The Duke's Fallen Angel (Devilish Dukes, #1)

by Amy Jarecki

  A sailor on deck whistled. “Don’t tell me we’ll ’ave a bit of muslin to keep us company during the long nights of our cruise.”

  “Aye, a cruise to bleedin’ ’ell,” another added.

  Gulping, Bria kept her gaze downcast. From the arms of a duke into the talons of the bane of society. Could she fall any further?

  “Who’s this?” asked a man, sounding official. He wore a navy-blue uniform. Behind him stood a stout but well-dressed officer who had gray hair and a double chin.

  The captain?

  “Miss Britannia LeClair.” Gibbs handed over a parcel of documents. “You’ll find her transport documentation in order.”

  The first man frowned and leafed through the papers. “What is her crime?”

  “Thievery.”

  “Lie!” Bria jerked her fists against her bindings. “I’ve never stolen a thing in my life.”

  The feminine pitch of her voice hung over the deck like sultry air. All work stopped as every pair of sailor’s eyes shifted her way.

  The officer knit his brows. “An upper-class accent? She doesn’t sound like a thief.”

  Gibbs pointed to the document. “She stole a necklace from Baroness Calthorpe.”

  “You told the innkeeper it was Beaufort’s. You cannot even manage to keep your story straight.” Bria turned to the officer. “Bless it, the miniature was mine! Given to me by Her Ladyship at my birth.”

  “Likely story. She’s been professing her innocence since we left London.” Gibbs snorted. “But the Duke of Beaufort has attested to LeClair’s guilt.”

  “A baroness and a duke?” Eyeing her, the officer passed the papers to a younger man dressed in a similar uniform. “You keep lofty company for a convict.”

  “I haven’t been convicted of anything.” Bria stamped her foot. “Nor have I received a trial.”

  “No trial?” asked the man who looked like the captain.

  “Ah...” Gibbs stammered, turning red in the face. “His Grace wanted this situation to be dispatched swiftly. It was a matter of security. Utmost confidentiality was needed.”

  “Beaufort, hmm? I see.” With the tenor of an educated man, the captain stepped in and looked Bria from head to toe. “What has been your occupation?”

  “I am a dancer for the Paris Opera Ballet. I’ve been in London performing the role of the Sylph in La Sylphide.” Understanding the captain as educated, she leaned toward him. “S’il vous plait, aidez-moi!”

  The man’s eyes widened at her request for help.

  “If there’s nothing else, I’ll be on my way,” said Gibbs, backing down the gangway.

  “How did you come to know the Duke of Beaufort?” the captain asked in a whisper.

  “He’s my grandfather.”

  That made the man’s wiry eyebrows draw together. “Lieutenant Barrow, let me see Miss LeClair’s documents.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The captain studied them more closely than the first officer had. “This is signed by Beaufort himself. If you are his kin, why in God’s name is he sending you off for fourteen years transport?”

  “Because I’ve only just discovered that His Grace’s daughter is my mother. Merely two, no three days ago, I thought I was a foundling.” Bria pursed her lips. She wasn’t about to say anything else. Though the captain could put the pieces together, admitting that she was illegitimate would do nothing to help her survive the voyage—if she managed to endure three grueling months at sea.

  “Well, your paperwork appears to be in order. Lieutenant, put this lady in the cell with the boy.” The captain raised his voice and faced the crew. “Any man who raises a finger against Miss LeClair will have said finger severed from his hand. Am I understood?”

  “Aye, Captain!” the men shouted, still staring.

  “Return to your duties. The Lloyds will not sail on its own.”

  The lieutenant tapped Britannia’s arm. “We’ll proceed below, miss.”

  Below. The word made her swoon.

  Without the use of her hands, she managed to descend the narrow steps into the dim hold, smelling worse than had anything along the wharf. “It stinks.”

  “You’ll grow accustomed to it. We’ve no choice but to bring livestock aboard, else we’d all starve.”

  Presently, starvation seemed like a merciful escape. Drake was gone. Left bleeding in the grass. Who would tend him?

