The Irish Duchess

by Patricia Rice

  The groom led the horse inside the stable. The clouds had completely covered the sky now, and Fiona saw two men in the yard, their figures silhouetted by lights from the house beyond. They couldn’t see her, thank goodness. She must look a fright. She slipped closer to the towering stone wall and out of anyone’s sight.

  “The announcement said he’s to wed tomorrow. You’ll not pry him away until he’s bedded his bride,” a stranger’s voice warned.

  “She’s an Irish nobody. He’s probably already bedded and bred her. There’s no other reason he’s given up his pursuit of wealth unless Aberdare threatened to close his purse strings. I think our duke will be willing enough to postpone the nuptials once I give him excuse.”

  The second voice had a ring of familiarity, but Fiona couldn’t quite place it. She was torn between wanting to slap the man’s face and the need to hear more. Instinct told her to be patient for a change.

  “Claiming the chit is part of a conspiracy against the crown won’t work without evidence, especially if she’s carrying his heir.”

  Fiona bit back a gasp of outrage.

  “I have evidence enough to send him hastening into London to confirm it. Quit worrying. We just need to stop this marriage before it consolidates Anglesey’s name and power behind Aberdare and Effingham. Once we remove the duke’s name from the bill, no one will listen to those two radical hotheads. They didn’t go to school here, their ways are too foreign. The reform bills will disappear, never to return. We’re doing this for the good of the country.”

  “I still don’t like it,” the unfamiliar voice muttered as the two men strolled in the direction of the house. “There’s no guarantee that removing the girl will prevent Anglesey from supporting the bill.”

  The familiar voice held a hint of exasperation. “Don’t push me too far, Durham. I’ll handle the problem myself this time, rather than leave it to hired thugs.”

  Their voices faded into the night. Fiona sought some way of following them without being seen, but only the open stable yard stood between her and the house.

  Swallowing her terror and confusion, she slipped along the wall of the stable toward the kitchen and the rear entrance. The men would be admitted at the front. She could discover who they were easily enough, but could she stop their lies as easily?

  She didn’t entirely understand their plans. Neville was aware of her brother’s connections with Irish rebels. If these men had contrived some evidence against her, duty would require he look into the matter. She didn’t like it, but since she’d planned on leaving anyway, their plan didn’t affect her drastically as yet.

  The things she hadn’t quite heard or that had gone unsaid and the part about hired thugs worried her the most.

  Anyone who knew Neville would know that if he’d made up his mind to support the reform bill, he wouldn’t change it simply because his affianced wife betrayed him. Even with Fiona out of the picture, Neville would swing his whole support behind Effingham’s bill. And these men meant to stop him.

  These men had already hired thugs to stop him? They may have been responsible for the attack that had left Neville near death! He had to be warned of the possibility.

  Reaching the cover of the trees at the side of the house, Fiona scampered across the courtyard, up the steps, and into the back hall. Breath rasping raggedly, she raced up the back stairs. She would tell Michael.

  She found Blanche in the sitting room of her bedchamber. She glanced up from her knitting in surprise as Fiona burst in.

  Fiona glanced at the baby cap forming beneath Blanche’s talented fingers and closed her eyes against the sharp blow of realization. She’d forgotten Blanche’s pregnancy. That’s why Michael was so concerned about who would go to Cornwall. Blanche had a strong mind and character, but a weak constitution.

  “Fiona, what’s wrong? You look as if you’ve just ridden in on a broom.” Blanche smiled to take any sting from her words.

  “Where’s Michael? I need to ask him something.” Frantic, Fiona tried to think of some way of warning Blanche, some way of telling someone, but she didn’t know how without worrying her.

  “Oh, some gentlemen just came in from London. He and Neville are meeting with them in the study, something about the bill they’re sponsoring, I suppose. I do wish people would be a little more sensible. We cannot live in the past forever. But no, they must stick their heads in the sand until someone shoots them in the rear.”

