Maybe it was, but Cliff hadn’t had any opportunity to gather common knowledge since arriving in England. He’d barely been out of his house. The duke business was overwhelming. First, he’d had to learn what the hell a dower house was and why it was shameful that he was living there. Then he’d had creditors pounding on his door and random people begging him to use his own hard earned money to clean up someone else’s mess, all in the name of a family he knew nothing about.
“Right,” he said. “So, you’re a pirate.”
He would never have guessed, just looking at her. She was the very picture of ordinariness. Medium height, with medium-brown hair and medium-brown eyes. A simple, modest dress in an unpretentious mauve color. Round, wire-rimmed eyeglasses. If he’d passed by her on the street, she would have been just another pretty face in a sea of pretty faces.
Her lips twitched, as they had done so many times during the course of their conversation. It distracted him, that twitch. It made him stare at her mouth and wonder if she always hovered on the brink of laughter, or if he was the cause of her amusement.
“A retired pirate, actually.”
“I see.”
“Keeping busy by digging for random treasure.” Her lips didn’t twitch this time, and she glanced away at the word “random.” So. She was on the hunt for a specific treasure. Intriguing.
“And sword fighting in the yard,” Lola added.
Miss Diebin smiled again. Tiny dimples appeared in her cheeks. “Staying fit and healthy is always important. I recommend regular exercise, plenty of sleep, good nutrition, and relaxing hobbies.”
“I thought all pirates drank to excess and lost their teeth from scurvy,” Cliff replied.
The twitch returned. Was she laughing at him, or did his words bring her genuine pleasure?
“This is the twentieth century, Your Grace. The freedom of the skies gives us access to the entire world, including regular fresh fruits and vegetables. But, yes, pirates do drink a lot. What do Americans like to drink? Scotch? Brandy? I have a fully stocked liquor cabinet, and I’d be happy to offer you a drink.”
“Nothing, thank you. We should let you get back to your treasure hunting. It was a pleasure to meet you, and if we can do anything to assist you in your efforts, please let me know.”
Oh, no.
Why had he said that? He had enough troubles without adding a potentially dangerous and curiously interesting woman to the mix. Especially one who probably thought he was a buffoon.
She beamed and her dimples grew larger. “Wonderful! Thank you very much.” She turned to Lola. “I’ll think of a special project just for you and send a secret message when I need your help.”
Lola’s eyes widened, and she bounced gleefully. “Thank you, Miss La Capitaine!”
Cliff frowned, a mix of happiness and apprehension bubbling inside him. Finally, he’d met someone here who accepted and befriended Lola—and she was a self-professed thief and pirate.
“You’re very welcome, Miss Kinsley.” Miss Diebin’s eyes met Cliff’s again. Had he really thought those eyes ordinary? They were large and luminous. Riveting.
“And thank you for visiting, Your Grace. I’m happy there are no hard feelings over my purchase of your ancestral home.”
“Right.” As if he could even contemplate living in this hundred-room palace. He’d thought his twelve-room home in Chicago spacious. The dower house had three times that many. The day they’d arrived, Lola had asked if it was a hotel. “I’ll, uh, show myself out.”
“Oh, no, let me.”
Miss Diebin led the way down the hall, past rooms crammed with junk. She was right. He could make good money here. He tore his eyes from the piles, resisting the urge to dive in and start sorting. If he really wanted to get back to work, he needed to develop a concrete plan for killing off his ducal alter-ego.
He stopped in the middle of the hall. Lola and their hostess turned to frown at him.
“Before we go, Miss Diebin, I have one question for you.” The words came out before he could stop them.
“Yes?”
Don’t ask. Don’t ask. Just mutter some apology and go home.
“Uh, do you, by any chance, have any experience with murder?”
4
Cliff didn’t notice when he smashed his shoulder on the doorframe, nor when he let out a brief yelp of pain. Only when a concerned female voice asked, “Are you quite all right, Your Grace?” did the experience begin to register.
