Along Came a Lady

by Christi Caldwell

  “He’s getting tokens,” Sparrow said, and gave Rafe a warning look.

  A man in the mines needed to become an expert at assessing a situation and knowing when to retreat, or stay and fight. As such, Rafe knew he’d already secured far more than Sparrow had anticipated or intended to give.

  He grabbed the bags up. “Don’t let this happen with my brother again. Are we clear?”

  Sparrow gave a jerky nod. “Audley.”

  Stalking from the collier’s offices, he found his brother pacing a path on the graveled drive.

  The moment he caught sight of Rafe, he abruptly stopped and shifted course, kicking up dirt and rock as he went. “What—?”

  “Here.” Rafe tossed the coins and tokens at his brother.

  Catching them, the younger man weighed them in his palm. “Damned tokens?” he hissed, not needing to check. But then, one with his skill in measurements wouldn’t need a visual confirmation to know he’d been given two different forms of currency.

  “It’s a compromise,” Rafe said out the corner of his mouth as they started back toward the cottage they kept, halfway between the mines and Sparrow’s offices.

  “A bloody compromise?” His brother unleashed a stream of vitriolic curses. But he did pocket his earnings. The Audleys were proud, but they weren’t fools when it came to surviving. Hunter managed to keep pace with Rafe despite the injury he’d sustained ten years ago in an old mine collapse. “One-hundred and fifty fucking feet he has us going down,” Rafe’s younger brother muttered. “He’s got more damned roof collapses and explosions and he’s still the most blasted profitable and he’s going to cheat me.”

  They reached the modest quarters afforded to Rafe because of his role as Butty. Rafe stopped at the small walkway leading into the cottage. Mindful of his sister inside, he lowered his voice. “The wages are still higher than you’re going to earn from any other collier.”

  “And you think that makes it all right?” Hunter demanded, slashing a hand angrily through the air as he spoke.

  “I think it’s the best you or any other miner could hope for.” Rafe spoke with a matter-of-fact understanding of the way the world worked, and the way it would always work. His brother had simply failed to accept that just because something was unfair didn’t mean anyone would ever make it right.

  “He’s becoming increasingly greedy, and the conditions are worsening.”

  “The conditions have always been bad,” Rafe shot back, unable to keep the defensive thread from underscoring his retort. Ultimately, as Butty, Rafe was the one who supplied the miners and tools, and had ownership of what happened to the people he employed. His work was about more than the coin he earned or the rank he enjoyed; it was about the people who earned their livelihoods because of him.

  Hunter ground his feet to a stop; his boot kicked up dirt and gravel. “You’re making excuses for Sparrow and you know it.”

  “I’m not. I know precisely what the situation is down there.”

  Hunter stuck his face in Rafe’s. “But you don’t go down there,” he snarled. “Not daily,” he corrected. “And not the way the rest of us do.”

  Almost ten years in his current role had prepared Rafe to deal with agitated workers. There was no exception in how he handled those outbursts from Wesley and Hunter simply because they were his brothers. They shared blood, but they also shared a craft. As such, Rafe kept his face a careful mask, refusing to give in to the fight his brother was spoiling for. “I spent more than fifteen years belowground,” he said quietly. “Don’t you talk to me about not knowing what it’s like down there.”

  His brother wouldn’t be deterred. “The ventilation isn’t what it was when you were down there daily. We’re going deeper and the quality of the air isn’t the same, and certainly not for the pittance Sparrow would give us.” Angrily yanking one of the bags from inside his jacket, he shook it, and this time, as he railed, his voice climbed in volume. “And certainly not for goddamned tokens to be used at a store that bastard owns, and charges us exorbitant prices in.”

  Their sister appeared in the window; pressing her nose against the lead pane, she shifted her gaze between the quarreling brothers. With her golden curls and rounded cheeks, she was a vision of their mother from years ago . . . and the look of disapproval she cast their way may as well have been a trait passed down along with her coloring and form.

  “I’ve heard you and your concerns,” Rafe said, using those even tones and the words he reserved for the surliest miner.

  Hunter glared at him. “Fuck you with your foreman-talk. I’m your damned brother, not any miner collecting tools from you.” With that, Hunter stalked off. But then, he abruptly stopped and whipped about to face Rafe. “I don’t mind hard work. I enjoy what I do. But I’ll be damned if you don’t at least acknowledge the conditions have changed and hold Sparrow to higher wages for it.”

  “Hunter?” he called when his youngest brother made to go.

  Hunter stiffened.

  “If you’ve tired of mining, there are other roles I can assign you.”

  Because ultimately, Rafe knew, despite whatever grievances his brother had, and despite the frustration and anger he carried about the wages or the conditions, he reveled in the work he did. That pride had only magnified after the accident that had nearly cost Hunter his leg.

  Fury filled the younger man’s flinty gaze. Without another word, Hunter left.

  From the corner of his eye, Rafe caught the flutter of curtains as Cailin let them fall back into place. She’d always been rubbish when it came to eavesdropping, and now, at almost eighteen years of age, she never really made much of an effort to hide whenever she listened in.

  Bold as the English day was wet and cold, she didn’t allow anyone their secrets.

