This Duke is Mine

by Eloisa James

  “The French patrol in the morning,” she said. “Not until morning.” Her eyes moved back to Rupert’s face.

  She was right. Rupert probably didn’t have until the morning, but if they waited in the hut . . . men had taken more than the few hours that remained until dawn to die. And if that were the case, they would all be caught.

  Olivia handed Quin Lucy’s cord, and he wound it around his wrist. Outside the night air still hung heavy with no hint of dawn. He had time to row down the little inlet, out to the Day Dream, time to make Rupert comfortable. . . . He had time.

  When they were settled in the rowboat, an operation that required considerable finesse, given the boat’s diminutive proportions, Rupert stopped breathing.

  Lucy gave a little whimper and licked his cheek; Rupert’s chest moved again.

  Quin bent to the oars, but he had to be silent, silent . . . He couldn’t row too vigorously or the oars would catch the water and splash.

  When at last he reached the Day Dream, Grooper was waiting at the gunwale. With the soldier hauling from above, getting Rupert on board was quick work, but at the sight of his beloved major unconscious, Grooper’s eyes grew large. He was a man of action, the one who had crossed the Channel to alert Rupert’s family, but he was not a man who could stand to see a man suffering.

  They managed to get Rupert into the bed, and Quin drew the blanket to Rupert’s chin and placed Lucy at his side. The journey from the hut, although short as the crow flies, had been punishingly arduous, and he could see that for Rupert it had been excruciating. His face was even more drawn, and his breathing, the shallow respiration of a man at the limit of his tolerance. His thin fingers clenched Lucy’s fur.

  “Brandy,” Quin barked over his shoulder, only to realize that Grooper, his capabilities exhausted, had fled to the deck. He wrenched open a cabinet and snatched a bottle, which turned out to be the finest French cognac, the kind even dukes drank only sparingly. Oh, for the life of a smuggler.

  Turning back, he dribbled a little brandy into Rupert’s mouth. The marquess gasped; his eyes flickered open.

  A familiar feeling of helplessness clutched Quin’s heart. He knew he should say something, but he had no idea what. It was rather as if he were facing Evangeline again, when she would accuse him of being no more emotional than a piece of wood, and he hadn’t the faintest idea what she wanted from him.

  Probably Rupert would like to hear poetry—but Quin didn’t know any poetry. His tutors had never bothered with that sort of thing. His mind spun with furious frustration. If only Rupert wanted information about wave patterns . . .

  “Who?” Rupert’s eyes searched his face, confused.

  “I’m Olivia’s friend,” Quin reminded him. “We brought Lucy to see you, and we’ve come to take you home to your father, to England.”

  Rupert’s fingers curled around Lucy’s ear and he gave it a little tug. Lucy nudged his hand.

  “Too many miles,” he said.

  Quin silently agreed with Rupert. What was one supposed to say to a dying person? A psalm, he thought, except he couldn’t remember any.

  “Sleep,” Rupert said, his eyes drifting shut again.

  Suddenly, somehow, Rupert’s poem came back to Quin, as clearly as if Olivia had recited it to him a moment ago. Before it could vanish, he said it aloud: “Quick, bright, the bird falls down to us, darkness piles up in the trees.” It made no sense in this context, but he said it again, more slowly.

  Rupert’s face brightened and he said something, so quietly Quin almost didn’t catch it. “And they fly . . .” A long silence. His breath stopped, started again.

  Quin looked desperately at the porthole. There was no sign of dawn yet. He knew what Olivia would say. He knew what she wanted. He knew . . .

  Rupert’s chest stopped moving again. Then he took another breath, like a little gasp.

  So Quin sat, holding tight to the hand of the man who was giving him Olivia, who had written a poem that spoke to Alfie’s death, who was flying with sparrows fallen from trees.

  And all the time the dearest person in his life was back there on a foreign shore without him, guarded only by two exhausted and trembling soldiers.

  Damn, but he must love her to—

  The thought cracked like thunder in his head. He froze, noting that Rupert had stopped breathing again, but he’d done that before . . . Love?

  His mother had told him when he was only a child that love . . . what had she said about love?

