The Dangerous Duke of Dinnisfree

by Julie Johnstone

  “After Davenport has captured the man, I’ll wait for Jude to show his face, and then I’ll apprehend him. From there,” he said grimly, “one way or another the man will tell me everything he knows.”

  She nodded. “What will you do with Jude after you capture him?”

  That was an excellent question. If he was not truly Canning’s son, he would ensure Jude took a long, one-way trip to a remote country with no hope of ever returning. It was a different, more delicate matter if Canning was indeed his father, as Arabella thought, and even more delicate if Canning was involved in a plot to obtain the king’s letters. Those damnable letters! He had to find those blasted things.

  Putting Arabella first was blatantly compromising his mission, but he could not make himself turn away as he should. Still, it did not mean the mission did not have to be completed. He turned Arabella to face him. “You need to go first. If someone is shadowing you, they’ll likely follow. Davenport and I will depart out the back, but don’t worry. I will be behind you protecting you. You just won’t see me.”

  “Of course you will,” she said matter-of-factly. “I have no doubt.”

  His chest squeezed with her words. In the three short days since meeting Arabella, he’d done the two things he’d always sworn he’d never do: compromise his mission and give his heart to a woman. He allowed the truth to sink in and then shoved it out of the way when it did. He’d deal with the ramifications later and assess how to handle the situation. Right now, he needed the necessary cold calculation to rise up and consume him. He kissed her on the mouth and watched as she opened the door and stepped out into the twilight.

  “Let’s go,” he said without turning to Davenport. Justin took off toward the back of the townhome, slipped out the gate, and then rounded to the opposite side of the street. He darted into the shadows, aware that Davenport was behind him from the man’s heat and nothing else. His friend was still very good at being quiet. Justin’s breath didn’t release until they were on the sidewalk and he spotted Arabella ahead.

  “Any motion?” he asked in very low tones as he scanned the perimeter.

  “Nothing. Whoever is trailing her is very good or not trailing her because she is lying to you.”

  If Justin had a moment to spare, he would have stopped and punched Davenport in the face, but he could not take his attention from Arabella. Instead, he clenched his fists. “She’s not. She’s innocent.” And before Davenport could argue, Justin told him everything Arabella had revealed as quickly as he could.

  “That’s an excellent story,” Davenport responded in a whisper when Justin fell silent, “but now you must listen to me. Let me tell you what I have discovered.”

  Justin nodded as he walked and watched. There was no point arguing. Davenport would not be quiet until he’d said what he wanted.

  “I followed Canning as we agreed and he went to the Garden District to see the man you said is threatening Miss Carthright. I overheard a woman, a fiery redhead—”

  “I believe you are talking about Miss Mary Morgan.”

  Davenport nodded. “Miss Morgan knocked on the door after Canning went in, and demanded in a loud voice that Jude let her in. He told her no in very clear terms. She started screaming that Jude was in cahoots with Miss Carthright and that he had forgotten about her.”

  “No,” Justin denied, though a spurt of anger surged through him. “Miss Morgan is mistaken.”

  “You cannot be sure,” Davenport growled.

  Justin paused for the space of one inhalation. “I can be,” he replied, refusing to say more. He would not discuss the fact that he’d bedded Arabella and she had most definitely been an innocent. He picked up his pace once again.

  “You bedded her,” Davenport said in a voice of utter astonishment.

  Justin refused to acknowledge his friend’s words.

  “Jesus Christ, Dinnisfree. What happened to never getting involved with people who can blur your mind? Compromise the mission? People you don’t know.”

  “I know her,” he ground out.

  “I don’t think you do. I think she may be the cleverest opponent you’ve ever come up against and you don’t even realize it.”

  Justin clenched his jaw, then counted to ten in French, Japanese, and Italian. Still, he wanted to pummel Davenport in the face. “Just spit out what it is you have learned. The facts only.”

  “All right,” Davenport growled on a huff. “Miss Mary Morgan, the irate redheaded demirep, was quite chatty in her anger. I pretended to be an interested client who knew the man she is in love with, J.I. Devine, also known as Jude, also known as Phineas Darlington to those who truly know him, according to her.”

