“Lookee here,” came a jeering voice Theo had no trouble identifying as Wilkins. “It’s Thee-o-dore.”
“Step aside, Tisdale,” someone else warned him. “You don’t want to get hurt.”
Theo was in complete agreement with this statement, but held his ground nonetheless.
“We’ve got no grudge against you, so long as you’ll not interfere.”
“Are you with us, or not?”
Now they were near enough that he could pick out faces, their features distorted by shadow and flame, but recognizable nevertheless. Perhaps it was nothing more than a trick of the light, but while some of them looked angry and ready to torch the mill at a word from Wilkins, others looked uncomfortable and ill at ease. He decided his best course lay in making his appeal to these.
“I’m with you,” he assured them. “I’m with you so much that I’ve come to urge you not to do anything you’ll regret.”
Wilkins gave a bark of laughter. “Oh, we won’t regret it, although Brundy might. He’s had it coming for years.”
“Has he? What has he ever done to you?” Theo looked beyond Wilkins to address the group at large. “What has he done to any of you?”
It was the wrong thing to say.
“Living like a king—”
“—that big house of his—”
“—standing for Parliament—”
“Aye, while we sweat and slave for him—”
As Theo listened to their catalog of grievances, it struck him that they were reciting lines they’d learned by rote—learned from Wilkins, he had no doubt, at Sir Valerian’s instigation.
“All right, so he’s rich,” he said, conceding the point. “But can any of you honestly say that he’s never ‘sweated and slaved’ himself?” Seeing them momentarily silenced, Theo pressed his point. “Right after the war, when the price of bread was so high and the cost of cotton plummeted, did he reduce your wages by so much as a farthing? Or let any of you go, so he wouldn’t have to pay so many workers? No, he canceled the trip to Paris he was to take with Nell, er, with his family, instead.”
Too late, Theo realized they might wonder how he had come by this information. But no, there was an uncomfortable shuffling of feet, and a moment later one of the men—Theo couldn’t remember his name—tossed his pickaxe to the ground and took up a position beside him.
“Tisdale is right,” he declared.
“Er, you might want to hold onto that,” murmured Theo, nodding toward his abandoned weapon. Aloud, he continued to press his point. “What about you, Jack? When you were so sick and couldn’t work for a week, did he withhold your pay? Or yours, Gerry, when you were obliged to go to Staffordshire and take care of your mum after your father died?”
There was a further shuffling as first Jack and then Gerry took up positions flanking Theo. Two hundred to four, Theo thought. Things are looking up.
“Did you never think,” Theo went on, inspired to new heights of rhetoric, “that, because he knows what it’s like to work in the mill, he might be doing what he can to make sure things are better for all of you? That that’s why he wants to stand for Parliament in the first place?”
“Sir Valerian Wadsworth says he’ll do more for us than Brundy ever did!” declared Wilkins, unwilling to give up without a fight.
“A man you met, what, two months ago?” Theo scoffed. “And what evidence do you have that he’ll do as he says, or even think of you at all, after the election is over? What do any of you really know about him?”
“Sir Valerian is a man of his word!” The reply came, not from Wilkins, but from one of his supporters.
“What? Just because his father was someone important?” challenged the latest in a long line of hereditary dukes. “Surely you know better than that!”
“Why else would he care about helping us, when we can’t even vote?”
“Because if you torch the mill, he can point to your actions and tell those who can vote that Sir Ethan Brundy can’t even keep his own affairs in order, much less the nation’s. He’s using you—all of you—and you’re playing right into his hands.”
It was a tactical error. No man liked to be played for a fool, as he had discovered for himself when he’d realized that La Fantasia’s supposed affection for him had been no more than her conviction that in him she had found a greenhorn who could be manipulated into making her a duchess. Whatever the difference in their respective births, these men had no less pride than Theo himself. In fact, it might be argued that pride was all they had. In such a case, they would surely cling to it all the more tightly.
