by The Bargain
"There, there, now, lovie." Henry offered her a comforting pat on the shoulder. "P'r'aps ye might take it up wi' Iron Skirts?"
"That one!" Hettie's look left little doubt as to what she thought of his suggestion. Over the years there had been times when the duke's twin had strained the limits of Hettie's patience. "All she's concerned about these days is arranging a date for Lord West—for His Grace's wedding. A wedding, mind you, and her brother just five days buried! It's all she talks about to any of us. And this morning she told Jameson and me she's invited Lady Elizabeth over to stay for a fortnight, 'to make the planning easier,' she says. Of course, that was before His Grace up and decided to take off to London without a moment's notice! Now, I suppose, we'll be hearing how the visit will have to wait until His Grace decides to return."
Henry gave her a gap-toothed grin. "Don't suppose 'at'll sit too well wi' th' Lady 'Liz'beth! She's a nasty temper, 'at un!"
Hettie nodded knowingly. "For the life of me, Henry, I never could figure out what it is that draws Iron Skirts to them Hastingses. Lady Elizabeth's a beauty, all right, and clever enough, but a peevish shrew, and that Lord Hastings is the dullest soul going, even when he's not in his cups—which ain't very often! And the old mum, well, I take pity on her, I do, but a half-wit's a half-wit, and that's the best can be said of her!"
Henry nodded sympathetically. "Odd, though, 'Ettie. Old Loomis told me 'bout 'er afore 'e died. Swore she warn't al'ays 'at way. Said she 'ad a good 'ead on 'er shoulders in th' long ago."
Hettie nodded. "I heard something like that, too, from old Mavis Towler, the midwife in the village before the war. Said it was the birth of them twins that changed her. Of course, Mavis wasn't the one called in to help with the birthing. Said the family called in some 'secret persons' to deliver Lady Caroline and Lord David. It was an odd way of putting it, don't you think? Of course, Mavis could have been jealous."
It was Henry's turn to nod. "Mmm, Mavis was a jealous one, she was. Recall 'ow she went green when th' Lady Mary 'ad me fetch th' doctor th' night Lord—'Is Grace was on 'is way?" Henry lowered his voice when he came to the name Mary, looking guiltily over his shoulder as he did so.
Hettie chuckled. "No more need to be worrying about mentioning her, Henry... unless it's a ghost you were expecting to come up behind you!"
Henry cleared his throat and gave his wife a frown of disapproval. "Well, time I was gettin' back t' th' stables. 'Is Young Grace 'spects as good care of 'is 'orses as 'Is Old Grace did!"
Hettie took his look as fair warning. Rising from her stool, she sighed, saying, "Guess I'll go upstairs and see if the child ate anything on her tray. She never touched her breakfast, or dinner last night, either. See you at supper, lovie."
But it was much sooner than suppertime that Henry saw his wife again. Less than ten minutes later he beheld Hettie hastening down the path to the stable yard, out of breath and looking distraught.
"Henry! Henry!" she cried. "She's gone! Escaped out the side window by tying some sheets together!"
"Who?" came her husband's bemused reply.
"Who? Why, who but just one that was here would have had the need to do any escaping?" Hettie answered with some vexation. "The little miss, of course!"
* * * * *
Brett gave his stallion a pat on the neck before handing the reins over to the one stable boy he trusted with his prized personal mount when in London. "See that he gets a good rub-down and a double ration of oats tonight, Tim. I'm afraid I pushed him a bit to get here at this hour."
Tim took the black horse's reins with the same look of reverence he always had when given the honor of caring for the Westmont bloods.
"I'll treat 'im like th' prince 'e is, your lordship. Raven's me fav'rit, 'e is!"
Hearing the boy refer to him as "your lordship," Brett resisted the urge to correct his form of address as a means of informing him of the duke's death. Higgins was probably in the kitchen right now, telling the small staff he maintained here on King Street that the duke had passed on. The lad would learn the facts soon enough through the servants' grapevine.
