The Gypsy Duchess

by Nadine Miller

  “If you are saying I am dealing with a woman who is less than civilized, I am already aware of that,” Devon said, remembering the duchess’s amazing prowess with her lethal stiletto.

  “I’m not exactly certain what I’m saying. Does an uncanny sense of precognition, plus the ability to throw a knife like a Spanish camp follower, make her more or less civilized than the rest of us? I rather suspect that to answer that question, one would have to know the lady’s background. I assume your brother was privy to that information since he had made up his mind to marry her. No sensible man would leg-shackle himself to a woman without knowing a great deal about her—especially a woman with the duchess’s unusual talents.”

  “Don’t underestimate the woman’s power to turn men into mindless idiots,” Devon said dryly. “As a matter of fact, I haven’t the slightest idea what, if anything, Blaine knew about her family background.

  He drummed his fingers absentmindedly on the table, absorbed in the disturbing thoughts running through his mind. “My mother despises her, of course. Has gone so far as to call her a witch, but my father forbade her to ever speak so in public. The men and women of Cornwall are notoriously superstitious; it would be a dangerous thing to plant such a thought in their minds, even about a heartless vamp like the duchess. A witch hunt is not a pretty thing.”

  Devon reached for his crutch and pushed himself to his feet. “Which does not, however, preclude my looking into her past—since I must deal with her in the future.” He smiled at this own choice of words. “And I can think of no better time than the present to begin my investigation.”

  Less than an hour later, the Marquess of Stamden’s driver pulled his elegant barouche to a stop outside the duchess’s door en route to the earl’s town house. “I’ll wait here while you settle your business with the lady,” Stamden said. “I’m in no mood for fireworks on such a fine February day.”

  Devon didn’t argue with him. In truth, he’d been trying to think of a tactful way to persuade Stamden to let him see the duchess alone, remembering how she had taunted him about needing moral support to face her.

  He waved the marquess’s groom and coachman aside and managed to alight from the carriage on his own. Having her see him on crutches was bad enough; he’d not suffer the further humiliation of having her see him lifted to the cobblestones.

  Across the square a scurvy-looking fellow poked his head around the lamppost and looked him over with a practical eye.

  “There’s the runner I hired,” Stamden said, and Devon nodded his approval, happy to see the lads from Bow Street were as vigilant as ever.

  Leaning heavily on his crutches, he made his careful way up the four shallow stairs and rapped sharply on the door. No one answered. He waited a moment more, then rapped again, this time with the top of his crutch…and waited…and waited.

  Across the square, the runner stepped from behind the post, the anxious scowl on his broad pug face making him look amazingly like a bulldog worrying over a bone.

  “What kind of household is the woman running?” Devon fumed and rapped again.

  At long last, the door opened a crack and the same ancient butler he remembered from his last visit surveyed him with a baleful eye. “Oh, it’s you, my lord,” the old fellow said, opening the door a few more inches. “You’re welcome to come in; of course, the house is closed up proper. There’s nobody here but the missus and me and a few of the kitchen help.

  “What do you mean, there’s nobody here?” Devon pushed past the old retainer and hobbled into the dome-lighted entry hall. The door to the salon in which the duchess had received him on his first visit stood open and he could see the blinds were drawn and all the furniture shrouded in stark white dustcovers.

  “Where is your mistress?” he demanded. “And the young duke? And Miss Kincaid?”

  “Gone to White Oaks, so I was given to understand,” the butler said sourly. “Left this morning before dawn and through the kitchen door like common tradesmen at that. Though why she thinks a lawless place like Cornwall is safer than London, I’m sure I don’t know.”

  He sniffed. “But then, as my missus has reminded me often enough, she is not at all like the first duchess, who would never do anything so out of hand as to take some filthy little urchin who fell down her chimney into the household.” He paused. “Took him with her, she did, and riding right up there in the family coach like he was some kind of quality—and who’s to say the little scamp wasn’t part and parcel of that nasty business in the duke’s bedchamber. My missus thinks he saw which side his bread was buttered and turned on his partner in crime—and I cannot say I disagree with her.”