Wonderful. He still cringed every time he thought of how he’d embarrassed himself in front of Sabine Diebin two days prior. Now it seemed he would be putting on a similar show in his own home.
“Uh…” Cliff stared at the quartet of ladies taking tea in his parlor, all blinking up at him with worried frowns. His shoulder hurt, now, dammit. He walked into door frames, tables, and other large obstructions on a regular basis, and usually he simply kept going without a second thought.
“Yes, yes, fine,” he babbled. “I’m, uh, sorry to interrupt. I believe I have the wrong room.”
The ladies laughed.
“Don’t be silly, Hartleigh.” Her Grace, the Duchess of Hartleigh—widow of the previous duke—addressed him with a casual wave of her hand, as if she’d known him all her life and not less than a week. “You’re exactly where you belong. Sit down and let me introduce you to these lovely ladies.”
“I prefer to stand, thank you. I have business to attend to and can’t stay more than a moment.”
The duchess glared at him. Younger than Cliff by several years at least, she nonetheless carried herself with the worldly superiority of an established matriarch. She had ideas for the dukedom, and expected Cliff to embrace them. Today, apparently, she meant to marry him off.
He bowed over each woman’s hand as the duchess made introductions, but paid no attention to their names, or the details of their families that she imparted. A few polite phrases, some forced smiles, and he’d leave.
In the midst of some utter fabrication about how enthusiastically he had undertaken his family duties, he glanced up at the ceiling. Right above the tea-sipping ladies, a pair of two-inch clockwork spiders dangled precariously from the chandelier. The “web” they perched on had been constructed from assorted bits of string and looked to be rapidly unraveling.
“Oh, no,” he muttered.
“What was that, Duke?” the duchess asked.
“Uh…” What could he do? If he lunged for the spiders, he’d look unhinged and startle his guests. If he let them fall…
He hesitated too long, and the first spider plopped down into one woman’s hairdo. She shrieked and clawed, trying to dislodge the creature. The second spider fell a moment later, landing in a second woman’s lap. Unlike her screaming companion, she rose, calmly shook out her skirts, and lifted her foot to smash the offending arachnid.
“No!”
Cliff dove for the spider, knocking the poor woman right off her feet. She came crashing down atop him, smothering him with her skirts and driving the air from his lungs, but the delicate mechanical creature was safe. Cliff wriggled free and climbed to his feet.
“Sorry about that.” He plucked the second spider from the other woman’s hair. “These are my daughter’s pets and they’re very special to her. They have their own names and everything. I’ll just go return them. Excuse me.”
He turned and hurried from the room.
The duchess found him half an hour later, sitting in his study and staring dejectedly at the mountains of correspondence, much of which was dated before the Mad Duke’s death. If only he’d handled his request to Sabine Diebin better. Her hulking butler had all but thrown Cliff out of the house, even as he’d tried to explain what he meant. He’d ruined Lola’s only friendship.
“That was appalling!” Her Grace shouted, slamming the door behind her in a refreshingly un-duchess-like fashion.
Cliff only shrugged. “Accidents happen.”
“Those were your three best prospects! Astou
ndingly wealthy women with families eager to move up in the world.”
“Attaching oneself to a dukedom burdened with debt is hardly moving up in the world. You can take my word for it.”
She threw up her hands. “Americans! You have no idea how things work here, do you? Now you’ve embarrassed yourself, insulted a trio of fine, marriageable women, and probably heaped yet another scandal onto our already massive troubles! And then you brought that child into it!”
Cliff crumpled whatever paper sat on top of the pile. “Her name is Lola. She’s seven years old and she likes spiders, pirates, and playing dress-up.”
“That may be, but she can’t remain here. I’ve made a list of excellent schools…”
“Toss it in the fire. It’ll save time.”
Something soft bounced off the back of his head. He turned to find a crumpled piece of paper sitting on the floor behind him. He bent to retrieve it.
“Your list?” It amused him that he’d made her so angry she’d balled it up and thrown it at him.
