The butler again looked everywhere but at Spencer or Edward. “All I can say is your decision to return home at this particular time was fortuitous for all concerned, Your Grace.”
“No, you will quickly find it is not all you can say. Damn it, look at me, Fredericks. And you, Edward, may step back.” He waited; Edward stepped back; and Fredericks gave Spencer his attention. “Thank you. Now, what do you mean by fortuitous, Fredericks? How so?”
“I mean not only did convention prevent us from apprising you, sir, but the duchess left orders.”
Spencer ignored Edward’s little sick sound of doom and narrowed his eyes. “Orders? What orders? What are you talking about?”
Fredericks pulled himself up to his formal posture. “The duchess forbade us contacting you.”
“She … forbade? Why in God’s name would she—” He didn’t finish the question because he already knew the answer: So she could make good her getaway. Feeling a sudden need to sit down, Spencer retrieved his chair and dragged it over to the desk. He then sank down heavily on the padded leather seat and slouched back against its familiar comfort. He closed his eyes and rubbed the taut skin between his eyebrows. Damn.
Spencer felt his shoulder being squeezed compassionately. “Are you quite all right, Spence, old man?” Edward asked.
Feeling bleak and empty inside, Spencer opened his eyes. “Never better.”
“If I may intrude, Your Grace?”
Spencer indicated with a gesture for the butler, whose brow was furrowed with worry lines, to proceed.
“Thank you, sir. I want … well, I just would like to … Oh, rot and balderdash, sir, I’m trying to say how sorry I am and that it pains me to see you hurt and I had hoped against hope that the duchess would realize her mistake in leaving and return before you discovered her gone. There, I’ve said it.”
“Oh, jolly well said, Fredericks,” Edward cheered.
To Spencer’s surprise, he found he could smile, even under these circumstances. “Thank you, Fredericks. You’re very kind.” Then, his next thought sobered him, but he knew he had to ask it, whether Edward was in the room or not. “When the duchess left … was she alone?”
“Hello, what’s this?”
“That’s enough, Edward.”
Obviously perceiving the implication behind Spencer’s question, Fredericks’s eyes widened and his face colored. “Oh, yes, Your Grace, entirely alone. Well, except for her lady’s maid, Rosanna, of course. And Herndon, her driver. And the footmen—”
Spencer had held up a hand to stop him. “I understand, Fredericks. Thank you.”
He wondered for how long his wife would be alone. He’d thought at first she’d left to avoid another confrontation with him. After all, she had to have known his overseer had requested his presence here. The nagging thought was no, she didn’t have to know. The tenants knew to go directly to Mr. Dover, and the overseer had orders not to involve the duchess but to contact Spencer with any problems or concerns to do with Wetherington’s Point. Most likely, the overseer had not crossed paths with Victoria. But even had he, he most likely would not have mentioned to her he had requested Spencer to return at this time.
Spencer had now to accept the possibility that she was not running from his imminent arrival here, or even to her mother, but was instead running to her lover, the other man, perhaps the father of her child. Spencer didn’t know the man, or want to know him. But should he ever see him … he’d kill him. If she thinks for one moment that I will allow her to get away with this, she is sorely mistaken. I will follow her and I will find her— He stopped right there. Follow her where? He sighted on Fredericks, who still stood in front of his desk. “Do you know where the duchess was going? Did she say?”
“Not directly to me. But I heard one of the footmen say they were traveling to Liverpool.”
“Liverpool?” Edward’s voice was rich with distaste. “Why in God’s name would anyone travel to Liverpool?”
Spencer treated Edward’s question as rhetorical and focused instead on his butler. “Tell me, Fredericks … what occurred here before the duchess’s sudden departure? Did something specific happen to precipitate her leaving, is what I’m asking you.”
“I believe something might have, yes, sir.”
Spencer waited; his butler apparently did, too. Through gritted teeth, Spencer said: “Then out with it, man.”
Fredericks’s frown lowered his thin, gray eyebrows over his bird’s beak of a nose. “Yes, sir. Although I didn’t credit it at the time, she did receive a letter late one afternoon.”
