Scotland, to be precise.”
The news both took him aback and plunged a dagger into his heart. He could only be the Duke of Dunwoody if his father no longer held the title.
Which meant…
“When and how did my father meet his end?”
“According to the Duke of York, he passed on about five years back of Yellow Fever—during the same outbreak that claimed your sister.”
An overpowering grief besieged his heart, bringing tears to his eyes. “Mary is dead as well?”
As she nodded, sympathy swam in her eyes. “I am so sorry, my lord—or perhaps I should call you Your Grace? I should have known, given the state of your memory, the news of their deaths would come as a shock to you.”
His thoughts turned to Maggie with a pang. What had become of her after his sister’s demise? Perhaps she’d returned to the convent to devote herself to God, which would explain why he’d given up the hope of making her his bride.
“And my wife? Which of the Duke of York’s daughters did I wed?”
The question seemed to surprise her. “You married one of his illegitimate offspring. A lady thought to be a foundling until very recently. York was the name she was given by the nuns who raised her.”
A beam of joy broke through the despair clouding his mind. Could it be? Was it possible? But wait. Maggie could not be the progeny of James Stuart. The notion was utterly ludicrous.
Or was it?
He shook his head to clear it of distracting thoughts. Who had fathered Maggie was of little consequence. What mattered was whom she’d married. She was his, by God. And now that he knew, his heart felt both lighter and more at peace. He also felt desperate to see her.
“Where is my wife? Here in town?”
“She anxiously awaits your return in Scotland,” Mistress Wakeman told him. “She wrote to her father a few weeks back, appealing for his assistance in finding you. That is the reason he printed the leaflets.”
“I must go to her at once.” He started to get up, but stopped himself when his dizziness overtook him.
“His Royal Highness is coming here to fetch you—in your own carriage to convey you back to your wife. That is why I brought you the clothes. I must help you dress at once, for he will be here to collect you within the hour.”
When she rose from the chair, he gave her a smile. “I am grateful to you, Mistress, for your care and friendship, and promise to send you something to help you get by when I am resettled in Scotland.”
“While I appreciate the offer, my lord, there is no need.” Beaming at him, she withdrew a bulging leather pouch from the pocket beneath her skirts. As she shook the purse, the coins inside jingled together. “Your father-in-law has given me all I could ask for.”
Chapter Thirteen
With a racing heart and trembling hands, Maggie broke the seal on the letter from her father. Please let him have found Robert alive and well. Please, please, please, please, please. She’d had Hugh strapped to the bed in the flagellation chamber for a fortnight and was nearing her wit’s end.
She’d left him to the care of Mrs. McQueen and only visited long enough each day to deliver another sound beating. Meanwhile, she’d turned Juliette and the others over to John Graham of Claverhouse, the captain of militia charged with squelching the Covenanter conspiracy. The marquess had run away, she’d told the dashing viscount, when his plot was foiled.
Eager as she was to know what the letter contained, her hands were shaking so badly she could hardly get the blessed thing open. When at last she did, she looked first at the date. The letter had been penned a fortnight ago. Wame aflutter, she swept her gaze over the body of the note, scanning hurriedly.
My dearest duchess,
It pleases me greatly to be in a position to inform you that your husband yet lives. I wish I could also say he is well. Unfortunately, he suffers from a loss of memory—the result of a head injury inflicted during a robbery. The physician who has been treating your Robert is optimistic he will make a full and complete recovery. At present, however, he is rather frail and only knows who he is because he’s been informed of such. Before he was found, he did not even apprehend his own name.
In light of his poor health, I feel it unwise to send him home alone, but do feel—and his doctor agrees—that returning to a familiar setting and seeing you again might help lift the veil shrouding his memory. Therefore, I shall personally accompany him on his homeward journey. I do this for you, my dearest girl, and at great personal risk. For there are many in the land of my forbears who wish me ill. If these Presbyterian radicals learn I have breached the borders, I have no doubt they will act to end my days on this earth. Schemes abound to deprive me of both my life and birthright. Thus, I implore you to keep my secret and to burn this letter as soon as you have finished reading the tidings conveyed herein.
We depart London today and, weather and roads permitting, hope to arrive in Dunwoody before Christmas. Until then, I remain…
Your devoted servant, etc.
The note was unsigned, probably to protect her father, lest the letter fall into the wrong hands. Thankfully, it had not. She read the message again with tears in her eyes, before dropping the sheet into the fire. As she watched the paper burn, a mixture of emotions tangled within her. Joy Robert had been found alive. Elation he would soon be home. Worry his injuries and amnesia might be more severe than her father let on. Anxiety over meeting her father. Dread about revealing Hugh’s crimes to his brother.
