The Dukes of War: Complete Collection

by Ridley, Erica

  She closed her eyes. Oh, Oliver. Her heart ached at what she was about to put him through. She didn’t want to leave him. She could say it was for his own good, that he’d be better off without another mouth to feed or a dependent to look after, but she’d seen the warmth in his eyes when he kissed her forehead in his empty parlor. He might regret having been compromised, but he wasn’t sorry it had been with her.

  Heaven knew it was mutual. How she wished things could have worked out differently! Her nerves sizzled with frustration. Since her grandparents refused to send aid to her mother, she had no choice but to leave immediately after the wedding. It wouldn’t be Oliver’s fault if she didn’t reach her mother before it was too late, but she would still be resentful for the rest of her life. She couldn’t put any of them through that. Her hands twitched as she rocked back in her chair.

  She rubbed the back of her neck, squeezing harder than necessary. There was no right answer. She would go home, and if her mother were healthy enough, she would bring her right back. And if Mama was too sick or Grace was too late… Well, the money would be spent either way. She’d spend the last ha’penny on medicine and surgeons if need be. If that didn’t work, there’d be a grave to dig and a stone to buy and a “year” of mourning that would never truly end…

  No. She leapt to her feet. She couldn’t think that way. Her hands were tied until after the ceremony, but she’d be on the first boat out the morning after. Until then, she had to keep calm, keep breathing. It was just one more week. Less! Just six interminable days remained. Then she’d have Carlisle for a blissful, whirlwind twenty-four hours. She was determined to savor every moment of her wedding day. Their wedding night.

  Because the next morning, she’d be on a boat. The thought filled her with as much regret as it did relief. But what choice did she have? Carlisle would understand the need to rescue her mother. He had to. It would break her heart if he did not.

  She washed the ink from her fingers and made her way to the stairs. Below, all was quiet. Her grandparents had made noises about paying a call upon a neighbor. If Grace was lucky, that would give her a few minutes to curl up on one of the plush silk sofas without them breathing over her shoulder. She tiptoed down the stairs. No one crossed her path.

  Her grandparents’ mansion was even larger than Carlisle’s, and opulent to the point of ostentatious. Every corner boasted heavy marble busts. Every edge that could be gilded, was.

  She wouldn’t miss the gaudy extravagance, but she would miss easy access to the newest fashion plates, and a comfortable chaise longue upon which to enjoy them. Even Carlisle’s estate would seem positively luxurious compared to the claustrophobic shared cabins upon the ocean vessel, where the stink of too many people clogged one’s nose and the relentless pitching of the sea emptied one’s stomach. Her belly turned at the unpleasant memory.

  Her jaw set. She would survive the upcoming voyage.

  Book in hand, Grace hurried toward her favorite sitting room—and pulled up short inside the doorway.

  There, reclining upon the very chaise longue she’d been looking forward to using, was her grandmother. The pelisse about her shoulders and dry boots upon her feet indicated they had not yet made it to the neighbor’s house, but would be leaving shortly. Her grandfather, similarly attired, sat in the wingback chair closer to the fireplace. He looked up first, but did not smile. Nobody in this house smiled.

  “Well, here’s Grace.” He stretched his back. “We can let her read this one, can’t we?”

  Only then did Grandmother Mayer raise her gray head from the letter she’d been reading. The look she shot her husband could have boiled iron. She shoved the folded parchment in Grace’s direction as if her very presence had soured its contents.

  “Read it, then. It’s for you.”

  Mama! Grace’s heart leaped. Her entire body was so infused with joy that she couldn’t even bring herself to be angry at her grandparents for breaking the seal and reading it first. They were finally letting her hear from her mother! Nothing else mattered.