  As they turned the corner and Arabella’s house came into sight, Justin frowned. Darlington? Why did that name ring a bell?

  “Because you do know it,” Davenport drawled, answering the question Justin had not uttered aloud. The man had always had that uncanny ability.

  “How do I know it?” Justin asked, crouching behind a tree. He brushed a branch out of his face and inhaled the smell of dirt and pine.

  Davenport kneeled beside him. “You know it because I mentioned the name to you a few years ago. I recall the conversation because it was the only time I’ve ever withheld information from you.”

  Justin snapped his gaze to Davenport. “Remind me.”

  “We had just finished a mission, and when I told you I was going on another one, you assumed it was for the king, but it wasn’t. I never corrected you because I’d promised to tell no one. When I returned, you asked me if I had found my quarry, and I told you I had located the hidden Phineas Darlington. I don’t know why I mentioned his name. Guilt, I suppose. You made a remark that it was an odd name and the subject was dropped.”

  “You’ve now broken your promise,” Justin snapped, angry that the one person he’d thought had always been truthful with him had not.

  “I suppose so. Let me finish.”

  Justin nodded.

  “The queen, having no one to turn to, approached me after she and I had an innocent conversation at a ball one night and I’d expressed sympathies about her plight with the king.”

  Justin stared into the black night. “You did what? Before you’d ever retired from service?”

  “Prinny had made me very angry, and I’d imbibed too much that night. Very foolish, but it has turned out to be the best mistake I ever made.”

  Justin scowled. “I’ll judge for myself, thanks.”

  “As would I, Dinnisfree. The queen came to see me a few days later and asked me to help her. She wanted to find out the location of two children, a boy and a girl, twins born at the same time but who did not look alike. She said it was for one of her ladies-in-waiting who’d had the children out of wedlock, given them up without knowing where they had been placed, and was now racked with horrible guilt and wanted to know simply if the children were faring well. I suspected by the guilt swimming in the queen’s eyes and lacing her tone that the children were hers. And when I started digging, the trail led me to Canning. He had been the one to take the children from Paris, where they were born, and bring them back here. One child was raised by a madam in a brothel house. I’m sure you can guess which one.”

  Justin’s boot snapped a twig under his foot as his mind snapped the facts into place. He didn’t want to speak the words. Everything Davenport said was leading to something terrible. He knew it in his gut. “Madame Sullyard.”

  “Yes. The other child, the girl, I could never locate. What I learned back then was that Canning had given the girl and boy to Madame Sullyard, and he’d instructed her to only keep the boy. She was to find a new home for the girl. One he didn’t ever want to know.” Davenport cursed under his breath. “I never imagined—”

  “Finish,” Justin said woodenly.

  “My theory is that Canning didn’t want the children or anyone else to ever find out that the twins were born to the queen. I think he thought to protect the queen from her own guilt, as
well as what that blame might one day cause her to do, such as seek out her children.”

  “What happened to the girl babe?” Justin asked, knowing damn well if Davenport did not now know, they’d not be having this conversation.

  Davenport gripped Justin by the arm. “I swear, had I known before—”

  Justin jerked his arm away. “Just continue.”

  “Madame Sullyard told me years earlier that she gave the baby to a man who was traveling through and said he could sell the child for a great amount of money that he’d split with her. I stupidly accepted it as fact because it seemed something the woman would do. I even told Canning that is what happened. But yesterday, as Miss Morgan was screaming about Jude, J.I., Darlington, whoever, not loving her anymore, she said something that made me realize my mistake. She said he was sick in the head and sinful because he loved a woman who looked like his sister. She didn’t know, of course, of his twin who had died.”

  It was as if Davenport’s words physically knocked over a domino in Justin’s head. Suspicions tilted one by one onto one another until a pile of doubts formed a crystallized question. “You said you discovered hours ago exactly what happened to the baby girl?”

