Son of a Duke

by Jessie Clever

  "I know more than you would think, my lord," she returned, assuming a seat in the chair opposite the sofa. "The gaming hell down by the wharf. By Madame Hort's."

  Nathan nodded. "I know where you mean."

  Alec asked, "Do you think Samuel dropped it on purpose?"

  "He is smart enough to," Nathan answered automatically, and he caught Nora hiding a smile behind her hand.

  "Why would they take him to The Four of Clubs?" Sarah asked.

  "Why would they take him?" Alec countered.

  Sarah looked at him, annoyed.

  "They took him because of Nora."

  Everyone looked at Nathan.

  "What did I do?" Nora asked as if offended.

  Nathan had the nerve to smile. "I think you did something that you do not know you did."

  Nora raised a single eyebrow and made Alec muffle a laugh.

  "When I went into the alley where Samuel was taken, I was given a message from a street boy. He told me to stay out of it. If it had anything to do with me and my business, he would not have told me that. There was also the night of the ball when Nora and I were shot at."

  "Someone shot at you?" Sarah asked.

  "Someone shot at us," Nora said.

  "Someone shot at you," Nathan corrected her.

  Alec shook his head. "How can you be sure?"

  "I cannot. But I have been thinking. No one knows me," he said, "That is a profile I have been careful to create. However, everyone knows Nora. So why would someone take a shot at a nobody when there was a somebody standing right next to him?"

  "Everyone does not know me," Nora huffed, making Nathan look at her in surprise.

  Could he actually be getting to the infallible Miss Quinton?

  "Yes, everyone does," Sarah agreed.

  Nora looked over at her. "Everyone?"

  "Quite possibly everyone." Sarah adjusted her skirts. "Everyone knows who Lady Gregenden's housekeeper is. The infallible Miss Quinton."

  "They do not say that." Nora actually wrinkled her nose, and it was Nathan's turn to hide a smile.

  "Oh, they do," Jane concurred.

  "We have established that everyone knows Nora, but what does it mean?" Richard interjected.

  Nora was silent.

  "It means that she is the likely target for all of this," Jane offered.

  "But why now?" this from Alec who had returned to his spot by the window.

  Sarah leaned forward in her seat.

  "I think it would be best to find out what Nora knows first. Or at least, what she thinks she knows."

  Nora shook her head quickly. "Nothing. At least not something worth kidnapping my son over."

  "It is probably something that you do not realize is important. Something that they are afraid you know is important," Nathan added.

  Nora remained silent, but he could tell that she was thinking. There was something in her memory. It would only be a matter of time before she would find it. He was sure of it.

  ~

  "Why would someone want Samuel?" Richard, the Duke of Lofton, asked the fireplace.

  Nora sat on the sofa keeping her hands loose in her lap, the tension and fear of being in this strange, elegant place not quite so gripping. The unfamiliarity of fine fabrics and lace made her uncomfortable, but she resolutely did not fidget.

  The Duke of Lofton was indeed speaking to the fireplace, or more directly to the empty grate. Jane sat on the sofa beside her, sipping from a new cup of tea as if nothing were amiss. The Countess of Stryden, too, enjoyed a cup of tea without so much as a fidget. Nora found it difficult to simply remain seated.

  Did these people speak of kidnapping and threats so often that it became normal drawing room conversation? And among mixed company even. She pulled on the sleeves of the gown as if to ease her mental discomfort with a physical action, her resolve to not fidget dying under her tenacious anxiety.

  Nathan stood somewhere behind her now, but she resolutely kept her face forward in case she was caught glancing at him too much. But the look on his face when she had entered the room in the new gown, her hair swept up in an intricate braided style for the first time in her life, that expression she would never forget. The look of sheer desire in his eyes, a desire that should have frightened her, but somehow pulled her toward him, as if his desire were an attractant itself.

  Alec asked, "Did Samuel have any enemies?"

  Sarah, who had demonstrably taken a position on the opposite side of the room as her husband, replied, "How do nine year olds acquire enemies?"

