The Duke's Governess Bride

by Miranda Jarrett

  He swore from the pain and jerked away from her to grasp at his wounded arm. Without pause, Jane fled, bolting from the room and into the hall as fast as she could. Though he called after her, ordering her to stop, she didn’t. She owed him nothing, not now.

  She caught one high heel in the hem of her skirts and felt it tear, but still she plunged onwards through the sea of black cloaks. She didn’t care who she pushed aside or bumped or jostled, only that she got away from di Rossi and back to Richard’s side. Her breath now came in great sobbing gulps that racked her chest as she ran, and in a way she was grateful that the mask hid her face and tears that she couldn’t keep back. Richard would save her, her own great bear of a love; no one would dare harm her when she was at his side.

  Yet as distraught as she was, she still realised the folly of such thoughts. Earlier she’d ignored the fact that he’d worn his sword beneath his cloak; as unhappy as it made her to see him armed, she knew it equally pleased him to do so, and for that reason she’d said nothing. But everything had changed now. Richard’s temper was formidable. If he learned of how di Rossi had treated her, he’d immediately be off to challenge the Venetian, and that—that terrified her. Somehow she must convince Richard to leave without telling him why, and she must do it at once, before the signor found her.

  At last she reached the faro table, pushing her way through the ring of spectators. The pile of coins before Richard had grown larger since she’d been away, and clearly his luck had held. He smiled as soon as he saw her, so warmly that fresh tears started in her eyes.

  ‘You’re back, Janie,’ he said fondly, his smile fading as he realised something was wrong. ‘What’s amiss, sweet? What has happened?’

  ‘Forgive me, Richard,’ she said, ‘but I wish to leave. I—I’m not well.’

  ‘Of course.’ Instantly Richard rose, his concern for her overshadowing everything else, and glanced at the startled banker. ‘I’m out, sir. Pray send my winnings tomorrow to my lodgings at the Ca’ Battista.’

  ‘But you cannot leave so soon, most illustrious sir,’ protested one of the other players. ‘You must grant us the chance to regain our losses.’

  ‘I’m sorry, gentlemen,’ he said, bowing slightly as he took Jane’s arm. ‘But the lady requests, and I obey.’

  The crowds parted for them as they left the room, for by now, mask or not, most knew he was the English duke with the extraordinary luck. Richard wouldn’t deny that he’d enjoyed it, but now all he cared for was Jane. Though he couldn’t see her face, she somehow seemed bedraggled, her whole small figure drooping.

  ‘What has happened, Jane?’ he asked again. He slipped his arm protectively around her shoulders, and felt how she shivered. ‘Should I summon a physician, or—?’

  ‘No, no, please don’t make a fuss, I beg you,’ she begged. ‘I’ll be well enough when we’re outside in the open air.’

  He said nothing more as he guided her down the long staircase, out the door, and across the Campo San Moise to the canal. A long line of gondolas lay alongside the walk, waiting for those inside the Ridotto, but since Richard and Jane had left much earlier than they’d intended, their own gondola was nowhere to be seen within the bobbing lanterns’ light—as bad, thought Richard, as the carriages before Buckingham Palace. A gondolier’s boy came trotting up to them, touching his straw hat and offering in pidgin English to find their gondola. Richard nodded and tossed him a coin, and turned back to Jane.

  ‘Let’s hope the little scoundrel returns,’ he said, unfastening his mask. ‘Do you need to sit, sweet?’

  She shook her head. She’d already taken off her mask and turned her veil up over her hat, breathing deeply of the cool night air. Damp tendrils of her hair were pressed flat against her temples, and her carefully applied paint was streaked down her face.

  ‘I’m well enough now,’ she said. ‘It was the heat and the crowd, that was all.’

  But Richard was sure there was more to it than that. She was clinging to his arm too tightly for it to be otherwise, and her eyes had a rare fearfulness in them that made him want to protect her all the more.

  ‘We’ll take you home and put you straight to bed,’ he said. ‘That’s what any proper governess would say, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘A proper one would, yes.’ Her smile crumpled. ‘Oh, Richard, why did I trust Signor di Rossi again? Why was I so foolish as to believe he’d wish to assist me?’

