The Ambiguous Enigma of the Hunted Lady: A Historical Regency Romance Novel

by Linfield, Emma

  Then she had taken to counting birds, but there is only so far that any person can take. Bird watching without a guidebook or a spyglass quickly became a dull affair, and so Leah cycled through various distractions – all of which ran their course in a matter of hours.

  Her ribs still caused her much pain, but as the days passed, she found herself able to sit up on her own accord. It took considerable effort, but Leah prided herself on the small, personal victory.

  That day had been particularly interesting from her windows, however. A coach had arrived, a very elegant coach, perhaps more extravagant than the one belonging to her host. She could not see the occupant, but later she saw the Duke riding back with an older gentleman, sporting hunting coats and shotguns. He is a regular sportsman.

  Within what seemed only minutes, the very fine coach was back on the road, whisking away into the early afternoon. Perhaps the hunting trip was not successful.

  She entertained herself with her imagination, drafting up all sorts of silly anecdotes that may have befallen the Duke and his hunting companion.

  Something forced him to leave in a hurry, just what could it be?

  Of course, this game too ran its course, and she was again bored of her surroundings.

  A knock at the door gave her a leap of excitement. Somebody to talk to, finally.

  “Come in.” she called.

  “I hope I am not disturbing you.” the Duke poked his head in the door frame.

  “Not at all.” Leah smiled and waved him in. “I am glad to see a friendly face.”

  “And I am glad that you see my face as friendly.” the Duke countered.

  “Come in then, Your Grace.” she grinned ironically as she said his title and waved to the bedside stool.

  “Of course, but please, you must learn to call me Kenneth, just as I must learn to call you as Leah, rather than Miss Benson.”

  “It's just the opposite.” Leah replied. “I need to learn to say, 'Your Grace', Kenneth suits me just fine.”

  “Yes, well, I suppose it would.” he said, visibly a bit flustered. Leah could see him searching for something to comment on in a practiced, nobleman's manner.

  “You are sitting up well.” he offered. “You are some ways better?”

  “I am, to a point.” she admitted. “Yet I crave to walk and leave this room. I need to move my legs, stretch my toes.”

  “It seems you may have to wait a bit longer for that, eh?”

  “Hmm,” Leah grunted back. Then she turned to him and stated, “you went hunting today.”

  “Yes, I did.” the Duke said, clearly unsure of what he was supposed to say next.

  “Who was that man with you?”

  “Oh, you mean Cornelius.” Kenneth's face lit up when he saw that he was not being outwitted in any way. Leah liked to keep him on his toes with her quick quips.

  “Who is Cornelius?”

  “Cornelius Wilson is my uncle, my father's brother.” Kenneth explained. “I invited him today, as it is the first day of the red grouse season. I invite him each year and he rarely shows so, I was glad to see him this morning.”

  “He left in a hurry.” Leah remarked. “I could see from the window.”

  “Yes.” Kenneth frowned. “He is an extremely busy man. Hence the reason he does not often accept my invitation. No, usually if I mean to see him, I must pay a visit to London.”

  “He lives in London?”

  “He does, he used to live here. Grew up here with my father. When my father became Duke, Uncle moved to London.”

  “Where is your father now?”

  “He's dead.” the Duke said somberly, looking down into his lap.

  “Mine too.” Leah replied curtly. “Same with my mum.” She could see in his face that this was not the reaction he expected. Surely, he is accustomed to pats on the back and soft condolences.

  “I'm sorry.” He frowned again, clearly thrown a bit sideways by being the one offering condolences.

  “Not your fault, was it?” Leah smiled brightly. She needed to change the topic. “What's your Uncle, Lord Wilson doing in London?”

  “Ha, well.” The Duke wiped his eyes a bit, which had begun the faintest hint of a water. “He sees to the family business. I am traveling there tomorrow, in fact, to discuss shipping contracts.”

  “You have a family business.” Leah cocked her head. “Of course, you do, who am I fooling?”

  “Sorry?” he blinked.

  “It makes sense, is all I mean.” Leah batted her eyes a bit. “What's this family business of yours do?”

  “Shipping insurance.” the Duke said flatly. “It is horribly dull, and I dread the day I must take all of it under my thumb.”

  “What is that?” Leah asked with genuine curiosity.

  “What is what?” Kenneth blinked again.

  “Insurance.”

  “Oh.” The Duke sat up a bit, crossing his leg over his knee. “Well it's when, say, there is a merchant seaman who runs lanes between Kolkata, Capetown, and London.”

  “Where's Kolkata?”

  “India, it is a major post for the East India Company. Them, I'm sure you've heard of.”

  “Aye.” Leah grinned sheepishly. “I have heard of them.”