  At any other time, Fiona would have laughed at this lovely lady’s prosaic description of most of British Parliament, but she didn’t have a laugh left in her. Panic seeped in as time grew shorter. Should she run down to the study and accuse the visitors of wickedness?

  Who would believe her? Making some flimsy excuse, Fiona bowed out of the sitting room.

  Michael might believe her, but she couldn’t speak with him alone. Neville would have to investigate. He was too dutiful not to. If they’d had a love match, it might have been different, but there was no chance of that. He’d investigate.

  And if he didn’t change his mind about the bill, something terrible would happen to Neville. She knew it. She’d heard it in their voices. Once we remove the duke’s name from the bill… How? With hired thugs? More lies?

  They intended to stop her marriage, condemn any child she bore to bastardy, and discredit Neville in such a way that he couldn’t support the reform bills now or in the future. Damn good thing there was no bastard apparent.

  Fury blending with fear, Fiona raced to her room, seeking some means of protecting Neville until Michael could investigate. Neville wouldn’t necessarily believe her if she warned him of what she’d heard. Once those men gave him evidence condemning her as a traitor, he wouldn’t believe anything she said.

  She couldn’t let him go to London into whatever trap those two planned.

  But if she wasn’t here, his damned pride would force him to come after her.

  Seventeen

  Neville snarled at the documents littering his desk, the ones Townsend and his sniveling son-in-law had delivered the prior night. He already knew about the seditious behavior of Fiona’s friends and family—hell, all of Aberdare. That didn’t make Fiona a traitor, as these papers declared. If she had any link to the violent White Boy factions disrupting the Irish countryside, he’d personally eat Townsend’s hat.

  He already knew of the failed attempt by Irish factions to blow up the heads of government a few years back. Fiona had been involved in that, admittedly. She’d been the one who’d warned Michael.

  He didn’t trust Townsend and his cohorts for a bleeding minute. They were up to something by rehashing this old news. They didn’t come all the way out here to stop his marriage purely on an altruistic basis. If anything, he would have expected them to let him marry a traitor, then turn Fiona over to the government out of spite.

  But Fiona’s disappearance on the same night that they brought this filthy “evidence” was suspicious in the extreme. Michael was out looking for her, but that was only an excuse to avoid Neville. They both knew where she’d gone.

  Cursing, Neville picked up a piece of his own stationery. Fiona’s bold handwriting leapt from the page, and he covered his eyes against the accusing glare of her words, blaming weariness for the moisture pooling behind his eyelids. The raw pain slicing through his insides had nothing to do with her note. One didn’t feel pain when jilted by a mistress or an object of lust. His pride hurt, that’s all. He slapped the paper onto the desk.

  His head pounded as if a dozen tiny imps beat upon it with steel hammers. Neville rubbed his eyes to clear them again, then took another sip of stale brandy. He still couldn’t believe it.

  She’d left him.

  He couldn’t believe any woman would walk away from marriage with a Duke of Anglesey. Worse, he couldn’t believe the anguish her desertion caused. Neville knew Fiona didn’t love him. But he’d thought they’d worked out an understanding. Why hadn’t she said something? Why couldn’t they have talked a
bout it?

  Talked about it. She’d told him she wanted to talk, but he kept putting her off. He hadn’t wanted her discovering all the pitfalls awaiting them. He’d wanted her in his bed and breeding his heirs before she had any notion of the depths of the problems before them. He’d been blinded by lust, crazed with a need to perpetuate the line, driven to desperation by a crack on the head. Maybe he should consider Bedlam.

  Neville finally surrendered to the need to hold her letter again. He picked it up, read the characteristically bold handwriting, and searched desperately for the truth between the lines.

  It’s for your own good I do this the note began.

  It sounded just like Fiona. He wanted to hear her speak the words. He wanted to watch her eyes light with desire when he reached for her. With a groan of dismay, he flung the paper aside.

  Maybe fools would take her flight as admission of guilt, but they didn’t know Fiona as he did. Neville groaned again as he realized how exceedingly well he knew his beautiful, passionate Fiona. No matter how much she believed in the rebel cause, he knew she would never hurt Michael or Blanche—or himself, for all that mattered. Fiona’s generosity spilled over on everyone, even an arrogant English lord.