“Read it.”
“No.” He walked over to the fire and tossed it in, watching the flames flare up and consume it. “Lola stays with me.” No way in hell was he sending her anywhere. She wasn’t old enough yet to handle the fuel for her heart on her own. And he’d be damned if he’d trust some stranger to do it.
“You can’t flaunt your bastard in front of all society!”
Cliff stalked toward the duchess. “Do not call her that.”
She stood her ground. “It’s the truth. Who even is her mother? Some shop girl or farmer’s daughter, no doubt.”
“Actually, these days she’s the owner of a notorious brothel in New York City. Doing rather well for herself, last I heard.”
The duchess pressed both hands to her face. “Dear God, you’re a disgrace to the dukedom.”
“Good. Pass it on to the next person. I’ll go back to Chicago.”
“There is no next person. You have to marry and you have to produce an heir. You refuse to use your money to buy back the house and pay off the debts, so the wife you choose must be an heiress. It’s the only way to save us all.”
Her hands dropped to her sides, and in the brief moment before she schooled her features, Cliff caught a glimpse of true fear and sorrow in her eyes.
“Look, I’m sorry your late husband left you with such a mess, but I had nothing to do with it, and you can’t simply force me to straighten it all out. The money from my business is for Lola, to provide for her future. No one touches it. I have no intention of marrying anyone, no matter how rich she is. You’ll simply have to find another way. Sell off more of the property.”
“There’s nothing left. All the lands, all the other properties were sold off months or even years ago. The house was sold to that pirate woman just before your whereabouts were discovered. This is all that remains.” She waved her hand around the study. “This house and the land surrounding the two houses. You own nothing else.”
“Actually, I own several warehouses, a recycling plant, and a pretty house with a view of Lake Michigan.” That I can never return to because creditors and hopeful future duchesses would hound me for the remainder of my life.
“Sell them.”
“Not yet.” If he sold his business and his house, it would extinguish the last tiny spark of hope that maybe he could find a way home. Even as he planned to fake his own death and forge a new identity, that spark still lingered. Home.
“If you do nothing, we will be forced to sell all we have left. Your entire household will become unemployed. I will have nowhere to go, nor will Luella.”
“Who?”
She heaved a sigh. “My companion.”
Right. Duchesses employed companions to hang around and be their friends, or something of that sort. Strange people, these British nobles.
“Ah. Well, she could get a new job. You could get a job. Teach finishing school. You’d be good at that.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m a disgrace to my family,” she whispered, and fled the room.
“Dammit.” Cliff sank back into his chair. He hadn’t meant to make her cry. She’d probably been reared from birth to be nothing but a duchess, and then her family had married her off to some bizarre old duke. No wonder she was scared and upset. He’d have to apologize. He was willing to work with her on some sort of solution. Hartleigh didn’t have to die right this minute.
There would be no compromising about Lola, however. She was his family. She was his life. They stayed together, no matter what.
He poked through the papers for a few more minutes before coming to a decision. Leaving his coat hanging on the back of his chair, he walked outside, breathing in the brisk January air. The wind stung his cheeks and the cold cut straight through his shirtsleeves. Nothing like the winds of Chicago, though. He missed snow. He missed the ice that built up on the lake. He jogged across his ducal gardens and rapped on the door of the Mad Duke’s former home.
“Captain’s angry at you,” the butler said, waving Cliff inside, regardless. “She’s fought battles, but she’s no assassin.”
“I didn’t mean to imply that she was. I’ll explain everything, if she’ll see me.”
“There’s only one way to find out. Follow me.”
Cliff followed the burly butler deep into the house, where he was shown into a room filled floor to ceiling with mechanical contraptions. He broke into a grin. This was even better than anticipated. He could make this work.
“Miss Diebin,” he said, tilting his head to peer at her through the empty belly of what might have been a life-sized, metal grizzly bear. “Clifford J. Kinsley. Scrap metal dealer. I have a business proposition for you.”
