Fortune’s Final Folly

by McKnight, Christina

  More men arrived to help put out the fire as Joshua continued cradling Kate. His driver removed his jacket and covered the woman’s exposed legs.

  “She needs to be seen by a physician,” Joshua said. “Have Elmer fetch Dr. Brown and meet us at the townhouse.”

  “Right, m’lord,” Chapman called over the shouting men. “I’ll tell Elmer and meet ye at the carriage.”

  The water engine rumbled down the street, and men set about pumping the water that fed the long hoses with a steady stream of liquid. The streets were filling quickly with onlookers; the gossip mill already turning as people spied him, clutching Kate to his chest as they watched the fire slowly being extinguished.

  “M’lord.” Chapman hurried back over. “We need to take Miss Kate away from the smoke.”

  Her body trembled in his hold as the evening chill soaked through her thin nightgown and the coat his driver had laid over her. The fright had turned her skin clammy, dispelling the warmth from the fire.

  Joshua hurried toward the passageway that led to his stables and his waiting carriage.

  He deposited Kate on the seat across from him and fumbled to remove his jacket so he could wrap it around her shivering form. Her eyes were closed, but he sensed that she was awake.

  “The brigade will have the fire out soon,” he whispered, adjusting his driver’s coat to cover her bare feet. “Just rest. Deep breaths.”

  He sat opposite her, watching her chest rise and fall as her breathing slowed. He gently brushed the hair from her face. Her nightcap had been lost somewhere in their haste to free themselves from the building.

  He’d been right to be worried about Kate and her safety. Could Cuttlebottom have set the fire? Indeed, he’d been angry, but enough to jeopardize Kate’s life?

  “Thank you, Joshua,” she mumbled, her eyes remaining closed. “My father was correct about you.”

  “Shhhh,” he called, sitting back as the carriage started for Cavendish Square.

  “Salvation…”

  Joshua nearly chuckled as the immediate sense of danger receded, and they were spirited across London toward his townhouse. “No, I was only in the right place at the right time. Now, rest. I will wake you when we arrive.”

  Her eyes closed, and her breathing evened out. The smell of smoke hung heavily in the air of the enclosed carriage.

  Joshua would let her rest, at least until they arrived at his townhouse, and the physician was ready to attend to her.

  He kept watch on her as the carriage swayed gently, noting a dark smudge of soot streaked across her cheek, and the singed fringes of her nightshift. His own jacket was torn at the elbow. The weight of Kate’s situation settled in: she was safe and unharmed. However, they’d both been nearly killed, and Kate’s home was in ruins. Had the fire been set or merely caused by an unattended candle in the schoolroom? Was Cuttlebottom responsible?

  There was plenty of time to discuss the elderly man. For now, Joshua wouldn’t bother her with such matters. Tonight, he’d make sure she suffered no lasting effects from the fire. Tomorrow—or the next day—they’d deal with the cobbler and Kate’s ruined home.

  The carriage rocked rhythmically as it traveled down seemingly endless London streets. A wayward curl fell across Kate’s face and caressed her cheek. The interior of the coach was lit by two lanterns on either side, making the bridge of freckles across Kate’s nose visible. Her eyes fluttered behind her eyelids, and she sucked in a deep breath on a gasp. The fire was only just extinguished, but the nightmares of the ordeal were already beginning.

  Chapter 4

  Kate rolled over, heat warming her face as she stretched out her legs, their stiffness nothing new. She’d always slept the most soundly curled into a tight ball. The ache in her legs and back was the same. The hearth that heated the upper floor of her home was not close enough to her room, even if she left the door open, to bring any kind of deep warmth. Neither were her sturdy, woolen blankets soft and inviting. The straw mattress she’d used since her childhood had forever been unforgivingly hard and lumpy.

  The hairs at the nape of her neck stood on end.

  Something wasn’t right.

