A Duke in the Night

by Kelly Bowen

  “I’m not waiting for either of you two,” August snapped as he mounted. He hauled Jonas up in front of him and kicked his horse into a gallop before he’d even fully gained his seat. Harland and Clara were on his heels, panic and worry pushing them hard. Stilton had three hours on them. Three hours in which he could have— Clara cut herself off. Thinking the worst would not be helpful.

  They thundered down the drive and out onto the twisting road. The wind whipped against Clara’s face, making her eyes water and tears stream down her face. Jonas must have been giving August instructions, because he was weaving his way across a series of fields and rutted cart tracks without slowing as the miles slipped by. Up ahead a half-rotten, sagging thatched roof was just visible beyond the ridge—

  Clara nearly pitched over the head of her horse as the animal dropped its hind end and came to a shuddering stop in a frantic effort to avoid August’s horse, which was sliding to a stop as well. Beside her dust spewed from under the hooves of Harland’s mount as he hauled on the reins. Clara fought for her seat, bracing herself against the neck of her horse, which was now dancing sideways.

  The dust slowly cleared, and Clara managed to calm her horse enough to see the figures of two women trudging up the track toward them. The one on the right was dark haired, the one on the left had tresses the color of chestnuts. They were dressed in simple gowns, but the one on the left had ominous rusty stains down the front of her skirts. August was already off his horse and running toward them. Clara dismounted hurriedly and followed him.

  “Jesus, Anne,” she thought she heard him say before he engulfed his sister in an embrace. Just as quickly he drew back, his hands going to her shoulders. “Are you hurt?” he demanded.

  Anne smiled at him, her expression strained but steady. “I’m not hurt.”

  Beside Clara, Harland was crouching in front of Phoebe. “Do you need to sit down? Are you bleeding?” he asked urgently, touching the edge of her stained skirts. “What happened? Are you—”

  “I’m fine, Dr. Hayward,” Phoebe said. “It’s not my blood.”

  “Then what— Who—”

  “Mr. Stilton. He might need a doctor.” A vicious satisfaction came into Phoebe’s eyes. “Or not. I don’t think he’s doing very well. His putrid coat is most assuredly ruined.”

  “Ruined indeed,” Anne said, her voice steely. “But it was unavoidable given the circumstances.” The two girls exchanged a look.

  “What were you thinking?” August thundered. “Why would you ever have gone with—”

  “I was thinking that you and Miss Hayward were lying in a ditch somewhere, dying,” Anne snapped with a disgusted shake of her head. “Stilton arrived just as Phoebe and I were heading inside Avondale. He told us you had been in a terrible accident. You and Miss Hayward. And that you needed me, and there was no time to waste.”

  “I went with her. To offer what medical assistance I could,” Phoebe added.

  Anne’s eyes hardened. “I’d already met him and had no reason not to trust him,” she said, and Clara felt her stomach clench. “He played the part of the worried, anxious, helpful friend quite convincingly,” Anne continued. “He had the driver take us to an empty cottage north of town with haste. I was so terrified at the prospect of losing you, I never stopped to consider that Stilton could possibly have any ulterior motives.”

  August swore.

  “He sent the driver on once we were there and it wasn’t until he was gone that he leveled a pistol at us and said he’d shoot one of us if the other tried to run. He said he’d never had reservations about killing to get what he wanted. And apparently you stole something that was dear to him, so he was returning the favor in kind.”

  Clara kept her eyes trained on Anne, not daring to look at August.

  “But I don’t think Stilton had actually thought the logistics of a good kidnapping all the way through,” Phoebe said coldly. “So many variables. So much…unpredictability.”

  “Unpredictability?” August was looking between his sister and Phoebe with alarm.

  “I begged Stilton to marry me,” Anne said grimly. “To take me away with him. Away from my controlling, suffocating, impossible brother who would force me to marry a man three times my age just so that he could further line his coffers.”

  “And he believed you?”

  “She was very persuasive,” Phoebe commented.

  “And he seemed to already harbor a vast resentment toward you, dear brother,” Anne added. “Who am I to ruin such a perfectly good grudge?”

  “Jesus Christ,” August swore.

  “That’s what he said when I retrieved the gun he had left lying on the table in his haste to prepare for our joyous union.”

  “You killed him?” August choked.

  “I did not,” Anne replied primly. “But when I told Phoebe to fetch help and he tried to stop her, well, my finger might have slipped on the trigger.”

  “You shot him?”

  “Of course I did.” Now she was looking at her brother with incredulity.

  August dropped his head, his expression bleak. “I’m so sorry, Anne. I should never have allowed you to be caught in a position where you had to—”

  “For the love of God, stop.” Anne commanded loudly. “I grew up in a prison, August. And then, for a while, in places where one was required to look after one’s own well-being with a little more diligence than others. There were many lessons to be learned, and make no mistake, I learned them well. Stilton took me for a fool once. I did not allow him a second opportunity.”

  August was staring at her.

  “It’ll take more than a vengeful, disorganized, badly dressed fop to break me, August. I’m not so fragile as that.”

  “No,” he said, his voice sounding distant. “You’re not.”