“All right,” Theo said, raising his hands in mock surrender. “Go ahead and torch the place. But how are you going to feed your families tomorrow morning, or the day after that?”
“This ain’t the only mill in the world!” bellowed a harsh voice.
“I’ve worked a power loom for twenty years,” boasted another. “I could find work tomorrow.”
“Yes, working fifteen-hour days,” agreed Theo, nodding in agreement. “That’s assuming, of course, that any mill owner is willing to take a chance on a man who’d just burned his previous place of employment to the ground.”
“Who’s to know?” retorted Wilkins. “Unless you intend to talk.” He lowered his weapon, but any relief Theo might have felt was negated by the realization that the knife in the man’s hand was now aimed directly at his chest.
“It’s a country village,” Theo pointed out, determinedly ignoring the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Can you—any of you—honestly believe it would remain a secret for long? Do you think no one has noticed that you’ve all slipped away from the party, and if the mill is burned to the ground by morning, no one is going to put two and two together?”
“That’s enough!” bellowed Wilkins. He rushed at Theo, only to be brought up short in mid-stride by the last voice he had ever expected to hear.
“What the devil’s going on ’ere?”
Theo had never heard his brother-in-law speak in that particular tone of voice, and hoped to God never to be on the receiving end of it. Still, at that moment it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.
“Ethan!” Theo let out a sigh of relief. “Thank God!”
Sir Ethan paid him not the slightest heed, but addressed himself to his rebellious workers. “Well?”
There was a moment of rather abashed silence, then everyone seemed to be talking at once.
“Wilkins said—”
“Sir Valerian—”
“—said we deserved—”
“—told us we ought to—”
“Oh, so it’s Sir Valerian, is it?” Sir Ethan remarked knowingly. “That explains a lot.”
And then the demurrals began.
“I never wanted to—”
“—always said he was—”
“—seemed a bit shady to me—”
“—I didn’t mean to—”
Sir Ethan silenced their protestations with one upraised hand. “Men, it’s very late and I’ve been traveling for three days. Let’s all go ’ome and get some sleep, and I’ll ’ear you out in the morning. Let’s say, eight o’clock.”
And just that simply, it was over. With much shuffling of feet and many shamefaced glances, the men took themselves off, lowering their makeshift weapons as if wondering how such things had ever come to be in their hands.
“I’m deuced glad to see you, Ethan,” Theo said as soon as they were alone. “I’m not sure I could have held them off much longer. Truth to tell, I’d decided my letter must have gone amiss.”
“Your letter?” echoed Sir Ethan, regarding his young kinsman with an arrested expression.
“I sent you a letter telling you that Wilkins was bullying the workers and that I was afraid some kind of trouble was in the wind. When you never came, I thought you must not have received it.”
Now it was the mill owner’s turn to look sheepish. “Oh, I received it, all right. I burned it without ever opening it.
I’m sorry; I recognized your ’andwriting, and thought you were begging me to let you leave the mill.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt I would have, if I’d thought it would do the least good,” Theo confessed, grinning. “But I was never one to fling my cap after lost causes.”
“And yet you faced down an angry mob alone and unarmed. That sounds like a lost cause to me.”
“Don’t think it was by choice! It’s just that, well, I had to do something, so—” He broke off, shrugging.
“Still, I stand in your debt, Theo. You saved the mill, and I won’t soon forget it. But if we’re to talk of letters, what of my letter to you? I wrote to tell you probate’s been granted. You’re free to claim your in’eritance anytime you please.”
“Yes, it came three days ago. But by that time, I’d discovered something ugly was in the wind and, well, I couldn’t leave with things in such a state.”
Sir Ethan gave him a long, searching look. “I think per’aps you’ll make a duke, after all.”
Theo suddenly recalled something else his brother-in-law ought to know. “Oh, I should tell you—at the start of the trouble, I sent Daphne—Miss Drinkard, that is—to your house, to the safe room.” He set his jaw. “And you might as well know that I intend to marry her.”
