“God help her, you mean,” Ryan said.
“No,” Bertie replied. “Whatever else happens, she'll be taken well care of, lucky lass. No. God help him.”
“Milord,” Tyler began. “Slow down, or t'bloody fool you've carted along will be splattered all over t'road!” He was perched on the back of the curricle as was the norm, but instead of holding onto the frame with both hands, he was trying to hold the drunken Squire in the vehicle.
“Good God, Tyler, complaining again, are you?” St. James asked. He slowed the horses from the gallop they had been in to a hard trot. As there was only a half moon to light the road before them, Tyler was relieved for more than the Squire's sake. “Out cold, is he?” St. James asked.
Tyler gave the Squire a shake, got only a half-snore, half-grunt as response. “Aye. Right out of it, he is, milord. Nearly made me swallow me chaw when I saw him listing half-way out of t'curricle on that last turn. Grabbed him in just a nick of time.”
“Well, would never do to kill my future father-in-law before the nuptials even take place.”
Tyler made a gagging noise and began to cough. When he gained his breath and his composure, he said, “Now, I have swallowed it, thanks t'you! Are you trying t'kill me?”
St. James threw him a look, half laughing, half concerned. “I apologize, Tyler. Didn't mean to shock you like that. But you should know it's the only logical next move. I've tried everything else to no avail, and lately, I have come to think this is the only way to flush the bastard, whoever he is, out.”
Tyler thought hard on this for a moment, and then said quietly, but with enough force to be heard over the horses' hooves, “I hope you're wrong, milord. T'is possible, you know, that t'fiend is dead, and that is why everything we have tried t'learn his identity has come t'naught.”
“It is possible,” his lordship said, “that he is dead. It has been twenty-three years. But I can't believe that after all we have done, that we would not find some trace of him. No, Tyler. I think whoever we seek is alive and well and continues to make sure that we find no clue to his identity.”
“But, to marry. Forgive me, milord, but that implies. . .”
“I know what it implies. I've always been reluctant to look in that direction, but I have hit so many dead ends that I am left with no option, God help me. I pray that I hit another dead end with this, but God help whoever it is if I do not.”
They drove on in silence for another mile, only the Squire's snoring interrupting them, before Tyler broke the quiet by saying, “Your grandmother will be happy, I dare say, milord. If you are serious.”
“I'm serious. And I expect you're right. She will be happy. But she can't know the reason for this marriage, Tyler. Not that I couldn't trust her to play the game to perfection if I were to ask her to do so, but for obvious reasons, it would hurt her too much if she knew what I was really about. No. She must think I came down here, met this Miss Murdock, and fell madly in love with her. And if there is a guilty party among those I hold closest to us, they must believe the same. Only if they believe it is a natural and unplanned occurrence will they mayhaps slip off their guard and, hopefully, make a rash move.”
“They may very well make an attempt on your life, milord.”
St. James gave him a single glance from drunken gold eyes. “I certainly hope they shall, otherwise this is all so much waste.” He turned back to his driving. “Now, we shall collect my future wife, and we shall see if this last ploy puts the proper pressure on the proper person.” St. James shook off a sudden weariness that came across him. “Damn me to hell for drinking so much,” he muttered. “I am so foggy I am not the least bit sure how to go about this. I would have done myself a good deal better if I had allowed myself to retain a clear head.”
“Aye, milord. Expect no sympathy from me. I've told you many a time before that no one need make a move on you for they merely need to sit back and wait for you to do yourself in. If not from the drinking, then from the dueling. And if not from the dueling, then from the womanizing. You'll get a pox one of these days, of that I am certain. And if not from that, then from your trips to the sorry side of town. I know you have your reasons, but you must have a care, milord.”
“There will be no care in me until I have put an end to this. I dare not even try to live until I am assured that the culprit is dead, and by my hand! And you, of all people, should know that every stunt I've ever pulled was in the pursuit of finding that knave. So let me hear no more of care and caution from you. For if I do stir them from their hiding place with this marriage, then the last thing I need to be feeling is some fear for my life, for if I am afraid, he has won already, for it will keep me from doing what musts be done with the single determination that I have always pursued it.”