  “Yes. Let’s say I persuaded Madame Sullyard with an exorbitant amount of money to try to recall the name of the man to whom she gave the babe so long ago. It seems she, in fact, gave the child to a woman, not a man. A seamstress she had grown to know, who at first had sewn gowns for an Italian actress who lived across from Madame Sullyard, had offered to sew gowns for Madame Sullyard when no other seamstress would. The woman had one child, a boy, but could have no more. The woman’s name is—”

  Justin squeezed his eyes shut. “Mrs. Carthright.”

  “That’s right,” Davenport confirmed. “Her full name is Mrs. Ophelia Carthright, and her daughter is Arabella. The only other person Madame Sullyard has ever told was Darlington, who she complained has renounced her. As far as I can tell, Madame Sullyard has no clue that she raised one of the queen’s bastards and gave the other away.”

  “Jude, J.I., Phineas.” Justin forced his eyes open and dug his hands deep into the dirt on either side of him. He needed to grip onto the earth because he felt he was floating in a nightmare. “Do you think she knows who she is?” he asked without looking at Davenport.

  “I think there is a great chance she does. On the one hand, she could be an accomplice to get those letters to protect the queen and everything she’s told you is a lie or a partial truth. On the other hand, she could be clueless and being used by Canning and his son, as she claims.”

  “We shall see,” Justin replied, slapping down every feeling save the calm that tried to emerge.

  He settled his gaze back on the house. Was Arabella a liar or an innocent? His head told him liar, but his heart said innocent. He wanted to smack his skull against a tree to quiet the roar of doubt. His control slipped, and raw emotion flooded him. He felt like a crazed person. This…this feeling of being ripped apart from the inside out was exactly what he’d experienced when his mother had left. How had he gotten here again? How the hell did he return to the numbness he’d dwelled in for so long?

  “Dinnisfree,” Davenport hissed. “We have movement on the left and the right. I’m going left.”

  Justin nodded and took off toward the right.

  Arabella sat in the chair beside her father and stared out the window into the dark night, watching for any sign of movement. The house was silent except for Alice’s rattling snore. Arabella had not had the heart to wake her father’s caretaker and tell her she could go home. Even in sleep, Alice’s exhaustion had been obvious. There were dark smudges under her eyes, and the woman had not so much as twitched when Arabella had come into the room. So she’d covered her with a blanket and left her in the chair where she slumbered. It was likely best she was here. If Arabella had to go anywhere with Justin, she would be free to do so without worrying about her father.

  “Arabella.”

  Arabella jerked toward her father and smiled in relief. “Papa!” she cried out and leaned over to give him a hug. “Oh, Papa! Nothing has ever sounded so good as to hear my name on your lips once again.”

  He chuckled and patted her on the head as he used to do when she was a child. “Bella.”

  The moniker was thick and halting, but she’d take it. The physician had said his speech would improve with practice, and Arabella intended to make him practice a great deal once he felt a bit better.

  She sat up and grasped her father’s hands, tremendously glad he was finally completely alert. She needed to speak to him. She needed her father’s council more than ever. Ever since she was a child, whenever she’d had a problem, she would seek out her father’s advice. Daniel had been her mother’s favorite. It had been no secret, and Arabella understood why. Daniel was her true son, and though her mother had told her many times and in many ways how glad she was that Arabella had been given to them, it was Daniel her mother had always had a special smile for.

  Arabella shook the useless thoughts away and squeezed her father’s hands. “Let me get you some water and broth. I’m sure you must be famished.”

  He nodded, even as his brow creased. “N-n-need to t-tell you something.”

  “Yes, yes,” she said, standing and moving toward the water pitcher. “First things first, though. I need to tell you some things, as well.”

  “Bella,” her father rasped behind her.

  She whirled around with a full glass of water and scowled at him. “Papa. Your voice sounds like sandpaper on wood. Let me give you some cooling water and healing broth, and then we shall talk.”

  He shook his head. “N-n-no.” His face was mottled red, and he slapped the covers with his palm. Arabella flinched. Her father never showed anger.

  She rushed toward him and sat on the bed beside him. “What’s wrong?”

