Inevitably a Duchess

by Jessie Clever

  Lady Folton stopped her straightening to look at him quizzically.

  “Someone else?”

  Richard nodded as he finished donning his coat and working the buttons.

  “It was Lady Jane Haven.”

  A look passed over Lady Folton’s face then that while it could not be described as lively, it was certainly a degree more robust than her previous expressions. And in it Richard noticed a touch of appreciation and almost understanding, which puzzled him.

  “I see,” Lady Folton said, “Has she ever considered signing on for the War Office?”

  ~

  Jane paused, her entire body stilling in its space, neither moving the air about it nor absorbing it. She waited, listening for any sound in the house. The knock had come seconds earlier, and a servant should have been at the door by then to accept the caller. But Jane didn’t know what Richard had meant when he said the servants knew what to do when he requested the house be secured. Did they simply pretend no one was in residence?

  When the need for air became too great, Jane finally drew a breath, the movement somehow breaking the trance she had been in long enough to take in the sight of the boys, kneeling at the table before her. Only now they were still, too, and quiet as the College library. Their eyes had grown wide even as their mouths slimmed to small slits as if they knew, too, that something was wrong.

  When no further sound came, Jane returned the chestnut roaster to the hearth, picking up her skirts as if to prevent them from making any noise even though it was not as if the person at the front door could hear her skirts rustling from as deep within the home as the library was.

  She carefully stepped behind the boys, pulling them onto the sofa with her as they all sat. And then nothing. Jane heard the sound of her breath as if a parade of carriages were stampeding through the library. She tried to force herself to quiet, but the more she concentrated, the louder her breath became. Alec began to shiver under her arm, and she hugged him tighter.

  “It’s all right,” she whispered, even though she didn’t know if that was true or not, “Your father will be home soon.”

  Nathan curled closer in her other arm, leaning over to whisper to his brother, “There’s nothing to worry about, Alec.”

  Jane smiled at the exchange taking place in her lap even as her heart raced at the silence that engulfed them. Another knock had not sounded nor had their been footsteps anywhere about the house. Jane could not keep her thoughts focused as they raced from one possibility to the next.

  Had Lady Straughton come to confront her? It did not seem likely that a lady of the peerage would go about the city terrorizing other women. But what if Lady Straughton had sent that gentleman she had met with at the coffee house? The big bloke with the menacing eyes? Morris.

  Jane swallowed.

  What would he do? And if Jane had been right about Lady Straughton, the woman would have an entire legion of men to do her bidding. How could Jane be certain who it was that would come for her?

  And how much did Lady Straughton suspect to launch such a campaign against Jane? For all Straughton knew, Jane had simply overheard a conversation and followed the woman to a coffee house. Nothing more. Jane was being irrational. There was nothing wrong.

  The sound of a gunshot blasting through the house was unmistakable, and Jane jumped, pinching the boys in her arms even as both of them let out twin screams of terror. Alec immediately started whimpering as Nathan plunged right into tears. Jane’s heart raced faster now, and she felt a cold sweat trickle down her back, soaking her gown. She stood, leaving the boys on the sofa as she flew to the only doors in the room. They were already locked, but Jane grabbed the chair by the door and wedged it under the door handles as an added measure of defense.

  She returned to the sofa and scooped both boys into her arms even though they weighed more than she could possibly carry. It didn’t matter then. She needed to have the boys in her arms, and she needed them to move. She crossed the span of the room in full strides, her skirts swishing madly in her rush. She kicked the chair out from behind Richard’s enormous oak desk and fell to her knees behind it, effectively pinning the boys underneath the behemoth piece of furniture. She crouched there until Nathan pulled Alec onto his lap and pulled both of them deeper into the space.

  “Stay here,” Jane said, and at the panicked note in her voice, she swallowed hard.