  Michael slammed into the study, providing needed relief from Neville’s painful thoughts.

  “She’s gone,” Michael said grimly, his eyes gray from lack of sleep as he reached for a piece of brass statuary on the mantel. They had been up all night arguing with Townsend, and Neville supposed he didn’t look any better than the earl.

  “She lifted coins from my dresser and took your mare as far as the coaching inn,” Michael continued, confirming their fears. “The groom’s returning it to the stable now. She passed herself off as a governess at the inn. The maid said she borrowed one of her old Sunday dresses. There’s no guarantee she’ll continue traveling in that disguise. She prefers boy’s clothes.”

  Neville knew that. If Fiona was innocent, then she simply ran from him and the bankruptcy their marriage would cause, as her letter stated. She’d explained her position, and he had no reason to doubt her.

  Neville rested his head against the back of his leather chair so he could study Michael without expending the energy of holding up his aching head. “She wrote a letter to you too, didn’t she? Why won’t you let me see it?”

  Michael scowled and danced the brass ornaments from the mantel between his fingers. “She merely apologized to me and Blanche. There are some personal things in there Blanche would prefer not revealed, none of them of concerning you. I’ve told you what she said. It’s nothing more than what’s in the letter she wrote you.”

  “Then let me see it!” To his own astonishment, Neville slammed his fist into the desk, sending papers flying. He never lost his temper. Never.

  “Why don’t you take that so-called ‘evidence’ Townsend brought you and have a warrant sworn out for her arrest? I’m sure the military will take care of the matter and you needn’t concern yourself any further.” Michael’s voice dripped scorn.

  Neville wadded up the papers beneath his hand and flung them at the fireplace. “You see to Townsend’s shit. It’s more up your alley than mine. I want to hear Fiona say to my face that she doesn’t want this marriage. Something is wrong, and I want to know what it is!”

  Furious with himself for raising his voice, Neville staggered from the desk chair. He’d emptied the brandy decanter almost entirely by himself since Michael didn’t do more than sip liquor. Thankfully, the full effect of the alcohol hadn’t hit him until now. He needed numbness for the next step.

  “Then find her,” Michael replied icily. “You’re the reason she ran off.”

  “Damned right I will.” He’d known all along that’s what he’d have to do. Drinking himself into a stupor wouldn’t return Fiona. Not that he wanted Fiona returned, Neville told himself. No, he wouldn’t have the little demon now if hell froze over and heaven beckoned. But he wanted to know why she’d left him. And none of this rambling nonsense about not being good enough to be his duchess. His bold Fiona wouldn’t let her orphans starve or her village go without its looms out of fear of his tenants. Or lions or tigers for all that mattered. Or dukes.

  The worry that Townsend had done something to her turned Neville’s mouth to dust. It wasn’t a reasonable assumption. Townsend had evidence to throw her in prison. He didn’t need to harm her. Fiona had written those letters and left of her own free will. There’d been no time for Townsend’s interference.

  But instinct said differently. Neville allowed his valet to dress him for traveling. He’d put his entire life in order, knew every step he must make from one day to the next to accomplish the enormous list of tasks his responsibilities required. Fiona had thrown all that into chaos the moment she’d walked into his life. Yet he couldn’t let her go.

  He glanced at the clock as it chimed—ten. The chapel bells should be ringing in his wedding guests right now. In a few more minutes, he would have been a married man. Instead, Seamus and William were repacking their bags, and the rest of their small guest list would be racing back to London with the wonderful tale of how the Duke of Anglesey had been stood up at the altar by a chit of an Irish girl. All England would have a good laugh at his expense. Let them. He wouldn’t be there to enjoy it.

  ***

  Neville stood at the helm of his yacht, letting the sea wind blow all thought from his mind. He had the force of His Majesty’s Navy at his command if he wished. Fiona didn’t stand a chance of escaping him.