Brett sighed wearily with this thought as he turned and headed for the house. Responding to mournful inquiries and condolences was the last thing he wanted to do right now, yet there was little chance of avoiding them when he entered the fashionable town house that now belonged to him. During the past week, he'd dutifully participated in all the trappings and rites of mourning society demanded, and he was tired to the bone with it. Now, all he wanted was to be alone with his grief. Indeed, it was the very reason he had left Ravensford Hall so soon after the funeral and interment. Here, he hoped, his real mourning might begin.
Still, it was with good grace and all the instincts of fine breeding bequeathed him by the grandfather he sorely missed, that he patiently endured the softly spoken sympathies of Bradshaw, the butler, and Mrs. Martin, the housekeeper, before climbing the stairs to his chamber a short while later. Murmuring a dismissive thanks to the footman who had lighted his way, he saw the door shut before sinking tiredly into a huge wing chair next to the fireplace. Then, stretching his long legs out toward the newly built fire crackling in the grate, he ran his hands absently through his hair and allowed his thoughts free rein.
He was gone... the one human being on earth he'd cared for... and who'd cared about him... now a part of the dust all would inherit some day. He shut his eyes, trying to make the notion of this absence feel real, for it was a problem that he'd been wrestling with since he'd gotten the news. Somehow, although his head and body had functioned with the rational behavior of one who has learned of the death of a loved one, he'd been keenly aware that his heart had yet to deal with the loss. For years his grandfather had been a persistent and monumental presence in his life; had, indeed, shaped it into the thing it was today... and now he was gone. Yet why couldn't he feel anything beyond this dull weariness?
Death was something he'd dealt with before. Slowly, his mind turned back to the time when he was ten and he'd heard the news of his father's passing. He remembered the sharp stab of pain he'd felt then, but also the almost simultaneous and insistent need to subdue it. Yes, he thought, nodding at the memory. It had been necessary—important somehow—that he will away his grief and remain strong in the face of those around him. Part of this had to do with not succumbing to any sort of emotional weakness—"womanish behavior," the duke would have called it—but another part came as a result of forces he little understood at the time and, in fact, still failed to comprehend. There had been sinister undercurrents surrounding the time of his father's death, undercurrents he'd felt with the sharply honed instincts of the child he was, a child allowed to see much, yet express little.... Such was the order of things in his grandfather's house.
Did he want to pull out all those long-buried questions now and hold them up to the light of day, examining the crosscurrents that, as a child, he'd not dared to pursue? Or was he merely being maudlin, the victim of ghosts and phantoms of fancy, perhaps as a means of getting in better touch with the emotions that now threatened to elude him? If he forced himself to go back in time and release the pent-up grief over his other losses, would this allow him to open this latest dam that seemed to have been erected in his heart? Did he dare exhume what he, perhaps with a child's unusual wisdom, had buried?
Suddenly an image of an even earlier time in his childhood came to mind. In it he stood in the shadows at the end of the hallway that led to his parents' bedchamber and watched as two footmen came through the door carrying a portrait in a heavy, gilded frame. It was a portrait of a woman with chestnut hair and soft eyes... of her.... He saw himself standing there, unnoticed, as a pair of silent, bewildered tears coursed down his cheeks.... Damn!
With a jerk, Brett raised his head and gave it a shake of impatience. What in hell was the matter with him? He'd never, in recent memory anyway, allowed himself any groping in such sentimental sludge! It was time he took hold of himself. Rising, he was about to reach for the
decanter of fine French brandy he kept on hand—fine smuggled French brandy, he thought with a wry smile—when there came an urgent knocking at his door.
"Yes?"
"Begging yer pardon fer th' late hour, Yer Grace," came the reply, "but I must 'ave a word wi' ye!" The voice was old Henry's. What was he doing here?
"Come in then, man," Brett answered as he poured the brandy.
The door opened, revealing the disheveled figure of his head groom. He looked half dead on his feet, and Brett lowered the snifter he'd raised to his mouth. "Good grief, man, what is it?"
Gasping, Henry stumbled into the room. "I... be—be sorry t' be troublin' ye, Yer Grace, but th' news—I—th' wee miss— she's run away!"
"The wee—?"
"Th' wee Miss Ashleigh, Yer Grace, she's escaped!"
Brett held the old man's eyes for one glaring moment, then downed the contents of his snifter before setting it on a nearby table.