“That, I suppose, is why you have chosen a lass you do not know and do not care for?”
“Precisely, Tyler. I can not go into marriage believing I am building something for the future, for it may very well be a future that I will never see. And I don't wish to leave a grieving widow in my wake, in any event. Someone with a good head on her shoulders, who can care for my estates and my child, if we are lucky enough for her to conceive before I am killed.”
“And if you are not killed, but succeed?”
“Then I will make do with whatever pathetic lot I have saddled myself with, and count myself fortunate.” He pulled up on the horses, and they skidded to a halt so quickly that the Squire would have been thrown from the curricle if it had not been for Tyler holding him. “Was that a lane there, Tyler, on your right?”
Tyler peered into the dark. “Aye. And a sorry looking, over-grown one t'is, too.”
“That's the one we want,” St. James nodded. He backed the horses, chirped them around, and then started at nearly the same ill-advised speed that he had traversed the main road.
Chapter Four
Monday Morning
Lizzie was roused from her sleep by a determined knocking on the front door. She peered, confused, from between the heavy, closed drapes of her bed, noticing first the still solid darkness beyond her window. It was not dawn, looked to be several hours from it, at least.
The knocking came again, proving it had not been a dream. As she was alone in the house, it was up to her to fling back the bed-drapes, wrap herself in her robe, thrust her feet into her heavy wool slippers, and go below to answer the pounding summons on the door, which was still repeating itself after every few seconds.
She hurried from her room and down the long hallway to the top of the stairs that pitched rather sharply down to the front of the house and ended a few yards from the front entrance. In the dark, for she carried neither lamp nor candle, they seemed more prone to awkwardness than even what they normally did, and she caught herself once against the wall peeling of paint. Miss Murdock paused at the bottom stair, then turned and went into the parlor, pulled the drape back from the window to allow her to see who was demanding entrance in the wee small hours of the morning.
A high curricle stood in the drive, looking skeletal in the wan moonlight of the night. The team of horses at its front were lathered and blowing, showing they had been driven hard. A tall figure was to its side, his cap indicating him to be a groom, and a portly silhouette of a man was pitched far to one side on the seat, the groom attempting to help him down. Lizzie recognized this indisposed man as her father, even in the darkness, and with a little groan of exasperation, she delayed no longer but went again to the hallway and to the front door, of which the pounding had returned with a vigor.
She pulled her robe belt tighter, ran a hand through her loose hair, in some attempt to make semblance of it, and flung the door open. A deep flush took hold of her features as she recognized the man in front of her. There was no mistaking the dark, unruly hair, the laconic dissipation of his face, or the glimmering brightness of his gold eyes. “Milord,” she said, feeling both shock and resentment that he should forever be seeing her when either muddy or mussed. She was also cer
tain that whatever difficulty her father found himself in that this man was directly responsible. “What has happened to my father?”
“A bit of drink, Miss Murdock. You are indeed Miss Murdock?” he asked, and when she nodded, he gave a mocking bow in her direction. “I apologize, but you were quite unrecognizable upon our first meeting. But as I was saying of your father, a tad too much drink. If we can endeavor to get him inside and in bed, he will be better in the morning, although in all probability, well and truly hungover.”
Miss Murdock, smelling a strong stench of booze coming from her informer also, said, “I will fetch a lamp then, and be with you,” which she did, getting one from the parlor and lighting it. When she returned to the door, the duke was beside his curricle, and between he and the groom, they managed to alight her father upon his feet between them.
She hurried to light their way, and with the Squire's arms slung around their shoulders, an awkward picture, as the groom was taller than the Squire and the duke was shorter, they stumbled toward the front steps and the house.
