Hand over hand, toehold after toehold, I lowered myself until one boot hit the ground and then the other. I drew my arms about me and made sure my heart was still inside my ribs.
But it wasn’t.
It was in a dingy crib, three stories up.
The hawthorn hedgerows at my hips left tiny white petals on my breeches. The flowers reflected the moonlight, making my menswear look like lace. Mama must be looking down laughing.
I scrubbed off the flowers and headed across the wide field toward the gate, toward Jemina.
A screech sounded, followed by a wave of thunder.
I halted in place.
Then a drum, drum, drumming caught in my ear. It chiseled inside, hammering down my spine. I reached for my knife, but it wasn’t in my waistband.
I’d left it on the ledge.
Headstrong, impatient girl. Mama’s rebuke rang in my brainbox.
The ground shook beneath my boots.
A fast rider led one, two, three carriages. They barreled through Hamlin’s stone gates.
Men galloped toward me with guns drawn, flintlocks, the ones with the long barrels, the ones meant for war.
Kicked-up rocks stung my shins as the first horse passed, but the lead carriage shot toward me. Its large side lanterns blinded, stunning me like an insect mesmerized by light.
Couldn’t move, couldn’t stop staring. I’d survived Bedlam and the high ledge, only to be trampled.
No surrendering, not me, not this time.
I straightened and faced the raiders head-on.
CHAPTER 2
A MOTHER’S RESOLVE
The tart stench of horses’ lather and the odor of burning pitch wrinkled my nose. The carriage moved closer, coming for me, but I wouldn’t back down. I’d hidden too much.
My father’s blood pumping inside kept me from a faint. His endless talk of insurrection from the American rabble, Samuel Adams, stuck in my heart. I understood and absorbed his troubles, his defiant quest for life and liberty.
Each time I picked up my son, felt his skin next to mine, I became a revolutionary. For him, his life, his liberty, I charged forward.
The driver cursed at me but steered to the right.
I was saved, but I knew from the number of guns I’d seen, the battle hadn’t been won. Clenching my gloved hands, I remembered my disguise and waved the carriages toward the steps. I acted like a footman and did what those servants did whenever my husband arrived from Town. I kept signaling with arms wiggling and pointing.
Soldiers ran around me, charging the entry. A few ran toward the secret entrance to the catacombs. These invaders had knowledge of Hamlin, deep knowledge. It took more than two years for me to learn its secrets.
Sweat drenched my forehead. My powdered wig had to stay pinned in place. The dabbed-on theater cosmetic had to stick to my face, or I’d never be able to walk free through Hamlin’s gates.
“You! Man the door.” A groom pointed to the big carriage, the one that almost ran me down.
I nodded and stiffened my walk to seem more brutish. I prepared my countenance, thinking burp and rough things like burlap. Escape was impossible until I passed this test. Bracing, I threw open the carriage door.
A man bounced out, tall and thin, looking cross. “I guess we’ve arrived. Winning already, Duke?”
The other fellow inside struggled toward the opening, like he couldn’t get a good push on the tufted seat. He shrugged and fumbled with a shiny gold watch. “Eleven on the dot. An excellent time to storm the castle.” He chuckled. “And yes, we are winning. You. Don’t just stand there gawking. Help me out.”
My name wasn’t You or at least it wasn’t the last time I’d written it. I pointed to my bosom. “Me?”
The big man flopped a little closer to the door and exposed a heavily bandaged leg. “Yes, you.”
“Yes, sir.”
The urge to check my white wig for escaping dark hair or adjust my livery to see if I’d wet through pressed. My milk was heavy again, and my nerves rattled like the silver toy Lionel should have in his crib, the one Markham sold off.
“You’re a might scrawny, but tall enough for the task.”
“For what?”
“To help me balance. You’ll do as a crutch. Let’s get on with this.”
First a you and now a crutch? I grimaced and tried hard not to gawk at his slow, scooting movements, tried not to think of my baby sister flopping about learning to crawl. Tried and failed to not let missing my family mist my eyes.
The thinner man returned. “I’ll have a proper crutch brought to you in a moment. Slow down. Napoleon’s not inside, just Markham and a baby.”