“A letter?” This, again, was Edward, who made it sound as if he’d never heard of such a thing.
With an abrupt, threatening movement, Spencer turned to his cousin. “Edward, for the love of God, man, quit interrupting. Can you not see the very devil of a time I am having trying to get a coherent narrative out of Fredericks? You do not make it any easier, sir.”
Edward sat up stiffly. “My apologies. I will try to refrain from interjecting my continuing startlement with these developments.”
Spencer searched Edward’s face for signs of sarcasm or defiance and saw neither. “Thank you.” He turned to Fredericks. “The letter, man.”
“Yes, sir. I mention this particular one because, uh, one heard from Her Grace’s lady’s maid…”
Spencer knew the reason for Fredericks’s hesitation this time. He would now be relating gossip. It was not news to Spencer that the servants gossiped among themselves belowstairs. Though he generally condemned it as a ruinous practice, this time he silently thanked God for the gossips; otherwise, he might never have known this detail. “Her lady’s maid, eh? That Rose girl?”
“Yes. But it’s Rosanna, Your Grace.”
“Like I said. What did one hear from the girl?”
“She’s hardly a girl, sir, being a woman past middle age.”
“I could not care less, Fredericks. The letter, if you please.”
“Yes, Your Grace. The letter was … not from her family and, well, caused a strong reaction in the duchess.”
A numbing cold worked its way up Spencer’s spine. He’d been right. She was running to the man. The son of a bitch actually wrote to her here. Have they no shame? They’ve been plotting this, probably since our very marriage. I’ve been such a fool. Feeling ragged and betrayed, Spencer exhaled sharply and asked Fredericks: “And this reaction you spoke of? What was it?”
“She seemed greatly distraught at first. Worried. She hardly ate and paced about as if in turmoil.”
“I see.” It was small comfort to learn her decision to leave hadn’t been an easy one. Spencer thought now of his wife, picturing her pacing and worrying. An image of her, dominated by thick waves of mahogany hair and striking blue eyes, coupled with her succulently desirable body that he did not know anywhere near well enough, assailed his senses— No. I will not—indeed, I cannot—think of her in that way. I cannot. He slowly exhaled his breath and resumed his questioning of Fredericks. “How soon after receiving this letter did she leave?”
“If I’m not mistaken, sir, I believe it was two mornings later.”
“Two mornings.” Well, there it was: two and two neatly put together. She’d received a letter not sent by her family; was greatly upset by it; and soon packed and left, having forbidden his servants to contact him. What else could it mean but a lover’s reunion? Like a banked fire threatening to leap once again to flame, Spencer’s temper smoldered with the certain knowledge that he’d be a laughingstock when word got out that his wife had flown. People would say this was Whitfield family history repeating itself.
Everyone in London knew that his mother had left his father when Spencer was only three years old. His parents had remained separated, though married, all their lives. And though he loved his mother dearly, and her family as well, and though she’d been a wonderful woman who’d done what she’d had to do under difficult circumstances, Spencer had still suffered from the taunts of other children and
then, later, those of casually cruel gossips in the ton.
But he was a grown man now. A titled duke. And while he wanted to say he cared not at all what others said about him, he knew better. He did care—and he cared exactly because of his late father’s reputation for being an ineffectual man and husband and a profligate with women and money. Spencer had worked hard all his adult life to counter that impression of the Whitfields and to recoup the duchy’s lost wealth. But events and nature had conspired against him. The damned agricultural depression with its resulting daunting loss of income had forced him, like it had so many others of his peers, to marry a rich American heiress for her money in order to save everything that was dear to him. And, dear God, how much he’d had to compromise to do so. He could only ask himself now … was it worth it?
Feeling overwhelmed on several fronts, Spencer forbore a further mental litany of his troubles and told Fredericks: “Thank you. That will be all.”
The older man looked surprised. He opened his mouth as if he meant to say more, but then he firmed his lips into a straight line, said, “Yes, sir,” bowed deeply, and slowly inched around to walk in a shambling gait to the closed door of the study. The very picture of dejection, Spencer decided.
“That’s all?” Edward cried. “Oh, surely not. I hardly think we’re to the bottom of this mystery yet, Spencer.”