  The book fell from her fingers as she swooped forward to save the letter before her grandmother changed her mind and tossed it into the fire with the rest of the undelivered correspondence. Hands shaking as much from fear as excitement, Grace unfolded the ivory page and read the first line:

  My future countess,

  Pain ripped through Grace’s heart, followed by an all-encompassing emptiness. Of course it was not from her mother. If there had been a note from her, it was ashes by now. This letter, too, would have shared the same fate, had she not entered the parlor at this precise moment. There would be no word of her mother’s health or lack thereof until Grace stepped onto Pennsylvania soil. Until then, all she had were her hateful grandparents.

  And Oliver. She had Oliver. Her savior and her curse.

  Swallowing the lump of despair in her throat, she turned back to the letter.

  My future countess,

  Forgive me that I no longer think of you as Miss Halton, but rather as Lady Carlisle, mistress of both my estate and my heart. I know that you do not love me and would not have chosen our union, and all I can do is everything within my power to be the sort of husband a wife can trust, respect, and perhaps come to care for.

  To that end, I am writing to inform you that I have taken the liberty of opening an account in your name at the Bank of England on Threadneedle Street. This is the same branch in which I manage my own finances, and therefore holds the account that will receive your dowry the morning of our wedding. As soon as the funds arrive, they will be debited from my account and deposited into yours. To withdraw any amount of your choosing, you have only to present yourself at the bank and ask for it. This account is not in my name. The money is yours.

  As you have no doubt ascertained, I lack sufficient resources to spoil you as extravagantly as I wish. However, I am able to grant the one desire that you wish—for these funds to be used to aid your mother as you see fit.

  I do not labor under the misapprehension that this gesture should be construed as a wedding present, nor do I seek gratitude for having undertaken these steps. I cannot gift to anyone what was never mine to begin with. The money has always been yours. I am simply giving it back.

  Faithfully yours,

  Oliver

  Grace closed the letter with shaking fingers. Her eyes stung. That beautiful, selfless, idiotic man. Giving her the freedom to walk away and leave him! Of course she would not spend the entirety at once while he toiled to save the earldom from ruin. She would withdraw just enough money to reach Pennsylvania and provide for her mother. The rest was his. He was the one who deserved it.

  “I must respond at once. Can you please see that Lord Carlisle receives—”

  “No.” Her grandmother’s cold voice was flat with finality. “You will see him at the church, and that is soon enough.”

  “But he—”

  “I read it. He is a perfect fool, but that is his decision. He can do with the money—and with you—as he wishes. But not before the wedding. There will be no more letters between now and then. No contact of any kind. I will not have another scandal under my roof.”

  “How is a letter possibly scandalous? You can even read it before you post it. I swear there won’t be—”

  “Not until the wedding.”

  Grace’s fingers curled. They were so awful, so unfair. Because their daughter had defied them twenty-two years earlier, Grace could not be trusted with parchment and ink?

  Heart thudding dangerously, she turned from her grandparents and stalked out of the parlor.

  “Where are you going?” her grandmother’s imperious voice demanded from within the sitting room. “I’ll lock you in your chamber if you force me to, young lady. I won’t have scandal brought upon this house again.”

  Grace didn’t answer. She couldn’t, not without screaming. Her pulse pounded in her ears. She needed fresh air. She needed to escape. Hands shaking, she fled through her gilded prison and
out the front door, anger inuring her to the sharp bite of the winter wind. She had to speak to Carlisle. To explain—

  The carriage! It was at the ready, waiting to take her grandparents to call upon their neighbors.

  She raced across the frozen lawn and up into the coach’s black interior before the tiger could leap down and help her in, before good sense could change her mind.

  “Carlisle Manor,” she ordered the driver. “Hurry!”

  The horses were immediately in motion, their hooves crunching the grass and then racing across the gravel stones to the gray dirt road.

  Grace blinked in surprise. She twisted against the squab to peer through the window, her heart beating faster than ever. There was only the briefest glimpse of the manor entrance before the red brick wall lining the property blocked it from view. Already they were on the main road, out of earshot and out of sight.

