A Fiery Escort For The Roguish Marquess (Steamy Historical Regency)

by Scarlett Osborne

  Betsey stared at the floor. She brought her thumbnail to her mouth and chewed edgily. After a moment, she drew in a long breath and looked up at Ernest. “We need to speak to my mother.”

  Chapter 44

  Betsey led them slowly up the stairs to the rooms above the bakery. In the kitchen, an old woman Ernest guessed to be her adoptive mother sat drinking tea at the table, while the three young children played beside the hearth.

  The old woman looked up in surprise. “Betsey? What’s going on? Why are you not in the shop?”

  Betsey knelt down beside the children. She smoothed back her son’s coppery hair. “Why don’t you go and play in the bedroom a while? We’ll not be long.” Ernest could hear the tremor in her voice.

  Obedient and oblivious, the children disappeared down the hall.

  The old woman climbed to her feet and frowned. She looked between Ernest and Rachel, then back to her daughter. “What’s all this about?”

  “Ma,” said Betsey, knotting her fingers in her flour-covered apron, “this is Ernest Jackson. He—”

  “Jackson.” The woman’s voice was stiff. “You’re the Duke and Duchess’ son.” There was a hint of animosity in her voice. Or was it regret? She turned to Rachel. “I see you did not heed my advice, Miss Bell. I thought I made it clear no good could come of spending your time with a nobleman.”

  Rachel frowned. “You knew Ernest was the man I was speaking of, Mrs. Miller?”

  The old woman stared into her teacup.

  “Ma,” Betsey pushed. “Please. Tell us what you know.”

  With a sigh, she looked up at Rachel. “You came asking about George Owen.”

  Rachel shot Ernest a sideways glance. “You knew the man.”

  Mrs. Miller nodded slowly. “Yes. George Owen and I worked together many years ago.” She looked at her hands. “At Graceton Manor.”

  Ernest heard himself inhale sharply.

  “When you came here asking about George, I knew the nobleman you were spending your time with could be none other than Lord Jackson.”

  Rachel frowned. “Why did you lie to me?”

  The old woman said nothing. She shook her head slowly, as though unwilling to speak. Ernest felt strangely unsteady.

  “Ma,” Betsey said, her voice beginning to waver. “Answer her. Why did you lie to Rachel? And why did you lie about working at Graceton Manor?” She sat opposite her mother and clamped a hand over hers. “Please. I need to know. Why did you lie?”

  Mrs. Miller let out her breath and looked up at her daughter. She squeezed her hand with sudden ferocity. “To protect you, my darling. Everything I did was to protect you.”

  Chapter 45

  “Protect me?” Betsey replied. “Protect me from who?” Her heart was racing. Everything felt unsteady beneath her. She felt disoriented and off-balance, as though she were standing on a ship in the middle of the ocean.

  Her mother stared into her teacup, unable to look at her. Unable to look at Mr. Jackson or Rachel. “To protect you from your past,” she croaked.

  Betsey let out her breath. She had been afraid of such an answer. “What does that even mean, Ma?”

  “I’ve said too much,” her mother told her. “I’ve said far too much.” She climbed hurriedly to her feet, clattering into the table and knocking over her cup. The remains of her tea drizzled onto the floor.

  Betsey picked up the cup and gripped her mother’s shoulders. “No, Ma. I need to know more. I need to know the truth.” She looked into the eyes of the woman who had raised her. The woman who had fed her, clothed her, loved her. The woman who had been her mother in near every sense of the word. Betsey found it impossible to believe the woman might have spent her entire life lying to her. “Was my mother an escort?” she asked firmly. “Or was she…was she someone else?”

  The thought of having noble blood in her was so absurd, so laughable she couldn’t voice the words.

  It can’t be true. There’s no way.

  Her mother’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry,” she coughed. “I wish I could tell you everything, my darling. I really do. But it would only put you in danger.” She wiped her eyes. “I hated having to lie to you. But I swore to her I’d never tell a soul.”

  Betsey’s grip on her mother’s shoulders tightened. “Who, Ma? Whose secrets are you keeping?”

  Her mother sniffed loudly, pulling her eyes from her daughter’s. “The Duchess. The Duchess of Armson.”

  Betsey felt both hot and cold at once. She released her mother’s shoulders. Fresh tears spilling down her cheeks, the old woman pushed past her and hurried to her bedroom. Betsey’s legs felt suddenly weak beneath her. She sank into a chair, watching the remains of her mother’s tea drip onto the floor. Her thoughts were charging.

  This can’t be true. It can’t be. This is nothing but an elaborate joke at my expense.

  The thought of such a thing was cruel, but it felt strangely easier to carry than the possibility of her being the Duke and Duchess of Armson’s daughter.

  A chair groaned as it slid across the floor. Ernest Jackson sat opposite her, his eyes level with hers.

  And Betsey saw it then. She saw him looking back at her with eyes so like her own and saw hair falling over his forehead in the same coppery hue as hers. She felt something tighten in her chest.