5
Sabine stepped around the large metal beast and met the duke’s smile with her stern captain’s look. “A business proposition,” she echoed. “Does this mean you would like to haul away things like this?” She banged a fist on the bear, which rang with a hollow thunk.
“I could get good money for that. Lots of saleable metal, excellent condition.”
He was serious. Pleasure bubbled through her, despite her lingering annoyance from their disagreeable parting the other day. Clifford Kinsley had the skills she needed to sort through this disaster. Without him, her search could drag on indefinitely.
“You’re welcome to it,” she replied, “if you think you can restrain yourself from insulting me again?”
The duke cringed. “I’m sorry about that. I completely bungled things. What I intended to ask was if you knew of useful ways to murder a man.” He pushed up his glasses and rubbed his nose. “No, that doesn’t sound right, either. Let me explain.”
“Please do,” she answered dryly.
Hartleigh looked around the room, as if hoping for a place to sit, then shrugged and turned back to Sabine. “This dukedom I’ve inherited… I don’t want it. I never wanted it. I’m being bombarded with silly rules and debt collectors and people who think I ought to hide my own daughter away and pretend she doesn’t exist. To be blunt, the duke needs to die. I was hoping that in exchange for my services here…” He waved a hand at the messy room. “You might be willing to assist in faking my demise.”
“Ah.” That she could do. Sneaking and deception were weapons in any good pirate’s arsenal. “I may be able to devise some plan.”
“Excellent.” He grinned at her again, ice blue eyes sparkling. It was unsettlingly endearing, that grin. “Here’s my proposal: I clean this house for you. I will sell off any scrap of value, dispose of anything worthless, and so forth. I’ll make sure everything is properly catalogued, so there’s no danger of accidentally discarding whatever treasure you seek. When the sorting is done, or you’ve found your treasure, you will then arrange for myself and Lola to disappear and, if necessary, help us arrange anonymous transportation to California. I want this done in such a way that no one will come looking for us. Do we have a deal?” He extended a hand.
Fake a duke’s dea
th in exchange for her treasure? Sabine could accept that. She shook his hand. “Deal. You can even keep the money from the sale of the scrap.”
“Wonderful. I can begin right away. What are you looking for, if I might ask? A treasure map? It would be helpful to know so I don’t miss anything potentially important.”
“Not a map. A cipher.”
One black eyebrow arched. “Oh?”
“I have a very valuable text written in code. The key to deciphering it is somewhere in this house. I intend to find the key, decode the message, and claim the treasure.”
“A modern-day pirate. Scientific and logical. I approve.”
She inclined her head. “Thank you. How long do you anticipate the cleanup to take?”
Hartleigh scanned their surroundings. “Dozens of rooms, each like this? One month.”
Sabine burst out laughing.
“That wasn’t a joke,” he said. “One month and I’ll be done.”
She only laughed again.
Sabine heaved a sigh, setting more papers atop the stack. Two weeks later, and now Hartleigh was the one laughing. Or, he would be, if he ever paused long enough to enjoy the fruits of his labor.
The duke wielded organization and efficiency the way Sabine wielded a blade. Fifty rooms had already been emptied, the contents sorted into papers, metals, other salvageable materials, and trash. The ballroom now housed thousands of potentially valuable items awaiting appraisal by experts. She’d eaten in her dining room last night for the first time ever, and now had half-a-dozen bedchambers available for guests. Not that she expected anyone to come by aside from the duke and his daughter.
Hartleigh worked twelve-hour days, much of the time with Lola at his side, teaching by example. He mixed fun tasks with challenging ones, pushing her to learn while still leaving her the freedom to play and explore.
Sabine cringed, thinking of her own father. He’d taught her only two things: how to fend for herself and not to trust anyone. Lola was lucky, but also vulnerable. Someday she’d find herself all alone, forced to make her own way. Would she have the skills to survive, as Sabine had? Or would she fall victim to the machinations of men who saw her as no more than a commodity?
Dead Dukes Tell No Tales Page 2
