Duke of Storm

by Gaelen Foley

  “Well, you were.”

  “Forgive my lack of manners in the midst of somebody trying to kill me!”

  “Is that an order?” she inquired.

  Bloody hell. His heart pounded, because it seemed the more he tried to make this better on his own terms, the worse it all became. God, he wanted this to be over. He strove for logic and clarity, wishing that for just one moment, she would look at this like a man.

  “Don’t you think you’re being a little unreasonable?” he asked.

  “Unreasonable? I only followed to help you, and you nearly bit my head off!”

  “After you disobeyed a direct order from me, you mean? When you left cover and safety and followed me into the darkness, and could’ve got yourself killed?”

  “I couldn’t help it!” she all but yelled, her gray eyes blazing. “I was worried about you!”

  “And I appreciate that,” he said in frustration. “But as you saw for yourself, I don’t need some sheltered young lady to protect me, for God’s sake.”

  She turned her head, looking stung, then regarded him from the corner of her eye. Instead of looking soothed, she only looked more annoyed. “I thought you came over here to make up with me, not insult me.”

  “It’s not an insult; it’s true! You are sheltered. I like that you’re sheltered.” It reminds me of everything I’m fighting for.

  “Well, stop browbeating me.”

  He checked his temper. “I’m not. We’re just…having a conversation.”

  “It seems like browbeating.”

  “Maybe you’re just too sensitive,” he muttered, and immediately regretted it, for Maggie narrowed her eyes at him.

  “Maybe you are just a barbarian,” she replied, enunciating every word clearly. “If Your Grace will excuse me.” With that, she pushed away from the tree and headed for the carriage.

  Connor turned. “Maggie, you cannot just run away from me. We need to settle this. I don’t want to fight with you, especially not with so much at stake. It’s a distraction!”

  “Fine. I’m listening.” She stopped, pivoted, and lifted her chin with a grand air. “Apologize for being a barbarian, and then perhaps I’ll forgive you.”

  “I’m sorry!” he said much too hotly, throwing his hands up.

  She just looked at him, arching a brow.

  Connor cleared his throat and shrugged nonchalantly, trying to play it off, but even he knew that, as apologies went, that was a disaster.

  Lack of practice, no doubt.

  But, cheeks flushing with embarrassment and half the inn yard looking on, he tried to brazen it out. “There. I said it. Happy now?”

  She shook her head at him, then turned around and walked away.

  He dropped his chin to his chest, praying for patience.

  “Do you at least like the ring?” he asked, casting about for any source of encouragement.

  “More than I like you right now,” she drawled, not bothering to look back, merely giving him an idle wave.

  Connor’s eyes widened at her saucy retort. When in the world did she turn so cheeky? He stared at her retreating figure, lovely and slim in that striking blue gown, then shook his head, mystified.

  “Glad I did at least one thing right,” he called after her indignantly.

  “Must’ve been your Irish luck.”

  Connor gasped, then laughed with shock at her sarcastic reply.

  Then he could not decide if he was outraged or amused. What on earth has happened to my sweet, mild-mannered, little Maggie?

  This new version of the girl practically swaggered back toward the carriage.

  He noted Aunt Florence bustling over to her, but he paid the old woman no mind, for only one thing was certain.

  Lady Margaret Winthrop had never acted so cheeky till she’d fallen in with him.

  I am a bad influence on that girl, he thought, not for the first time. And, in spite of his defeat just now, Connor walked away smiling.

  * * *

  “Lady Walstead, you look distressed,” Maggie said. Putting that maddening Irishman out of her mind, she took hold of the old lady’s forearm and drew her gently out of the way as another stagecoach came thundering into the inn yard, loaded with passengers, its six horses’ hooves clattering.

  The little baroness glanced over her shoulder, startled by its arrival, then chuckled at her own state of distraction for having missed it bearing down on her. “Thank you, dear. And please, call me Aunt Florence. We will soon be family, after all.”