  In fact, something was certainly very wrong.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling around for the edge of the bed. With arms extended in both directions, Kate could not reach either side. What she did encounter was yards and yards of blankets that were cool and smooth to her touch, not tattered and coarse like the ones on her bed. The quilt her mother had worked diligently on for nearly six months before Kate’s eighth birthday was not within her reach either. The cushion under her head felt more like a cloud than her usual straw and horse-hair-stuffed embroidered pillow.

  Despite it all, Kate did not have the sense that she was in danger. Quite the contrary, actually. The perceived ease she felt startled her far more than awakening in a strange bed in a room that could not possibly be hers.

  She thought hard on the previous night—or had morning not dawned yet? Kate remembered eating a light meal as she hadn’t gone to the grocer in nearly a fortnight. Slipping into her nightgown, Kate had twisted her hair into a knot and tucked it under her nightcap to keep her curls from tangling in her sleep, then climbed into her small bed. She’d forgone her nightly reading to yet again conserve her tallow in case a midsummer storm moved in that made it necessary to light candles in the schoolroom for the children.

  Nothing had been amiss as she’d willed her mind to stop churning. She’d fallen to sleep.

  However, she most certainly was not in her bed above the schoolroom any longer.

  Even the smells were different. She didn’t smell tallow but beeswax. The linens were infused with lavender and, mayhap, scents of a meadow—not that she’d ever been to a true meadow. The fire in the hearth did not reek of the cakes that she bartered for in exchange for Sally Ann’s schooling. No, the heat reaching her had the distinct scent of coal.

  Kate hadn’t been afforded the luxury of coal—or wood—since shortly after her father had passed away.

  She was not in her Cheapside home with the small window in her chambers that afforded her an obstructed glimpse of the London Bridge. Besides the scents and the softness of the bed, the sounds were also foreign to her. Or, better put, the lack of noise was unusual.

  Opening her eyes, Kate took in the expansive room. The bed was easily the size of her entire chambers in Cheapside. Heavy draperies covered a bank of windows that stretched the length of the wall in front of the bed she rested in. The furniture was dark wood; however, the bedding was a pale blue that diminished the masculinity of the chamber somewhat. To her left, a great hearth with a grate did, indeed, burn coal.

  “Good morning.” She turned to the right to see Mr. Stuart—Joshua—masked by shadows and lounging in a large chair. He was no longer Mr. Stuart, kindly neighbor and solicitor. He was now Joshua as he’d discarded his coat and his cravat hung loosely around his neck. His sleeves were even rolled to his elbows. “How do you feel? Does your chest ache?”

  Kate pushed up to sit, and the blankets that had been pulled high to her chin fell down to pool at her waist. She no longer wore the long nightgown her mother had sewn for her years ago. Instead, the cotton nightdress she wore was made of crisp satin with a row of bows leading from her throat down to her waist and perhaps beyond.

  “Where am I?” she gulped, clutching the high collar of the gown as her cheeks heated.

  “Do you remember anything from last night?” Joshua leaned forward in his chair, his fingers tightening on the arms of the furniture, but his expression remained hidden in the shadows.

  “I—” Kate closed her eyes, and images flooded her mind. Joshua standing on the landing outside her bedchamber door, backlit by flickering light, the smells of smoke and burning wood overwhelming. “There was a fire—in the schoolroom.” She paused, remembering the whole of it: the terror, the smoke, the heated flames. “Where am I?”

  It seemed far preferable to question him on s
uch mundane, trivial things rather than inquire as to the destruction of the only home she’d ever known. The same building that allowed her to gain a wage to care for herself without assistance.

  His head dipped, seemingly knowing what she longed to ask but in some unspoken way understanding that she was not ready to hear it. “After the fire brigade arrived, I brought you to my home and had my family physician see to your injuries.”

  She frantically moved in the bed, pushing the blankets down until she could inspect her entire body. As the daughter of a pious vicar, Kate knew she should feel embarrassed and uneasy about being alone with Joshua—in his home. They’d been unattended on several occasions in the past, but never in such a suggestive and inappropriate way. It seemed all the worse that Kate’s eyes settled on the exposed skin at his throat.