  He cannot be dead. I will not believe it.

  But there had been so much blood.

  No!

  A hole the size of a cannon ball stretched her heart.

  Fourteen years in Australia? She’d be thirty-three by the time she was given leave to return—well past her prime. She’d never dance again. She’d never marry, never have the family she wanted so badly.

  God save her. Bria couldn’t care less about the stage or the papers or the applause. If only she could breathe life back into Ravenscar—sit by his sickbed and tell him how much he’d come to mean to her. If only he were taking this voyage with her it might be bearable. Who cared where they lived as long as they had each other?

  But nothing and no one would help her escape.

  She was doomed to a life in hell.

  The lieutenant removed her bindings and nudged her into a small room. Bria’s eyes welled with tears as she slid down the wall. She buried her face in her hands while sobs wracked her body. Why did this happen to her? Why was her grandfather so evil? What horrors had she ever committed against him?

  Something moved in the far corner. Bria blinked, trying to clear her vision. “Who’s there?”

  “It’s Johnny,” the figure said, his voice raspy, but childlike and not yet changed to a man’s.

  Bria wiped her face. “Are you a convict?”

  “Uh huh.” The boy didn’t sound very sure about it. As her eyes adjusted, she spotted him sitting in the corner, his arms wrapped around lanky knees. His face streaked with dirt, the lad had unkempt sandy-colored hair.

  “Tell me, Johnny, how old are you?”

  “Nine, I reckon.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I’m pretty sure.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Here and there. London mostly.” He picked his teeth. “You ask a lot of questions.”

  “Do I?”

  “Weigh anchor!” shouted a voice above decks.

  “God save us,” Bria whispered.

  Johnny bit his lip. “What’s your crime, miss...ah...”

  “LeClair.” The ship’s timbers groaned as the vessel pitched to the side. Bria braced her hands on the floorboards.

  Johnny rolled to his knees and scooted closer. “So, what’d you do?”

  “I am innocent.”

  “Right-o. Me as well...aside from being hungry.”

  “Hunger is no crime.”

  “Aye, but the baker saw it different when I pinched a loaf of bread.”

  “Nine years old and you’re being sent to Australia merely for taking bread?”

  “I reckon Botany Bay will be better than the foundling home in the long run.”

  “Oh, my heavens.” Her heart twisted into a hundred knots as she let out a sob. “It seems more than one person on this voyage has been wronged.”

  The boy scooted over the timbers until he sat beside her. “Don’t cry, Miss LeClair. Everything will work out in the end.”

  “How can you say that? How can you be so assured? A foundling at the age of nine sentenced to fourteen years transportation which will doubtlessly include back-breaking hard labor.” Yes, Britannia’s predicament was precarious and frightful, but what chance at life did this young boy have?

  “I got to believe the future will be brighter, else there would be no use thinking at all.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  AWARE OF A BRIGHT LIGHT and a pounding headache, Drake groaned. “Stop blinding me with the bloody lamp.”

  When nothing happened, he drew a hand over his eyes. Until he remembered his purpose. He
jolted to sitting, the fast movement making him heave. Fie, he felt like shite. Gripping his hands across his gut, he looked from wall to wall.

  Where the blazes am I?

  More importantly, where was Britannia?

  He staggered out of bed and looked out the window, immediately recognizing the grounds of the inn and stable. Not surprisingly, the carriage was gone. And after he’d been shot, they must have dragged him upstairs. Indeed, his entire body ached as if they’d dragged him.

  Quickly, Drake filled the bowl with water and splashed his face which did little to help the throbbing pain in his head. He grabbed a cloth and looked in the mirror. His skull was wrapped with a blood-seeped bandage. Pulling it off, he examined the wound. A deep scrape the length of his little finger cut a channel at the side of his temple. Holy hellfire, had the musket ball hit a fraction of an inch nearer, he’d be dead.

  Worse, his beard more than peppered his face. There was two, perhaps three days growth. Drake threw the cloth aside. Dash decorum, he’d take time to shave when Britannia was in his arms.