  “And where is Stilton now?” Harland asked into the silence.

  “Still in the cottage, I would guess,” Phoebe told him, gesturing at the rotten roof still visible. “It’s hard to go far with a bullet lodged in your knee. I patched him up as well as possible. Though my medical experience is still limited, I suspect he may be in danger of losing his lower leg if not treated promptly. He might lose it anyway.”

  Clara saw Harland exchange a look with Holloway. “Leave him to me,” her brother told the duke.

  “No. I’ll take care of him.” August’s expression was black.

  “You’ll do your sister no good if you’re hanged for murder.”

  “They’d have to find the body first,” the duke growled.

  “But I can’t have you running all over Dover looking for a place to hide a corpse. I have a stake in this too, Your Grace. Let me handle this.”

  August’s lips thinned. He glanced at Clara before looking back at Harland. “Fine.” August’s face was glacial. “See it done.”

  Harland nodded. “Good.” He stood, collected his horse, and vanished over the ridge.

  “Well,” said Anne, “I suppose we’re late for dinner.”

  August made a muffled noise. “How can you possibly be jesting about this?”

  “Because, August, I’m fine. Phoebe’s fine. The only one who is not fine is the ass who deserved everything he got.” Her eyes were steady and cool. “If you want me to dissolve in hysterics and tears, then you’re going to have to give me some lead time and possibly a script. Because you haven’t had the market on survival cornered all these years, dear brother.”

  August ran his hands through his hair in clear agitation.

  “Now, if you would be so kind as to offer us a ride back to Avondale, I would be obliged. I can’t speak for Phoebe, but it’s been a long day.”

  Clara stepped closer to August and placed a hand on his sleeve, a fleeting, gentle gesture before she moved to collect the reins of the horses. “Come,” she said. “Let’s go home.”

  Chapter 18

  The actions of one Mathias Stilton had shaken August to his core.

  Not because of what might have happened, thoug
h that still kept him up some nights, but because he had suddenly realized that the dark-haired, blue-eyed little girl who had been his sister wasn’t at all who he had chosen to pretend she was. For these last years he had used yards of pretty silk and glossy pearls and watercolor lessons to try to bury the fact that Anne had grown up in conditions that only the strongest and the most cunning survive. She had become a beautiful, poised lady to be sure, but one who had a core of pure steel.

  Stilton, it seemed, had vanished from Dover, though his belongings at the boardinghouse where he’d been staying had never been claimed. Harland had said nothing, other than that the man had been alive when he arrived at the cottage and still alive when he left. August hadn’t asked for any further details, and the Baron Strathmore had offered none.

  And then there was Clara.

  He hadn’t seen her since that night, which had been hard. Harder than he’d ever thought possible. She’d been fully occupied with her classes during the day, and he’d spent the evenings buried in his own work and the correspondence that Duncan had brought him. There were inventories to be accepted, blueprints to be reviewed, payrolls to be approved. Legal documents to be signed, bank drafts to be transferred. All activities that usually consumed him and brought him satisfaction and pleasure. Except he was struggling to find distraction and reassurance in what was familiar. Because everything that he’d thought he’d known, everything that had seemed so clear to him in London, had become blurry and indistinguishable in Dover.

  The dinner that had been missed two nights prior had been rescheduled, and August had been reinvited. Anne had specifically asked him to come, though at that point he would have come anyway, if only for the excuse to see Clara.

  He arrived early to find Lady Tabitha in her now-familiar spot, arranging a new profusion of flowers in the center of the hall. Her deep-pink gown matched the roses in the center of the bouquet.

  “Good evening, Your Grace,” she said with a smile as she tucked a brilliant purple flower into the side of the arrangement. “You’re early. No one’s down quite yet.”

  “I can leave and return,” he replied, bending to pick up a sprig of greenery that had fallen. “Make a grander entrance later.”

  “You could.” Tabitha laughed. “But I get the feeling that you’re not one for grand spectacles.” She glanced at him over a cut fern. “We haven’t seen much of you in the last couple of days.”

  “I’ve been busy. My man of business has come up from London with a number of matters requiring my attention.”

  “Yes, Mr. Down.”

  August started. “You’ve met?”

  “Of course.” Tabitha adjusted another stem. “Your sister introduced us last evening.”

  “What?” August wasn’t sure where to start. “My sister? What was she doing last evening? With Mr. Down?”

  “Playing chess in the drawing room. Beat him too. Well, at least the first time. He beat her twice after that.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “No, I can assure you that she had his queen—”

  “That’s not what I meant.” His fingers tightened on the sprig.

  Tabitha was watching him, another purple bloom in her fingers. “Your sister is a remarkable woman.”

  “Yes.” He didn’t know what else to say.

  Tabitha smiled slightly. “I’ve always maintained that a woman should never trust a man who spends more on his clothes than she.”

  A bark of laughter escaped, surprising him.

  “It’s hard, isn’t it? To think of Anne as a capable woman and not a child?”

  The stem snapped in his fingers.

  “I had a daughter once,” Tabitha said suddenly. “I would like to think that, had she had the chance to grow up, she would have become a woman like Anne. Fearless. Strong.” She ran a gnarled finger over the delicate petals of the bloom. “Trust that your sister will live her life not perfectly, but well.”