“Yes, your grace,” replied Ethan with a meekness in his manner that was utterly belied by the twinkle in his eye. “And is there anything else you intend to do?”
Theo considered the matter. “I think—I think I should like to take up my seat in the House of Lords. I know it’s expensive—I daresay that’s why Papa never bothered with it—but I think I should like to be a voice for men like Ben and Tom and Davy—men who don’t have a voice of their own. That is, I’d like to try,” he added with unaccustomed shyness, “if you think I can.”
Sir Ethan clapped a hand to his shoulder. “I not only think you can; I think you’ll do very well, Reddington.”
“Reddington,” echoed Theo with a self-conscious little laugh. “You never called me that before.”
“You never acted like it before,” said Sir Ethan, and together they left the mill, dark and peaceful in the moonlight.
FOR DAPHNE, IT WAS the most frightening, most glorious, most bewildering night of her life. To be sure, the butler at the Brundy residence had seemed a bit taken aback by the appearance of a young lady clad in evening attire and requesting to be shown to the safe room, but at the mention of the Duke of Reddington, any misgivings he might have harbored were apparently banished. He ushered her at once to a small windowless chamber comfortably furnished with everything one might need for a protracted stay, but when he expressed his intention of bringing her some light refreshment, she felt compelled to protest.
“Oh, no, pray do not! That is, I should not want to put you to any trouble.”
Evers bestowed an avuncular smile upon her and assured her (quite truthfully, as it was his employers’ larder, and not his own, which would be diminished) that it was no trouble at all.
Daphne was surprised to discover that, her fear for Theo’s safety notwithstanding, she was in fact quite famished; she had eaten very little at the fête, so intent had she been on watching the door for his arrival. And so, when Evers arrived a short time later with the tea tray, she was emboldened to ask him if she might perhaps have some bread and butter.
“Of course, miss, if you have no objection to sharing the servants’ board. I regret that Lady Helen is at present in London, and so cannot receive you.”
But in this, it soon proved, he was mistaken. For Daphne had hardly finished spreading her second slice of coarse brown bread with creamy butter and orange marmalade when the door to the safe room opened and Lady Helen Brundy herself entered the room.
“Good evening, Miss Drinkard,” she said, extending one gloved hand. “I’m sorry you have been left to cool your heels all alone for so long. I should have come to you as soon as Evers informed me that you were here, but my naughty son William, having slept most of the way from Stockport, must needs decide it is now time to play! But tell me, how may I be of service to you?”
Daphne suddenly found herself tongue-tied. Lady Helen Brundy was scarcely more than five years older than she was herself, but she possessed a forcefulness of character and an elegance of person that Daphne found daunting. “I—that is—Mr. Tisdale—I mean—I was told to say that the Duke of Reddington requested that I be allowed to stay in your safe room until further notice.” This, at least, had the virtue of being true, so far as it went. “There was trouble at the mill, you see, and he—he—”
“Yes, we saw the flames from the road,” Lady Helen said. “But—”
“Flames?” Daphne seized upon the word. “They did it, then? They set the mill afire?” In fact, her concern was less for the mill than it was for the gallant Mr. Tisdale, but if the mob had succeeded in torching the mill, it must surely bode very ill for the one man who had tried to stop them.
Lady Helen hastened to reassure her. “No, at least not—but—‘Mr. Tisdale,’ you say?”
“H-he was going to stop them. He—”
She broke off as the door swung open. She had been prepared to make some excuse for being there uninvited (although, in truth, these sounded feeble even to her own mind), but Sir Ethan Brundy appeared utterly unperturbed by her presence. In fact, he acknowledged her with only the briefest of nods before addressing himself to his wife.
“A word with you, ’elen.”