"When?" he asked.
"Not an hour after ye left, Yer Grace. Me missus—ah, Mrs. Busby and me—we thought ye'd want t' know and—"
"Yes, of course," Brett replied, not sure he wanted to know at all. He'd all but forgotten the girl in the whirl of events surrounding his grandfather's death, and now he wondered why he hadn't released her as she'd wished. It would have been simple enough. With his grandfather dead, there was no longer anyone to appease by making use of her. Yet, for some reason, when the question had come from Higgins—instigated, he supposed by Hettie—as to what was to be done with the girl, he'd given orders to detain her at Ravensford Hall.
Why had he done that? And, more to the point now that he'd learned she'd escaped, why was he troubled by it? Surely she meant less than nothing to him. And yet, as this thought crossed his mind, he was seized immediately by an inexplicable desire to find her and bring her back.
Briefly his thoughts flickered to the morose sentiments that had been gripping him just before Henry's appearance. No, he clearly wasn't ready to indulge in that again. Perhaps what he really needed was a diversion. A lovely little raven-haired diversion with deep blue eyes as big as saucers and a body that— "Henry, can you tell me any more particulars about Miss Sinclair's—ah—escape?"
"Aye, Yer Grace. She stole th' black filly ye brought over from Ireland last year."
"Irish Night?"
"Aye," said Henry with a tired grin. "Either she's crazy as a lune 'r she knows a 'ell of a lot about 'orseflesh!"
"But that filly's not completely broken to saddle!"
Henry's grin grew wider. "She didn't steal a saddle, Yer Grace."
Brett groaned. "Are you telling me she took off on a half-green horse, riding bareback?"
"Aye, Yer Grace, an' th' missus be worried sick fer th' wee mite—ah—th' young miss, I mean."
Suddenly Brett's considerations took a new turn. Until now, he'd only concerned himself with the return of a plaything—a term he had no trouble ascribing to the girl. But now, quite unexpectedly, he began to imagine additional problems, problems that had to do with the chit's safety. It was one thing to think abstractly of her running away from him; it was quite another to imagine her lying bloody and broken in a ditch somewhere as a result of being thrown from a half-wild horse she'd been stupid enough to steal and chance riding!
Immediately Brett was propelled into action. "Henry," he said, "do me one small service before you go to take a well-deserved rest."
"Aye, Yer Grace?"
"Send Higgins to me, if you will, and tell him to hurry!"
As Henry left to do his bidding, Brett laid out his course of action. From what he'd been able to piece together, Ashleigh had been found in a first-class brothel here in London. That piece of information would narrow down his search somewhat, but not completely. Although he was reasonably sure she would have headed back to where she'd come from, its location could be one of perhaps four or five in the city. If he was to find her, he had to learn more. That is, he added darkly, if she'd made it back at all.
Less than an hour later Brett was in possession of a hastily written note from Robert Adams, whom Higgins had caught at his apartments on St. James's. Noting that the solicitor's directions to Hampton House required but a short drive, he ordered his barouche brought around and took the reins himself.
* * * * *
Ashleigh summoned what felt like the last remaining strength in her body and slid wearily off the lathered back of the filly. Then she managed a rueful grin while delivering a pat to the game little horse's withers.
"I'm sorry I pushed you so hard, sweetheart. But I didn't do it to pay you back for those two times you threw me, honestly, I didn't."
She began walking the final hundred yards along St. James's toward Hampton House, using this distance both to cool the filly down and to collect her thoughts before she arrived. It had been a gruelling, yet satisfying, day. First, she'd succeeded in escaping from Ravensford Hall without being detected—no small feat. From the moment she'd lowered herself to the ground via some knotted bedsheets, it had felt as if there were obstacles everywhere, from the gardeners pruning hedges near the house, to the footmen and grooms lurking near the paddock where she'd spied the lovely little black filly she'd borrowed.
Of course, the filly had been pure luck. Never would she have dreamed of stumbling upon such an animal, one that had clearly been bred for stamina and speed. It had shown in every sleek, muscular line of her. Again a rueful grin worked its way across Ashleigh's tired features. Of course, while her early childhood acquaintance with horses had stood her in good stead for gauging the potential the black horse had for making a speedy escape, it had fallen somewhat short in preparing her to assess the extent of the filly's training.