  “Aunt Florence,” Maggie echoed, and smiled, glad of the sweet old lady’s unassuming company after Connor’s latest outburst, but then she noticed her worried expression. “Is something wrong?”

  Florence glanced around uncertainly, her brow puckered. “Well, it’s just, I wondered if I-I might ask a favor of you.”

  “Of course. Anything. What is it?” Maggie guided Florence safely into the shade of a budding pear tree planted next to the cobblestone courtyard.

  “There is something I need to tell my nephew, but I-I don’t think he wants to be bothered right now, what with all the hubbub and him being responsible for leading our journey today.”

  “Nonsense. Shall I fetch him for you?”

  “Oh, no, please. Do not bother him, dear.” Wringing her bony hands, Florence glanced around nervously. “He’s so very large. And I fear what I have to tell him might make him angry, a little. I confess, I find him a little…intimidating sometimes. Especially when he’s cross.”

  Understanding dawned.

  “You want me to give him the message for you?” Maggie asked gently.

  “Oh, would you, dear?” Florence said. “I should be ever so grateful, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble at all,” Maggie assured her, giving Florence’s spindly arm a soothing caress. “As you said, we are soon to be family. What would you like me to tell him?”

  “Oh, I knew I could count on you.” Florence beamed. “But, of course, you’re not afraid of him. You’re not afraid of anyone, are you?”

  “I don’t know about that,” Maggie said in surprise.

  Florence leaned closer, lowering her voice. “You were magnificent last night, standing up to Lucinda that way.” She lifted her gloved fingers over her lips, stifling a giggle. “I’ve never seen anything like it!”

  “Oh, I was very rude—”

  “She was rude. Just like always. You had every right to dish it back to her. No one ever dares, because of her rank. But for my part,” Florence said with a guilty glance around, as though the dragon lady might be listening, “I was cheering for you, o-on the inside.”

  Maggie lifted her eyebrows. “You were?”

  “Oh, you have no idea how I’ve been wanting to do that for years myself!”

  “I’ll bet,” Maggie said, holding her gaze in twinkling amusement. “To be honest, it felt rather good. Perhaps you should try it sometime.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t. It’s easier—for me, at least—just to put up with her nonsense. But you, why, you have such courage. Which is why I thought perhaps my nephew might, er, better receive my information if it came from you.”

  Maggie nodded. “I am at your disposal.”

  “Thank you, my dear.” Once again, Florence glanced around, looking as nervous as the little birds that alighted in the tree above them, hopped from branch to branch, then flitted off again. “Well, to begin, it’s a wee bit embarrassing. I know it was wrong of me, but, last night, while my nephew questioned Lucinda”—she hesitated—“I eavesdropped.”

  Maggie swallowed a laugh. “You did?”

  Florence closed her eyes and nodded. “It is a dreadful habit of mine, I do not deny it. But…living with Lucinda, sometimes, well, as the Poor Relation in a family, no one ever tells me what is going on. My life must seem rather empty, to do such a thing. But I was afraid! A gunshot, right in our garden! I may be nosy, but I am no fool. I realized our very lives might be at stake. So I felt compelled.”
>
  “Understandably so. It’s all right. And, believe me, I can sympathize more than you know.” Maggie patted Florence’s forearm. “What did you hear, then?”

  Florence gave her a grateful look. “Has His Grace told you anything about Lucinda? Her past?”

  “He did, just this morning.”

  Aunt Florence wrinkled her nose. “So, you know, then. What she used to be.”

  “I do. It was Amberley’s way of explaining to me why we had to flee.”

  “It’s so good he tells you things, dear. So many men don’t.” Florence scanned Maggie’s face. “How much did he say?”

  “Well, he told me he’d just found out that for many years now, the poor duchess has been the victim of a blackmailer connected to her past.”

  “Yes,” Florence said, wide-eyed. “It’s about time someone other than me knew about it.”

  Maggie was startled. “So, you were aware of this, then?”