  “You had no burns and didn’t inhale too much smoke.” His words soothed her panic. “When the physician left, I had my housekeeper make you more…comfortable. Your nightgown was soiled from ash and soot and smelled of burnt things. I’ve sent it to the laundress for cleaning.”

  Housekeeper? Laundress? Family physician?

  “I do not understand.” She glanced around the lavish room. It was not the home of a modest solicitor from Cheapside. Kate had long known that Joshua was an educated man, but she had assumed he attended University as a servitor and not as an independent member. The room was far too grand for the likes of a gentle commoner. “Where are we?”

  Joshua was undoubtedly a man of means if not something far more.

  “My townhouse in Cavendish Square.” He rubbed at his chin and looked past her toward the hearth. “It was the only suitable place I could think to bring you.”

  “You, Mr. Joshua Stuart, Solicitor, have a home in Cavendish Square?”

  He shrugged, his eyes alighting on her, yet Kate sensed a barrier between them that’d never been there before. “It once belonged to my paternal grandmother.”

  “Yet your office is in Cheapside?” She kept her stare trained on him, attempting to gauge any hint of deception in his answers or tone.

  “I prefer to help those in actual need.” He sighed, reclining once more in his chair and clasping his hands in his lap. “I do not have much to my name, except this home and my offices.”

  “Offices?” Obviously, their circumstances and personal notions of not having much varied greatly.

  “The office in Cheapside where I use my time and finances to help the people living nearby, and my building off Bond Street.”

  Kate had met Joshua in her youth when he’d first completed his time at University and came around to deliver parcels to her father. He’d been fresh from school and had taken a post as his uncle’s assistant. They’d had more occasion to become acquainted when he opened his solicitor’s office across the street from the schoolroom.

  In reality, she didn’t know much about him at all.

  “Who are you?” She breathed the question on an exhale. There were many merchants and shopkeeps who, despite their successful businesses, did not have the means for multiple properties plus living quarters in one of the most coveted areas of London.

  When he didn’t immediately answer, she feared he hadn’t heard her.

  Reluctantly, he stood and paced toward the bank of windows and then back before stopping at the foot of the bed. “I am Lord Joshua Stuart, second son of the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort.”

  “You lied to me. To us all in Cheapside?”

  “No, no,” he said, his shoulders stiffening at her accusation. “I have only withheld my place as a second son. However, I do have little to my name and have worked hard at my schooling and career in law—with the backing of my uncle, who is my father’s younger brother, also a second son.”

  “Little to your name?” Kate scoffed, remembering the dreadful pungent aroma of burning dung she’d been forced to heat her home with for the past several years. “You have far more than most, my lord.”

  Her stare turned swiftly to a glare, while he simply turned and returned to his chair, lowering himself as if the weight of the world rested upon him.

  The son of a duke, even a second son, could not know the trials and tribulations of those in Cheapside and beyond.

  “Did my father know?”

  “Know what?”

  “That you masqueraded as…as…” The words escaped her at the same time she recognized her anger was misguided. He’d rescued her from a burning building. Risked his own safety. And she had been taught at a young age not to cast stones. There was much about herself that she wondered about. Did that mean she was purposely deceitful? Certainly not. He’d done nothing but help. Many of those he worked with were parents of her pupils, who would have otherwise been unable to afford the services of a solicitor. Much like she, Joshua devoted his life to others. “I’m sorry, I—”

  He held up his hand, silencing her. “Your father and my uncle had a long association, spanning over fifteen years. To answer your question, yes, Vicar Elliott knew that my uncle, and in turn I, were of noble birth. He also understood that every man is entitled to make his own way in life and live accordingly.”

  “You speak as if your beliefs align more naturally with the people of Cheapside than those of your noble brethren.” Why would a man in possession of a grand home and a fancy office in the fashionable part of London choose to do business in Cheapside? Kate rarely had need to venture outside her neighborhood, and she only encountered nobility on the rare occasions when they sought out the East End for cheaper goods than could be found in other areas of London.