  He shrugged into his coat and loosely tied his neckcloth as he bounded out the door.

  At the bottom of the stairs, the boy who’d been chopping wood peeked around a door jamb.

  “You there, where’s my horse?” Drake demanded.

  “In the stable, Your Grace.”

  “Saddled?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “How long have I been abed in that chamber?”

  “They carried you up yesterday morn,” the boy said as if it were nearly dark.

  Drake pulled his watch out of his pocket and held it to his ear. Blast it all, the damned thing had stopped. “What time is it?”

  The boy pointed to a floor clock at the end of the hall. “A quarter past three.”

  “Three?” He had no time to waste. “Run—see to it my horse is saddled. Where is the innkeeper?”

  “Here, Your Grace.”

  “I demand to know why you were harboring that fugitive, Walter Gibbs.”

  “Fugitive?”

  “He kidnapped the Duke of Beaufort’s granddaughter.”

  “Kidnapped? That doesn’t sound like—”

  To steady himself, Drake pressed a hand against the wall. To make matters worse, he was as weak as a babe. “You believe the word of a festering pustule like Gibbs over that of a duke?”

  “N-no, Your Grace.”

  “If you see Gibbs again, I want you to report it to the authorities. And say nothing to him. There has been a warrant issued for his arrest.”

  “But Mr. Gibbs is a Bow Street Runner.”

  “Was. The lout has since left the service and turned to kidnapping innocent ballerinas.”

  The innkeeper’s jaw dropped. “God blind me—the woman was telling the truth.”

  “Indeed. The only person in this calamity going about spreading lies is Walter Gibbs. And if I hear one word—any rumor whatsoever that you have aided that blackguard, I will personally see that you are led to the gallows and hang beside him.”

  Drake didn’t wait for a reply. He stormed out of the inn and mounted his horse, riding at breakneck speed, praying the Lloyds had not yet sailed.

  ADMIRAL SIR GEORGE Cockburn placed his quill in its holder and rose when Drake was introduced. “Your Grace, I am quite taken aback to see you without prior announcement.”

  “This is a matter of national consequence. I’ve been told the Lloyds, a barque, sailed for Australia yesterday morning.”

  “Indeed. I was on the pier myself when her sails unfurled.”

  “We must stop that ship immediately.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “A man named Gibbs kidnapped the Duke of Beaufort’s granddaughter and falsified convict papers.” The harbormaster had confirmed that Britannia had boarded the Lloyds as a convict.

  Cockburn’s jaw slackened with a stare of disbelief. “Why would someone do such a thing?”

  “It is a very long story, one that would embarrass several members of the nobility. By removing Miss Britannia LeClair from Britain, the guilty parties schemed to prevent their own ruination.” It was as much of the truth as Drake cared to reveal. Baron and Baroness Calthorpe were completely innocent, and he would not tolerate any slight to their names.”

  “I imagine you are not about to let that happen.”

  “I will die before I do.”

  “Hmm. By the look of the gash on your head, it looks as if you nearly did die.”

  “A near miss by Gibbs himself.”

  Cockburn rang the bell. “Let me see what I can do to help.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Did you know I served under your father in Napoleon’s War?”

  “I did not.” Drake catalogued that piece of information. It might very well be of use.

  “Good man he was.”

  “He was, thank you.”

  The door opened, and a lieutenant stepped inside. “You rang, sir?”

  “I did. The Lloyds sailed yesterday destined for Australia.”

  “Indeed, she did—two and fifty convicts aboard.”

  “How many women?” Drake asked.

  “One—arrived at the last moment.”

  Drake’s knees turned boneless. “Dear God.”

  “I beg your pardon?” asked the lieutenant.

  “The woman was kidnapped,” said the admiral. “Do you know where the Lloyds will be resupplying?”

  “The boatswain told me Jamestown on the isle of Saint Helena, then not again until they reach Botany Bay.”

  The admiral moved to a globe and pointed to a tiny dot off the coast of Africa. “Saint Helena is a British isle—a favorite respite for most ships before they sail around the horn.”