  She could not let the boys know how scared she was. She did not want them to understand fear. She closed her eyes, summoning a courage she had found many years ago, a courage that had come the last time she had not wanted to open her eyes. But now she did for she must. She needed to open her eyes again and keep moving. But when she opened her eyes, Alec was watching her, his eyes round and wet, his thumb finding a place of safety in his mouth. She looked to Nathan, such a young boy protecting his even younger brother, his face gaunt with terror even as he tried to be brave.

  And then something happened.

  Jane wasn’t sure what it was or even if she could have named it, but her heart suddenly stopped racing. The cold sweat that had drenched her inexplicably dissipated, and her breathe evened out into a natural cadence.

  “Stay here,” Jane said again, and with the soft tone of her voice, she saw Alec and Nathan relax in their hiding spot. “I need to take care of something.”

  She stood, her gaze falling on the chair she had wedged under the library door handles. She made her way quickly over to doors, resting her head to the panel of wood. Through the surface, she heard muffled footsteps. Someone was running, and then there was a great crash from deep inside the house. Jane waited, hearing the sounds and calculating in her head for something she yet did not know.

  The footsteps grew louder.

  Jane stepped away from the door, her fingers skimming over the wood of the chair still wedged there. She looked at the chair, and before the thought had finished forming in her head, she grabbed it. Pulling it away from the doors, she flung it aside and spun about in the room. Her eyes made a quick scan of the library and came to rest on the fireplace. She ran to it.

  Kneeling in front of the hearth, she lifted the heavier of the two chestnut roasters, placing the metal roaster directly into the flames. The roaster was adorned with the impression of a ship with full sails, and she watched as the fire consumed it. The metal was thick and solid in her hand as she moved it deeper into the flames.

  Jane counted the beats of her heart as she watched the metal warm from the fire, watched as smoke rose from the chestnuts still inside as they heated. Moving swiftly, she pulled the roaster from the flames and made her way back to the doors, listening once more with her ear to the panel.

  The footsteps were on the stairs, loud and certain. Jane dropped to her knees, her eye finding the keyhole, a small outlet to the corridor beyond. The stairs opened onto the corridor in front of the library, affording her a brief but useful view of whoever was coming up the stairs. When she thought the footsteps could not grow louder, a head emerged and then a set of impossibly wide shoulders. Jane swallowed as the man from the coffee house came into her line of sight.

  Lady Straughton had sent Morris then.

  Jane rose quickly, unlocking the doors as softly as she could, and stepped back. She waited just beyond the reach of the doors should someone open them, the chestnut roaster held between both of her hands.

  But in that moment, several things happened at once, the first of which was just a dim, conscious thought that someone had come through the front doors in a burst. She recognized the sound the heavy doors made as they bounced off the walls in the foyer. Either reinforcements had come to aid the stranger of the coffee house or Richard had returned. Jane hoped it was the latter. But she didn’t have time to think on it for the door handles before her were moving, turning as someone stepped through the now opened doors.

  Jane stood just beyond the sight of Morris as he stepped into the room. Taking a step back to gain momentum, Jane swung the heavy chestnut roaster. The hot me
tal connected with Morris’ face, the skin instantly sizzling as the heated brass stuck to the flesh it now burned. The sound would have been upsetting if Jane had been aware of it, and the stench of burning flesh would have made her sick. If Jane had been aware of anything, she would have noticed Richard just then, turning on the landing of the stairs before the open doors. But even as Morris fell to his knees, his hands gripping his burning, seared face, his screams of agony filling the room, Jane held the chestnut roaster high, only one thought on her mind.

  “Stay away from my children,” she said.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Richard had crested the top of the stairs by the time Jane took her swing. He had seen what she’d done, but more importantly, he had heard what she’d said.

  Stay away from my children.