  She turned back to the front of the carriage. Why on earth had the coachman obeyed her? He’d been awaiting her grandparents, not some half-wild chit without even enough sense to don a pelisse and some sensible shoes. Except… he couldn’t question her, she realized with sudden clarity. Not when he was a servant and she was not.

  If he’d been previously instructed not to heed her commands, that would’ve been one thing. But of course her grandmother had never supposed Grace would ever be in a position where she might give commands. She hoped the old bat wouldn’t take it out on the poor coachman. Mentally, Grace deducted a little more from her dowry in the coachman’s name, just in case.

  Shivering, she bent to pick up the woolen blankets lying folded on the carriage floor and discovered red-hot warming bricks beneath. She shook her head. Of course her grandparents would have every convenience at their disposal, even for a jaunt to a neighboring property.

  Steam filled the carriage as she pulled off her snow-dusted slippers and placed them atop one of the bricks. The other brick she kept between her feet. She draped one of the blankets over her shoulders, but after a few minutes let it drop. Between the hot bricks and her layers and long sleeves, the carriage was almost too warm. The image of her grandfather wearing his coat as he sat before the fire popped into her mind and she smiled despite herself. The bricks were likely his idea. She would thank him for it later.

  Right before they manacled her to the attic wall.

  She had no illusions about the remaining days before the wedding. Once she returned to her grandparents’ home, they would never let her leave the house again. This was her one chance to speak to Carlisle before the deed was done. She had to make it count.

  When the coachman pulled up at Carlisle Manor, she all but flew out of the carriage and to the front door. The butler opened the door almost as quickly as she released the knocker.

  “Miss Halton!” Surprise colored his face, but he immediately motioned her in. “I’m afraid you’ve just missed Lord Carlisle. If you’re willing to wait perhaps an hour or two, he’s sure to be back quickly.”

  She rubbed her temples. An hour was much too long. By now, her grandparents had one of their many other coaches readied and stocked with warming bricks, and were on their way here. After all, where else was she likely to go?

  “Do you…Can you tell me where he went? If it’s not breaking a confidence?”

  “Of course.” The butler seemed more surprised by this question than the fact of her unexpected presence on the doorstep in the first place. “You are our mistress now. Lord Carlisle already informed us that your word is to carry the same weight as his. I have no doubt he would wish for you to find him, if that is your desire.”

  “It is my deepest desire,” she said fervently and motioned to her coachman to join them, so that he might overhear any pertinent directions. “Where is he?”

  “At the pawnbroker on Fleet Street, near the Old Bailey.” The butler turned to her driver. “Do you know the place?”

  The coachman nodded. “Of course.”

  The man was far too well trained to give any hint of the astonishment he must certainly feel at the progressively stranger turns of events. He simply helped Grace back into the carriage and set off for downtown London.

  The bricks had lost their warmth by the time the carriage clopped past St. Paul’s churchyard and came to rest before an unassuming facade. This time, she allowed the tiger to hand her down with considerably more decorum than she’d shown at Carlisle Manor.

  Tiny bells tinkled overhead as she pushed open the door to the pawnbroker’s shop and stepped inside. To her surprise, the coachman leapt from the carriage to join her.

  When she glanced at him, he murmured, “A lady does not visit a pawnbroker, miss, and certainly not by herself.”

  She nodded, reminded once again of all she didn’t know about England. There were rules back home, of course, about what a lady did and didn’t do. But Grace had never been a lady, and her small farming town was the sort of place where anyone could and did go everywhere, without fear of bodily harm or damage to one’s reputation. She had so much to learn before she could become a wife Carlisle wouldn’t be ashamed of, much less a countess to be proud of.

  “May I help you, miss?”

  Grace whirled to face the pawnbroker. “I hope so. That is, I’m looking for Lord Carlisle. I was told he might be here?”

  “Your information is accurate, but your timing, I’m afraid, is just a few moments off. He left not ten minutes ago.”