  Nathan answered, "I think he has got a point. Samuel is smarter than most nine year olds. Maybe he saw something he was not supposed to and knew it."

  Nora nodded. "Samuel is often used as an errand boy at the house. I do not always know where he goes, so it is quite possible he did encounter something. However, I am not certain he would know how truly important the thing would be."

  Jane handed her a cup of tea suddenly. "You need this, darling," she said, "And what about you? You are always in a position to see things certain members of the peerage would rather have left unseen. What have you seen lately?"

  Nora accepted the teacup and shook her head. "Nothing lately. It has been rather quiet."

  Richard turned around. "Maybe it was not something lately. Revenge does not always come quickly."

  He sat in one of the chairs framing the sofa and took a cup from Jane as well.

  Nora stared at the tea in her cup, thinking. "How far should I go back?"

  Nathan sat on the arm of the sofa just then, startling her just enough to make her look up. His gaze remained sharp, but the desire she had seen before was somehow banked. His attention focused purely on the matter at hand.

  "How far back is there to go?" he asked.

  "Thirteen years. I have been working in London for thirteen years."

  Richard grunted. "Fabulous. How about just the highlights then?"

  Nora nodded. "All right. Let us get started then." She paused, sorting through all the dirty secrets in her mind. "Last November I came upon Lord Trenton and his valet when they were guests at the House." She paused again.

  Richard interrupted, "How is that important?"

  "She came upon them, Richard," Jane said.

  Richard sat back. "Oh. Well I guess that explains some things."

  Nora continued, "There was the Earl of Glouton and Mrs. Fairby last August." She thought some more. "And Mr. Havenbaum and one of my maids." She suddenly looked up. "Maybe that is it. Maybe it is Mr. Havenbaum."

  "Why would it be him?" Nathan asked.

  "Because I whacked him over the head with a bottle of champagne. He could not be happy about that." Nora switched her attention to Richard because she could not say the next part while looking at Nathan. "My maid did not want Mr. Havenbaum's attentions."

  The shockwave from Nathan suddenly straightening hit her. Richard nodded, and Jane cleared her throat.

  "Did he see you, Nora?" Alec asked.

  She thought and frowned. "No, I do not think he did. I came from behind him, and he was out before he knew anything was amiss."

  Nathan relaxed slightly. "I do not think that is it then."

  "What about innocent looking things, Nora?" Sarah came closer to the cluster. "Something that did not look odd at all. Or maybe just odd but not scandalous."

  Nora thought, as the tea grew cold in her cup.

  "I overheard a conversation that Lord Archer was having with the Duke of Chesterfield that seemed odd."

  The room buzzed with silence, and Nora looked up to make sure she was not suddenly alone.

  "What did you hear, Nora?" Alec asked, drawing softly closer.

  "It was at Lord Gregenden's birthday gala last month. The two men were in an alcove alone together. It seemed odd because the two hate each other, so I went over to take a listen."

  Richard interrupted again, "Why do they hate each other?"

  "The Duke won the hand of the lady that Archer wanted," Jane supplied
.

  Richard nodded and motioned for Nora to continue.

  "They were discussing yachts, racing yachts." Nora paused, thinking back. "Archer said he had the fastest, but then his grace countered saying it might be fastest but did it run shallow."

  "Yachts to break through the blockade," Sarah whispered.

  Nathan leaned forward, took the teacup from Nora and setting the cup aside, gripped her hands. "Did they know you were listening, Nora?"

  Nora shook her head but stopped. "They might have."

  Nathan gripped her hands tighter.

  "They were still speaking when Niles Turning came to tell me we were running low on lemonade. He might have said my name." She looked over at Richard. "They might have heard him."

  "So Chesterfield is spying for Napoleon as well," Alec said, mostly to himself.

  Nora's fingers tingled from lack of blood as Nathan's grip tightened. She had to shake their hands to get him to notice. He loosened his fingers. Slightly.