  “Oh yes.” Florence glanced around again. “I kept my mouth shut, of course. I’m very discreet. Far be it from me to criticize her. It’s not my place, I’m sure, and if there was someone Lucinda had to pay, what business was that of mine?” She shrugged her frail shoulders. “Charles was never stinting with his money toward her. Indeed, he always bought her everything she wanted.”

  “Did he?”

  “He liked flaunting her in Society’s face. His parents were very strict with him when he was a boy, you see, and he went through…a rebellious time in his youth. His choice of Lucinda, I daresay, was a product of that time in his life.”

  “I see.” Maggie noticed some of their party drifting out of the pub and back toward the carriages.

  Soon it would be time to go.

  Florence seemed to realize it, too, and hurried her story along, while the breeze made the dappled shadows of the leaves dance around them. “Anyway, last night when I overheard Amberley questioning her, I noticed that, well, let’s just say Her Grace erred on some dates.”

  “How’s that?” Maggie tilted her head.

  “Well! She told my nephew that she decided to stop paying the blackmailer after Charles’s death. But this was not accurate.” Florence closed her eyes briefly and shook her head. “I’m very good with such details, and I am certain that Charles was still alive when Lucinda hired those two brigands to go tell the extortionist that she had paid for fifty years, and wasn’t giving him another farthing.”

  “She hired brigands?” Maggie said, astonished. “Connor did not mention that.”

  “Because she didn’t tell him,” Florence whispered. “I was listening; I know. Perhaps it slipped her mind. But I doubt it.”

  “So she lied to him, gave the wrong order of events, and left out vital information?”

  “It would seem so.” Florence gulped. “I was shocked that she did not mention them to him, for, in my view, her hiring these two outlaws was where all the trouble started.”

  “What happened?”

  “I’m not sure, exactly. But something must’ve gone wrong that night. For when her two hired ruffians came back to collect their pay for their errand, they were all out of temper and demanded far more money than Lucinda had previously agreed to pay.” Florence leaned closer. “I think they might’ve killed someone.”

  Maggie’s eyes widened. “What makes you say that?”

  “They told Lucinda they had to flee the country. They wanted her to pay for their passage across the Channel that very night. I overheard them threatening that if she did not help them flee and they were arrested, they’d tell the magistrate that she was the one who had hired them.

  “In the law’s eyes, they said, that would make her an accomplice to whatever dreadful thing had occurred when they went to confront the blackmailer. Then she might be arrested herself, and the whole lurid story would come out in the papers. And all the scandals around her that she worked for so long to expunge would explode into life again. That, Lucinda could never abide.

  “It’s the one thing she fears—not that I blame her. She suffered such cruelty at the hands of the ton. Treatment I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy. She is a hard woman, but at least I know why.”

  Maggie nodded, and the baroness continued in a hushed tone.

  “Anyway, realizing all this, of course Her Grace paid whatever it took to make those dreadful mercenaries go away. But that was not the end of the problems they’d caused in the course of their errand.

  “Indeed, it was only the beginning. For that was when the family’s awful run of bad luck started. First, Charles died in his sleep. Then poor Rupert stumbled off the cliff. He was such a lovely man! And then young Richard broke his neck in that dreadful carriage accident. I always told him he drove too fast, poor thing. And then when I heard about Connor nearly getting poisoned…”

  Florence shuddered. “Until that happened, the others’ deaths all seemed reasonably explainable. We could lie to ourselves. Even after the poison, since Connor survived it, we hoped for the best. We ignored our suspicions. We’re just two old ladies, after all. We live quietly. Who’d want to hurt us? To think that there should have been deliberate and purposeful malice behind these events, why, it just seemed unthinkable!

  “But last night in the garden, that was the last straw. When some killer tried to shoot my poor nephew—at his own welcome party!—even I could no longer hide from the horrible truth: that what I’d always feared deep down was, indeed, happening.”

  “And what’s that?” Maggie whispered.

  “That Lucinda’s past would get us all killed.” Florence’s sweet face was grim.