  He had heard the words clearly for no words had ever affected him the way those had. His heart ceased to pump as his legs continued to carry him up the stairs. His eyes remained riveted to the sight of Jane, ruthlessly defending the thing she so obviously cared most about using nothing but a scorching chestnut roaster. Richard came into the library as she finished her swing, heard the sound of hot metal striking delicate flesh, heard the sizzle of it. He saw the look on her face, the expression of fierce protectiveness that hardened her features.

  And for the first time, Richard was scared of Jane.

  In that moment, the Jane he had thought her to be suddenly disappeared, and in her place, stood the mighty and powerful Athena, ready to attack when attack was warranted. And by the grip of her hands on the roaster and the fierce look of survival in her eye, Richard feared she thought attack was necessary again.

  He grabbed her from behind, wrestling her to the ground. Before he would have been afraid to hurt her. Before he would have been reluctant to act. But then, the Jane who stood there was like none he had ever seen before, and when their bodies hit the library floor, she finally dropped the roaster, so consumed she had been with a motherly power to defend her young that even as the force of his body hit hers, she had not relented. He was on top of her in an instant, pinning her arms to the floor before he finally saw realization dawn in her eyes.

  He was dimly aware of Hathaway entering the room, grasping the flailing intruder about the shoulders as he writhed in pain on the library floor beyond them. Jane scrambled from beneath him, and he let her go, half walking and half crawling to his desk. She disappeared around the corner of it on her hands and knees, no sound ever coming from her lips. When he finally stood and made his way around the fixture, he saw the second image of the night that left him without breath.

  Jane sat on the floor, his two sons on her lap, their heads pressed to her chest as she rocked them, speaking soothing words that Richard could not hear.

  And then Richard knew. Deep within him an awakening flashed to life, and the two images of Jane that quarreled in his head finally righted themselves. Jane, the battered, scarred wife, fell away, lost in his memories of years long forgotten. In her place came Jane, regal and bold, brave and courageous. Jane wasn’t a victim. She was a survivor.

  He hadn’t known it. And she didn’t know it. Or at least, she didn’t believe it.

  But it had been there all along, and he had been too dim to see what was so obvious. Jane did not suffer. Jane was alive, really and truly alive. She had run to him, made love to him on the very night Jonathan had died. Without hesitation, she had captured the very essence of life with both hands. And when it seemed a new life had emerged, she had embraced that as well, attending lectures at College and teaching his boys horrible, naughty tricks.

  Jane kept living, a magnificent triumph unto itself, and he had never bothered to notice, too consumed he had been with playing the hero.

  He knelt then, wrapping his arms around the entire bundle that was his sons and the woman he could not live without.

  It was many hours later when Richard finally handed a snifter of brandy to Jane. But as her gaze remained fixed on the fire in the hearth, her eyes unmoving, she did not take it from him. Her body was still as she leaned with her elbows on her knees, sitting on the sofa before the fire in his bedchamber, but he knew her mind was anything but still. For his mind, too, galloped with the thoughts of the past hours.

  “Jane,” he finally said, and she jumped as if he had slapped her.

  The thought had him cringing as careless thoughts often did around her, but just as the thought came, the image of Jane with the chestnut roaster in her hands rose before him once more. The image had been surreal as it had happened, but now with the glow of past memories, it vibrated with a beat he was too cynical to call hope. But Jane had been radiant in that moment, wielding the roaster as her only means to protect the very last thing on her conscience.

  His sons.

  The thought still made him reel, but as his mind continued to skip from one feeling to another, he let it go, wanting for just a moment to be with Jane, to be there in the moment with her and think of nothing more.

  Jane finally reached up and took the snifter from him, but she did not sip from it. She rested the glass between her hands as she continued to lean on her elbows. He took the seat next to her, watching the way the light trickled across the dark hair that had come loose and fallen about her face.

  She was beautiful then. Utterly unkempt, exhausted, and emotionally drained, he had never seen Jane look more beautiful in all the years he had known her. He reached out and took one of her hands in his, laying their entwined fingers on his knee.

  “I couldn’t let him hurt them,” she whispered.

