The Confessions of a Duchess (11 page)

“Do you need me to escort you?” Miles asked.

“Of course I do not!” Laura said crossly. “I was a highwaywoman, Miles. I have a brace of pistols and I can look after myself!” She stopped. “I beg your pardon,” she said, seeing his quizzical expression. “I am tired and on edge. Thank you for offering but it is quite unnecessary. And I would ask you not to tell Mr. Anstruther my identity in advance, Miles. If anyone has to explain this to him, it is me.”

“As you wish,” Miles said. “I will send word to Dexter. Thank you, Lal.”

“Don’t thank me,” Laura said wearily. “I am only doing this because you have twisted my arm, Miles. I will tell Mr. Anstruther whatever I can to help his investigation and then it will be finished.”

Finished indeed for Dexter and for her, she thought bitterly. In her heart she had known they had no future but this was a different matter entirely. After he learned the truth tonight he would never wish to see or speak to her again.

FOR A MAN who prided himself on his reputation for rectitude, Dexter Anstruther had seen the interior of more seedy alehouses than he cared to remember. Half Moon Inn, an inn on the Skipton road, was a cut above many of the London drinking dens he had slunk around in as part of his work, but it still had a rough clientele. A few heads turned as he entered the taproom that night before men turned back to stare into their pints of ale with studied lack of interest. A strikingly pretty barmaid with a disreputably low-cut blouse smiled warmly on seeing him but her smile faded when he asked for Josie Simmons, the landlady. A moment later, Josie burst through the door, sending the flagons flying, and stood looking him up and down, her hands on her hips. She was a huge woman, not fat but simply built on epic lines. She was as tall as Dexter but about twice as broad and so solid that he understood why so few of the drunks turned nasty when she asked them to leave.

“Mr. Anstruther,” she said. She did not sound welcoming. “I understand that Glory wants to see you.”

They still spoke of Glory as a legend in the Yorkshire Dales.

“No,” Dexter said. “
I
want to see Glory.”

Josie almost smiled. “Got blood rather than water in your veins these days, have you, Mr. Anstruther?” She roared. She grabbed his arm in a wrestling hold. “Well, Glory isn’t here yet but come through….” She practically dragged him into a tiny cupboard of a room with faded chairs set before the fire.

“I’ll fetch you a drink,” Josie said, depositing him in one of the chairs. “Brandy do for you, Mr. Anstruther?”

“No, thank you,” Dexter said, a little stiffly. He did not want a drink.

“You’re going to need it,” Josie said threateningly, disappearing back through the door.

Left alone, Dexter got up and paced across the tiny parlor, stopping to pull back the faded curtains and stare out into the darkness. Never before had he felt so nervous on an assignment. He could not sit still and he certainly did not want a drink. When Miles had first told him that his informant was Glory and that she was willing to meet with him to throw some light on Warren Sampson and his associates, Dexter’s jaw had practically dropped to the floor. Miles had flatly refused to answer any of his questions, however, other than to tell him that Lord Liverpool had granted Glory a free pardon several years before and she was helping them out of goodwill alone. Dexter had then been left to watch the clock and to fret and worry fruitlessly about his assignation with a woman who had been, four years before, both his nemesis and his secret heroine.

The door creaked open and Dexter turned. A woman was standing on the threshold wearing a dark blue cloak and matching blue mask. The hood was drawn close about her face. She was very tall and she held herself very straight. Dexter sensed defiance in her, as though she were daring him to make judgments, and something else, too, that could have been anxiety or fear. He straightened, too, and she came forward into the room, closed the door with precision behind her and raised her gloved hands to untie the mask.

He recognized her a second before she put back her hood.

It was Laura Cole. Understanding broke over him then and his heart turned over. It felt deep down as though he had already known the truth and yet had been too slow or too willfully blind to see.

“I am Glory, Mr. Anstruther,” she said. “I understand that you want my help.” Laura Cole was the notorious highwaywoman, Glory.

The Dowager Duchess of Cole was a highwaywoman.

Even though he had already accepted that it must be true, Dexter felt another wave of utter stupefaction wash over him as he looked at Laura standing there before him.

He had always thought that he could not be shocked. He had seen so many terrible, desperate and downright dreadful things in his working life that he was sure he had become inured to the feeling. Now he knew that was not true. He was astonished, angry and appalled. He felt as though he did not know
what
to feel.

Laura was standing very straight and proud before him, her chin raised, a defiant gleam in her hazel eyes, but her hands, twisting together nervously in the folds of her dress, told a different story. She was frightened.

Dex cleared his throat, aware that he was finding it difficult to frame a suitable response. “If you are Glory,” he said, “then I did want to see you.” Her gaze flickered to his face and away again. “I have been Glory on some occasions.”

“What do you mean?”

“I rode as Glory sometimes and my cousin Hester Berry took the part the rest of the time,” Laura said.

“And Miles is evidently aware of it.” Dexter felt a twist of bitterness that his friend had known all this time and kept the secret from him.

“Miles only knew because he was the one who arranged a free pardon for me from Lord Liverpool two years ago,” Laura said. She came forward slowly into the room. She took some logs from the pile by the hearth and built up the fire again, stirring it into flame.

She seemed to need to have something to occupy her and though she appeared composed, Dexter thought she was still apprehensive beneath her outward calm. He watched her every move and thought he saw her hands shake a little.