  “Dear Aunt Florence, why did you never say anything about all this before?” Maggie asked when she finally recovered her voice.

  Florence shrugged. “Whom would I tell? Before Connor came to London, there was no one to tell. Besides, she terrifies me—Lucinda, I mean. I did not know what she might do to me if she found out I’d told on her, such a woman as that. Considering where she came from. She would know it was me who had blabbered the truth, after all. Who else could it be?”

  “Ladies, we shall be leaving as soon as you’re ready!” Nestor called from across the inn yard.

  Maggie waved to acknowledge him. Then she looked again at Aunt Florence, who was staring at her.

  “Please, will you explain all this to His Grace on my behalf when you have the chance?” the old woman asked anxiously. “I don’t want him to shout at me for not telling him sooner.”

  Maggie nodded. “I don’t think he would yell at you, dear Aunt Florence, but of course I’ll take care of this for you. I know how intimidating he can be. I’ll relay everything to him that you’ve shared with me, just as soon as I can.”

  “I thought it might help,” Florence replied.

  “I should think so.”

  “Could you ask him to try to be discreet, please?” she added timidly. “That is, I pray he would not tell Lucinda I’ve spilled her secrets. They’re not mine to share. But when I heard her lie to him, I knew I had no other choice.”

  “You did the right thing, and I’ll make sure he keeps your name out of it. But Aunt Florence, you needn’t be so afraid of her. You have me now. I am your friend and I will defend you.”

  Florence clutched Maggie’s hand. “Such a sweet child. He’s lucky to have you, dear Maggie. We all are. You are going to be a wonderful duchess.”

  “I shall do my best,” Maggie replied, touched by the old lady’s faith in her.

  “Oh—one more thing,” Florence said, almost turning away. She returned, still clutching Maggie’s hand. “My nephew probably doesn’t realize this, but the first and second duchesses positively hate each other—Lucinda and Caroline.”

  “I’ll bet,” Maggie murmured. The ex-harlot and the vicar’s wife?

  “Do warn him. I should hate for him to accidentally, you know, step into the crossfire.”

  “Yes, indeed. Thank you for the warning.”

  “Absolutely, my dear. We all need allies in this wor
ld.” With a conspiratorial wink, Florence signaled for silence with a finger to her lips, then bustled off toward the carriages, where Lucinda now stood, already bellowing for her.

  “Florence! Where is Florence?”

  “I’m here, Lucinda! Yoo-hoo! Coming!”

  Maggie could see the party reassembling to continue their journey, but for her part, her head was still reeling from the little lady’s revelations.

  She strove to absorb it all as she walked back slowly toward the traveling chariot. At least her mission was clear.

  As irked as she was with Connor right now, she was going to have to speak to him at the first opportunity…

  Alone.

  CHAPTER 29

  Dartfield Manor

  Of the several country houses Connor had inherited, Dartfield Manor was his least favorite. The house was an ugly mishmash of two clashing styles.

  The brown brick Jacobean façade with three rounded Dutch gables might’ve been well enough if it had been left alone to brood in its ancient ornateness. But, at some point over the centuries, some ancestor—perhaps poor of sight—had hired an equally blind architect to add on a whole new block in an entirely different style.

  A white, gleaming, neoclassical addition thrust out inexplicably from the south wall, all self-important pillars and huge, arched windows reflecting the sky.

  There had been no attempt he could see to make the two styles, centuries apart, match. It would’ve made more sense simply to build two separate houses. But there they were, joined for all eternity. One dark and twisty, one bright and airy, symmetrical and pure.

  Connor shook his head, beginning to wonder if the match between him and Maggie was as ill-conceived as that massive eyesore.

  After being trounced by his lady at noon, he had not spoken to her again. Not from pouting or sulking—he was a man, for God’s sake—but merely from the necessity of focusing on the task at hand. The girl exasperated him and he needed a clear head as the leader of this journey. Besides, he didn’t want to make it any worse.