  Tentatively, he reached over and placed a gentle hand against her arm. The feel of it was oddly steadying. Oddly reassuring.

  “Betsey,” he said, his voice thin, “we need to go to Graceton Manor. We need to speak to our mother.”

  * * *

  Betsey sat in the coach with her hands clasped edgily in her lap. She realized she was gnawing on her thumbnail again; an old childhood habit she had never been fully able to dispense with.

  She watched the streets slide by, feeling as though she were trapped in a dream.

  She had always known, of course, that the woman who had raised her was not her real mother. She had grown up believing herself the daughter of an escort. Her adoptive mother had made no secret of it. Betsey had always welcomed the honesty, the openness. It had helped her make peace with the fact that she would likely never discover her true roots. Likely never know her real family.

  But had such honesty, such openness been a lie? Had she spent her entire life being deceived?

  Despite her mother’s tearful confession, this all felt so difficult to believe.

  She found herself glancing at Mr. Ernest Jackson.

  Is it possible he is truly my brother?

  It felt ridiculous to even think such things. But her adoptive mother, in her floods of tears, had as near confessed such things as she was able.

  Ernest was staring edgily out the window too, she realized, his hand wrapped firmly around Rachel’s. So it seemed he was making good on the promise he had made when they’d been trawling the streets searching for her.

  He was a marquess and she an escort. How did he imagine they might build a future together?

  Betsey thought of the situation she had suddenly found herself in.

  A marquess loving an escort, she realized, would by no means be the strangest thing to ever occur in this world. No, a marquess loving an escort would not even be the strangest thing to occur that day…

  Ernest’s eyes met Betsey’s suddenly. He managed a tiny, hesitant smile that she found herself returning.

  She looked back out the window. Here they were back in Pimlico. Here were the streets walked by those ladies in feathers and lace who had turned their backs on Betsey when she’d asked their help. Was it possible she might have been standing there in her patched skirts, while a Duke and Duchess’ blood coursed through her veins?

  The carriage rattled through the gates of Graceton Manor, and Betsey felt her heart quickening. The possibility of having noble blood in her had not dampened the feeling that she did not belong in such a place. She felt more of an intruder than ever.

  “Wait,” she said, as the carriage drew to a halt, “this is dang
erous. The Duchess has secrets she doesn’t want anyone knowing. Secrets that put Rachel in danger.”

  Secrets that involve me…

  “I can’t just walk into that house. If I was welcome there, the Duchess would never have given me up in the first place.”

  Ernest let his hand fall from the catch on the carriage door. He nodded his understanding. He looked out the window at the house and rubbed his smooth chin, as though deep in thought. “I need answers,” he said finally. “Don’t you?”

  Betsey hesitated. A part of her wanted answers, yes. A part of her was desperate to know who she truly was, and why her birth mother had seen fit to give her up. But another part of her longed for her old ignorance, longed to go back to being the escort’s daughter she had been when she’d woken that morning.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” said Ernest. “Perhaps you ought to stay here. Let me go and speak to Mother alone.”

  Betsey shook her head, suddenly determined. “No.” She sucked in her breath. “You’re right. I need answers.” She caught Ernest’s eye. “We need answers.”

  So out of the carriage, they climbed. Ernest Jackson marched up the front path with Rachel and Betsey on either side of him.

  Betsey felt her stomach roll.

  The house loomed in front of them, a great white palace with more chimneys and windows than Betsey could count. Behind it, the garden stretched out in an endless plain of green.

  Is this the house I was born in? Did I spend the first two years of my life here as Ernest Jackson claimed?

  “My sister Unity,” he had told her. She could not deny the name had stirred a faint sense of recognition inside her.

  She tried to dig through her memories. Was there any fragment of this house in her recollections? Was there any fragment of Unity Jackson?

  She felt something heave itself up from deep inside her.

  Roses. She remembered walking among roses. Did I walk among roses in the gardens of this enormous house?

  She and her adoptive mother had lived only in tiny apartments and townhouses. Certainly, nowhere they might have grown roses. She tried to dig deeper into the memory. But it was too faint and fragile to be able to grasp properly.

  She followed Ernest and Rachel up an enormous winding staircase, her hand tight around the banister. She watched Rachel’s head move from side to side as they walked, taking in the lavish, white and gold surroundings. What did she think of this place, Betsey found herself wondering? Was she too awed by the scope of this house? Had she finally now, having stepped inside Ernest Jackson’s mansion come to fully appreciate the gaping social divide that existed between the two of them?

  She thought back fleetingly to the way he had gripped her hand so tightly in the carriage. She thought back to the nights he had spent on the street searching for her, and the relief in his eyes when they had found her in that cellar.

  Perhaps that gaping social divide was not so uncrossable.

  Ernest led them down a wide corridor, stopping outside a closed door. He turned to face the Rachel and Betsey. “Wait here.” He knocked lightly on the door, then slipped inside.

