His Secret Heroine (28 page)

"So then, you will be going to Featherstone."

"No, Miss
Englefield, I will not."

"Your son is wounded, and he needs you, and you will not? Just like that, you turn your back on him?"

"Not just like that, Miss Englefield. I will not be going to Featherstone."

"But he is your son! And you can simply ignore him?"

"Must you insist in prying everything out of me?"

Chloe stared, aghast. As if she was prying? Was he not the perpetrator or this odd conversation? What did he want of her?

"I assure you, I am the last person on the face of this earth my son is willing to see. Therefore, however I might wish it, I will not be going."

"I understand the estrangement, but surely the change in circumstances warrants a re-evaluation."

The duke let out an exasperated sigh. "It has become obvious, the less I tell you, the better."

"Then I must wonder, why do you persist in telling me?"

She thought the barest corner of his mouth twitched. "I have no notion, Miss Englefield. Perhaps I am merely capitulating to the inevitable. We shall leave as the cock crows."

He shut the door behind him. Chloe jumped up and threw the bolt.

She dug into the portmanteau and found a nightgown, changed, blew out the candle, and crossed the darkened chamber, feeling ahead of her for the table where she had left Reggie's book. Just touching the smooth leather gave her peace.

Clutching the book, she scooted her feet along the floor to save her shins a bump until she found the bed. She crawled beneath the covers and laid the book beside her, palm resting atop the red leather.

"Stay with me, Reggie," she said aloud. "Do not forget me. Believe in me as I believe in you."

He's my father.

Chloe sat up abruptly, hearing Reggie's voice echoing in her mind. If not his voice, then certainly his anguish for his lonely and terribly damaged parent. It was as if Reggie begged her to take care of the man, to protect him until Reggie could get to them.

Reggie loved her, but he also loved his father.

In his own unfathomable way, the duke was crying out to her for help. And that was what it was. In spite of all he had done to her, he needed her help. And it all had something to do with an infant who had died so long ago, who somehow was imagined to look like her.

But damn the man! She didn't want to help him! He'd made a shambles of her life, threatened her and her sisters, lied to her, had her seized and tossed into a stinkhole of a spunging house! He'd taken her from the man she loved before she even had a chance to tell him so!

Oh, Reggie! She
had
had the chance, but spitefully hadn’t used it. If she only hadn't been so stubborn. If she'd only believed in him!

She didn't want to help this beastly father of his. He didn't deserve any help.

But Reggie did. She owed it to Reggie. Chloe caressed the leather as tears streamed down her cheeks.

Circe. I will be Circe for you, Reggie. I will not let you down.

* * *

Reggie rode into the courtyard of the Bear Inn in Reading and dismounted wearily. Castlebury and Bibury sat at a trestle table in the open air. The rustling leaves of the last of summer blew in little whirls near their feet as Reggie trudged over to sit on a bench beside them.

"Any news?" he asked as a dark ale appeared before him, set down by a plump hand that his mind vaguely acknowledged as feminine. The ale was cool and thick, a balm to his dry throat.

"I followed a false trail all morning," said Castlebury, and he took another gulp from his tankard. "But at the third hostelry, I determined it could not have been Miss
Englefield, or the duke, so I returned."

"You're quite sure?"

Castlebury nodded. "Quite certain. They didn't go north."

"Nothing at all going west," said Bibury. "I even asked about a man alone. He might be riding, but what might he have done with her? Reggie, you don't think he's already done something with her, do you? He's a singularly odd fellow."

"He's not that odd," Reggie replied, bristling. "Any word from St. James?"

"Not yet," Castlebury said.

Reggie set down the tankard and rested his head in his hands for a moment before he straightened again. "On the Portsmouth Road, there was a coach with a man and young lady. But I caught up with them and found a cit with his daughter. Well, I'm for a bit of supper. Let us join Miss Hawarth, and see if she has learned anything."

Bibury had arranged rooms for the night, and seen supper ordered. Miss
Hawarth joined them in a private dining room.

"Lord Reginald," she said, bustling in, "Lord St. James has sent a private post. You were right. Your father has persuaded Lord Cottingham to release the twins into his custody."

"Devil it!" shouted Castlebury. "What would he want with them?"

Reggie blew out a weary breath. "Power," he said. "As I said, if we are to win, we must pay attention to how he thinks. It would take more than the threat of arrest to make Chloe bend to his wishes. But he would find out what would work, and gain control over it. In this case, it is her sisters."

Castlebury growled. "You'll pardon me, Reggie, but your father is a devil if ever I saw one. He had best not harm any of them, or I will call him out myself."

"Won't do any good. He doesn't care what anyone else thinks of his honor. He'
d just ignore you. This is good news, actually. Even though he is coercing her, he is negotiating in his own way. And although he will lie, he will not break his promises. So he will have made some sort of agreement with her."

"That is the damnedest code of honor I have ever heard of," said Bibury.

Reggie took another drink of ale. "But it is his code. Think like he does, Bibury. So then, what will he have promised her? He wants to get Chloe out of my life. Chloe wants her sisters. So he will make that exchange, and likely sweeten the deal with a reasonable way for her to take care of them."

"Set her up? Why the devil do that?"

"To make sure she stays out of my life. And it will make him feel magnanimous, in a way, justify to himself what he is doing." Reggie grabbed up a large chunk of bread and slathered it with butter, which he swallowed almost whole, and washed down with ale. "Well, gentlemen, Miss Hawarth, I believe I shall rest an hour or so. Then I'll hit the road again."