  “Right, well this merchant runs lanes for the East India Company, all the way round the horn. But if his ship sinks, or is attacked by pirates, then he loses everything.”

  “Including his life.”

  “Yes, the captain, perhaps. But we deal with the men that own the ships, often many dozens of them.”

  “Do women ever own the ships?” Leah interrupted again. She was fascinated by the workings of a world she had previously been oblivious to. She knew ships rolled round the world, of course, but she had absolutely no inclination as to where they sailed, who they traded with, or how they did their business.

  “No, I can't say they do.” the Duke answered.

  “That's a shame.” Leah sighed. “Go on.”

  “The ship's owner pays us a fraction of his ship's worth per annum.”

  “Per annum?”

  “Per year. Anyway, if anything should ever happen to his ship, then we would conduct an investigation. If the investigation proves to show that the ship sank honestly and at no fault of the captain, then we reimburse the ship's worth in full to the owner.”

  “Reimburse?”

  “Erm, pay back.”

  “So, it's like collateral, only the opposite.” Leah said confidently.

  “How do you mean?”

  “It's like this,” Leah became excited to be able to relate at all to the lesson she had just received. She had always known that she could make it outside of the underworld.

  “Say you've got to pull a caper.”

  “Caper?”

  “Job.” Leah informed him joyfully. “So, you hire a guy to pull it off, but you keep something very important to him.”

  “Like what?”

  “His brother perhaps, or if the stakes are lower, then a pet bird or a prize hog.”

  “You mean kidnapping?” the Duke was clearly straining to make the association.

  “I suppose you could call it that.” Leah shrugged it off. “If he botches the job, then you take the brother's eye, or you shiv the hog, whatever it is you have going.”

  “That is unbelievably cruel.” Kenneth sat up, seemingly taken aback by her elusive confession. “I cannot imagine such things.”

  “I think you can.” Leah challenged him, staring coldly into his thoughtful eyes. “I think you've seen worse than that. I think you followed me into that alley for the thrill of it. I think you like me talking about these things, because you like to feel that sharp edge the world hides from some and shows to others.”

  “I–” but it appeared the Duke could not answer. It was as she had suspected. She had known his type all her life – the kids that came by the warrens to act tough until someone took their eye out for staring.

  Leah knew that she had completely disarmed
him, and if she wanted, she could get whatever she desired from him at the moment. She also knew that she was still too weak to travel, let alone defend herself should anything go awry in her journey.

  What's more, she had developed a feeling of gratitude toward the Duke in the recent days. Just because he was a thrill seeker didn't mean that she couldn't enjoy his company or be grateful for his intervention in the alleyway.

  “Reason or not, you did save my life,” she went on. “and for that, you have my deepest thanks.”

  “Nobody has ever spoken to me in the manner that you just did.” he said slowly after a moment of reflection.

  “Does that scare you?” Leah pressed. She had to be careful not to overextend her wit and humor. It had gotten her into plenty of trouble in the past.

  “Who the devil are you?” The Duke shook his head, grinning from ear to ear. “That I may have so stumbled upon you. You are like no one I have ever known.”

  “Is that a compliment?” Leah smiled back.

  “The highest, and the reason I am so interested, as you might put it, is that I am one of the few people in the House of Lords that cares at all for the urban poor. I have a bill in progress, in fact, that we will vote upon soon. It aims to increase the living standard of our poorest citizens.”

  “Will it pass?”

  “I sincerely doubt it. Most peers and their spouses think me dangerous and unstable. Not to mention, they care not at all for the lower classes.”

  “I could have told you that.”

  “I suppose so.” He chuckled a bit, and the conversation trailed into a stale point of silence.

  “So, you are going to London tomorrow?” Leah broke the silence finally after glancing out the window at the slowly-descending sun.

  “I am, yes, to attend to some business.”

  “When will you return?”

  “I cannot say for certain, but surely after only a day or two. I do prefer the climate of the country to that of the city.”

  “I've never known the country.” Leah looked again through the window, glancing wistfully at the tree branches dancing in the breeze. “Not until now at least.”

  “Well you must come to learn more of it.” he said, standing up to leave.

  “I would like that, I think.” Leah said gently, slipping for a moment out from her chitinous exterior.

  “Very well, after I return, we shall assess your condition. If it is much improved, we may begin exploration, eh?”

  “Very well, doctor.” Leah jested. “Have a good trip then. Don't get knocked off!”

  “I shall endeavor not to.” Kenneth smiled, and left the room.

  * * *

  Kenneth was incredibly flustered. She had seen right through him, unearthed his own emotional deception, and he was in shock because of it.

  He greatly enjoyed her candor and found great value in the honest conversation that she offered, as opposed to the majority of his interactions with those inside his social bracket.

