Duke of Thorns (Heiress Games 1)

by Sara Ramsey

  They all laughed at that. Callie liked Prudence and Madeleine. They were kind, sincere, and seemed to enjoy her company as much as she enjoyed theirs. And she felt an odd little flutter when she realized she seemed to have made friends with them.

  But as nice as it was to have friends, she would rather ask Thorington for a lesson in comportment — and hope that the lesson became one in debauchery.

  When her interminable days were over, Anthony always escorted her back to her room. And when she pushed the door closed and turned to face the bed, Thorington always waited there for her.

  She turned onto her side, facing the indentation where Thorington had slept beside her during the night. The twisted sheets were cool again. He’d left hours earlier, in darkness, responding to a knock on the door. Perhaps Callie should have been worried for him. Each night, either before or after their lovemaking, he’d told her he still hadn’t found Hallett. He’d even gone all the way to Dartmouth and back, but Hallett wasn’t at his post.

  She hadn’t worried when he’d left, though. She’d fallen asleep again, too sated and safe to resist.

  She traced her fingers over his pillow. It had regained its shape, as though he’d never been there — as though he was something she’d dreamed up to comfort herself with.

  But he wasn’t a dream. And he had kept precisely to the arrangement they had agreed to.

  She could have stayed cold and pretended this was business. But all her doubts about their future together fell away when he touched her. She couldn’t remember to be afraid when Gavin smiled. Even though she spent her days worrying over the possible loss of her freedom like a dog might gnaw on a bone, all of it melted away when he said something sardonic and made her laugh.

  Wasn’t she happier with him than she had ever been alone?

  She rolled out of bed and tugged the bell pull, hard enough to risk jerking the cord from the wall. It was only seven in the morning, but she would go mad if she spent any more time in bed. By the time Mrs. Jennings arrived, Callie had already scrubbed her face until it was pink and brushed her hair until it crackled.

  “Shall I dress you for your wedding, miss?” Mrs. Jennings asked. “Or do you want to wear another dress at the moment?”

  Callie sucked in a breath. “Have you seen Thorington?”

  Her maid shook her head. “The rumor in the servants’ hall is that he went into the village with Lord Salford and the Duke of Rothwell.”

  Either he had a lead on Hallett, or Ferguson was planning to kill him before the wedding — Callie couldn’t think of another reason why either Thorington or Ferguson would willingly spend time together. “Another dress, then,” Callie said. “It might be hours before the wedding.”

  His messenger was due back with the special license sometime that day, and Thorington had insisted they would marry as soon as the paper was in his hand. Their wedding would be the first time she’d seen him during daylight hours since he had kissed her in front of the modiste.

  Would it be the last time? Would he hold her to their agreement — an agreement she was no longer sure she wanted? Would he only come to her at night, like a forbidden lover stealing pleasure in the dark?

  Thorington kept his vows. He would keep this one, even if neither of them wanted it, unless she released him from it.

  Callie took another breath. Her thoughts were running away from her.

  She suddenly felt like she might be sick.

  Mrs. Jennings brought a simple walking dress and undergarments from Callie’s dressing room and laid them out on the counterpane. But when she looked up and saw Callie’s face, she frowned. “Are you feeling well?”

  Callie nodded.

  “Sit,” Mrs. Jennings ordered. “Would some of Captain Jacobs’ cognac help?”

  Callie laughed, but even to her ears it sounded shaky. “That dreadful man. I never should have taken his advice about privateering.”

  “You don’t mean that,” Mrs. Jennings said as she disappeared into the dressing room.

  Her maid was right. Callie had finally had a letter from him the previous day — hastily scrawled and sent from Havana two months earlier. The note was circumspect and unsigned, which would save her if it was intercepted. But he said that her ‘investment’ had earned eighty thousand pounds as her share, which she could claim in Havana or have remitted to London as time and war permitted.

  Eighty thousand pounds. It was nearly enough to make her think privateering wasn’t so bad after all.

