A Duke, the Lady, and a Baby

by Vanessa Riley

  The taste of burnt spun sugar, sugar that had been scorched beyond creamy caramel to soot, lingered on my tongue even after leaving Lady Bodonel’s party. The blackened substance served atop her dessert tasted so bitter my stomach ached. Yet, I’d rather be in her parlor smiling at the poison than having to shimmy up a knotted rope flailing on the side of the building.

  The javelin hook, or assegai as Patience called it, felt secure when she flung and caught it in an upper branch of the oak tree leaning against the building.

  My pulse ramped as I waited for her to signal that the window was open. The uneven rhythm in my chest made me shake. My eyes whipped from side to side looking for someone to emerge—a passerby from the nearby road or one of the Inn’s barristers, like Daniel Thackery. He always caught me doing wrong and let me know.

  The barrister and I argued again tonight because I dared to ask him questions about my dower payment. He distracted me on purpose this time. It wasn’t fair for him to be brilliant and annoying.

  Something moved in the near hedgerow, scattering leaves and white petals. My heart boomed.

  Breathe—In. Out. In. In. In. Out—I forced my lungs to work.

  This clandestine operation was to save a woman like me, like Patience. We had to succeed.

  Yet, my chest sounded like an island drum—bam, bam, bam.

  I think I remembered a rebellion, or revolt, something with smoke and flames. That would have a drum.

  My temples ached every time I tried to untangle the memories locked in my mind. I needed to surrender and do like everyone suggested, focus on now.

  Where was Patience? Why didn’t she have that window opened?

  I peered up, up into the thick canopy of leaves but couldn’t see her. It never took Patience Jordan Strathmore, the Duchess of Repington, more than a few minutes to pry open anything. Why did this have to be difficult?

  “Patience?”

  My voice was low. I made sure of it. I’d been told I was loud, but Thackery’s opinions didn’t matter . . . much.

  “Patience? Are you well?”

  The moon did me no favors moving fast in the jet sky, hiding behind clouds. The moment I thought I saw her boot or a shimmer of the glass pane, it disappeared.

  A carriage trudged past Chancery Lane, the main road next to the Lincoln’s Inn. It didn’t stop. No one jumped out and pointed. Patience and I hadn’t been detected. This was good. We couldn’t be sent away again.

  “Almost in, Jemina. I’m slower than usual. That food, it sickened my stomach.”

  “You too? You think your mother-in-law did it intentionally?”

  “Lady Bodonel? No. She’s just a terrible hostess, but everyone comes since she’s my Busick’s mother. My poor duke.”

  Hearing Patience’s voice made the tension in my muscles uncoil. She was still safe, still with me.

  “Hurry up, Your Grace.”

  Patience uttered no response, but she hated when I called her by her title. The lady was a true friend and had never once taken on airs, even if they were well deserved.

  “Patience?”

  Maybe she found a way inside.

  I gulped air and packed it in my chest as if it was my last. My prayer—let nothing go wrong.

  I knew wrong. It felt like sinking in deep waters, like cold waves growing higher and higher, lapping at my feet, then my knees, then barely able to keep my head—

  “Come on up, Jemina. I’m inside. The rope’s secured on this end. The assegai is not moving.”

  My pulse slowed. Patience’s whisper sounded confident. It brought me back to now.

  My palms were slick with sweat. “I don’t know if I can climb.”

  “Jemina, I won’t let you fall, and we take these risks for Lady Shrewsbury and our brethren, the widows.”

  Patience was right, but I’d almost fallen three nights ago.

  “For Mrs. Cultony, Jemina. You can do it. You always do.”

  If the widow was ever to regain custody of her children, she needed the notes the Crown’s barrister had compiled. Then she’d be able to dispute the false testimony of her late husband’s family that defrauded her of her daughters.

  Focused on that poor woman and the vow of the Widow’s Grace to save fivefold our sex, I lifted my foot against the tree trunk. “Hold the rope steady. I don’t like it rocking.”

  “You can trust me, Jemina.”

  I could. Patience had proven this so many times.