Wringing her hands, she paced the floor, her thoughts and feelings jumbled and knotted, until the thunder of an approaching carriage intruded upon the oppressive silence. Pulse quickening, she hastened toward the window and peered out through the vacillating glass, feeling as nervous as she had on her wedding night.
As the carriage pulled to a stop in the courtyard, she raced to the mirror on the opposite wall. She did not h
ave time to put on a better gown, but she would not greet her husband and father looking unkempt. She hastily tidied her curls and eyebrows with spit-moistened fingers before pinching her cheeks and biting her lips to give them color.
Two pairs of shoes crunched the gravel moments before the front door opened.
“Hello? Margaret? Is anyone about the place?”
The speaker must be her father, for the voice did not belong to Robert.
“I am here.” She hurried toward the foyer, hiding her uncertainties behind a smiling mask. “Readying myself to greet my menfolk.”
As she entered the room, breathless with anticipation, the Duke of York bowed deeply at the waist. She returned the greeting with a curtsy, taking him in as she dipped low. Neither as swarthy nor as tall as his brother the king, James Stuart nonetheless cut a fine figure in his gray velvet suit and curly brown periwig. Far from plain, his deportment was regal, his features strong and pleasing, his eyes large and expressive, and his lips full and well-sculpted.
“You are every bit as handsome as was your mother,” he said with a grin that explained his success with the fairer sex.
Curious though she was, Maggie resisted the urge to ask who her mother had been. Her inquiries could wait until she’d received her husband. On tenterhooks, she turned toward Robert. Tears sprang into her eyes as she took him in. He wore an unfamiliar and ill-fitting set of clothes and his beautiful hair had been shorn to the scalp. Even so, he was without a doubt the most welcome sight in the world to her.
“Oh, Robert.” She moved toward him, arms outstretched. “Do you know me?”
He gave her one of those bone-melting smiles she’d missed to the core of her being. “Of course I do, Rosebud. ’Twould take a vast deal more than a bump on the head to make me forget the love of my life.”
The next moment, she could not say by whose enterprise, she was in his arms, their bodies pressed together in a grateful reunion of souls. She clasped her arms around his neck, ran her fingers over the dark stubble flocking his head, and rose on her toes to offer him her mouth. When his lips met hers—tenderly, languidly—she could have sworn she heard a far-off choir of angels jubilantly singing: He has come. He has come. My redeemer has come!
“I love you,” he said against her mouth. “So much.”
“I love you, too. With all my heart.”
The despair that had overwhelmed her began to ebb. He was home, safe and sound, and he knew her and still loved her as much as ever. She could not want for more than that.
Except perhaps justice by his hand.
As his pelvis brushed hers, arousal kicked hard betwixt her thighs. She ignored the feeling. As much as she wanted him, as much as she’d missed his tender touch, her passions would have to wait until she’d told him about his brother—not that she had the slightest idea where to begin the saga.
As they broke apart, Robert glanced around, his brow furrowed. “Where the devil is Hugh? Why has he not come to welcome me home?”
“I shall reveal all in due course,” she said through her thickening throat as she took his arm. “But first, let us go into the parlor so you both can take your ease over a dram or two of good whisky.”
* * * *
Fury raged within Robert like the Great Fire of London as he listened to Maggie’s wrenching tale of his brother’s cruelty and scheming. By the time she’d finished, his fists were balled so tightly his fingernails had dug grooves into the skin of his palms.
He needed to hit something.
Nay, someone.
“Where is he?” he ground out, jaw clamped.
“Bound and gagged in the secret chamber behind the bookcase.”
The Duke of York’s dark-brown eyes found hers. “Upon my soul, I might believe your tale a fiction had I not been the target of such evil schemes myself.”
Robert harbored not the least doubt about the tale’s veracity. For he knew his good-hearted Rosebud incapable of inventing a slander against anyone, especially her former favorite. No, Hugh had done every despicable thing she’d relayed. And now would pay for his villainy, damn the man’s black soul.
Leaping to his feet, Robert started toward the bookcase.
Maggie grabbed his arm. “What are you going to do to him?”
“Naught he’ll enjoy.”
“There’s something else,” she said, eyes fretful, voice quavering. “I have no wish to stoke your rage, but you have a right to know before you confront him.” Her lower lip trembled as she added, “I am with child, Robert. Two months gone. And when your brother suspected as much, he kicked me down the stairs.”