  Betsey’s heart hammered. She fought the urge to turn and run. She was grateful when Rachel reached over and gave her wrist a gentle, reassuring squeeze.

  “I’ve brought someone to see you, Mother.” Ernest’s voice was muffled through the closed door.

  The Duchess’ response was inaudible.

  The floor creaked, then Ernest pulled open the door, nodding to them to enter. Hesitantly, Betsey took a step forward. Rachel stayed with her back pressed against the passage hallway.

  “I ought to stay here.”

  “No.” Ernest reached for her hand. “This involves you too. You need answers like the rest of us.”

  Rachel gave a faint nod.

  Betsey sucked in her breath and stepped inside the room. In a wide, curtained bed, a lady sat in her nightshift, a thick grey plait spilling down her back. Her face was long and thin, her eyes wide and brimming with sadness. She gripped her blankets with skeletal white fingers. She stared at Betsey for a long time. Her lips parted.

  “Unity,” she breathed.

  Betsey stiffened.

  The Duchess threw back her blankets and slid from the bed. She hurried to Betsey, pressing paper-thin hands against her cheeks. “Oh, my darling girl.” Her voice was cracked with emotion. “Is it truly you?” She wrapped her arms around Betsey’s shoulders, pulling her close as tears spilled down her cheeks.

  Betsey stood motionless, feeling strangely breathless. Her insides felt as though they were twisting themselves into knots. She had not been expecting tears and embraces. Her birth mother had given her up. She had been unwanted, cast aside. And yet the Duchess was clinging to her so tightly it seemed she never wanted to let go. Despite the fragile thinness of her arms, her embrace was hard and fierce. And embrace, Betsey realized, that felt distantly familiar.

  Finally, the Duchess stepped back, her eyes glistening. She gripped Betsey’s hands and squeezed. “You can’t be here, my darling,” she said, her voice growing firm and dark. “You must leave right now.”

  Betsey opened her mouth to speak.

  “Right now!”

  “No, Mother,” Ernest said, his voice rising to meet hers. “You can’t do this. We need the truth. You owe it to me. You owe it to Betsey. To Unity.”

  The Duchess’ eyes drifted out the window to where a man in a long black coat was striding up the front path. Her breath began to quicken. She turned back to face them, her eyes wide with fear. “Ernest,” she said, “you have to get your sister out of the house. Right now. She’s in terrible danger.”

  He looked out the window at the man marching toward the house. “Danger? From who? I don’t understand.” He frowned. “That’s just Jones, Mother. You know that. It’s just Father’s footman.”

  But Betsey could see the color draining from Rachel’s face. “That’s him,” she said. “Mr. Burns. That’s the man who kidnapped me.”

  Chapter 46

  “Are you certain?” Ernest pushed, gripping Rachel’s arm.

  “Yes.” She kept her gaze fixed out the window, watching the man approach the house. “That’s him. Mr. Burns. I’m sure of it.”

  Ernest whirled around to face the Duchess. “Mother? What’s this about?”

  The Duchess’ eyes were wide with fear. She showed no sign of registering that Ernest had spoken. “Come with me.” She wrapped her fingers around Betsey’s arm and tugged her to the door. “We need to hide.”

  Ernest gripped Rachel’s shoulders. “Go with them. Hide. I’m going after Jones.”

  Rachel shook her head. “I’m coming with you.” She fixed him with her piercing blue eyes, and Ernest felt something shift inside him. “Don’t argue.”

  Gripping Rachel’s hand, he strode out of the Duchess’ bedroom. He looked down from the top of the staircase to the entrance hall below. There was no sign of Jones. Ernest hurried down the stairs, tugging Rachel behind him.

  Ernest saw a flash of movement. A figure, emerging from the parlor. He let out his breath in relief at the sight of the Duke.

  “Father,” Ernest said, hurrying down the stairs toward him, “where is Jones?”

  The Duke looked up and down at Rachel. “Who is this?”

  “Father, listen to me,” Ernest pushed. “You need to find Jones. He kidnapped Miss Bell. I believe Mother’s in danger.” He hesitated. “And so is my sister.”

  He paused, waiting for the Duke’s surprised reaction. Instead, a look came of his father’s eyes that Ernest had never seen before. A look of hatred. Darkness.

  “So you’re the famous Miss Bell,” he said. “The escort who can’t mind her own damn business.”

  Ernest felt suddenly hot and unsteady. “Father? How do you…”

  The Duke walked toward the staircase, forcing Ernest and Rachel backward. He climbed each step with slow, careful movements. Up they went, higher and higher.

  “Why
did you get involved?” the Duke asked Rachel. “What do you want? Money? Did you think to con my family into hauling you out of your depraved life? Is that it?”

  Rachel shook her head stiffly.

  Ernest felt the pieces slowly slide together. He stared at his father. He felt cold and sick. “You sent Jones after Rachel.” “You had him kidnap her.” He felt the banister disappear from beneath his hand. They were back at the top of the staircase. “Father?” His voice began to rise. “Tell me I’m wrong.”