  With a firm grip, I started and wedged my buckled slippers into the knot of the tree. The widow’s prayer sat on my lips. “The holy habitation is the protector of widows, providing relief and favor. This is the Widow’s Grace.”

  Saying it aloud was better than reciting Jesus wept or any other short Scripture that stuck to my faulty memory. Suffering from amnesia these past two years made everything but the present unreliable.

  My gown, a pale gray dress with simple trim, flapped like a flag about my ankles as I inched forward, my trusty slippers wedging in grooves and branches. “Should’ve worn breeches like you.”

  “You’re halfway, Jemina. Lady Shrewsbury was right. This office houses four desks, that’s four barristers. The information for Mrs. Cultony has to be here.”

  Wham. I had a face full of leaves. My face hurt. The smell of oak and cut celery filled my nostrils. Clinging to the rope, I was just happy I hadn’t fallen.

  Climbing a few more feet, I saw Patience’s smile, her heart-shaped face. One hand held the rope, the other was outstretched to me.

  Then I slipped.

  I braced to hit limbs and leaves and gain a mouth of dirt, but Patience grabbed my arm and pulled me into the window.

  Holding her tight, I refused to let go. That loud heart of mine warred. It might not be in my chest anymore.

  “All is well, Jemina. Look at me. All is well.”

  My lungs sounded like whistles. “Thank you.”

  Patience embraced me until the trembles stopped and the wheezing eased. “I’m sorry, Jemina. A better friend would find an easier way into the building and not force you to face your fears.”

  “Not scared of all high places, just ones where we can’t use stairs.”

  “So sorry, Jemina.”

  I squeezed her tight, like she’d awakened me from a nightmare. “You’re the best, and the sooner we retrieve Mrs. Cultony’s custody papers, the sooner we can return to His Grace and enjoy hot tea on the ground.”

  “Oh, please don’t let Busick discover we’re . . . well, you know . . . we’re ah . . . uhm at the Lincoln’s Inn without an invitation.”

  Moonbeams boring through the fog highlighted Patience’s darting eyes. She knew this was a burglary even if all we took was paper.

  From her pocket, she pulled out two candles and lit one for me, one for her.

  I caressed the silky column and stuck it in one of the brass holders that I carried. The twinkling light was beautiful. The scent of honey from the burning beeswax reminded me of innocence. There was such peace in the flicker of the flame, the pooling wax, the slight wiggle of the wick.

  Yet, we had a job to do. “Which desk is assigned to Cultony’s prosecuting barrister?”

  Patience shrugged. “We’ll have to check them all.”

  Four desks.

  Two were cluttered with books and notes bound with scarlet ribbons.

  Another was piled with papers falling into a chair.

  The last, by a hazelnut-brown–colored sofa, was neat, orderly.

  It drew me, for it would be a fast search. I sifted through stacked documents that sat in the center of the desk.

  The precision of the pile alone, how it sat equidistant from the desk edges and aligned with an oil lamp, I knew this man would notice tampering, but the notes for Mrs. Cultony could be here.

  With my candle, I read the barrister’s clever hand. His humored questions of a witness’s testimony were written in the margins.

  Is it possible to see both east and west at the same time? Will hi
s nose grow as he testifies? Bad tailor.

  The handwriting, it looked familiar.

  Then, I dropped the paper as if I’d set it on fire.

  This was Barrister Thackery’s script. This was his desk.

  My pulse exploded. Terrible. Terrible. He noticed everything. He critiqued everything.

  And I had just admired his handwriting, his teasing. I complimented the testy man even if it was in my head.

  That made my stomach hurt as bad as the burnt caramel.

  “Patience, this is Daniel Thackery’s desk. Why would Lady Shrewsbury have us enter an office where her nephew worked? Couldn’t he get the paperwork?”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want him involved. She’s protective of him. That’s one less desk to search. He’d never take a case against a cheated widow.”

  She was right.

  The man was honorable as much as he was ornery. “Let me put things back, so he’ll find no fault.”

  I brushed at the stack, patting the edges, risking paper cuts. The pages wouldn’t behave. They kept shifting and poking out.