“And all his corrupt minions, Gantry. We know he’s been hiring reinforcements.”
The other man shook his head and turned to me. “Minion, don’t drop the duke on his head. It won’t help.”
Me a minion? Never to Markham. “I won’t, sir.”
I stuck my hand inside the carriage, like a girl, like a scared little girl who thought a furry spider might crawl onto her hand. Dukes didn’t bite and make sticky webs, did they?
He grabbed my flailing arm and towed himself to the opening. “This one has a sense of humor, Gantry, complete with flopping limbs.”
The duke’s laugh was full and lusty. He didn’t look so mean, not chuckling like a schoolboy. Then his expression sobered. “My soldiers surrounded Hamlin. Markham can’t escape. Not this time, not with my ward.”
“Yes, Repington.” Gantry shrugged and moved toward the second carriage.
Repington? Colin’s dead grandfather? How did this man have this name? He looked too solid to be a ghost.
Was this the person the servants said would come to fix things?
I didn’t know what new conspiracy had begun, but this peer had my arm, and he’d come for Markham.
But who was his ward? Lionel?
“I’m not one who waits,” the duke said. “No more antics. Do you think you can help me balance? From your stares, you can see I’m injured. I need to get inside at once.”
Hope built in my veins, pumping me up, floating my heart like a heated paper lantern. I ducked my shoulder under his arm. “Non-corrupt minion here, Your Grace. I can help until a true crutch is brought forward.”
The duke’s laughter sounded richer, like a full-bodied dessert port. Then his full weight came down on me.
Ugh.
All the wind, all the heated air gushed out of me, but I didn’t buckle. I couldn’t. The duke was here to stop Markham.
We took a step together, and he stumbled.
“I typically despise assistance, but I hate waiting more.”
I sympathized.
Waiting wasn’t my strength, either. Charging forward with little hesitation was my special talent. As I strained under his weight, I feared that this time my flaw might be fatal.
The duke and I wobbled, each of us trying to lead the other to Hamlin’s grand entry.
“You’ve a lot of heart, minion, but get in step with me. It will be easier.”
Nothing was easier when I complied. Submission was a softer shade of hard.
But I acquiesced like I’d done with Colin and leaned in closer. The duke’s brawny arm smashed my face into his chest. The white cosmetic smeared onto his ebony greatcoat.
Then I heard him counting. The rhythm sounded strong like a conga rattle. I swayed with him. It became our music. No longer struggling to show him the shortest path, I fell in step, my full stride matched his two half jumps.
My reward was his scent. Enmeshed in his cloak was something heady and familiar. It wasn’t like my sweet milled soaps, but something honeyed and peppered with hints of cloves.
“I’m heavy, young man, and you’re scrawny. Your employer, well, former employer, must not be giving you a decent wage to fill your belly.”
“I suppose you eat enough, Your Grace. You’re weighty.”
“I suppose I do.” The duke chuckled, but this noise sounded force
d, as if to cover his winces when we stumbled over rocks hidden in the melting snow.
I felt the tension in the man like I’d felt his laugh. He was more hurt than he wanted anyone to know.
I steadied my arm about him. He’d made me into a crutch, and I’d be a decent crutch. He was coming for Markham. That had to be good.
Yet, this close to the duke, I felt the hardened muscles of his stomach and knew the leanness of his thigh. The man was injured but not indolent or lazy.
His scent hit me again, deeper, more acute. I knew what it was, a blend of fine cigar tobacco and rum.
I inhaled once more. Definitely rum, and it was the expensive stuff. It would be wrong to cling to him, sniffing his coat to see if it was Demeraran rum, but this aroma was the closest I’d felt to home in four years.
“Maybe you’re not so scrawny, son. You seem to be keeping me upright.”
Both of us heaving a little, we stopped in front of the fourteen perfectly hewed steps that led into Hamlin Hall. Moonlight and lit torches highlighted the strong, curved stones of the portico covering the doors. Hamlin was majestic and isolated, a lovely loner in the countryside.
“Someone lit the grand chandelier. Good,” the duke said.