  “L-leeshan—” He growled when he could not get the word out correctly.

  Arabella bit her lip. “Would you like some paper?” Ordinarily she would have made him talk to practice, but he seemed so distraught and impatient.

  He nodded, and she quickly retrieved some parchment and a quill pen and handed it to him, along with a book to lean on to make the writing easier.

  He hunched over the paper and scribbled furiously.

  Get my blue coat out of the wardrobe and bring it to me.

  She started to ask why, but he waved an impatient hand at her, so she rose, went to the wardrobe, and retrieved the coat he’d worn the night he’d had his brain attack. Whyever he wanted the coat at this moment, she couldn’t imagine. “Here you are,” she said, handing it to him.

  He fairly snatched it out of her hands, fumbled around in an inside pocket, and pulled out what appeared to be a bundle of— Arabella’s breath caught in her chest. Dear God, those were letters. Or they certainly appeared to be. It could not, could not be mere coincidence. “Papa?”

  He glanced up at her, and his eyes widened. Her shock must have been written on her face. He clutched the letters to him as he scribbled.

  You’re a pawn. Dangerous political game. I need to protect you and your mother.

  He knew something. Her mind could not form more than that thought. As he continued to scribble, she read:

  Brougham came to see me the day you were at Lady Conyngham’s. He had spies in the lady’s house, the butler. He was supposed to secure the lady’s box, but you stole it before he could. Why?

  “Oh, Papa!” Tears filled her eyes. “I was desperate. She refused to purchase any of the gowns I had made her, and she promised to have me dismissed from Madame Chauvin’s. We needed money.”

  He sighed wearily and started writing again.

  Thought that might be why. Assumed you stole it thinking you could sell the box, not knowing what it contained.

  “How are you involved in this?”

  I threatened to shoot him if he stayed and tried to get the box from you. Didn’t want you to know. Didn’t want you i
nvolved. He vowed to have your mother taken to Bedlam where he would ensure she was never released unless I retrieved the letters immediately and brought them to him. He has the power to do it, too. Claimed he wanted only to help the queen, but I know him. He is a liar. I took the letters to Howick to reveal to him what Brougham was trying to do, but Brougham was already at Howick’s when I arrived the night of the card game. Demanded the letters. I lied and told him I had not brought them, and he became enraged. I had the attack when we started to argue.

  He thrust the letters at her. “Take theeeese,” he ground out.

  Her pulse thumped in dread as she clutched the letters. “What would you have me do with them?”

  “Go to Howick. Protect your m-m-mother. And help the queen.”

  A hard knot formed in the pit of her stomach. If she did as he asked, she’d be betraying Justin. Yet if she gave the letters to Justin, did he have the power to stop Brougham from locking her mother in Bedlam forever? He did own the home now, but did that mean he could stop Brougham from taking her mother? He was the king’s man. To help her would be to betray his vow. She brought her fist to her mouth to stifle her cry.

  “B-Bella?” her father choked out.

  “Papa. Oh, Papa. I’ve something I must tell you!” And there wasn’t much time to do so. She quickly explained about Justin, who he was, what he had done for Mother, Daniel, and her father by sending his physician. “If I take these letters to Howick, I will betray Justin, but if I don’t…”

  Her father gripped her hand. “Trust inshtincts.”

  The word was slurred, but she understood what he’d said. Trust her instincts.

  She nodded and stood. “I’ll be back, Papa. Justin is outside, and I know he won’t let us down.”

  Justin raced back toward Arabella’s street, cursing as he ran. To have allowed himself to be drawn away from her home was an amateur mistake. For a moment, he reconsidered not having pummeled the young lad he’d finally caught up to, who’d been paid by a stranger to creep around Arabella’s house. He redirected his anger toward images of throttling Arabella’s twin brother, Darlington. He had no doubt the man was the stranger who’d paid the boy. He fought the fear that was gnawing at him, causing him physical pain. Did Arabella truly have something to do with all this? As he ran, he searched the darkness for Davenport but saw no sign of him.