  That it was dangerous and not for people of their rank. That it was impulsive and the sign of someone foolish and ill-bred.

  But . . . when did she say that he wasn’t able to love?

  He loved Olivia, more than life, more than light, more than . . . anything.

  The analytical part of his brain, which had been counting silently, spoke up, suggested that the bird was winging its way through some other sky, a silent sky.

  Quin looked down and saw that it was true.

  Rupert was gone. Gently, Quin disengaged his hand and tucked Rupert’s sheet more securely about him.

  Lucy was curled next to her master’s body. She lifted her long nose and looked at Quin, whimpering a little. He couldn’t fix Rupert, the way she was asking him to. And it didn’t seem right to leave her next to her dead master. So he plucked her up, stashed her inside his coat, and ran up the stairs.

  Once in the water, he set himself to the oars faster than he should have, catching the water, sending it arcing . . . He had time. He still had time. His heart beat the same sentence over and over. The eastern sky wasn’t yet turning pink. It wasn’t dawn. He had time.

  He tried to slow down, make the oars quieter . . . couldn’t stop himself, rowed as fast as he possibly could.

  He was still too late.

  Twenty-eight

  One Putain, Two Putain . . .

  After Quin left, Olivia waited outside the hut, her cloak wrapped close and the hood up, head tipped back against the rough planks. A light wind drifted by, carrying the scent of rotting fish and the peppery, sweet smell of crushed strawberries.

  The stars seemed too bright for spring. They should have been so distinct, so clear, only on the coldest of winter nights. Minutes passed . . . until finally she knew for certain that Quin had not come straight back, that he was waiting at Rupert’s deathbed.

  The stars wavered above her, but tears never fell. That was a point of pride. No crying. Instead, to distract herself, she watched for a falling star, though she knew it was a foolish superstition to think it proclaimed the creation of an angel.

  And all the time she listened for the tramp of soldiers’ feet, for a burst of French jests. The men who had guarded Rupert had fallen asleep on the floor, telling her to rouse them if she heard anything.

  “The battalion marches at the same time every morning,” Togs had told her, his voice raspy with the relief of giving over Rupert’s care. “Still hours from now.”

  No stars fell, but she was still watching for them when a hand clapped over her mouth and pulled her into the woods. She was too shocked even to scream.

  It wasn’t dawn! There wasn’t even the faintest hint of light, and there had been no cheerful French badinage, no tramp of boots to warn her.

  By the time she gathered her wits and began to struggle, it was too late. With one swift movement she was pushed down and flipped onto her stomach. All those years of French tutoring stood her in good stead, though: “Aidez-moi!” she shrieked when the hand left her mouth. “Lâchez-moi immédiatement! Coquins! Vermines!” The only response was a foul-smelling scarf, tied so tightly around her mouth that it jerked her head back.

  Still shouting, though her words were muffled, Olivia twisted, trying to kick the man pinning her to the ground. But her captor swiftly wound a rope around her wrists, hauled her upright, and gave her a rough shove.

  “Allez!” The word sounded with the ping of a fat hailstone striking a window. Then a poke between the shoulders forced her forwar
d. “Avance!”

  She walked, telling herself that Quin would be there any moment, that the English soldiers would wake to discover her missing. She caught a glimpse of the sleeve of the man shoving her. It was ragged and blue, the kind of thick fisherman’s shirt she remembered seeing on a childhood trip to Brittany. Not a soldier’s uniform. Her heart was pounding so hard that she could feel the pulse in her ears.

  By the time they broke out of the wood, the eastern sky was lightening. They continued to walk, through thick scrub, the smell of the sea keen in the wind. Olivia tried biting at the scarf in order to get it away from her mouth, but to no avail. She intentionally stumbled in an attempt to slow them down, but the man simply hauled her upright and thumped her in the back with something hard.

  These brutish attacks had made her back bruised and painful, and for the first time, she felt truly frightened. A battalion of French soldiers was one thing. Surely they wouldn’t injure a woman, even an English one. But what if this thug belonged to a gang of smugglers? Or pirates? Or just common criminals?

  The possibilities were all unpleasant.