It was the biggest, brightest wrought iron fixture I’d ever seen. As a new bride in August of 1810, I stood under that chandelier and watched my husband leave for London the night he’d abandoned me here.
He said it was for my protection, my comfort, for his, for a hundred other excuses, but I was made to stay at Hamlin and accept his comings and goings.
“What a house.” The duke’s breathing was heavy, and his voice sounded wistful, but I could barely fill my lungs.
Colin and I had a marriage of misunderstandings, a morass of letters inked with halfhearted apologies, a mattress made for two that, almost always, held one.
Then Markham told me Colin was dead.
All before my twenty-fourth birthday.
“We’ve caught our breath, son. We move forward, now.”
The duke pulled me, but I couldn’t move. “How, sir? How do we go forward? The obstacles . . . these steps are too steep.”
“Son, it’s just one foot in front of the other. That’s how I do it, even if I need a crutch.”
Where was my crutch?
I had none, nothing to take away my guilt. Colin’s suicide was my fault. My last note pushed him into the Thames as surely as his depressed thoughts.
“Young man, you’re fatigued. See, my weight is too much. Gird your loins.”
“What?” I wasn’t sure I had those. My eyes crossed as I stared at him. “What, Duke?”
“Strengthen your hold. I’m not looking to fall, not on a night where I’ve caught that rascal. Markham will be evicted on the hour. He’ll be away from my ward.”
That was the crutch I needed, the duke taking Lionel from the scoundrel.
Maybe I should say who I was, a widow dressed as a man and . . . and get tossed out of Hamlin, too.
I grunted, then forced myself to take a step, then another.
The duke, this stocky man of six foot four or more hopped onto the first step. Was he pausing for me? Was I slowing him down?
I made my voice deeper. “Let’s continue. I don’t think I’ll dump you, sir. Yet.”
“You have a good sense of humor for a crutch.” The duke pulled out his pocket watch. “Only five minutes have passed. Still on schedule.”
Gantry stepped in front of us with a wooden staff and presented it as if he held a sword. “Here, Repington. It’s better than a minion for keeping your balance.”
The duke allowed him to slip it under the arm I held up. Standing on his own, he released me and powered up the next step. “Is the perimeter manned?”
“Yes. Your men are securing the surrounding park now.”
Surrounding park? Jemina? The sweat beading at my brow would soon wash off the remaining cosmetic. I’d be exposed, and Jemina would be dragged through the gate.
“Repington,” Gantry said, “would you like me to see what’s going on inside?”
The duke nodded. “Good idea. Go on. I’ll be in the drawing room at eleven past eleven.” He opened his gold watch again. “That’s six, no five minutes from now.”
Gantry hissed something under his breath, then went up the steps.
All the windows were lit up bright. Hamlin Hall was under full inspection or attack. But what of my Lionel?
The duke turned toward me. His clear blue eyes twinkled, reflecting the fire of torches, and he glanced at me as if he could assess every scandal in my soul. “What’s your name, soldier?”
I coughed. “Me?” When in doubt, Lady Shrewsbury said stay as close to the truth as possible. Mama’s name would do. “LaCroy, sir.”
The duke sniffed and wiggled his nose. “I smell milk or soap. You’ve been with a cow, LaCroy? Milking?”
His question sounded like a cross between a command and a joke.
But how to respond and not give away my sex?
Between my nerves and the fear that a soldier would drag my friend through the gates . . . I leaked worse than a grain bag with holes.
Then I saw my white cosmetic had smeared on the duke’s armpit.
Keeping my hands tight at my sides, I shifted. “Well, you see . . . what had . . . Yes, sir.” When in doubt, agree to everything except seeing a ghost. That was the countess’s second rule of masquerade but with my amendment to stay out of Bedlam.
“LaCroy, that was more of a joke than a request for an answer. But put the word out, I’ll require new staffing including a wet nurse. Based on the reports, Old Markham hasn’t employed one, and I hear it’s best to suckle a babe to grow strapping men.”
He thought to hire a wet nurse for Lionel. A sigh blasted through my lips. My boy would be safe at least this night.