“‘We,’ Edward? What ‘we’ do you mean?”
His cousin’s face colored. “Oh. Of course. I see what you mean. Sorry. Didn’t mean to make a parlor game of your life unraveling, old man.”
“My life is not unraveling.”
“But it is. You may be older than me and you certainly outrank me in the scheme of things, my dear cousin, but still … I beg to differ. Your life is most definitely unraveling. Even your butler thinks so.”
Spencer looked from Edward to Fredericks. No doubt, and as Edward had intimated, Fredericks was disappointed in his duke. Not the usual thing for a butler to make known, however subtly, his opinion of a peer’s behavior. But Fredericks was different. He’d adored Spencer from the day thirty years ago when he and his mother had arrived at her family’s estate to stay.
From that day forward, Fredericks had championed him through all the triumphs and travails of boyhood and adolescence. He’d been the one, as well, to comfort Spencer when his mother and then, a few years later, his father had died, leaving Spencer alone and a young duke who’d had to learn fast and hard how to handle himself and his inheritance.
And now this. Frustration took a bite out of Spencer’s further eroding mood. He scrubbed a hand over his face, impatient with his own self. Damn it all to hell. What a huge, bloody disaster. With a force of will that had seen him through many personal tragedies, Spencer tamped down the hurt he refused to name. This situation must be faced head-on. There could be no shirking of his duties as the duke or to his duchy.
Thinking hard, and weighing his upcoming meetings, obligations, and the problems with the farmers he’d come here to deal with, Spencer called out to Fredericks just as the butler made it to the door. When the man made a wobbling turn in his direction, Spencer said, “Find Mr. Milton for me and have him attend me here. Get word, also, to Mr. Dover that I will see him immediately regarding the tenant farmers.”
“You’re sending for your overseer and your secretary, man?” Edward’s eyes widened with disbelief. “What do you intend to do—have Mr. Milton fire off a scathing letter, which Mr. Dover will deliver to your duchess? I must say, Spencer, I would think you’d first want to fire off a gun.”
Spencer stared pointedly at his cousin. “Oh, I do. But with you as my target.” With that, Spencer carried on with his butler. “The Earl of Roxley notwithstanding, Fredericks, tell Mr. Milton to bring the tools of his scribe’s trade with him when he comes. We have many people to write and meetings to change. And then ask Hornsby to have the footmen carry my traveling trunks to my rooms.”
Spencer had further orders for his personal valet, but had no wish to start a domestic war by having them carried to him by the butler. “Tell him I’ll be up to direct him when I’m done with Mr. Milton and Mr. Dover.”
Fredericks’ gaze held Spencer’s. A ghost of a smile played at the corners of the older man’s thin-lipped mouth. “Are you leaving us so soon, then, Your Grace?”
Edward cut in. “Yes. Are we leaving so soon, Spencer? Where are we going?”
“We are not going anywhere, Edward. I am.”
“Oh, blast.”
Spencer ignored his cousin in favor of answering Fredericks. “Yes, I am leaving as soon as it can be arranged.” Fredericks’s face split wide in an approving grin. Spencer couldn’t let him get away with being so smug. “Do try not to look so happy about being rid of me, will you?”
A twinkling gleam flared in the butler’s eyes. “Hardly, sir. It’s always a pleasure to have you in residence—and you, as well, Lord Roxley. But will you be traveling back to … London, sir?”
“No.” Spencer’s answering smile was conspiratorial. “Liverpool.”
Edward gasped. “Good heavens, you’re going after the girl, aren’t you?”
Beaming, Fredericks pulled himself up to his full height of an inch or two over five feet and crowed, “Oh, well done, sir. Most excellent.”
“Glad you approve. That will be all, Fredericks.” He turned to his cousin. “Yes, I’m going after her. Of course I am. She is my wife. And she is possibly carrying my heir.”
Edward’s eyes rounded and his mouth dropped open. “The hell you say! I am not missing this.” Edward chased after the butler. “Fredericks, have them place my bags in the traveling trunks as well. We are going after the duchess.”