  He glanced through the open door and scowled at the runner who still stood beside the lamppost. “And there’s another one, by Jove. What is London come to, when even neighborhoods like Mayfair are crawling with cutthroats and kidnappers?”

  “That particular cutthroat happens to be a Bow Street runner hired to guard this town house,” Devon said unemotionally. “And the duke’s would-be-kidnappers have been safely behind bars for a fortnight.”

  “Not the one who raised a lump the size of an egg on John Footman’s head last night, then broke into the young duke’s bedchamber—and after hiring on with the finest of references too.”

  Devon gasped. “Devil take it, man what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I cannot be held responsible for forged references. The duchess admitted that much. So, then how can she justify turning a man of my station into a mere caretaker of a house to which she may never return? If I were but ten years younger, I would—”

  Devon didn’t wait to hear what he would do. Heart pounding, he limped out the door and made his way back down the stairs just as Stamden stepped from the carriage and the Bow Street runner sprinted across the street.

  “What the devil! What’s happened?” Stamden asked. “You look like you’ve had the wind knocked out of you.” His eyes widened. “My God, don’t tell me the duchess is an expert at fisticuffs too.”

  “The duchess isn’t here,” Devon replied grimly. “She fled to Cornwall after another attempt was made on the duke.”

  “That’s not possible,” the runner declared. “We’ve had men watching the town house night and day for a fortnight. Not a soul has gone in or out we didn’t know about.”

  “Except the ones who left at dawn through the tradesman’s entrance,” Devon snapped. “You lads slipped up royally this time.”

  “Damn!” The runner seemed to shrink before his very eyes.

  “Back up a bit,” Stamden said quietly. “When and where was the latest attempt made on the duke?”

  “Right here in the town house—in the duke’s bedchamber to be exact,” Devon said, signaling the groom and coachman to hand him into his seat in the carriage. “From what I could gather from the butler’s ramblings, it was some new fellow just hired on staff.”

  The runner looked triumphant. “Well, we can’t be held accountable for that.”

  Stamden’s eyes narrowed. “But you can be held accountable for letting the duchess and her party get away without our knowing—which I fully intend to point out to your superiors.”

  “That’s all very well but it doesn’t solve our problem,” Devon said, slumping against the velvet squabs, suddenly weary to the bone.

  He fought the urge to pound his fist through the window of Stamden’s carriage out of sheer frustration. “What was the woman thinking of to go racing off to Cornwall without my permission? And without proper escort? She’ll be on the road for days. Anything could happen.”

  Stamden climbed into the carriage and settled himself on the seat opposite Devon. “The duchess strikes me as a woman who is accustomed to taking care of herself,” he said, flexing his fingers in a nervous rhythm which belied his calm, deliberate tone of voice. “She was undoubtedly badly frightened when her home was invaded and did the first thing that came to mind.”

  “The first thing and the worst thing,” Devon decla
red, a cold knot of fear forming in his stomach. “Two failed attempts will not deter a man as desperate as Quentin, and thugs can be hired as easily in Cornwall as in London. Especially now, with the war at an end and the smuggling trade no longer profitable.”

  He stared down at his tightly clenched fists. “That senile old fool who so readily told me her destination will likely give the same information to Quentin or one of his minions.”

  “I agree,” Stamden said and promptly ordered the runner to continue his vigil and report any comings and goings at the town house.

  That done, he tapped on the trapdoor to signal his coachman to continue on to the earl’s town house as earlier planned. “So what do we do now?” he asked as the carriage moved out of the square and into the flow of morning traffic.

  Devon frowned. “The duchess leaves me no choice but to follow her and hope I catch up with her in time to protect her and my ward from the consequences of her willful stupidity. The woman must have attics to let to think she could protect the young duke without the aid of a man. I swear, if the boy were not so fond of her, I would place him with someone of a more temperate nature.”