  Yet, in her absolute honesty she had cut to his core, routed out the adventurous, selfish spirit that he guarded so well. He was exposed, and he was caught in the moment of it.

  One part of him felt tremendous relief that he could feel so at ease when speaking with her; this was a new kind of honest relationship in which he could afford to be straightforward. There were no consequences he could think of that could come of honest conversation with a commoner. Especially a commoner in the safety of his own home, far from the babbling balls of London.

  Another, equally large piece of him was utterly distraught. Hiding his true, aloof nature, was something that he took very seriously. He had built up as best he could the image of an upstanding veteran of the Napoleonic wars. Perhaps he behaved foolishly at times, but nobody in society knew him for what he truly was: an adrenaline-chasing, slightly-depressed, deeply-lonely duke with no clear vision of how his life should proceed.

  “She's bloody got you.” Kenneth muttered to himself, and retired to his chambers. He did not want to leave Leah here; he did not want to leave her at all. Yet, he wanted to be rid of her entirely, and he let that feeling overwhelm the prior while he imagined the adventures he would have in London the coming days. Just what sort of trouble could I get myself into?

  Chapter 10

  Nash warmed his bony knuckles over a twinkling fire. The smoke drifted up and bounced off the rounded ceilings of the old Roman cistern, slithering up the dome to its release, up into London's night air.

  Over the fire, Nash roasted a small hen. It was the last of many that he had cooked that day; one of his lads had come across a poultry cart, unattended, and so the whole pack of them feasted on roast hen from the early afternoon until late in the night.

  If one suffers extreme hunger on a daily basis, or even on a single occasion, they are more susceptible to a food's subtle flavors, and essences when finally exposed.

  Now, the dripping, sizzling fat that oozed from the hens, brought the orphans and crooks into a state of euphoria. The salty twinge to the meat sent shivers through their spines as their bodies struggled to cope with the delicacy before them.

  Each bite was better than the last, filling up their souls to the very brim with joyful satiation. Nash smiled to see his gang so happy; it had been a long time since any of them had eaten poultry of any kind.

  “Boss,” Digby called from the cistern's tunnel. “got a runner for you.”

  “Send him over,” Nash replied, giving his knuckles one more glance over the fire. Then he brushed his hands together, passed roasting duty onto another, and went to receive his runner.

  “Whatchu got for me then?” Nash looked down at the child.

  “From the fountain, boss.” the child held out a crinkled piece of paper.

  Nash looked it over, knowing full well he couldn't read the words written. Still he liked to maintain the image that he could; it brought him great respect among the street urchins he ran with, as if it were equivalent to pulling off some big score.

  “Better I get this over to Riphook.” he muttered, stuffing the note into his waistband. “You see who brought it?”

  “One of them doctor fellows.”

  “How do you know he was a doctor?” Nash crouched down to stare the boy in his eyes. This was important training for survival on the streets. One needed to know how to classify a mark without coming near to them.

  “He had one of them bags, doctor bags, and he had on too many clothes even though it were hot out.”

  “Good boy.” Nash ruffled his hair. The answer satisfied him. The boy wasn't ready for street rips just yet, but he would be in a short while. “The next hen is his.”

  Nash walked past the excited child and up to Digby.

  “Goin' to see Riphook, Boss?”

  “Aye, you don't gotta tag along.”

  “It's alright, boss, I'll go.”

  “Suit yourself.” Nash led them into the old sewers.

  Once they had climbed out of the Roman network beneath London, they slipped into shadowy streets. Evening was falling on London, and her emerging smokestacks caused the most glorious red hue to fall over the land.

  The duo worked through the bad parts of town; they navigated the warrens and boroughs as if they themselves had designed the haphazardly laid out grid.

  They were native to the London slums, and they glided past the brothels and questionable taverns without blinking an eye. Crime of all manner unfolded around them in the streets; those that had a knack for drinking had already begun for the evening, and the rougher ones shouted insults at each other across the road.

  Deals of all kinds transpired in alleyways that they dodged past, and they expertly skirted the puddles of human filth thrown from upper stories.

  This was home; the sprawling jungle of poverty and crime, neatly shoved into undesirable neighborhoods just out of the view of the upstanding citizens.

  The neighborhood they inhabited was called the Rookery, and was home to a predominantly Irish populati
on of poor families and criminals. They were on their way now to The Devil's Acre, where Riphook could reliably be found.

  All these London slums rolled right into each other, except when separated by a sudden pop up of new construction. For in a way, the whole of the city was one large slum. It had been growing out of the ruins of Roman greatness for some fourteen-hundred years. In that time, it had been passed from Briton to Saxon to Dane to Saxon to Norman, and a great many more before settling on English.