"Leave it to me to pick a half-green youngster!" she said aloud. At the sound, the little horse's ears pricked forward and Ashleigh chuckled. "But we're fast friends now, aren't we, sweetheart?" She smiled to herself as she recalled the two spills she'd suffered at the outset of their ride. The first had been entirely her own fault, for she'd failed to take proper stock of her mount before settling down for some serious riding. "Always get to know your animal before asking anything significant of it," Patrick had often told her, but she'd been far too involved in fleeing to remember that basic equestrian rule. Then, to make matters worse, after she'd climbed right back on the filly with an I've-got-to-show-you-who's-in-charge attitude, she'd ridden the horse about a mile farther before trying to take a low hedge—again, without thinking! The animal had balked at the last instant and sent Ashleigh careening over the hedge sans mount!
"It was just lucky for me there was nice, soft, boggy ground where I landed," she said as her free hand reached back to rub the spot on her posterior that had suffered the most from the fall.
Suddenly Ashleigh's thoughts took a darker turn as she considered the word lucky. Hardly! Here she was, returning to an uncertain future in the only place she could call home, jobless, ravished and bedraggled. What would she tell them when she got inside? That she had come upon a demonic madman who had used her brutally without cause? That someone had made a horrible mistake that had cost her her virginity and a great deal of additional misery? That she'd been hired by a duke who was now dead and the one who had taken his place sought to make her do a different kind of service?
As her thoughts spun along these lines, she wondered if it wasn't she who had gone mad. She knew little of men and their ways. Had she, unwittingly, done something to provoke the outrageous behavior of Brett Westmont—now the ninth duke of Ravensford? Suddenly she wasn't sure any longer of what to think about all that had happened, or how to deal with it— much less explain it to those who lived here at Hampton House. With great effort she choked back the sob that threatened to break and raised her chin a resolute notch, thinking Megan would approve of her courage, if not her experiences.... Megan... Yes, she was the one to seek out. Megan would know what to do, tell her what to make of all that had happened. Taking a deep breath, Ashleigh clucked to the little fi
lly and quickened her pace.
They were a dozen yards from their destination now, and Ashleigh guided the horse into the shadows of a nearby building as she saw a large, handsome carriage pull to a stop before Madame's establishment. Placing her hand over the filly's velvet nose to forestall any nickered greetings to the team of horses ahead of them, she waited while a pair of elegantly attired bucks descended from the carriage and were greeted by a liveried footman who quickly led them within. She held her breath as the carriage then proceeded to pass within a few feet of her and the filly before continuing down St. James's and out of sight.
Eyeing the brightly lit windows of Hampton House, she decided, without wasting another moment, to make for the narrow side drive that led to the stables. It was Wednesday evening, and she'd hoped to arrive here undetected, owing to the fact that since it was Almack's night, traffic would be slow—most of Madame's patrons being among the hallowed few who were favored with access to that lofty establishment—but it appeared not to be the case. Judging from the number of lighted chambers, business tonight appeared brisk, and as if to confirm this, another expensive-looking carriage drew to a halt before the house just as Ashleigh succeeded in disappearing from view down the drive.
The stables were immersed in shadows, and there appeared to be no one about, yet Ashleigh gritted her teeth at the resounding clip-clop the filly's hooves made on the cobblestones; to her ears it sounded like booming thunder, and she imagined the whole house coming out to investigate the source.
Then, suddenly, she heard a yelp and saw a flash of gray, and she was besieged by Finn's wet and eager tongue as it covered every inch of her face in happy welcome.
"Finn! Oh, Finn, it's you! Oh, I've missed you so!" All at once the joy she felt at seeing her beloved canine gave way to a wellspring of emotion, and the floodgates broke. Great sobs racked Ashleigh's small frame as she threw her arms around the shaggy neck and wept. How long she remained thus, she didn't know, but it seemed as if every drop of emotion had been wrung from her body when, an uncertain time later, she felt comforting arms surround her and looked up to see a familiar face.