  How had she never noted the aristocratic set of Joshua’s chin or his cultured speech? Perhaps she preferred not to notice, leaving her free to believe they were of a similar class. That despite his education and her lowly birth, they could live in a world where he was simply a handsome, engaging man, and she a woman with the ability to notice. Over the years, she’d watched many of her pupils, and even some she considered friends, meet men of their age, fall in love, and marry. Yet, for some reason, this seemed far from Kate’s reach.

  And her thinking was not always due to any kind of class difference.

  “To that, I would respond with a resounding ‘yes’,” He shook his head, rubbing his hands down his trousers, coming to rest at his knees, his chin rising defiantly. “I—and my uncle before me—am not a man who lives like most lords. I aspire to a greater purpose, as did my predecessor. Your father—as a man of God—understood us more than most.”

  “Why did he not tell me?” She would not share with Joshua that there was much her father and mother hadn’t shared with her. Information about Kate they’d taken to their graves.

  “Likely because he did not see it as important or relevant to our association.”

  “How can it not be relevant to our association?”

  Her question hung in the air as a knock sounded at the door. She stared, as did he. She was uncertain what about her held his notice; however, Kate had the sense she was seeing Joshua—truly seeing him—for the first time. Not as the son of a duke. No, as he’d said, that was not who he was, only what he was. Kate knew far too well the stigma that came with being born to certain parents. He was the second son of a duke, but he was more than that. Just as Kate longed to be more than a vicar’s daughter.

  Joshua had accomplished his feat.

  Kate…had not.

  “Enter,” he called.

  The door opened, and an elderly woman dressed in a simple black frock with a white apron entered the room pushing a tea cart.

  “Oh, dearie,” she cooed with a welcoming grin. “Just look at you.”

  Kate could not help but return the woman’s smile.

  “How are you feeling, dear girl?” She halted the cart on the far side of the bed, blocking Kate’s view of Joshua. “Your color has returned, and I must say you certainly look better than when you arrived last evening. Would you not agree, my lord?”

  “I most certainly agree, Dolly.”

 
; The woman chuckled as she bustled about with the cart. “Sugar or milk, my dear?”

  It took Kate a moment to realize the woman—a maid?—spoke to her. “No, thank you.”

  “No tea?” The woman’s brow spiked.

  Kate leaned to the side, attempting to gain Joshua’s notice, but his stare was focused on the older woman. “Ummm, pardon. I meant, no sugar or milk.”

  “Ah, well.” The woman tsked but she winked at her. “Mayhap you will try some with your next cup.”

  It was as if she knew Kate could not afford the luxuries of fresh milk and sugar. Had Joshua confided in the maid that Kate came from Cheapside? Her hand went to her hair, knowing how unruly it got if left unattended. Her mother had spent hours in Kate’s youth brushing through the knots and plaiting her strands to prevent painful tangles.

  “Thank you, Dolly, for bringing tea,” Joshua said, still blocked from view by the portly woman. “Miss Kate is likely parched. And mayhap hungry?”

  “’Tis my job, my lord.” After handing Kate her tea, the maid set about preparing a plate of toast with marmalade. “Now, I shall leave the pair of you. Remember, Joshua, the doctor said she needs rest. And you do, too. You won’t do anyone any good if you’re exhausted.”

  Dolly wagged her finger at Joshua before pushing the cart from the room and shutting the door in her wake.

  The plate of toast sat next to Kate on the bed as she sipped her tea. The temperature of the brew was perfect and strong, much like her mother had enjoyed.

  “Dolly is more my family than a servant,” Joshua shared. His stare lingered on her, and he made no move to depart.

  “It is not my concern.” Kate set her tea on the side table when her stomach growled. Perhaps it hadn’t been the best idea to have but a small meal the previous night. “It is said that all proper lords have servants. I cannot imagine the complexities of running a household as large as this without any staff.”