  Richard stopped. ‘What has happened, Jane? So help me, if he—’

  ‘Nothing happened,’ she said quickly, raising her chin with a little show of pride. ‘I surprised him, and defended myself and that—that was that. I was the ninny for letting it go as far as it did.’

  ‘It’s hardly your fault, Jane,’ Richard said, his anger rising on her behalf. ‘I should go back and find that bastard, and teach him how—’

  ‘You will not,’ she said firmly, placing her hand on his arm to hold him back. ‘That’s why I didn’t tell you before. It is done, and I will never speak or see the gentleman again.’

  ‘He’s hardly a gentleman,’ Richard grumbled, placing his hand protectively over hers. He hated to think of her having to defend herself at all—that was what he was for, wasn’t it? ‘Ahh, here’s that boy at last to lead us on our way.’

  ‘Will you truly give away all the money you won?’ she asked as they followed the boy along the walk and away from the lights of the campo. ‘To orphans?’

  ‘I promised you I would, didn’t I?’ he said with a heartiness he meant to cheer her. ‘Orphans need it. I do not.’

  She laughed softly, a most reassuring sound to him, and then patted his arm. ‘You are a most excellent man, your Grace.’

  But as much as Richard enjoyed her compliments, he was paying almost no attention to this one, and a great deal more to their surroundings. The boy had led them away from the first canal and down this darker rio, little more than a watery alley with the only light coming from the moon overhead. The place did not feel quite right to Richard, and instinctively he shoved back the edge of his cloak to find the hilt of his sword. Trouble, he knew, often came to those who were least prepared to face it.

  And sometimes it came anyway.

  The two masked men jumped from the shadows into their path, the moonlight glinting off the blades of their drawn swords. Jane gasped, and swiftly Richard pushed her behind him, trusting she’d the sense to stay there.

  ‘Your winnings, Englishman,’ the first man demanded. ‘Your gold, or your life.’

  ‘I won, yes,’ Richard said slowly, biding his time. There were two of them and one of him, but they were small, scrabbling bandits, and he’d have the advantage in size and strength to even the numbers. They spoke a manner of English, too—most likely sailors, then, and he’d never met a sailor who was good with a sword.

  ‘Then give over your gold,’ the man repeated. ‘Give it now.’

  Richard snorted derisively. ‘Do you believe I’m fool enough to take my winnings with me?’

  ‘I’m no fool, neither,’ the thief said. ‘Deliver, Englishman, or die.’

  ‘Give him what you have, Richard,’ Jane begged behind him, her voice shrill with fear. ‘Don’t play the hero, I beg you. Please, Richard, please!’

  ‘Stand back, Janie,’ he said without taking his gaze from the two men. He wasn’t playing the hero; he was simply doing what any gentleman would. ‘I’ll tend to these.’

  ‘Listen to your whore, signor.’ The second man sniggered. ‘Maybe we should take her, too.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ said Richard curtly, and he drew his sword with a scraping sweep of steel. ‘No one takes what’s mine.’

  The two charged towards him together, and deftly Richard caught their blades against his. They flailed at him, and he met them swiftly, lunging forwards to attack rather than simply defend. They didn’t expect that, and fell back, slashing wildly. With practised assurance, Richard attacked again, and again. This wasn’t the elegant parry and thrust of the master
swordsman he visited for practice in London, but the same moves applied even in a rough fight like this. Look for weakness, protect yourself, be quick, be relentless, be ruthless—he might be nearly forty, but by God, he’d put his experience against any man half his age.

  But having Jane there made it different. Was she still fearing for him, he wondered, still frightened?

  And in that half-second that he let his concentration wander, he felt the blade slice across the back of his wrist and his own blood spill out, not deep enough to sever any muscles, but more than enough to snap his attention back to where it belonged.

  Falsely confident, the first man raised his sword high to strike again. Before he could, Richard struck first, catching the man beneath his upraised arm. Richard felt the blade cut through the rough cloth of the man’s coat and shirt and then sink into his flesh, stopping only when it hit and glanced off a rib.

  The thief cried out with pain and surprise and slid off Richard’s sword to fall to the paving stones. Clutching at his side, he babbled to his comrade in anguished Italian, and to Richard, too.