“Of course.” Lady Helen excused herself to Daphne, then followed her husband from the room. He closed the door behind her, leaving Daphne to wait in a silence so complete as to be oppressive; one of the unique features of this room, it appeared, was that it blocked all sound. The return of her host and hostess a few minutes later did little enough to enlighten her. Lady Helen apologized profusely for being what she termed “shockingly rag-mannered,” and after assuring Daphne that the trouble at the mill had proven to be nothing more than a storm in a teacup, expressed her intention of accompanying her husband in escorting Daphne home. “For,” she concluded, “you will not want to muss your pretty gown by walking back across the fields. Tell me, is it new?”
In some bewilderment, Daphne allowed herself to be led from the house and handed up into the carriage by Sir Ethan himself. Alas, her intention of telling Theo of the night’s adventures, and hearing an account of his own doings, suffered a severe check.
For when she returned to the boardinghouse, she was met with the news that Mr. Tisdale had paid his shot, packed his bags, and taken his leave.
18
Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Sonnet 116
IT HAD BEEN THEO’S intention to return to London only long enough to provide himself with a suitable wardrobe and arrange for a barber to cut his hair before returning to make Daphne an offer in form. Alas, he had failed to take into account the effect his sudden disappearance, protracted absence, and unexpected return would have upon his cronies. He was obliged to agree to not one, but several evenings spent at White’s in the company of these sprigs of the nobility, where he stunned his audience by giving an account of his employment at the mill. He attributed this to a wager, as his brother-in-law had suggested, but could not help thinking, even as he did so, how shallow and contemptible it sounded. His friends were so skeptical of this claim that he was obliged to remove his gloves and offer up his hands as proof—although these were, in fact, much improved over the state in which Daphne had found them, his valet having subjected them to a strict regimen of Warren’s Milk of Roses, aloe, and Denmark Lotion.
He had then taken the time to write to his steward, authorizing Alfred to see to the re-thatching of any of his tenants’ cottages whose roofs might stand in need of it before the winter set in, as well as putting in motion any advance preparations necessary for the draining of the south field the following spring. He also asked, as a personal favor (and one which, although he could
not know it, caused the longsuffering steward to shed tears of joy), if Alfred would oblige him by looking in on the men who worked his tin mines and addressing any issues which, in the steward’s opinion, might be considered urgent, until such time as the duke could visit these holdings for himself.
He then went to his bank, where most of the good jewelry had been kept in a safety-deposit box since the death of his mother, for the Reddington betrothal ring. Mr. George Dorrien (the same man who, not so very long ago, had denied Theo’s request for an advance on his inheritance) was on this occasion all eagerness to serve him, even going so far as to retrieve the desired piece with his own hands and to deliver it to his noble client in person, all in the futile hope of gleaning some clue as to the identity of the lady upon whom it was to be bestowed.
The ring, Theo knew, was a band of chased gold set with a single pear-shaped peridot, designed early in the previous century by a romantically-minded duke as a tribute to the leaf-green eyes of his chosen bride, a lady who had then demonstrated her gratitude by bequeathing this striking physical characteristic to several generations of descendants. In fact, this tidbit of family history had been recounted to Theo numerous times over the years, and all the more so after he had reached the age at which he might begin to look about for a bride of his own; what he had not been told was that, having been locked away for almost twenty years, the piece was now sadly in need of cleaning. This being the case, he was obliged to bestow it first upon Mr. John Bridge of the fashionable jewelers Rundell and Bridge, thus delaying his return to Lancashire still further.
What with one thing and another, fully two weeks had passed before Theo knocked once more on the door of the boardinghouse and requested a private audience with Mrs. Drinkard. His former landlady—who, in truth, had not been at all sorry to see him go—received him in her husband’s study with a marked lack of enthusiasm, having suspected (quite correctly) that her daughter’s failure to bring Sir Valerian up to scratch might be laid at his door. Some quarter of an hour later, she emerged from the interview stunned and reeling, and commanded the kitchen boy to go in search of Daphne and tell her the Duke of Reddington was desirous of a word with her. This lad looked up at his mistress, saw her flushed countenance and the bewildered (and bewildering) look in her eyes, and set out at a run.
The Desperate Duke Page 18