Spencer pounded a fist on his desk. “Edward, damn it, man, you are not going, and Fredericks will give no such order.”
As he watched the butler leave, with Edward on his heels, both of them effectively ignoring him, Spencer suddenly became aware of a growing excitement inside him. He was going after her. This felt good and right. Images filled his mind. Images of the wife he wanted back, damn her. Yes, honor and pride were involved. And yes, he’d pushed her away. Yes, he’d told her he didn’t care. But, to his surprise, she’d been all he’d thought about in London. None of his usual haunts or pursuits had held any attraction for him. Only thoughts of her had. So when his overseer had got word to him of this tenant-farmer debacle, he’d jumped at the chance to return here without a loss of face.
And why had he jumped? Spencer finally admitted the truth—because he’d wanted to see his wife, plain and simple. The woman had somehow wormed her way under his skin. He thought now of her fiery temper, her blazing blue eyes, and her indomitable spirit. A smile of admiration found its way to his face. By God, she was magnificent. How could he have thought he didn’t care about her? How? The evidence had been right there in front of him all this time. But it had taken her leaving to make him realize it.
His eyes suddenly narrowed as he reminded himself there was every possibility that she’d left him to run to another man. But even if she had, he could not allow her abandonment to stand because the child she carried could possibly be his—and his heir. But if he had any sense, Spencer told himself, he would simply put her aside. A cold-blooded part of his mind assured him her fortune would remain his if he did, especially under these circumstances … or, to be fair, the ones he suspected.
Angry again, Spencer picked up his whisky, realized the glass was empty, and set it down again. Staring blankly across the way at a globe of the world, he turned his thoughts to the busy port town on the west coast of England where ships left regularly for America—including Savannah. With any luck, he’d be on one of them before too many days and tides ebbed. With him would be traveling the element of surprise.
CHAPTER 3
Deep in a dark and murky swamp outside Savannah, Georgia
Midnight; September 1875
Like a luminous pearl laid out on a length of black velvet for inspection by hot and eager e
yes, the silvered moon hung low and refulgent in a charcoal sky. Yet the thick canopy of the swamp’s interlaced treetops denied the moon’s sun-reflected light, which sought passage through their branches. Down below, the swamp seemed to whisper a warning, saying it would offer no succor to the lone and apprehensive traveler in the small jonboat moving stealthily across the black water’s surface and through the misty miasma of its atmosphere.
As if a pact had been made with the swamp itself, the sentient creatures who called this murky place home alternately fell silent and then raised their voices, effectively marking the passage of the foreign one in their midst. The buzzing of thousands of unseen cicadas, clinging to high, woody branches, provided a deep and steady humming vibration that assaulted the ears. And all around, bullfrogs croaked and bull alligators bellowed. From somewhere up ahead of the boat came the surprised squeak and then the stark death-cry of a small, warm-blooded creature that had foolishly ventured too far from safety.
Just then, and off to the right, something thrashed through the undergrowth and slithered into the water … something large enough to cause a disturbance that rocked the jonboat being laboriously poled along. And then, there it was, what had joined the narrow craft in the water … a big gator. His eyes, shining red in the yellow light shed by the boat’s lantern, which hung from a makeshift hook affixed at the apex of the V-shaped hull, watched the intruder pass. Then, slowly, menacingly, the reptile sank under the water’s surface without so much as a ripple to betray his intentions.
Overhead, a night bird’s mournful dirge told of terrors not yet faced. And all around, the Spanish moss, as if suddenly imbued with a ghostly life of its own, reached down from the spidery tree branches with gossamer-webbed fingers to brush across the face and softly caress the hair of the young woman kneeling in the flimsy, lightweight craft trespassing on these dark waters.
Horrified, certain she’d poled right through some awful spider’s huge web and the nasty hairy, creature itself was now somewhere on her, Victoria quickly transferred her long pole to one hand and used her other to pull at her hair. Gasping, mewling in fear, she finally pulled a clump of it away and flung it overboard, staring hard after it, straining, in the lantern’s light, to identify it. Finally, her mind recognized it and told her it was nothing more than harmless Spanish moss.
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