  “And break both their hearts? I think not,” Stamden said. “And as for you following them, do not even consider it. You are not yet up to it. Why, even this short jaunt has so exhausted you, you’re white as paper and wringing wet with sweat. If someone must follow them, I’ll do it.”

  “The boy is my responsibility—and his impossible stepmother as well,” Devon said stubbornly. “I’ll take my traveling coach; it is roomy enough to keep my leg elevated, as well as hold Ned and two of my stoutest grooms in case we run into trouble.”

  He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, mopped the beads of perspiration from his brow, and prayed Stamden wouldn’t notice his knees were trembling from the fatigue that left him feeble as a newborn colt.

  “Thank you for the offer, my friend,” Devon added. “But I cannot let you undertake this rescue mission in my stead. Such an admission of weakness would be too damaging to my pride—and the Earls of Langley have always had a surfeit of that commodity.”

  He managed a tight-lipped smile, however. “Still, there are limits beyond which pride becomes foolhardy. So, if you’ve a mind to join me on a fast trip to the wilds of Cornwall, I’ll not refuse your company.”

  Chapter Five

  The journey from London to Cornwall was a nightmare. The roads, so recently frozen, had thawed sufficiently to be pocked with hundreds of potholes, and the resulting ride was like traveling an endless washboard. Devon’s leg had been painful enough when they started; by the time they’d bounced and jolted their way to the inn where they made their first exchange of horses, he was in such agony, only his pride and the knowledge that Stamden would insist on turning back kept him from resorting to laudanum.

  Each morning as they started out, he sent his trusted batman ahead on horseback to arrange for the necessary nags and to inquire about the duchess. At every inn the story was the same; she and her party had passed through but stopped only long enough to change horses and eat a cold repast. It was apparent she was traveling as if the devil were at her heels, for despite long, exhausting days on the road and only the shortest of nights at the inns where they stopped to rest, Devon and Peter could draw no closer than the five-hour lead she’d had on them from the beginning.

  With each agonizing mile, Devon’s pain increased, his frustration multiplied, and his temper shortened—until when they reached Exeter and still had not caught up with their elusive quarry, he was, as Stamden put it, “literally frothing at the mouth.” He was also back on the laudanum he had weaned himself off while at Stamden’s town house, for the continual jouncing about had aggravated his injured limb to a point where the torment was too excruciating to bear without it.

  He survived the balance of the journey alternating between a haze of searing pain and a fog of opium-induced dreams in which, for some reason he could not begin to fathom, he was skippering the small skiff his father had given him as a boy.

  “Stay in the safe, clam coves,” his dream father cautioned him. But Devon paid no heed to the sage advice. Closer and closer he sailed to the treacherous rocks dotting the Cornish coast, knowing he courted disaster. But he was so entranced by the beautiful, black-haired siren who beckoned him, he no longer cared.

  The dream was always the same. He could feel the hull of the little boat grinding itself to death against the rocks, feel the icy waves washing over his face even as he reached out his arms for the alluring creature.

  Then, just as he resigned himself to a watery grave, she disappeared in a wisp of fog, leaving only the echo of her taunting laughter—and he would awake utterly desolate and chilled to the bone by the cold sweat that seeped from every pore of his pain-wracked body.

  “This is the last of the laudanum,” Peter declared, mixing it with the contents of the silver flask he carried at his hip. “Can we procure more from a local physician?”

  “We can, but I won’t need it, for this will hold me till we reach Langley Hall where I can take my leave of this peripatetic torture chamber,” Devon said, swallowing the bitter brew. “I just hate the thought of having to go through the agony of withdrawal again.” He grimaced. “One more thing I can lay at the duchess’s feet. If she’d simply contacted me after this latest trouble, I could have made arrangements for their protection until I was ready to leave for Cornwall and all this would have been unnecessary.”