The duke mounted another step and released a huff. “Thank you, LaCroy, but you’re terminated. All of Markham’s staff will be terminated.”
“I failed as a groom so soon?”
“You’re able, but you worked for Markham. Won’t have any problems or potential loyalty issues in my troop if I start fresh.”
He took another labored step. “But I can make an exception for you if you’d swear loyalty to me now.”
“I don’t swear. My mother taught me better.” Mama’s only lesson that stuck, that and don’t move about when receiving a switch of spiky palm fronds across the legs. “I’d rather be terminated and reapply tomorrow.”
The duke moved again. This time a sharp word grunted out of him as he reached the next level. “Well, if you return in the morn, you’ll be employed. Do spread the word. Only disciplined people, loyal people will work at Hamlin Hall. LaCroy, I’ll remember that name. And your humor. You’ve my permission to leave. You’ll not be harassed by my men.”
Badly weaving, the duke hobbled forward, step by step up the portico.
A small part of me wanted to stay and make sure the man didn’t tumble headlong onto the limestone steps. And a smidge of me wanted to see Markham cower for all the suffering he’d caused.
But I’d lived to see another moment. That was enough.
With all the changes in the hires, this could be an opportunity. Maybe the countess would allow me to be employed to care for Lionel until I could claim my son as my own.
It wasn’t right to be a maid, but it had to be better than sneaking in at night. I turned to catch a view of the third floor and the nursery and smacked into a soldier.
“Halt.” The man brandished a weapon at my forehead, and the smell of gunpowder wafted. It made me nauseous. It made me remember. These fellows weren’t common folk. They were warriors under Repington’s command.
Another came and waved me forward. “The duke is signaling. This footman has been given permission to leave.”
Half pivoting, I saw the duke still on the steps. He motioned some sort of salute with his arm. He’d made my passage safe. Perhaps this Englishman had some hono
r. Maybe his word could be trusted. I hoped he’d protect my son tonight.
“Go on,” the soldier said. He joined the others unpacking the carriages. More weapons. All being stashed in Hamlin with my baby.
Fists balled, head down, I started again toward the gates, toward Jemina, hoping she remained hidden. I needed her help when I returned tomorrow to fight for my son.
CHAPTER 3
WINNING OFF THE FIELD
Busick Strathmore, the Duke of Repington, marched up the first landing of the grand stone stairs of Hamlin Hall. Well, “marched” was an exaggeration. His valiant ascent consisted of a series of hops with a foul wooden staff.
But still valiant, not tumbling or requiring assistance.
He started again, step by step, to the top without a fall, definitely not looking weak. Or so he thought, until he spied his friend and confidant, the cautious Lord Gantry.
The viscount’s face held a tight grimace as he stood near the doors, three steps higher. “You sure you don’t need help? Everyone needs assistance, even a great commander.”
“Just taking my time. Don’t you approve of my caution?”
“If a raid with fifteen soldiers rampaging a country estate full of drunks and wayward rabble is thoughtful plotting, I’d hate to see reckless.”
Tired and annoyed that someone would question one of Wellington’s trusted strategists, Busick banged his crutch as he took the next step. “I’m effective.”
His friend shrugged. “You are, but I don’t see how you lose on this one.”
Busick wasn’t losing anything ever again. He held his breath and pulled up to the last blasted stair. “Gantry,” he said with a grunt, “is my ward secure? I don’t trust Markham. He’ll steal the boy.”
“We have the fiend surrounded. Surrender is eminent.” He regarded the duke closely. “Your balance is good?”
“Yes, I won’t stumble. No lumps or bumps to be added to my thick skull.”
“Very thick.” Gantry sort of smiled, clasped the door handle, then stopped. “You’re not winded?”
Of course Busick was winded, but he loathed admitting weakness. “Stop, mother hen. Save the smothering for the young soldier inside.” The duke waved his hand forward but controlled the motion as to not sway and prove the viscount right. “See, I knew you’d be perfect for this mission. I’ll meet you in the drawing room at twenty past. A slight adjustment since my caution is slowing me.”
A Duke, the Lady, and a Baby Page 2