Robert, a burning barn in a windstorm, stared at her unseeing. Somewhere inside, he was glad she was pregnant, but the stores where he kept feelings like happiness and joy were depleted at present.
“I have heard all I can bear,” he bit out, jerking his arm free of her grasp.
He lit a candle, activated the hidden lever, and stood back whilst the bookcase swung open.
“Shall I come with you?” asked the Duke of York.
“No, but thank you for offering,” he said grimly. “This concerns none but me and my brother.”
Shielding the flame from the breeze of movement, Robert made his way down the passage and opened the door. Hugh lay upon the bed, tied to the bedposts by his wrists and ankles. There was a strip of cloth tied around his mouth. He was awake, but appeared to be disoriented. From the look of him, Maggie had taken her licks over the course of several days.
Good for you, Rosebud.
Hugh lifted his head and tried to speak, but the words were muffled by the gag.
Bending over his brother, Robert pulled the cloth free.
“Brother, thank God you’ve come.” Hugh’s voice was breathless and his eyes wild. “Your wife is completely mad.”
Hatred wrung the blood from Robert’s heart. “Do you honestly expect me to take your word over hers? She is the best person I have ever had the pleasure to know whilst you are quite possibly the worst—which is saying something, given the many meschants I have encountered in my days here on earth.”
Hugh appeared unaffected by Robert’s remarks. “Where are Juliette and the others?”
“In the tollhouse, I presume, where they shall remain the rest of their days, if I have any say in the matter.”
“I see,” Hugh said crisply. “And what do you intend to do with me?”
Robert had not yet decided. As much as he wanted to slit his sibling’s throat right then and there—or better still, slice off sensitive parts of his anatomy—his conscience forbade such cold-blooded acts of revenge.
He may be no saint, but neither was he a philistine. Nor God—and vengeance, according to Holy Scripture, was the Lord’s domain.
Even so, he could not let Hugh get away with his misdeeds. He could turn him over to the militia, he supposed. If Hugh refused to renounce the Covenant and pledge fealty to the crown, he’d be hanged for treason and justice would be served. But, knowing Hugh, he would abandon his new religion in a heartbeat if it suited his cause. And then what? He’d be charged with his other crimes and given a trial, at which poor Maggie would be compelled to give a detailed account of the unspeakable things Hugh did to her. Even if she endured the ordeal, there was no guarantee Hugh would be convicted.
Nay. He could neither ask Maggie to relive the trauma nor take the chance his brother would go free. He needed another way. A way that was both just and honorable.
“What about a duel? I shall even let you choose the weapons. Our own swords or father’s pistols.”
Years ago, his father had brought a set of dueling pistols back with him from France, where such confrontations were all the rage, especially among military personnel.
“You are on,” Hugh said, looking vastly more sanguine. “Who shall we have as seconds?”
“I shall have the Duke of York, who is waiting upstairs, as mine. Who you choose will be limited only by how quickly he can be summoned. I mean to fight you in t
he garden before sunset.”
With a conspiratorial gleam in his eyes, Hugh said, “What about the Alec Watt, the baillie?”
Robert hid his pleasure behind a scowl. If Alec Watt were Hugh’s second, he’d have his chance to take down both conspirators. Maggie had told him of the baillie’s role in the plot to do him in—and of Hugh’s plan to whore her to the despicable swine. What he could not accomplish, he would leave to the Duke of York who, by all accounts, was fearless under fire.
Once, during a battle at sea, the duke was splattered with the brains of a fellow officer who’d been hit by a cannonball. Unflustered by the gore, James Stuart simply took out his handkerchief, wiped his face, and remarked on what a good fellow the deceased had been.
“Very well,” Robert said, endeavoring to hide the glint in his own eye. “I shall send someone to fetch Mr. Watt and have some clothes brought in for you. When all is in place, we shall meet on the lawn betwixt the garden and the copse. Now, which will it be? Swords or pistols?”
“Swords.”
Robert pursed his lips to hide his delight. He could have predicted his brother’s choice. As boys, they used to duel with wooden swords and Hugh nearly always won. Little did he know, his elder brother threw those fights apurpose—to help his younger opponent build confidence.
Leaving Hugh tied to the bed for now, Robert exited the chamber, securing the door behind him. He distrusted the meschant immensely and did not mean to give him the advantage a moment sooner than absolutely necessary.
Upon emerging into the library, he found Maggie and her father sitting in silence, each lost in thought.
As he approached, she lifted her expectant gaze to his. “Well…?”