  The mocking smile that had become Stamden’s trademark in recent years twisted his ravaged face. “The very idea of the self-sufficient duchess asking any man for his protection begins to strike me as highly unlikely and to compound the folly, we may well be the most absurd pair of knight’s errant in the history of chivalry. One without an arm, the other without a leg. In truth, I fear we would be better cast as court jesters.”

  “Amen to that my cynical friend,” Devon said. “I have learned my lesson as far as the duchess is concerned, and I fully intend to lay down the law to the woman as soon as I see her. I am just sorry I involved you in this fool’s mission.”

  He yawned. The laudanum was beginning to take effect and with the dulling of the pains came an irresistible urge to sleep. “I believe I’ll catch a few winks,” he said, closing his eyes. “But wake me before we reach White Oaks. I want to have my wits about me when I face the duchess.”

  The Marquess of Stamden watch his friend sink into another of the deep, troubled sleeps that had marked the last two days of the journey. If this followed the usual pattern, he would begin to moan and call out the name of the woman whom he professed to despise.

  He reached over to adjust the lap robe the earl had drawn across his legs, and stifled a gasp at the sight of a dark, ominous stain spreading across the material covering Devon’s right thigh. His wound had obviously opened again and he was losing more blood than a man in his weakened condition could stand.

  With a tap on the trapdoor, Stamden signaled the driver to bring the coach to a halt. Instantly Ned Bridges, who was riding post, appeared at the window. Without a word, Stamden lifted the robe and pointed to the growing stain. “The earl is in a bad way,” he said quietly. “You know this country. How far are we from White Oaks?”

  Ned looked about him as if taking his bearings. “No more than four or five miles.”

  “And how far from there to Langley Hall?”

  “Tis the next estate but the boundaries of both stretch for miles. It’s a good hour’s ride from White Oaks Manor to the Hall and on county roads still rutted from the winter rains.”

  He cast a worried look at the earl. “And there’ll be no one there to greet us save a handful of servants. The captain’s mother left Cornwall the day after his father’s funeral and she’s never been back. Not that the shatter-brained woman would be of any help should she be there. The captain was glad to set her up in a fine house in Bath to keep her out of his hair.”

  “Then we’ll have to spend the ni
ght at White Oaks,” Stamden said. “Best you ride ahead and warn the duchess we’re coming.

  Ned nodded his shaggy head. “That I will, my lord, but ‘tis a bad time to be asking her to put us up and care for an injured man to boot. For she’ll scarce have her bags unpacked from her own journey.” He paused. “There’s another thing. The captain won’t like being beholden to her. Won’t like it at all.”

  “I’m well aware of that, Ned,” Stamden said wearily. “But I’ll take full responsibility for the decision—and as for the duchess, I’ve no doubt she can cope with any emergency.” He spread the robe across Devon’s legs again. “Just be certain you tell her to have her cook search the pantry for moldy bread.”

  Ned nodded. “Aye, my lord, that I will. Though I suspect the word will spread throughout Cornwall quick enough that poor Ned Bridges has come home with bats in his belfry.”

  Devon woke, groggy and a bit disoriented, just as the coach pulled up to the imposing pillared entrance of the White Oaks manor house. “Devil take it, Stamden,” he sputtered. “I distinctly remember asking you to wake me before we got here.”

  “You needed your rest. In case you’ve failed to notice, all this jolting about has reopened your wound.” Stamden gave Devon’s arm a comforting pat. “But not to worry, I sent Ned ahead to warn the duchess to be ready to care for your injury.”

  Devon pushed himself upright despite the excruciating pain such movement incurred. He groaned. “That’s all I need to make this ill-begotten trip a complete disaster.”

  He glanced out the window to find the duchess literally flying down the manor steps toward his carriage with Elizabeth Kincaid behind her. “What are you thinking of, my lord?” she demanded, climbing into the carriage. “Undertaking such a journey when you’d not yet recovered from surgery!”

  “I had no choice, madam. Since you saw fit to leave London without proper protection, I felt it my duty to make certain you, and my ward, arrived here safely,” Devon said stiffly.