"Rest for the night, Lord Reginald," Miss
Hawarth pleaded. "I cannot see what you can accomplish in the darkness."

"I sleep little, Miss
Hawarth. It is not in my nature, and there is a bright moon. But I think I have unraveled how he has got past us, and I mean to head him off."

"How's that, Reggie?" asked St. James.

Reggie studied his companions, none of whom looked up to more riding for the night. "I thought it strange, when he left town, he took three grooms with him. But there is a reason for everything he does. He simply does not bother to impart his reasons to others. We have been looking for a coach that exchanged teams in the usual fashion, but the duke knew we would do that."

Castlebury sat back and stroked at his chin. "I don't see how he could have got very far without fresh teams, Reggie."

"He couldn't. So he disguised it. His grooms went ahead of him and hired teams which they took to pre-arranged locations. We should be asking whether any persons have hired teams without having coaches."

"The devil you say! Oh, pardon me, Miss
Hawarth." Castlebury reddened.

"Hardly a time for coyness, Lord Castlebury. Then what must we do now, Lord Reginald?"

Reggie sat back down to the table. "Let us think it through. He left with Miss Englefield just before cock's crow, in his coach, but that does not mean he did not change vehicles."

Castlebury leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. "If one of the grooms hired another coach, he could have met the duke, switched coaches, and sent the ducal coach toward Oxford. That would be the one I chased. Then it is likely he did not go north."

Reggie nodded back. It made sense. "But don't rule it out. He would expect us to jump to that conclusion, and might go that direction simply because we would not look there."

"Then how shall we ever untangle this mess?" asked Bibury, shaking his head as if he meant to concede defeat.

Reggie didn't. "We'll go back over the routes we took today, but this time go a day's worth farther, and note any side roads where a hidden exchange might be made. But I think he will not willingly take a poor road. It would be too slow, and too easy for a horseman to catch up to him. So the main roads, my lads. Rest for the night, and get an early start."

But he couldn't help but wonder if the clue to it all lay in his father's journal that was tucked in his saddlebag. While Castlebury and Bibury slept away, snoring lightly, Reggie sat in the winged chair in the little room, and by the dim light of a
brace of candles, squinted at the pages of the journal.

Starting at the last entry, he paged back slowly, skimming as thoroughly as he dared over each page.

He found another poem, an ode to a golden haired lady lovingly tending her roses, by the man who watched her from a hilltop and wished for that tenderness for himself. He read further, feeling the sadness and loss. He noted the date. His mother's birthday.

There was a hilltop near his mother's estate on the Avon. Had the duke gone there, spied on her in secret? Was the cold Duke of Marmount secretly in love with the woman he had cast aside, never speaking her name again for sixteen years?

He turned the page, still going from back to front. Soon frustration began to mount, and Reggie flipped the pages rapidly.

What the deuce was the duke doing? He was most certainly headed toward a specific place, but where?

Reggie reminded himself to think like the duke.

The duke was a very careful, logical man who constantly took in information and stored it for future use. He was also a man who used the resources he had, and wasted little.

And the Duke of Marmount owned a great deal of property. Would he use a property already in his possession to sequester Chloe and her sisters? Why purchase or lease something when he already had far more than he himself could use?

Featherstone? No, too obvious, and Reggie went there often.

Reggie fanned the pages again. A list caught his eye. The duke was always making lists. Reggie turned back to the page.

An inventory of properties. Several pages of them. The entailed ducal properties. The Marquisate that by courtesy belonged to Robert. Featherstone. Leverton. Leverton was far to the north, and the duke wasn't headed in that direction.

Marstens. Reggie straightened and held the journal closer to the flame. Elizabeth Marstens' hall. The aunt his father had loved, a woman of kindness Reggie barely remembered, the one after whom the duke had named his only daughter. A fitting place to hide the woman who had usurped his baby daughter's birthday.

He snapped the journal closed. "Castlebury, wake up," he called, shaking the man's shoulder.

"Hmmmmf?" Castlebury groaned.

"I've found it. He's going to Marstens Hall."

Castlebury frowned at Reggie as Reggie threw on his coat and retied his dangling cravat.

"Where's that?" he asked.

That was the trouble. "In West Sussex somewhere. I'm sure I can find it. In case I'm wrong, continue with the plan, and we'll leave Miss Hawarth here at The Bear to relay messages."

"Where are you going?"

"Wherever Marstens Hall is. There's a full moon, and it's a beautiful night for riding."

Chapter Seventeen

The ruts in the dirt road bounced the coach, throwing Chloe against the side, and the duke jumped from his seat to catch her. She threw back a frown and righted herself, but clung to the corner of the squabs for support, one hand clung to the sill of the coach window. She coughed at the dust.

"Your pardon, Miss
Englefield," said the duke, hanging on, himself. "Your discomfort will be ended shortly."

M
ore likely, her discomfort was just beginning. She could imagine the cottage he had promised-peeling walls and leaking thatch, a loft hanging above a central room and rope ladder for access. The chimney would leak, and fill the house with smoke from the swallow's nests that had been left by the previous careless inhabitants. And the apples would all be rotten, too, she knew it.

Why had she not realized it? His promises came so easily to him because they were empty.

Her body ached from the jostling, and the hours upon hours of sitting. Even this stone-faced duke stood stiffly whenever they stopped to change horses, and the way he stretched his body reminded her of an old man in great pain from rheumatic joints. It gave her perverse pleasure to know he had to suffer in order to make her suffer. But if he thought to destroy her, she would prove him wrong. Life had taught her more than how to turn a hem. She would survive, and keep her sisters safe, too.