  She found, though, that she didn’t care as much as she had before about whether Jacobs listened to her, or whether she could regain control of her company.

  Mrs. Jennings returned with a flask. “I hid some cognac in your trunks. Never know when you’ll need it.”

  She handed it to Callie, then sat beside her as Callie took a tentative sip.

  “I hate cognac,” Callie said, after she finished coughing.

  “It does settle the nerves, though. Lord Tiberius always insisted we have some on hand for your mother.”

  Callie took another sip. She didn’t cough this time. “My father excelled at giving Mother nerves.”

  “He did.” Mrs. Jennings’ sigh was almost wistful. “It’s good that you’re settling down, though. You’ll have fewer nerves if you’re not involved in sea battles.”

  “Thorington isn’t exactly safe,” Callie said.

  “No, he’s not.”

  Her maid’s tone sounded suspiciously cheerful for such a pronouncement. “Do you think this match is a good one?” Callie asked.

  “What would you like me to say, Miss Briarley?” she responded.

  “The truth,” Callie said. “You’ve known me for twenty years. You must have some opinion on whether the duke is suitable.”

  “Of course I do,” Mrs. Jennings said. She took the flask from Callie’s hand and made sure the cap was tight. “But it isn’t my place to say. And in any event, you know the answer.”

  Callie knew what she wanted to hear, at least. She wanted someone to tell her that it would all come out right in the end. She wanted someone to say she was making the right decision if she stayed with him.

  Maybe it was the cognac, or maybe it was the memories that haunted Maidenstone’s air. But suddenly, strangely, she thought of her parents. She’d heard a few of their arguments, particularly when fleeing from debts or evading revolutions. Some of those trips had required them to be cooped up together in a single coach for most of the journey, rather than arranging a coach for Callie and her mother and a separate horse for her father.

  She still remembered the longing in her mother’s voice during their flight from Paris in ’03. The Peace of Amiens had failed, Napoleon’s officers were combing the roads for British men to arrest in retaliation, and they had only escaped because Tiberius — who was always at his best when unexpected danger arose — had convincingly dressed as a woman on the road to Calais.

  It was odd that she remembered that now, of all times. But she’d never really forgotten it. She’d slept in the carriage; at twelve, she’d known they were in danger, but she was also innocent enough to trust that Tiberius would save them. But when she awoke, she heard her parents whispering.

  “Isn’t it time we were back in England?” her mother said.

  Callie pretended she was still asleep. She heard the rustle of her father’s skirts as he shifted on the bench across from her. “I will never go back to Maidenstone.”

  “You don’t have to go back to Maidenstone. We could have a townhouse in London…”

  “You know how I feel about London. It’s suffocating.”

  Her mother sighed. “The coast, then. Brighton is both fashionable and far from your father.”

  “Brighton is a backwater, and the Prince of Wales is a fool,” Tiberius said, still amiable. “I’ll hang myself before I bow and scrape at his feet there.”

  “But Callista is going to be grown soon. What kind of match will she find if she doesn’t acquire polish?”

>   Callie hated when her mother said that. Tiberius just laughed. “There’s time enough for that, if she wants it. But I think Callie would be better served by seeing the world.”

  “She’s not your son, you know. She’s your daughter.”

  Callie hated when her mother said that, too.

  “I know,” Tiberius said. His voice was becoming impatient — the argument must have started before Callie awoke, since it took ages for him to lose his temper. “But she would rather go fishing with me than go to the shops with you. And I’m not going back to London just to indulge your belief that she would do well on the marriage mart.”

  “She’ll hate you for it someday, you know,” her mother whispered. The sound was almost vicious. “Adventures are all well and good, but how will she feel when you get yourself killed? And she’s left alone to fend for herself?”

  “I haven’t been killed yet,” he said drily. His skirts shifted again, and Callie could picture him swishing them to annoy her mother. “And Callie can take care of herself.”