  Richard didn’t say anything. Jane had already said the same thing four times to him since they entered his bedchamber and little else. He sat beside her and held her hand, listening to the tick of the clock in the corner and the snapping of the flames. He felt her fingers squeeze his, and he looked at her. She had turned her face to him, and for the first time since his return, he saw a spark of Jane inside her eyes. He smiled slowly and squeezed her hand back.

  “I’d do it again, Richard. You should know that,” she said, her eyes moving over his face.

  “I hope you would,” he said, picking up their joined hands to kiss the back of hers. He settled their hands once more on his knee, and Jane took a sip of the brandy.

  “He’ll live, won’t he?” she asked, settling into the sofa beside him.

  Richard nodded.

  “Unfortunately. However, I cannot entirely hate the man. He was hired to do a job. It’s only his choice in profession that I can find distasteful.”

  “I find it hard to imagine that someone could be hired to hurt another person,” Jane said beside him.

  Richard shrugged, his shirt rubbing the fabric of the sofa in a soft, hushing sound.

  “He was mainly hired to orchestrate the body snatching gang. The job to knock you off was just an added bonus.”

  Jane turned her head to look at him.

  “Knock me off?” she repeated, “Is that some sort of spy phrase?”

  Richard looked at her and winked.

  “I’m afraid I cannot answer that, my lady.”

  Jane returned her gaze to the fire with a small harrumph.

  “And what of the gunshot I heard?” she asked before taking another sip of the brandy.

  “That was Hathaway.”

  Jane sat up nearly spilling her brandy, her face suddenly ashen in fear, but he just reached forward and pulled her back against the sofa.

  “Hathaway was doing the shooting. It was a two-pronged attack. Morris got through, but Hathaway stopped the others just by opening fire.”

  Jane settled beside him again, and he heard the rush of her exhale.

  “When hiring your help, did you screen them for their firearm capabilities?” she asked.

  “Of course,” Richard said.

  Jane made a quiet noise in comment, so Richard continued.

  “Morris began talking when he thought we would not fetch the doctor. I’ve already relayed his confession to th
e War Office. But although he has told his part of the scheme, we do not yet have a secured confession from Lady Straughton. All we know is that she was engaging in the somewhat dubious act of body snatching. We cannot prove anything more heinous such as treason.”

  Jane stirred beside him.

  “Isn’t the body snatching enough to condemn her?”

  Richard shook his head.

  “Unfortunately, no. The laws may be in place, but certain public officials enjoy their positions and the flexibility they can offer on such a charge.”

  “You’re saying the public officials can be bribed?”

  Richard nodded grimly.

  “Unfortunately,” he said again.

  “But what of your meeting with the other agent? The one following her? Did he have anything to offer?”

  Richard grimaced.

  “He turned out to be a she. A girl actually. Not much older than Nathan.”

  Jane sat up at this.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Does the name Beckenshire sound familiar?”

  Jane let out a reflexive soft oh, her eyes rounding in acknowledgement.

  “Their daughter?” Jane asked, her voice no more than a whisper.

  Richard nodded.

  “She asked to be placed in the Straughton home when Lady Straughton’s activities raised the suspicions of the War Office.”

  “How long has she been under surveillance?”

  Richard took a sip of his drink.

  “As far as I can tell since the child was returned, rescued from France.”

  Jane’s expression was one of abject loss, but she did not say anything and neither did he. She finally relaxed once more into the sofa, and they both sat there, holding hands in front of the fire, silence cocooning them like a warm blanket.

  And in that comfortable silence, Richard recalled his proposal of marriage that morning, a morning that now seemed like an eternity ago. He felt his heart kick up at the recollection, but his body did not stir. Jane had been through entirely too much that day. A reminder of the proposal she had failed to answer would not be appropriate or fair. Richard forced his body to relax, releasing the idea of the proposal with a deep sense of regret.