Miss Murdock said nothing as they made slow progress, merely listened to a long string of whispered cursing from the duke, and an answering admonishment from the groom that if his lordship were not so drunk himself, the task would have been all the easier.
“And if the man did not weigh close to twenty stone, it would be a good deal easier also,” the duke returned in an aggravated voice.
“Perhaps I should rouse Kennedy from the stables,” Miss Murdock suggested as they all stopped before the stairs. There were only six flagstone steps up to the front door, but they suddenly seemed very long to her and she knew from prior experience that they seemed impossible to the two men that were supporting the considerable weight of her father.
“No, Miss Murdock,” the duke replied. “We will manage, I believe.” He moved one of his hands from supporting the Squire and made a quick swipe at his face with the sleeve of his coat, wiping it clean of the sweat that was upon his brow. Then his gold eyes beaconed at her. “I apologize, Miss Murdock, for the condition of your father. But I assure you, although I did the pouring, he did the drinking.”
“As did you, I should hazard to say,” Miss Murdock returned tartly. “But do not blame yourself too much,” she relented, seeing his quick frown, “for I allow that it is not the first time he has come home in such a condition, nor, probably, will it be his last. I must confess myself grateful that at least you and your man are here to shoulder the burden instead of myself and old Kennedy, as it normally is.”
He gave a slight, amused smile at that. “Well then, Miss Murdock, if you and an elderly groom can manage, then it seems that we must, for it would never do to have it said that we can not even take on a task that an old man and a wisp of a girl can do.”
She didn't return his smile, her face remaining solemn as she answered. “Yes, milord. But we are not usually drunk when we are attempting it.”
“All the more is the pity. Come, Tyler. Let us get him up and in, for I'm afraid my shoulders are becoming quite numb from the supporting of him.”
“Any time you're done jawing, milord,” the groom returned. “T'was not I, I remind you, that needed a rest.”
The duke grunted, and then with Miss Murdock again going before them, they started up the steps. Again the only sound was muttered oaths, and an occasional, “Watch it, damn it, Tyler, or we'll all be flat on our faces!”
They managed at last to get the Squire to the top and in the front door, which Miss Murdock closed behind them, relieved to be out of the cold, for if the duke and his groom were sweating from their exertion, she was freezing with only her robe and sleeping gown on. “His bedroom is above stairs,” she couldn't resist saying as she saw his lordship eyeing the steep, long stairs with every appearance of loathing.
“Very funny, Miss Murdock. You will not convince me even in my present condition that you and your groom manage to get him up those stairs and tucked neatly into bed!”
She couldn't help but smile as she shook her head. “Indeed, we do not, nor would we be silly enough to try. If you will just bring him into the parlor, he will be quite comfortable on the sofa. He normally sleeps there at any rate, for when his gout is acting up, he does not go up the stairs even when he is sober.”
“You have my eternal gratitude.”
It took some comic maneuvering to get her father through the parlor door, as it was narrower than the main entrance, but at last they succeeded and with twin groans of relief, the duke and his groom settled her father onto the sofa.
Miss Murdock set down the lamp, kneeled by her father and unbuttoned his coat, despaired of getting it off him. He opened his eyes once, looked unseeingly at her, and then closed them to begin snoring now in hard earnest. She gave a little resigned sigh, settled with loosening his collar and cravat, and rose once again, now wondering what she was to do with the two men that stood in her parlor in the middle of the night.
The Duke of St. James unbuttoned his great coat. “Tyler, if you will see to the horses?”
Miss Murdock divined, less than happily, that he intended to stay. She would have to make up a spare room, she supposed, and none of them had been used in several years. “Call for our groom, his name is Kennedy, as I said, when you reach the stable, Tyler is it?”
The lordship's groom nodded. “Yes, miss. Pleasure to meet you, miss.”