  They had been following the line of the shore, winding along, when the man suddenly directed her up a small trail that led inland, over some bluffs. Olivia’s skirts caught on a sturdy bramble, and she stopped, thinking the man behind her would untangle her. Instead the hard object jabbed her in the back again and she stumbled forward, her skirt letting go of the bramble with a long ripping sound. Now her back felt as if it were on fire.

  Her eyes were pricked with tears, but if she hadn’t wept over Rupert’s death—or not much—the last thing she would cry over was this farcical situation. Not dangerous, she told herself; rather it was farcical. Quin would save her. The moment he knew she was missing.

  The important thing was that Quin was with Rupert.

  Furthermore, Rupert wasn’t in that smelly hut, but in a proper bed, on the Day Dream, with Quin. If there was one person she would want to sit next to her deathbed, it would be Quin, with his honest eyes and the reassuring low bell-sound of his voice.

  After what felt like hours, they stumbled out of the scrub and into a gravel yard, on the far side of which lay a two-story brick building surrounded by a wall. A sentry stood at the gate in the wall.

  “Who goes there?” he said, without much interest.

  All of a sudden Olivia felt utterly calm. At least now she would know what was happening. They had arrived somewhere.

  “A putain using Père Blanchard’s hut.” Her captor’s voice was toneless, and accompanied by a hard prod in the direction of the gate.

  Olivia almost fell at the feet of the sentry. He was slim and weary, with a mustache so luxuriant that it looked as if his face had sprouted wings.

  “I am not a putain,” she cried, her voice strangled by the scarf. She was fairly sure that a putain was the French word for a strumpet, a night-walker. Whatever it was, she was certain that it wasn’t nice.

  The sentry narrowed his eyes at her and then glanced at the man behind her. “What’s the use of bringing her here?” he wanted to know. “Send her back to the village.”

  “She isn’t from hereabouts, so that won’t work. I don’t recognize her.” Olivia lifted her chin and gave the sentry a fierce stare, willing him to order the scarf removed so that she could speak.

  “Pretty,” he said, not noticing her glower—likely because he was too busy staring at her chest. “Take that cloak off, Bessette.”

  With a jerk the cloak disappeared from around Olivia’s shoulders.

  “Plump as a partridge,” the sentry said, with a toothy smile. “Are you vending your wares, Madame?”

  Furious, she shook her head.

  “Just another wayward wife.” He pulled on his mustache until his face looked lopsided. “What’s the world coming to? Le Capitaine or Madame Fantomas?”

  “Madame. No need to bother Le Capitaine with this one. Think we can get twenty francs off her husband for retrieving her? See this cloak? Nice made, and it’s lined.”

  “Might be petit bourgeoisie. Madame will decide. Take that scarf off her mouth, Bessette. I have to make sure she’s not a spy. Le Capitaine would want to know.”

  There was a disgusted snort from Bessette. “Le Capitaine is too pickled in brandy to know what to do with a spy even if we did find one. This is no spy. She was leaning outside Père Blanchard’s hut, easy as can be, waiting for someone. You know there’s only one reason a woman goes there.”

  “We should burn that hut down,” the sentry said, pulling at his mustache again.

  Bessette started fumbling with the knotted scarf and Olivia prepared a stream of vitriolic French, but the guard waved his hand. “Just take her in to Madame Fantomas. We got some excellent hams when we found the butcher’s wife bent over the apothecary’s counter, remember. Tell Madame we want our normal cut.”

  Olivia felt as if she would burst with rage.

  “This little Madame is a fierce one,” the sentry added, finally meeting her eyes. He actually fell back a step. “Take her away, Bessette. I can’t be seen dallying with a trollop. My wife will hear of it.”

  “Your missus is not one to cross,” Bessette said with a rough chuckle. “Especially if she heard what this one is like. Hips and breasts, just as a man likes them.”

  “True enough,” the sentry said, his eyes lingering on Olivia’s breasts. “Best not hit her like that, Bessette. She’ll have her husband on you if she gets a bruise.”

  Bessette snorted. “Not after he learns where I found her.”