  It was odd that he had said it, since she was only twelve — there was no proof that she would be able to take care of herself. At the time, though, she’d been filled with pride that he thought so highly of her. But what he had predicted had come true. Her mother had died in Jamaica less than two years later, and he’d followed her to the grave a few years after that.

  And Callie had taken care of herself, as her father had expected her to.

  But now, thinking of Thorington and what their marriage might be, that memory hurt all over again. Callie knew how to fish. She knew how to run a shipping company. She could probably escape from any lynch mob or revolution.

  But she didn’t know the first thing about how to settle down — how to be with someone who wanted to take care of her, rather than expecting her to take care of herself.

  As her mother had predicted, she hated Tiberius in that moment.

  Callie waited for Mrs. Jennings to say something else, but her maid wasn’t going to tell her how to live her life. Callie was on her own.

  But she didn’t have to be on her own anymore.

  A knock sounded on the door. Her heart leapt, hoping.

  It was only Portia and Serena. “You’re early,” Callie said, her voice frigid in her disappointment.

  “We have a summons for you,” Serena said.

  Her voice was as bright and sun-filled as her hair. She handed Callie a note. Callie slid her finger under the seal and unfolded the paper.

  Your grace - Maidenstone clearing, as soon as you are able. Wear your riding skirt. - Thorington

  A preemptory demand — the kind she should have feared.

  She didn’t fear, though. A slow smile dawned, one that had Serena and Portia looking at each other slyly.

  Her Briarley heart knew the answer to the question she’d asked Mrs. Jennings. Her head, for once, lost its hold on the reins.

  “Bring me my riding skirt,” she said to Mrs. Jennings. “I need to visit the Maidenstone.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  When Thorington had answered the knock on Callie’s door at five in the morning, he had expected his messenger.

  What he got was infinitely less desirable.

  “Thorington,” Ferguson said. “A word?”

  He stepped into the hall and shut the door behind him — not because he intended to entertain Ferguson’s demand, but to avoid waking Callie. Then he crossed his arms. “Never thought you’d spend the wee hours of the morning guarding women’s virtue.”

  Ferguson examined his nails — a fine trick when it was nearly dark in the hallway. “I am surprised by it myself. But I’m sure you’d do the same if Lady Serena or Lady Portia were threatened.”

  Thorington stilled. He thought of Portia’s easy smile and Serena’s eager heart. He was sure they knew what they were about, and equally sure they wouldn’t welcome his interference after all the dancing masters and cavalry officers he’d scared away. But still…

  “Are they in trouble?” he asked.

  Ferguson shrugged. “Not that I know of. But they’ve become friends with my sisters. We will have our hands full when they return to London, unless we find a convent for them.”

  Odd that Ferguson thought they might have some shared future beyond this party. But Thorington had more pressing concerns. “You didn’t interrupt both our nights to discuss them, though.”

  “No.” Ferguson looked up from his cuticles. “I have some intelligence that might interest you.”

  Thorington waited.

  “You would be more fun if you played along,” Ferguson complained.

  Thorington laughed. “If you find me more fun, you might wish to continue our acquaintance. We can’t have that.”

  “You’re stuck with me,” Ferguson said. “I’ve taken an interest in Callie’s future, which means I’ve taken an interest in you. You and Salford can commiserate, if you are friends again. He doesn’t appreciate my interest either.”

  “With such a bleak future ahead of me, I’m not sure I care to hear your intelligence,” Thorington said.

  “It is a shame you’re not the blackguard I thought you were. If you were, I wouldn’t care to tell you that Captain Hallett took a room at the nearest inn last night.”

  “He’s in Salcombe?” Thorington said. “You waited until now to tell me this?”

  “I only heard it a few minutes ago myself.”

  Since Ferguson looked as well-dressed as he always did, Thorington suspected it had been more than a few minutes. But however the man had come by his intelligence, Thorington wasn’t going to waste it. “If you’ll excuse me, I must go.”