  William wandered up to stand beside him. The wind whipped his loose country clothing around his portly body and reddened his bulbous nose. “She’ll be there, Your Grace, just wait and see. Fiona’s a good girl. She just gets bees in her bonnet sometimes.”

  “Fiona is a rebellious force of nature,” Neville said coldly. “Someone should have clipped her wings long ago.”

  William gave him a sidelong look. “I’m after thinkin’ birds with their wings clipped are pretty baubles, but they’re not birds anymore. Fiona is what she is and what God intended for her to be.”

  “Did you ever consider God made us naked and perhaps intended us to be that way? Does that mean you should run about bare assed?” Neville asked scornfully. “If children aren’t taught manners and behavior, they turn into heathen savages.”

  “The girl knows what she’s about,” William replied confidently. “If she ran away, it’s with good reason. And might there not be something you should be telling me about that reason, Your Grace?”

  “I gave her no reason to run. You read her letter. It’s all nonsense.” A blast of cold air whipped Neville’s hair around as land loomed closer, but he absorbed the blow as he did all others.

  “Maybe nonsense is all she thought you needed.” Without further pleasantries, William departed, leaving Neville to his own cold reflections.

  They wasted a day in Dublin checking for ships that might have arrived from England in the last few days. Knowing Fiona traveled on little coin made him shiver. There was slim chance that she would arrive first. Neville sent William up the coast to leave word in every likely port. He’d left Michael in England checking for the ship she’d sailed on, but they both knew Fiona’s talents for disguise. Neville assigned his yacht captain to wait for Michael’s message. They would question the crews as the ships arrived.

  In the meantime, Neville harnessed his restive gelding and set out for Aberdare.

  The late October weather brought chilly winds and drenching downpours. Neville stopped only long enough to steam his wet clothes in front of a roaring fire and quaff a mug of hot cider before hitting the road again. He would have Fiona’s dratted orphans held hostage before she arrived.

  He rode into the dreary little village a little past midnight. A dog howled at his approach, and a pig snorted in reply. With his horse picking its way down the muddy lane, Neville considered going to the castle and waiting for dawn, but instinct drove him to check on the orphans first. Fiona would go no
where until she had seen to the children.

  The forlorn hut showed no sign of light or smoke, although the temperature had dropped considerably the past few hours. Shivering in his greatcoat, Neville dismounted and considered his next move. He couldn’t just walk into a house full of sleeping children.

  He looked around for somewhere he could shelter his horse and mount guard until morning came.

  Under better circumstances, he wouldn’t deem the cottage fit shelter for his horse. Swearing at the ramshackle sheds, Neville tied the gelding inside the roofless walls of a crumbling stone barn. At least the walls cut off the wind, and the rain had stopped.

  Gingerly, he picked his way across the mud. His valet would have a falling down, screaming fit when he saw his boots. Fortunately, he’d left the man behind, and he wouldn’t see the boots for some days to come. This had better not take longer than days. The crime reform and emancipation bills required his presence in London.

  He wanted to reassure himself that the children were still inside before settling down to watch the place for the rest of the night. William had said they were still there, scrabbling along with what the neighbors provided and on the coins Fiona had given them.

  Peering in the back window, Neville could just make out several lumpy forms near the dying embers of the fire. They were still there. Relieved, he started to walk away.

  Something hard and long smashed across the back of his head.

  Thinking only not again, the mighty Duke of Anglesey splashed face forward into the muddy path between the cottage and the privy.

  ***

  Burrowing his aching head between his arms in hopes of drowning out the drunken trio at the end of the bar harmonizing in an old folk song of ancient battles and dying Irishmen, Eamon O’Connor cursed his fate, cursed the liquor, and cursed all hymns to dying Irishmen. For once in their lives, couldn’t they sing of victory and triumph?

  Tilting his head and opening one bloodshot eye, he verified that the man he followed continued his intense conversation with the newly-arrived Englishman. The pair deserved each other, he thought maliciously.