  She had missed him. Her shoulders slumped. Now what? She couldn’t go back to Carlisle Manor. By now her grandparents had stationed armed guards there, primed to abduct her upon sight. She could write a letter, at least, and have the pawnbroker post it…

  Impossible. She covered her face with her hands at the irony. Without her dowry, she hadn’t tuppence to her name, much less enough coin to purchase writing implements on top of it. She certainly hadn’t thought to bring paper and an inkpot with her, and a pawnbroker was the last sort of person who would offer his own for free.

  She wondered what Oliver might have brought here and then flinched to realize the answer was probably: everything. The shop was stuffed floor to ceiling with crates and boxes and locked shelves brimming with every sort of object. Every pawnbroker in the city likely contained a good percentage of Carlisle Manor’s treasures.

  She crossed her arms over her chest and rubbed warmth back into her upper arms. Half-witted to be out in this cold without a pelisse. At least her day dresses were warmer than her eveningwear. Those were light and flimsy to combat the heat of so many people and so much dancing, but were likely the least sensible thing to wear outside of a ballroom. Expensive silks were hardly proper defense against the bitter London chill, or the—

  Expensive silks. Oh, if only she were wearing any one of her ridiculous evening gowns! Her shoulders caved. It wouldn’t matter. There were no dresses displayed upon the walls. This was the sort of place one sold antiquities and jewels, not silk-and-lace trousseaus.

  She cast her gaze about the shop in despair. Useless. Worse than useless. She couldn’t even buy Oliver a wedding present. The man deserved something. After all, she was leaving him with nothing. Slightly richer, yes, but without a wife. She couldn’t come back without her mother, and she couldn’t put Mama on one of those horrid boats until her health had returned. She would nurse her back to health, even if it took years.

  And Oliver? A missing wife was worse than a dead one—he wouldn’t even be able to remarry if she didn’t come back. Not for money, and not for love.

  It wasn’t about him forgiving her for abandoning him, she realized dully. If she couldn’t make it back, she might never forgive herself.

  “Is there anything here that catches your eye?” The pawnbroker gestured toward a locked glass case with earbobs and other baubles inside.

  “What happens to these things?” she asked instead. “People give you their treasures and you sell them to others?”

  “Nobody gives me anything. Everyone walks out of my shop with more money in their pocket
s than when they came in.” The pawnbroker puffed out his chest. “But to answer your question, it depends. Many of my customers avail themselves of my services. I hold a given item for a specified amount of time. If they return my capital and its agreed-upon interest, I return their object and the promissory note.”

  She tapped her chin and nodded.

  “Other customers do not want their objects back. They prefer a small increase in money. In those cases, yes, I am free to resell those items at the time and at the price of my choosing. For example, Monday next I’ve an auction scheduled for a painting that’s recently come in, free of vowels.” He gestured toward a back room and chuckled. “I expect a portrait of the Black Prince to net a princely sum, indeed.”

  Grace’s fingers went cold. He couldn’t have such a painting in his possession. Oliver would never part with the Black Prince. Everyone knew—

  Oh, no. She thought of the note he had written her. He was too proud, too kindhearted to accept the dowry money he needed so badly, and so he had sold the only thing of value he had left. Romantic fool. It was her fault he had given up a family heirloom. He’d never get it back, not if it was meant to be auctioned on Monday because he hadn’t secured a promissory note…

  “May I see it?”

  “Of course.”

  The pawnbroker led her and the coachman to a side room, where a stunning portrait hung four feet tall on the wall. The paint was cracked with age in some places, but larger than life and full of color. Oliver’s brown hair was much darker than the Black Prince’s yellow locks, but his muscular shoulders and regal bearing matched down to the brushstroke.

  Cousins, someone had told her. No one could doubt it. She couldn’t let it be sold to someone else. Not when Oliver thought of the Black Prince as family.

  “How much do you think you will get for it?”

  The pawnbroker leaned forward, eyes bright with interest. “Would you like to put in a bid for it?”