  Drake examined the distance between England and the tiny dot off the coast of Angola. “It would take a month of sailing to reach that island.”

  “Five to six weeks minimum,” said the admiral.

  After tracing his finger along the globe’s arc, Drake turned it, estimating Saint Helena to be just shy of the halfway point. “Can we catch her there?”

  “What say you, Lieutenant? What are the fastest ships in the harbor?”

  “Well, the Lloyds is heavy bodied, though she isn’t carrying the cannon of a warship. What would be ideal is a schooner.”

  “A pirate ship?” asked Drake. “Are there any in the fleet?”

  “Not in Portsmouth,” said the admiral. “But we did acquire the HMS Hastings from the East India Trading Company. She’s a cutter.”

  The lieutenant threw back his shoulders. “But she’s a third rate, sir.”

  Cockburn gave the globe a spin. “No, I should have thought of her sooner. She’s the fastest vessel in England.”

  “Can she make up enough time to meet the Lloyds in Jamestown?” Drake asked.

  “That depends on the wind.”

  He didn’t have many options, but one thing was for certain. If he didn’t act now, he’d be sailing clear to Botany Bay. “When can she be ready to set sail?”

  The admiral moved around his table and reached for his quill. “I’ll give the order for morning.”

  “That won’t do. Two hours,” said Drake. “By order of His Majesty the King, I commandeer the Hastings to sail at once.”

  The lieutenant coughed out a stammer. “B-but she’ll need provisions and proper inspections.”

  “We sail as soon as provisions are aboard.” Drake tugged on his gloves. “Make it a priority. This is the Royal Navy. My father fought alongside you, Admiral. Are you not prepared to sail for king and country at a moment’s notice?”

  Cockburn scrawled out an order. “We shall do our best to weigh anchor before dark.” He handed the missive to Drake. “Take this to Captain Schiffer on the Hastings. He’s one of my best. He’ll see to your needs.”

  “Thank you.” Drake bowed and left with the lieutenant. “I have urgent correspondence to dispatch. Where can I find a quill?”

 
“You may use my writing table, Your Grace.”

  Drake took a seat, hastily scribing missives to Calthorpe and Perkins. He sealed them with his signet ring bearing the Ravenscar coat of arms and left them in the admiral’s care.

  BRIA HAD THROWN UP until there was nothing left, but Johnny had borne the worst of it. She cradled the boy’s head in her lap as he lay on his side and moaned.

  “Make the rocking stop,” he whimpered, gripping his arms across his little stomach.

  Bria smoothed her hand over his head. “I wish I could. You ought to feel better soon. I did. It is your turn next.”

  “I don’t think I’m ever going to feel well again.”

  “Close your eyes and try to sleep. You won’t feel so ill when you’re sleeping.”

  Johnny gave a nod and snuggled closer. “I’m c-cold.”

  Bria gave the pile of musty hay a forlorn look. They’d barely survived last night by sleeping together and using her cloak. Johnny’s clothes were in tatters, his legs too long for his trousers, and he was nearly bursting out of his moth-eaten coat. The boy didn’t even have a pair of shoes.

  When Bria was Johnny’s age, she had been well looked after by the LeClairs. Sure, she’d struggled after they’d died, but she always had a place to sleep and a dress that fit. And Monsieur Marchand provided her with dancing slippers and costumes. When she looked at this boy, she realized how blessed her life had been. If she hadn’t joined the Paris Opera Ballet, she might have ended up like Johnny.

  Before the seasickness had taken hold, he’d told her he’d been found at the foundling home as a toddler—they’d estimated his age between one and two. Worse, the boy’s bottom lip had trembled when he’d explained no one had ever come for him.

  The door opened. “I’m Mr. Baldy, ye’ll be answering to me on this voyage and I don’t want no trouble, else ye’ll be fed to the sharks.” He pushed in a tray laden with broth and bread, then held out a bucket. “Empty yer slops in ’ere.”

  Bria carefully slipped out from under Johnny’s head and picked up the bucket they’d used as a chamber pot. “It’s disgusting to bring food at the same time.”