  August looked down at the crushed greenery in his hand and uncurled his fingers. “You sound like Miss Hayward.”

  “Mmm. Another strong woman. Though perhaps not as fearless.”

  August tossed the crumpled sprig onto the table. “Miss Hayward is the most fearless woman I know,” he scoffed.

  “Mmmm.” Lady Tabitha picked up the broken stem and straightened it. “Not in matters of the heart, I think.”

  August stared, not knowing what to say.

  Lady Tabitha tucked the sprig into the vase and approached August, pressing the last purple bloom into his hand. “Clara deserves a great love, Your Grace. But that is the single thing she cannot accomplish alone.”

  * * *

  Dinner was an informal, raucous affair.

  Someone had taken the liberty of placing a small, petrified creature, caught for eternity in its prison of rock, at each place setting before everyone arrived. This was not a dinner at which polite conversation was limited to the weather, the inconveniences of traffic around Bridge Street, and the latest and most shocking French fashion. Instead debate raged over the identification of each creature and theories about how and when it had lived. How creatures that didn’t exist now had existed then. And of course there were the inevitable tangents that sprouted when evidence did not match accepted knowledge.

  Anne had caught August’s eye as she put forth her own ideas about the small creature she held in her hand. She grinned at him and then proceeded to draw him into the fray by asking for his opinion. He looked across the table and caught Clara watching. She held his eyes with a soft smile before looking away, as though she understood exactly what he was thinking.

  For an instant August wished he could live in that moment forever. He wished he could capture it like the creatures that lay on the table encased in stone. Preserve everything just as it was. Because this feeling that was coursing through him, that was twisting all his insides, pressing the very breath from his lungs and making his chest ache, was truly like nothing he’d experienced. And he realized that he was happy, and that it had nothing to do with acquisitions or profits. It just…was.

  He spent the rest of the meal simply listening. Watching as Clara encouraged her students to present opinions on a variety of topics, prompting them to fill in gaps in their reasoning with logic and evidence. That kind of clever guidance was something that August might have expected at a medical school or a philosophy class taught at Cambridge.

  And Clara should be teaching at Cambridge, he thought fiercely. The more he observed, the more he understood that her skills went far beyond mere intelligence and competence. She was a truly gifted teacher, something that very few could say. Any school would be lucky to have her.

  Starting with Haverhall.

  August looked away, that chronic leaden guilt bursting his fragile bubble of happiness. He was taking that away from her.

  No, he forcibly reminded himself, he had simply bought a property. A very lucrative property that he’d wanted for years. Clara, with all her skill and ability, would easily find another position with another girls’ school. She was simply too good at what she did not to. People faced changed circumstances all the time, and they adapted. Moved on. Thrived. He knew that better than anyone.

  And perhaps, if she would allow him, August could even help her do just that. A title like his could open a great number of doors, he had discovered. This could be a great opportunity for her, even if she didn’t know it yet. Yes, he decided, he would quietly do everything he could, even if she refused his help. Especially if she refused his help.

  That decision should have assuaged his guilt, but it didn’t. Not entirely. Instead August was left doubting himself and his motivations and his ambitions in a way he never had before. If he thought he’d felt adrift before, he was well and truly lost now.

  He didn’t return to the dower house after dinner. Instead he slipped into the library on the pretense of finding something to read should anyone ask, but he was met only with a silent room. He discarded his coat, chose a book from the
shelves at random, not even looking at the title, and sat in one of the wide leather chairs that flanked the massive hearth. He should go, he knew, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave. Couldn’t bring himself to return to more empty rooms, devoid of the laughter and happiness that had surrounded him here.

  He wasn’t sure how long he had sat silently in the library, lost in his thoughts, but the house grew dark and quiet around him. The single candle that he’d brought with him into the library had burned down to almost nothing and now flickered and threatened to extinguish altogether.

  “The Mirror of the Graces, or The English Lady’s Costume,” a voice beside him said. “Are you reading that for research or is it a new business venture you’re planning?”

  August jerked upright, the book that had been left forgotten on his lap crashing to the floor. “You could make a man’s heart stop doing that,” he accused, his pulse proving that his was still working just fine.

  “Mmmm.” Clara retrieved the book from the floor and perched herself on the edge of the chair. It was all August could do not to simply reach for her and draw her into his lap.

  His heart was still pounding, but for a different reason entirely now.

  “What are you doing in here?” he asked, looking up at her. The tiny pool of light his struggling candle afforded put her features into shadow and made her expression difficult to read.

  “I saw you come in earlier. The better question is, What are you still doing here?” she responded.

  “Waiting for you.” It wasn’t something he’d intended to say, but he recognized it for the truth that it was.

  “Mmm.” She paused. “Will you be returning to London with Mr. Down tomorrow?”

  August hesitated. He should. There was no reason for him to stay. Anne didn’t need him here. His report to Rivers was complete. There would be any number of things demanding his attention in London. And being in the city certainly had the added advantage of immediate and direct access to information from the docks. There was no logical justification for lingering here. But then, when it came to Clara Hayward, logic was in short supply.