  Cailin greeted him at the door as he entered. “He’s not wrong, Rafe.”

  “I didn’t say he was.” Bloody hell, the debate was to continue then, this time with his sister . . . who’d always had a greater bond with his youngest, angriest brother.

  “You all but did.”

  Of all his stubborn siblings, she’d always gone toe to toe with him the most. Which was saying a good deal, given the obstinate blighters their brothers were. “Times are not what they were.” He struggled out of his boots and cast them onto the floor. “We all have to be mindful of that.”

  “Do you think I need to be reminded of that?” Cailin’s eyes formed narrow slits upon him.

  There was a warning there. A familiar one.

  Rafe was careful to keep his features even. “I wouldn’t dream of it.” At the very least he knew when not to prod her.

  His sister snorted. And fortunately, this time, this Audley let the matter go—for now.

  “Another note arrived.” Cailin plucked a note from inside her apron.

  “Wesley?” he asked. His brother who’d gone off to fight a damned war because he thought he was better than the mines, because he wanted a future different than theirs. And whose letters had ceased to come with any real frequency.

  “No.”

  Not Wesley. He stilled. Which meant it could only be the other person who’d made a habit of sending ’round missives.

  “Burn it.” He hung up first his hat and then his jacket on the hooks fastened near the entryway.

  “I burned the others,” she said.

  “Then you should already know what to do without asking,” he muttered, and headed to the kitchen. “Nothing more we need it for than kindling.”

  Tenacious as the Staffordshire day was long, Cailin followed close at his heels. “Oh, let us be clear. I wasn’t asking what to do with it. Rather, I was telling you he’d sent another, and this one is different than the previous ones.”

  He paused briefly, and looked her squarely in the eye, with a directness that had made many a man tremble. But then, most men didn’t
have the gumption of his sister. “You suggested we burn the others,” he pointed out.

  “Yes, that is true. But I’ve . . . had some time to consider what he’s asking.”

  “Don’t give two damns what he’s asking,” he said, eager to let the matter rest. The “he” in question was none other than their father . . . or if one wished, the man who’d sired them. The Duke of Bentley had been no father to them. And Rafe had little interest—none, at all, to be exact—in appeasing some old lord who was trying to atone for sins that could never be forgiven.

  He pushed the kitchen door open.

  The scent of burned bread filled the room, and he made for the loaves set out on a white clay plate.

  The moment his fingers touched one of the almost completely charred loaves, Cailin slapped at his fingers with that missive. “I’m trying to talk to you, and given you’d rather eat my burned bread, I know you’re just trying to avoid it.”

  He perched his hip on the table. “Fine.” Of all their siblings, Cailin had been most fascinated by the belated emergence of the duke in their lives and open to having him there. Nay, that wasn’t altogether true. There had been Wesley, after all, who’d made contact first, informing Bentley of their existence and requesting a commission because of it. One that he’d granted. It was just one more reason to despise the man who’d sired them—for thrusting Wesley into a damned war, and driving a wedge between them. “Out with it.” With his teeth, Rafe wrestled free a bite of bread, and attempted to chew his way through.

  “I want to go to London.”

  Rafe promptly choked. And for the first time in all the years Cailin had taken on the baking and cooking, his inability to swallow the bread had nothing to do with it being inedible, and everything to do with—“Youuu?” he strangled out, when he could at last get a proper breath.

  She nodded.

  “The same sister who insisted he could go hang.”

  “I didn’t say it in quite those terms,” she said under her breath.

  “ ‘The only place I’d be happy to see him was in Tyburn, hanging from a gibbet’?” He reminded her of the time when they’d learned Wesley had gone and appealed to the duke for a commission. Back when he and Cailin had been on the same page. “Is that familiar?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Fair enough.”

  “Now, all of a sudden, you’re of a different mindset?” He gave her a look.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Rafe.”

  They spoke at the same time.

  “That you want to meet him.”

  “That I want to have him in my life. I don’t. I don’t,” she repeated, a more strident quality to that denial. “It isn’t about him. Not really. Staffordshire is small,” she began in what was an all-too familiar argument.

  “Small is safe.”

  “Do you really intend to tell me to my face that you believe I need protecting?”

  No, she’d had a tendency to beat up the village boys who’d been bullying some of the smaller, unkindly treated children in Cheadle.

  “So you’re willing to forget a lifetime of hatred for the man who sired us because you wish to explore London’s culture?” he asked flatly.

  “I’ve come to appreciate his tenacity, and he did help Wesley with his commission.” She continued quickly, speaking over him when he would have interrupted with his own opinions on the duke’s generosity. “And if I can explore some world away from this, then by God, I want to do it.”

  With his teeth, Rafe ripped off a corner of the loaf, or attempted to. “You’ve a sudden and inordinate fascination with the duke.”

  “With his methods,” she countered, throwing a finger up. “With his methods. Fine fancy gentlemen, out of their element, coming here to implore you to grant a meeting.”

  Aye, because of course, a beast like Bentley couldn’t be bothered to come out this way. Not that Rafe wanted him to. Not when he couldn’t himself be sure that he could face the old duke without taking him apart with his hands. And it was certain that such a beating would be met with imprisonment . . . or worse, for a bastard like Rafe Audley.