  Once past the gate, rather than walk up to the building’s entrance steps, they veered off to the right. Olivia was forced to duck her head as they descended a deep, damp flight of stone steps that opened straight into a large kitchen.

  To label the kitchen antiquated would be to pay it a compliment. It was primitive. The chamber appeared to have been carved from stone, with little attempt to smooth the walls. Two pits had been hollowed from the rock and were in use as fireplaces, with holes apparently venting to the outdoors.

  But it smelled like a kitchen: chickens were going on spits, and an aroma of yeast and flour was in the air. Four or five very young men, wearing uniforms in various states of disrepair, were turning spits, sharpening knives, or washing potatoes. In the very center of the room was a long table, at which a woman was kneading a lump of dough with ferocious energy.

  For the first time since she’d been abducted, Olivia stopped twisting her wrists in a vain attempt to loosen the twine holding them together, and just took in the sight. Madame Fantomas—for it must be she—was like a circus embodied in one person: a big, bold pirate of a woman. Her black hair was tied up so that it rose above her head in a towering fountain, above arched eyebrows and a mouth painted crimson. She wore a low-cut gown, and over that a gore-splattered apron, the entirety lightly dusted with flour. And dangling over the gown and apron, almost to her waist, were ropes of beads: great chunks of turquoise, gold chains, even a cross. They weren’t necklaces of a sort Olivia had seen before.

  Madame was kneading a huge glop of dough, powerful muscles flexing as she shoved forward, wrapped, and turned. After a moment she pushed it away and reached for a glass of red wine beside her, clinking her thumb rings against it. Rings adorned all her fingers, enough rings to hang a full set of bed curtains. She had the eyes of a goose Olivia had once seen run wild and peck a baker. Mad eyes.

  “I brought you a putain,” Monsieur Bessette offered, from behind Olivia’s shoulder. “Found her in Père Blanchard’s hut, waiting for her man.”

  “Putain, my ass,” Madame said with a snort. “Take that thing off her mouth, you fool. You’ve got yourself a high-flier there . . . nationality to be determined. Could be for sale, but chances are she’s a très-coquette, having a bit on the side.”

  Without taking her eyes off Olivia, she pinched off some raw dough and ate it.

  Bessette didn’t bother trying to untie the scarf; he just pulled it straight of
f Olivia’s head.

  There was a second of silence, then two things happened at once: Olivia burst into a violent stream of French—a commentary on Bessette, together with the illegality of kidnapping in general—while Madame Fantomas swiveled and bawled, “This tastes about as good as pig’s slop.” With that, she picked up the huge, squashy pile of kneaded dough and threw it squarely across the kitchen.

  Olivia broke off her tirade.

  The dough hit the wall and slid down, landing on the unevenly bricked floor.

  “Feed the putain!” Madame barked. They all stared. “Now!”

  “I am not a putain,” Olivia shouted, deciding that she had to make as much noise as Madame if she wanted to be noticed. “I was merely waiting for the return of my fiancé. And I don’t want anything to eat.”

  “You may not be a putain, but you’re a fool with an English accent,” Madame said with another swig. “What the devil is an Englishwoman doing at Père Blanchard’s hut? Are you a spy, then?”

  “Absolutely not!”

  “Good. Because there’s nothing here to spy on but a groggified captain and a bunch of French boys whose balls are too small to hold up their breeches.” She waved her hand at the young men turning the spits.

  “I am no spy,” Olivia stated. “I demand to be released. My fiancé will be wondering where I am.”

  “The putain!” Madame bellowed, turning her head and glaring at a boy at the side of the kitchen. Then she looked back at Olivia. “Spy or not, what are you doing here? Because we don’t get many female smugglers over here, not that you look the type anyway.”

  The boy got to his feet, trotted over to the side of the kitchen, and plucked the top off a large earthenware container. It was oozing, bubbling . . . the source of the vinegary sharp smell of growing yeast. He poured it into a shallow bowl on the far end of the table. Presumably that was the putain.

  “I am in this country on an errand of mercy,” Olivia said, keeping her head high. “I am betrothed to a duke, and I demand to know on what authority this miscreant captured me and brought me here. And I want my hands freed!”