  ‘Misericordia, misericordia!’ he cried weakly, begging for mercy. ‘O, Jesu!’

  To Richard’s surprise, the man dropped his sword and rushed to his wounded friend. He pulled the man to his unsteady feet and half-dragged him away as swiftly as he could, back into the shadows of a nearby alley.

  ‘Richard!’ Jane flung herself at him, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist. ‘Oh, Richard, Richard, if anything had happened to you!’

  ‘Nothing did, sweet, nothing at all.’ Awkwardly he sheathed his own sword and wrapped his arms around her. ‘It’s over now, Janie, over and done.’

  She turned her face to gaze up at him, her cheeks wet with tears. ‘You can—cannot know how I feared for you, Richard,’ she sobbed. ‘I know we’ve vowed to live each—each day as it came here in Venice, but if—if I’d lost you—’

  ‘But you didn’t,’ he said softly. ‘Come, let me take you home.’

  Once again he glanced past her to where the thieves had vanished, with all that remained was a ragged dark trail of blood. So much blood, thought Richard wearily, still breathing hard himself. Now that the excitement of the fight had passed, his hand hurt like the devil. He felt exhausted, and worse, he felt every bit his age. He hadn’t intended to kill the man, but his blade must have slipped deeper than he’d intended. Hell. It had been undeniable self-defence, of course, but he’d no wish to squander his final days with Jane here in Venice becoming embroiled in some sort of public inquiry.

  He led her away, back towards the safety and the light of the busier piazzas, and it was then she saw the gash on his hand.

  ‘Oh, dear God!’ she cried softly. ‘They did hurt you! Hurry, hurry, we must fetch a surgeon!’

  ‘It’s nothing, Jane,’ he said in the way of all wounded men. Self-consciously he wrapped his dark cloak around his hand, as much to hide the blood and his crimson-stained cuff from her as to bind up the cut, and offered her his other arm. ‘Besides, it’s my own fault. I let my thoughts wander, and this is the result.’

  Her face still wet with tears, she ignored his offered arm. Instead she’d drawn out her own handkerchief and reached for his wounded hand, briskly undeterred by the blood.

  ‘That’s foolishness,’ she said, tending to him with her usual efficiency. ‘I saw how determined you were. What could possibly scatter your thoughts in such a situation?’

  ‘You,’ he said. ‘I thought of you.’

  Chapter Twenty

  Jane was always at her best when she was busy, and the more things she had to manage, or arrange, or settle, the better. So it was that night near the Ridotto once she’d realised that Richard had been wounded. Once she’d seen that Richard needed her, that she’d things to do, she’d been able to put aside Signor di Rossi and the ambush and everything else that had so frightened her this evening. Instead she could simply be capable Miss Wood.

  Richard could protest all he wanted that the blood streaming from his hand was nothing; she knew better, just as she knew he’d be far too stubborn and gallant to admit it. With her usual calm efficiency—and her best Italian—she’d made sure their gondolier showed the greatest haste in returning them to the Ca’ Battista. She’d sent for a surgeon, she’d roused the cook to produce a late, fortifying supper for Richard, and she’d ordered a footman to build the fires in Richard’s rooms and to bring warm water for washing.

  Though Richard’s manservant Wilson had rushed to take possession of his master, Jane had insisted on accompanying him upstairs herself, and had only left Richard and Wilson alone when the manservant began to strip away Richard’s blood-stained Arlecchino costume. She hurried to her own rooms just long enough to replace her own frivolous costume with her woollen dressing gown, and was back in Richard’s bedchamber before the surgeon arrived. Now in a fresh shirt and a quilted silk banyan, he was sitting beside the long table where he’d conduct his business affairs, his injured hand resting gingerly on the edge and a glass of brandy in the other.

  ‘That’s not for you to do, Jane,’ Richard said as she insisted on gently unwrapping the sodden handkerchief from his hand. ‘Leave it for the doctor.’

  ‘It’s not good to let this sit any longer,’ she insisted, her concern growing. For all his bluster, she thought he looked pale and drawn. ‘Who knows when the fellow will decide to show his face?’