  To get things just so, I laid the pages down, one after the other. Then I saw my last name, St. Maur. Another scan showed me my first, even a maiden name—Jemina Monroe St. Maur.

  It felt strange looking at my name written out, the name the physicians told me was mine. I lived by it these past two years, but it held no life—no memories I could grasp, just bits of a nightmare that always seemed beyond my reach.

  “Jemina, did you find something?”

  “My marriage contract? Jemina Monroe to wed Cecil St. Maur.”

  Patience came to me and lifted the paper from my shaking fingers. “Jemina St. Maur. Could there be another Jemina St. Maur?”

  “Perhaps, but not on Daniel Thackery’s desk. The barrister who dumped a fortune of twenty thousand pounds upon me six weeks ago.”

  His note, in his strong script of curled d’s and slashed t’s, stated the monies was my widow’s dower.

  Stupid me for not asking questions.

  Stupid me for believing the man who rescued me from Bedlam was stodgy but honorable.

  Ice formed in my veins, thick and sharp like stabbing icicles. A prickly chill spread over my skin. This was my marriage contract and Daniel Thackery had it. “Why would the barrister not show it to me?”

  “The document bore a seal from Jamaica. The West Indies. You are from the islands.”

  Snippets of that life—a bright feather touching my chin, bits of color, the warm sun—had to be true. “I am.”

  Longing burst inside, but only for a moment. The feeling would pass. The lack of memories meant there’d be no glue to keep it.

  “Jemina, are you remembering something?”

  My lips didn’t work. No syllables sat on my limp tongue.

  Did I tremble? The paper vibrated between my fingers. I wanted to ball up in shame. “Patience, I had a husband who had the decency to leave me money, and I hadn’t the decency to remember him.”

  “That’s not your fault. You hit your head, somehow.”

  “A concuss of the skull, that’s what the physicians said.”

  My insides sickened again this time from guilt. I almost remembered a place, but nothing of my husband.

  “You’re strong, Jemina.” Patience had her hands on me, guiding me back to her, back to now. “You kept my head when I thought all was lost. You stood up for me when I couldn’t. Whatever this means . . . it doesn’t have you.”

  “No, but Daniel Thackery does.”

  Frenzied, I turned back and tore through the pile, the pile that should’ve been so thick I wouldn’t have seen the contract, wouldn’t have known that another bit of my life was being kept from me. “Thackery needs a talking to. He can’t get away with this.”

  “Jemina, this isn’t why we came.”

  “He knows. The blackguard barrister knows about me.”

  Nodding, Patience moved and sat behind his desk. “Then, let’s flip through the man’s drawer. Let’s see what else he hides.”

  “Thackery has my life, and he’s chosen to leave it unsaid.”

  “You two are always arguing or ignoring each other.” Patience fisted a fresh stack of papers thumbing the edges. “Why, you almost fly from the room when he visits me at Sandlin Court.”

  Nothing could be said to explain how on edge Thackery made me, nothing rational. I resettled my gaze atop the desk, started a second pass through the stack, and found a torn piece of paper from the Cornwall Chronicle, a register from Jamaica. “It’s a list of names . . . a list of passengers who quit the colony.”

  I saw my name, full and complete, Jemina Monroe St. Maur. The word FOUND was written next to it. Aside Cecil St. Maur’s name was penned, “LOST.”

  This I knew.

  “Well, Thackery had more proof that I’m a widow. Don’t need to recover from this amnesia at all.”

  “I’m sorry, Jemina.” My friend took the list. “The ship was called the Minerva. The countess can—”

  “No, she won’t help me. Thackery is her nephew. How do I tell her the man is a liar?”

  “This looks bad, but you and I know that evidence can be deceiving.” She handed me the paper. “The duke will get to the bottom of this. He can be our champion. He loves discretion and minding my business.”

  Patience was a wonder, brave and independent yet so certain of her husband, I wondered if I loved a man named Cecil the same way.

  The coldness inside me told me no. I only hoped that I was at least good to him and him me. “Well, now I’ve seen Cecil St. Maur’s whole name and the ship that destroyed us.”