  Cailin set the note down in favor of a piece of bread, breaking her own rules for evening meals. “I must confess, after the last man you ran off, I thought that would put an end to the duke’s efforts.” Only if it had. Because then he wouldn’t be dealing with the latest Audley who’d faltered, and now considered meeting the duke and the life he offered.

  “I didn’t kill him,” he said. The duke’s man of affairs had managed to walk off with his life. There was that.

  His sister raised an eyebrow.

  “I barely beat him.” She crossed her arms. Oh, very well. “Not badly, anyway.” And only because the fancy gent had, in his attempts to cajole Rafe, put an appeal to Cailin . . . and then attempted more.

  “It was just an almost kiss,” his sister said, exasperated and perfectly following the path his thoughts had gone down.

  Rafe gnashed his teeth. “There’s no such thing as an ‘almost kiss.’ ”

  “Of course there is. There are the ones—”

  He held up the blackened bread imploringly. “No. Absolutely not. I’m not discussing that with you.”

  She smiled widely; a dimple appeared in both her full cheeks. “Then we shall carry on with Bentley.”

  Cailin was the only one of the remaining Audley siblings still in Staffordshire to speak that title aloud. And it seemed as though she’d begun doing so with an increased frequency. “He sent his apologies.”

  “I don’t care if he bends a knee and wants to put a damned knighthood to my name.”

  “And he promises he won’t send any more gentlemen around.”

  That gave Rafe pause. After almost a year of turning out the unwanted visitors sent by that old scoundrel, he’d taken the damned hint.

  Rafe managed his first smile that day.

  His sister slapped the duke’s latest missive against his arm. “You’re biting off your nose to spite all our faces.”

  Rafe reached over and pinched the tip of her nose, much the way he’d done when she’d been a small girl. “Well, that doesn’t make much sense,” he said. “That, however, is a letter I’ll take from the old duke.”

  No more missives. No more requests or unwanted gents paying calls and taking up time Rafe didn’t have.

  At last, he was done with the damned libertine who’d sired him.

  It was done.

  Chapter 3

  Edwina despised the country.

  Years earlier, as a young woman who’d left the village of Leeds, where the people had known precisely what she was and the circumstances of her residing there, she’d set out to build a new life for herself. That day, as she’d climbed aboard the mail coach, Edwina had vowed to never step foot outside London.

  Nor had she looked back.

  There’d been clients enough in London. Particularly because the gentry and men made into lords overnight had sought to shed their bucolic ways and clamored to be close to Town. From that moment on, she’d never set foot in any English countryside—until now.

  All it had taken were the exorbitant funds dangled before her . . . and because there was, at last, the chance of proving herself before Polite Society, and expanding her name and reputation in ways that had previously eluded her.

  Drawing back the curtain, Edwina peered out . . .

  Though, in fairness, Leeds was nothing like Staffordshire. The land was a blend of two worlds; between green rolling hills and then industry marring the landscape, Staffordshire was a place that didn’t know whether it wished to be countrified living or an industrial center. Having arrived in the small market town two days prior, with funds supplied by her employer, Edwina had set herself up at the local inn . . . and prepared for her first meeting with the duke’s son . . . the same way she went into all meetings w
ith her charges.

  In that time, she’d also discreetly quizzed one of the innkeeper’s daughters, who had proven most elucidating over many cups of tea. From her, Edwina had gathered the hours Rafe Audley kept: twelve-hour days that began at six o’clock. Where exactly in the mining village one might find him. And when to avoid him, too . . .

  Because the gentleman was always working. Because his life was the mine.

  And it had been that former revelation that had given Edwina the proverbial carrot she needed. For what she’d present to him, on behalf of the duke, was a way out.

  As such, there was only one place that made sense to meet him.

  With a frown, Edwina let the curtain slip from her fingers.

  The duke’s carriage rattled along; the road grew bumpier and the ride more uneven.

  With one hand, Edwina caught and braced herself as she’d done so many times along the never-ending journey. In her other hand, she reread the already memorized notes His Grace had provided.

  And then, the carriage rolled to a slow stop.

  Her heart knocked hard against her chest.

  They’d arrived.

  She’d been so very focused on convincing the duke’s son that she’d not allowed herself to think of actually meeting the gentleman. Or . . . being in this place. A coalfield village filled with people who would never take well to an interloper in their midst. It wouldn’t be the first time she was treated as an outsider . . . and as such, she should be immune to the rudeness invariably shown her. Even so, all the muscles of her stomach knotted.

  “Meet them with a smile.” She spoke that motto aloud, as a much-needed reminder to herself. “Meet them with a smile.”

  The driver knocked once, and then opened the door. “I cannot get closer than this, ma’am,” he explained. Doffing his hat, he wiped at a slightly damp brow. “The road ends here.”

  Edwina glanced past the crimson-clad servant. In the near distance, people bustled about . . . men, women, and children, all pushing equipment. Frantically rushing about. Noise filled the countryside; shouting that all melded together, so that it was a wonder any person might hear anything.