  He grimaced. ‘Janie, please.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly, pouring warm water over the wound to clean it. He’d been caught on the heel of his hand, dangerously close to the underside of his wrist. The flesh gaped open, bleeding afresh now that it was unbound, and the rest of his hand was mottled and swollen. Now that she could see the gravity of the cut, she realised how difficult it must be for him to remain so stoic before her. She wasn’t squeamish or afraid of nursing when required, but this was no ordinary scrape or bruise, and once again her emotions welled when she thought of how he’d risked his life to defend her.

  ‘There now, Jane, you’ll need a sterner face if you’re to play surgeon,’ he said, striving to lighten the mood. ‘You’re so doleful, I’d swear you’re preparing me for an amputation.’

  ‘Hush, Richard, don’t even jest like that,’ she scolded, but all the same she was vastly relieved to see Signora della Battista usher the black-clad surgeon into the room. The man bowed, and immediately set to work with a quiet confidence that reassured Jane. As he did, the signora pulled Jane aside.

  ‘The authorities have arrived to question his Grace,’ she whispered. ‘About the fighting.’

  Jane gasped with dismay. ‘Oh, I was afraid of that! I’ll go speak to them myself, and—’

  ‘No, no, Miss Wood, please, it is not necessary,’ the older woman said quickly. ‘I have sent them away for now. But when they return in the morning, you must make sure that his Grace is mild and gracious. Venice is a republic, and peerages mean nothing here. We do not care for murderous foreigners.’

  ‘He was defending us from thieves who would as soon have murdered us as not!’

  ‘Then that is what they must be made to understand, Miss Wood,’ the signora insisted. ‘They will listen, if the explanation is civil. His Grace must be made to put aside his English temper. Be agreeable, and our authorities in return will be obliging and forgiving. But if he blusters—ah, who can say?’

  ‘Thank you, signora, and I promise to speak with his Grace.’ Jane glanced over her shoulder to Richard. He was sitting with his eyes squeezed shut and his head bent, fighting the pain as the surgeon finished stitching the gaping cut closed. The brandy glass was empty. ‘Though I do not believe his temper will have much fire to it tomorrow.’

  Swiftly she returned to Richard’s side, resting her hand lightly on his shoulder. At once he reached up to take it, clasping her fingers so tightly she caught her breath. He opened his eyes at the sound, and looked up at her, and purposefully not at his hand.

  ‘Is it so very
bad, Janie?’ he asked, little drops of sweat glistening on his forehead. ‘You’d tell me, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘There is nothing to tell, your Grace,’ the surgeon said as he tied the final knot on the new bandage. ‘The cut was deep, but clean. I have dressed it simply with a mixture of egg yolk, oil of roses and turpentine against putrefication, and while it is still early to predict entirely, I do not believe there will be much lasting damage. A scar, of course, but what gentleman does not relish such a hard-won scar?’

  Sceptical, Richard at last frowned down at his bandaged hand.

  ‘Another glass of brandy, your Grace, and you shall sleep like a babe,’ the surgeon promised. ‘I shall return tomorrow to dress it again, and—’

  ‘Go,’ Richard said sharply. ‘All of you. Leave me with Miss Wood.’

  As the others obeyed, Jane began to busy herself with clearing away the water basin and the surgeon’s soiled cloths. She couldn’t help herself; it was so much easier to fall into her old familiar patterns of usefulness than to confront everything else that had happened this dreadful evening.

  ‘Here now, enough of that,’ Richard said impatiently, reaching out to stop her. ‘That’s not why I asked you to stay with me.’

  ‘You didn’t have to ask,’ she said. ‘It needs doing regardless.’

  ‘It can wait,’ he insisted. ‘It’s your company I want, Jane, not you pretending to be a maidservant.’

  She gave her head a little shake, and left off cleaning as he’d bid, instead filling his glass with more brandy. ‘The surgeon said you were to drink this.’

  ‘Blast the surgeon!’ he exclaimed, knocking the glass from the table and scattering brandy across the floor. ‘If I want to drink more brandy, I’ll damn well drink it myself, and not wait for the by-your-leave of some prattling foreigner!’

  At once Jane knelt to wipe up the spilled wine, and as she did Richard rose from his chair and awkwardly pulled her back to her feet.