“And you, I'm sure, Tyler. Kennedy sleeps above the stables, and he can direct you where to put the horses and where the feed and hay is kept. He'll also make you comfortable afterward.” She turned to St. James. “And I can make up a spare room for you, milord, but as that will take a few minutes, can I interest you in something to eat or drink?” He shrugged with an effort from his coat, and she took it from him. She dropped her gaze to the rich blue, heavy cloth of it, suddenly finding it easier to stare at than to meet his bemused gold eyes.
“Coffee, I think, Miss Murdock. If it is not too much trouble.”
“Not at all. I would deem myself a poor hostess indeed if I could not even boil water. Would you like to come along with me to the kitchen? Or I can make you comfortable in here, although my father does tend to snore loudly.” She put a hand to her forehead in thought. “Or the dining room, but it is under dust cloths and hasn't been used in years.”
He raised a dark brow. “The kitchen will be more than adequate, I think, Miss Murdock. It is not my intention to put you out at half-past two in the morning entertaining me.” He turned to Tyler. “I'll call for you when I am ready, Tyler.”
“Milord,” the groom returned with a small pull on his cap, and then he left to go to the stables, and Miss Murdock had the sudden realization that she was alone with the Duke of St. James, he of the sordid reputation, with only a drunken, passed-out father for protection.
His eyes did not reassure her, for he had focused all of his considerable attention upon her, an attention she felt she neither warranted nor welcomed, and she flushed lightly, imagining how she must look, in her worn sleeping costume and thread-bare, colorless robe, her hair down her back and tangled and her face not even washed of sleep. A more pitiful specimen of the fairer sex he had probably never encountered, and she could not blame him if his silence were one of shock and dismay.
But be that as it may, she could do nothing to rectify the situation at this moment, and so turned on her slippered heel and said, “If you will follow me, milord?” of which he did.
Her first assessment that he was in no better shape than her father became apparent as he stumbled through the door to the hallway with her, and then immediately leaned one shoulder against the wall of the hall, and proceeded down it, halting often, using the wall to support himself. She slowed her own steps to match his, knew not whether to be disgusted with his behavior, or to laugh at the utter ludicrousness of it.
“You are a sorry sight, milord,” she could not resist commenting when once he reeled away from the wall and then found it again with a painful bump of his s
houlder.
He stopped, threw her a crooked grin that made her stomach do a sudden, unexpected lurch, and made her smile freeze foolishly on her face. “As are you, Miss Murdock,” he returned. “But I should wager that in the morning, we shall both be looking a good deal more fit.”
It was a long trek to the kitchen, for although the house was old and dilapidated, it was quite large, and with the duke's slow and laborious moving, it was another minute or two before she directed him into the kitchen, and taking her lamp, set it upon the large, square, wooden table and indicated a seat for him to take.
He settled himself into it with every appearance of relief. Without comment, he cupped his forehead in his hands in brooding silence.
Miss Murdock left him be. She lit another few lamps to see by, stoked the still glowing embers of the fire in the stove and added fuel to set it again snapping. She got a streak of soot across her face in the process, gave it a brief wipe with a rag, then pulled out a bag of ground coffee and the coffee pot. She filled the pot with water, added the grounds, and put it on the stove. They were all tasks that she had performed many times, and she fell into them without thought and with a serene rhythm.
St. James closed his eyes, the quiet lulling him and easing the pounding that was already enveloping his head. Miss Murdock did not chatter, and he was thankful for that. He was not a man given to doubts, not because he never had them but because he refused to entertain them. They had their place to insure proper reasoning, but if one let them grow, one would find oneself paralyzed and incapable of any decision and any action.
Now, as he listened to the brief, soothing sounds of the fire being stoked, the coffee being put on, and cups being retrieved and set down, he allowed himself to review his doubts, and then discarded them. His actions appeared rash, but they were well thought out in advance. He had settled on marriage as being his last ploy to flush out an enemy un-seen, and although he had not foreseen how he was to go about procuring a wife without wooing, pursuing, and otherwise deceiving a young miss into that role, he had certainly recognized the perfect opportunity when it had been presented to him.
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