  "How do you know Chesterfield is...um, a spy?" Nora asked, feeling ridiculously left out of the conversation that was beginning to pulse around her.

  "We have known of Lord Archer's activities for the better part of a year. If he were discussing yachts with a man he disliked in secret in a public place, we must assume his intentions were less than honorable," the duke said standing to return to his spot by the fireplace.

  "That seems a rather large assumption," she offered, but Alec quickly shook his head.

  "I do not think so. Not with the resulting circumstances. The assassination of the wrong Lord Archer, someone attempting to shoot either you or Nathan and then Samuel missing. It must be connected."

  "What do we do now?" Nathan asked his father.

  Richard did not answer right away. Alec came up against the back of the sofa, his wife beside him, and Nora wondered if either of them noticed their proximity to one another.

  "The Four of Clubs," Richard said finally.

  "The Four of Clubs?" Sarah asked.

  "Yes. That is our only clue, and we must assume that Samuel is going to react to this more cleverly than a typical child would." He went over to the table and picked up the card where Nathan had discarded it. "We are going to assume he dropped this on purpose. Now, who is going to go?"

  "I will," Sarah volunteered.

  "You bloody well will not," Alec responded.

  Nora expected the conversation to end at that, but Sarah was not one to be so dismissed it seemed.

  "You are not in charge of what I do and do not do, Lord Stryden, and it would be best-"

  "It would be best if you did not constantly try to-"

  "I do nothing constantly but-"

  "Children!"

  This last bit came from Jane at a pitch and volume Nora did not know her capable of. It made Nora sit up straighter, setting down her tea cup lest she spill it.

  "I think I had better go," Nathan said, looking down at his clothes.

  Richard also looked and nodded in agreement.

  "You do appear more fit for the part," Richard said.

  Nora looked at Nathan. He wore a typical greatcoat, worn but not shoddy, and working boots. A clean collar and cravat were noticeable beneath the top of the greatcoat. Nothing he wore looked particularly remarkable, but when Nora turned her attention back to the Duke of Lofton, the difference became clear. Nathan was a working man where as the duke was a member of the peerage. Nathan would blend in with greater ability at a gaming hell whereas everyone would remark on the presence of the Duke of Lofton.

  "Very well," Alec said, "We must prepare to leave immediately. I will have a carriage summoned."

  Alec left the room with a still fuming Sarah trailing after him. Nora imagined the conversation that was likely occurring between the pair just then. Nathan stood and so did Nora.

  "Jane, a moment, please?" Richard said, and Jane set down her tea as she stood.

  "Of course," she said, turning to Nora, "Excuse us, dear."

  Richard and Jane left the room leaving Nora quite alone with Mr. Nathan Black.

  ~

  Nora did not know what to do with her hands. Or her tea. Or her breath.

  Everything felt suddenly awkward when moments before she had been feeling nothing but physical tension as her mind wandered over and over again to her son.

  "Did you truly hit some bloke over the head with a bottle of champagne?" Nathan asked, sitting beside her on the sofa.

  She turned and at the quizzical look on his face, Nora felt the sudden awkwardness melt from her. She may have had her hair done by a lady's maid, and she may be wearing a countess's gown, but she was still Nora, and this was still Nathan. Everything seemed a little bit more all right with Nathan.

  She nodded.

  "I did. A big bottle at that," she shrugged, "I just thought it lucky that I decided to come above stairs by way of the east wing that night, or I never would have come upon them in the green drawing room."