  He stepped around Ferguson, headed for the Tudor wing so he could put on something other than the previous evening’s clothes. But Ferguson’s voice followed him.

  “Meet in the entry in twenty minutes. Salford is coming with us.”

  Thorington turned. “I wasn’t aware I had asked for company.”

  “An oversight on your part, I’m sure,” Ferguson said.

  Thorington sighed. But wasting time trying to evade Ferguson might cost him his only chance of finding Hallett before the wedding.

  “Very well. Try not to undermine my threats with your poorly-timed humor.”

  Ferguson smiled. “If you give me the chance to interrupt, that’s your own doing.”

  Thorington gave him a rude gesture before walking away. As he returned to his room and dressed, he should have focused on Hallett and how he would handle the man. But his thoughts returned, as they always did, to Callie.

  He’d left her sleeping, curled up in the bed he already thought of as theirs. He was awake when Ferguson had knocked, facing her, content to breathe the same air as her. The pain of sleeping next to her, when he knew he couldn’t have her during their days, was sharply sweet.

  If he couldn’t talk to her during the day, he was determined to have as much of her as he could at night. And she, true to their agreement, had given him everything he asked for. It had left him exhausted, exhilarated, as he’d searched for Hallett. He’d barely slept when he was with her, either from lovemaking or from the whispered conversations she wouldn’t grant him during daylight.

  The sky outside his window lightened as he dressed. After only three days, sunshine felt cruel. His old, familiar loneliness was somehow harsher when illuminated. All the miles he’d covered between Maidenstone and Dartmouth, all the inns and taverns he’d visited, all the neighbors he’d called upon in his search for Hallett — they were important, but they were merely a distraction.

  He couldn’t bear the thought that his days would always be like this, when his nights were the opposite. The heart Callie had rescued couldn’t survive starving during the day and gorging itself at night.

  He had agreed to the deal she had demanded. Already, though, it wasn’t enough.

  And as soon as he eliminated Hallett from their lives, he was going to renegotiate.

  * * *

  The
y reached Salcombe as the sun broke over the horizon. Thorington dismounted before the other two caught up to him. “Ferguson, take the horses to the stables and watch the back of the inn while Salford and I go in,” he said.

  It was wishful thinking to hope that Ferguson would obey him. Ferguson’s laugh confirmed it. “I shall bribe the stable hand to do it. I won’t miss this interview.”

  Salford slid off this horse. “Accustom yourself to his help, Thorington. Hard as it is to believe, Ferguson has his uses.”

  They found a stable boy and left their horses and the back entrance under his watch. Then they went into the inn and gave the innkeeper a guinea to arrange the private parlor to their liking. Thorington had originally planned to roll Hallett out of bed so there was no chance he could escape. But on the ride to Salcombe, Salford had urged a different approach.

  “If you awaken him and try to have this conversation while the man is still in his nightshirt, he will be even more defensive than he’s already likely to be,” Salford said. “A cornered animal will bite. Unless you intend to kill him, you’d be better served by inviting him to join you in a private parlor.”

  Thorington had thought of killing him. It was the only way to guarantee that he couldn’t spread rumors about Callie, and it was cheaper than buying him off. But Hallett’s father was in Parliament and would likely raise an outcry. Even if Thorington didn’t swing from the neck for it, Callie wouldn’t be happy with him for disgracing them both.

  So he took Salford’s advice and sent a message up to Hallett. When the man arrived twenty minutes later, his expression was an odd mixture of smugness and fear.

  “Have you come to apologize for your threats, your grace?” Hallett said.

  Thorington sat, entirely at ease, behind the table he’d used as his desk when he and his siblings had stayed at the inn before. Salford and Ferguson sat on either side of him, giving the room the air of a tribunal. There was a single, armless chair directly in front of the desk. Thorington gestured toward it. “Sit,” he commanded.

  Hallett’s jaw tightened. “I don’t take orders from you.”