  “We’ll know more. But we have to keep our heads. We’ve come for the Widow’s Grace. Tomorrow, we search for the Widow St. Maur.”

  Her voice sounded clear like fine crystal, but my dearest friend was ready to help me win a war.

  “We need to know everything about the Minerva. We have to get all the names. This list might not be complete.”

  The glow of the candle shined in my eyes. Patience waved it back and forth. But I was caught in that waking dream of water, water, everywhere. And I was holding up something. I reached for something.

  “Focus, Jemina. It’s me, Patience. I’m not leaving. I’m not leaving you. We don’t need any more of the Minerva, not if it steals your peace.”

  Had she been trying to calm me? I loved her for it, but what I was was stuck, reading the list over and over, looking for more St. Maurs—a sister, or a baby or children?

  What if I saw their names and felt nothing, too?

  “Jemina, stay with me. We have a mission. A widow to save. Tomorrow is for us.”

  I willed myself to focus. I ordered my soul to stop shaking. Uncrossing my arms, I returned to stacking the perfect column of papers. “Thackery’s desk needs to look untouched, even if I want to set it on fire.”

  “He’d notice char.”

  I rubbed at my head. The hint of a headache started. “The barrister, excuse me, the new Earl of Ashbrook has much to explain.”

  “Well, he doesn’t talk much. He’s usually brooding in a corner. Then you two have words.”

  Smoothing my fingers along his blotter, I smudged ink on my thumb. The temptation to leave prints on his chair to soil his breeches or stain his pristine shirt cuffs was a poor substitute for wringing his neck. “I’ll stay next time. He’ll tell me.”

  Floorboards creaked. Someone stood in the hall.

  Patience dashed out the window to the ropes and into the tree.

  There was no time for me to follow.

  I blew out the candles, closed the window and hid behind the sofa.

  CHAPTER 2

  BREAKING AND ENTERTAINING

  Daniel Thackery stopped outside the door to his shared office in the Lincoln’s Inn. His overly affectionate companion for the evening, Lady Lavinia Nell, stood behind him with her arms draped about his chest like a fine tailcoat, an expensive one.

  He patted away her hands and wen
t into his coat pocket for a key. “This is my office, Lady Lavinia. You will see it, then I’ll return you to your carriage.”

  “Your mood is still fouled from that solicitor harassing you before the dinner. Is a solicitor beneath a barrister?”

  “T. Mosey did work for my uncle. The man is a worm.” Both men were.

  Daniel dropped his key but snatched it up before Lavinia became more hands-on. “Yes, Mosey took the shine off my evening. His Tonbridge firm represents those with unsavory holdings.”

  She brushed at Daniel’s shoulder fingering lines in his formal ebony tailcoat. “Let me polish you and make your eyes sparkle.”

  “Lavinia, I think you need to go home. I’m not in the mood for amusement.”

  “Just teasing. Open the door. I want to see where the scales of justice are made right.”

  “That would be the Old Bailey’s court. Not here. You can stop by Tuesday. I have a trial where I’ll be the barrister for the Crown.”

  “No, here is where I want to be, Daniel.” She snuggled closer almost pressing him into the door. “Looks a little small.”

  He pried free, putting more space between them. “It’s large enough.”

  “You seem nervous, sir. Brandy or a port will do you good. Or maybe we do something to make you more relaxed?”

  Daniel didn’t drink, nothing more than a social sip to not upset his hostess or colleagues. “I don’t indulge. You know this, but I am a little tense. It’s the first night in a long time I didn’t put my little girl to bed.”

  “I’ve heard it’s been a long time since you put a big one to bed, too.”

  He dropped the key again. “You pay attention to rubbish. You should know better than to listen to gossip.”

  Searching, he found the key near the woman’s white silk slipper. Daniel forwent the offer of her long leg moving closer to his face and sprung up fast. “Lavinia, no. Down, my lady.”

  “I’m not your puppy, Daniel. But I can do orders very well.”

  “Then maybe I could give you Max for a week. My pug is still a belligerent dog.”