  She paused as the memory of that night came up in her mind. She had not really been thinking so much as reacting. The noises that had been coming from the green drawing room in the east wing of Gregenden House had sounded frighteningly familiar. Familiar in a way Nora never cared to remember or have reason to hear again. The sounds of a struggle and muffled pleas for help in a soft, feminine contralto with just the slightest of Irish accents. It took but a moment for Nora to realize what was happening in the room, for her to turn her course, enter the drawing room and smash the bottle of drink over the grunting man's head. She had not even known who the man was at the time. She had only seen the young maid's face as she lay pinned on the sofa in the room. Her skirts thrown up and the pale skin of her thighs exposed above the top of her stockings a beacon in the dim light of the room. And then there was the girl's face. Drawn with fright, her eyes were mere pools of despair. And so, Nora had reacted more than anything, a primal urge within her for justice swinging her arm up and landing the champagne bottle directly on the man's head. He had collapsed with a grunt, and it took both of them to free the poor girl trapped beneath his body. One such occasion in her life had been enough, but having a second chance to escape a room with one's skirts solidly held to one's legs was more than enough for Nora.

  She watched Nathan, and she knew he wanted to ask her something. She saw the way his jaw tightened, and a muscle in his eyelid jumped as he tried to decide whether or not he would ask it. Nora admired him more then than ever before for his consideration and subsequent restraint. She waited another breath before she saved him from his own propriety.

  "Yes," she heard herself say, but her mind did not believe she was actually speaking of the one thing she swore never to speak of again, "Yes, that is what happened to me. Only there was no one with a bottle of champagne to save me in time."

  Her words were simple, but it had taken all of her courage to say them. Not once in nearly ten years had she so much as whispered a hint to someone about how Samuel had come to be in this world, and now she had admitted the whole truth in one sentence to a man she had known for only a week. But somehow its declaration did not carry the thrust she had expected. She had expected a retaliation, recriminations about having asked for it by behaving in a certain way or dressing improperly.

  But Nathan only sat watching her, and for the briefest of moments, she saw it again, the look of dark sadness that crossed his features fleetingly, the one she could not name nor dare ask him about. Nathan Black had his own demons, and there was something about Nora that brought them to the surface. And just like Nathan, she was too polite to ask of them.

  He raised a hand, and she was not sure what he was going to do with it, but there was something about the gesture that made her speak.

  "Please, Nathan," she said, "I cannot take anyone else being nice to me today. It is taking all that I have to keep my composure. If you so much as tell me it will be all right, I may start crying on you like a silly girl."

  Nathan's hand hung in the air between them
as Nora watched his expression. The look of sadness that had crossed his features was replaced by his usual casual mien, his mouth not quite smiling but yet not frowning and his eyes interested but not engaged, the perfect mask of ease. The look made her feel ridiculously better about everything, and she clamped down on her emotions, holding together her calm with everything she had. Until Nathan spoke.

  "But it is going to be all right," he said, and then he did smile, and Nora could do nothing except smile in return.

  "You are rather annoying, Mr. Black. You are aware of that, are you not?" Nora said then.

  Nathan adjusted the lapels of his greatcoat as if assuming an elegant pose.

  "It is a necessary trait of any great spy, Miss Quinton," he said, and Nora continued to smile.

  Silence descended on them, and Nora did not mind it in the least. There was something about Nathan that made Nora feel comfortable not speaking, just letting herself be with him. It was an unusual feeling, and one to which Nora feared she was becoming accustomed.

  "Nathan, are you certain you should be doing this? Going to the Four of Clubs? It sounds like an awful place. Is there not someone else that can be sent?"

  Nathan moved a little closer to her, taking one of her hands in his. She did not retreat at his touch as his hands moved with more curiosity than comfort.

  "Do you know when truly terrible things happen, and they send someone to help?" he asked.

  Nora nodded.

  "Well, they are the War Office, and I am the someone," he said, looking up from his exploration of her hand.

  Nora had known all along that he was a spy, but it had all seemed too surreal. As if it were the truth but not really. But as Nathan held her hand in his, the reality came crowding in, and she realized just how dangerous this man must be. She had noted his height, surely over six feet, and the wide span of his shoulders when she had first seen him enter the ballroom at Gregenden House, but his eyes told a story that had put her at ease. And although her body may have been scared of Nathan Black, she had never truly been afraid of him.

  "Is it really as simple as all that?" she asked, returning the pressure of his hand with her own, locking their fingers together.