He walked slowly across the tiny parlor then turned back to see her settle herself in one of the chairs before the fire. All the time he was thinking, and wondering how he could have been so stupid not to see the whole picture from the very first. When he and Nick Falconer had gone to Peacock’s Oak four years before with the express intention of hunting Glory down, Lady Hester Berry, Laura’s cousin by marriage, had been the obvious candidate for the role. Yet the final time that the Glory Girls had ridden out to free Hester’s husband, John Teague, somebody else had taken the role of Glory and that person must have been Laura. It was Laura who had held up the carriage conveying Teague to trial, Laura who had held Dexter himself at gunpoint, Laura who, as Glory, had
kissed
him before seducing him so thoroughly in her own persona later that very same day…

His heart lurched again and a sickness seemed to settle deep within him. At last his passionate night with Laura and her subsequent rejection of him made perfect, if painful, sense. She was not simply a bored aristocrat taking and discarding lovers at whim.

She was worse than that.

She had made love to him for the one simple purpose of distracting him from his duty. She had dazzled him, bewitched him and deliberately diverted him so that he would forget all about hunting Glory and would be so utterly wrapped up in her that he would have no room in his mind for anything else at all.

It had worked.

It had worked so well that he had fallen in love with her.

The anger and pain hit Dexter squarely in the solar plexus. He took a harsh breath, concentrating on mastering his fury. What mattered now was to take from her what information he could that would be useful to his investigation. His personal anger had to be controlled. He remembered the secret admiration he had cherished for the woman he had thought of as a popular heroine and the taste of betrayal was bitter in his mouth.

“To think that I never guessed it,” he said. “I already knew you could shoot straight.”

“Of course,” Laura said. “I am a country girl born and bred.”

“You can ride like a Cossack, as well.” Dexter remembered her proficiency in the saddle and wondered why on earth it had taken him so long to put two and two together.

Probably it was because she had been a duchess and as such, above suspicion. He felt an absolute fool.

“There was a weather vane at Cole Court with a highwayman on it,” he said, remembering. “Was that your idea of a joke?”

“My wretched sense of humor.” Laura’s voice had the tiniest quiver in it. “I am afraid that a lot of people do not understand it.”

Dexter ran a hand distractedly through his tawny hair. Suddenly, violently, his anger burst out in a huge, unrestrained blast. “Hell and the devil, Laura,” he exploded, “what were you thinking? The Duchess of Cole riding out as a highwaywoman?” She looked disdainful. “Is that your only objection, Mr. Anstruther? That I was a duchess and it was therefore conduct unbecoming?”

Dexter had plenty of objections. For a moment he did not know where to start. He was so incensed that he had to put some physical distance between them to prevent himself from grabbing her and shaking her. He was not accustomed to feeling so unrestrained.

“You know that if I had caught you I would have had to arrest you and hang you,” he bit out.

“Fortunate then that you did not.” Her self-possession seemed flawless. “But I am not here to discuss the past, Mr. Anstruther. I am here only to see if I may help you in your current investigation. I gave an undertaking only to help in the matter of Warren Sampson.

Nothing else is up for debate.”

“Oh, is it not?” Dexter felt so hot he thought he was almost boiling with rage.

The door opened and Josie appeared in the aperture. “Going badly, is it?” she said with gloomy satisfaction, looking from Laura’s tight face to Dexter’s furious one. “Thought as much.”

“Is there any other way for it to go?” Dexter demanded.

“Told you that you’d need that brandy,” Josie said. She crashed two glasses and a bottle down on the table. “On the house. Must be a nasty shock for you, Mr. Anstruther.”

“You could say so,” Dexter said shortly. “I know the Glory Girls stabled their horses here. No doubt I will discover next that Mrs. Carrington rode out with them, too.” Josie opened her eyes wide at Laura. “Missed a trick there, your grace! Bill Carrington was a fine bareback pony rider when he was a lad! His mam always used to say she feared he would run away to the circus. He could have joined us and kept Lenny company. Ah well…” She sighed. “Too late now. I’ll leave you in peace.” She thundered out.

“I thought,” Dexter said, “that the Glory Girls were female. Or is that too obvious?” Laura smiled, and for a moment he almost forgot that he disliked her. The firelight burnished her hair with rich copper and gold strands and gave her face a soft glow. Her eyes were full of shadows.

“The membership rules were…flexible,” she said.

“Like your standards of morality,” Dexter said, and the moment of rapport vanished.

Laura’s smile faded.

“May we speak of Warren Sampson, Mr. Anstruther?” she said. “I am anxious to be here no longer than I need to be.”

Dexter’s temper flicked him again at her composure and her determination to dictate the terms of their meeting. “Very well,” he said briefly. “Tell me what you know of Warren Sampson.”

Laura inclined her head. “He was our neighbor at Peacock Oak for a number of years,” she said. “He was—and probably still is—a cruel employer and a greedy landowner. I detested him. I still do.”

“You did not mix socially with him.”

“No. He was a self-made man and I was a duchess.” Her smile mocked him. “We did not meet except in passing, as we did at the assembly last night. Does that suit your sense of propriety, Mr. Anstruther?”

Dexter ignored that. “But you know his character?”

She thought about it. “I consider him harsh and brutal.”

“Weaknesses?”

She smiled. “Vanity. And a love of money.”

“He does not seek to try and gain social acceptance from the aristocracy?”

“He never tried to gain it from me.” Laura considered the matter, her head on one side. “Actually, I do not think Sampson cares for social standing as such, only for money and what it can buy. He is unusual in that. Many men I have met have wanted to trade on their wealth to gain status, but Sampson never has.”

That was interesting, Dexter thought, and might provide a motive for Sampson’s behavior. If he cared nothing for acceptance but only for money, and he had various lucrative but illegal businesses operating, the threats of a magistrate like Sir William Crosby to unmask him as a criminal would need to be dealt with mercilessly.

“As Glory you burned his fences down,” Dexter said. “Or was that Lady Hester?”

“No, I was Glory on that occasion,” Laura said. Dexter remembered the tales of Glory the avenger, riding through the sleeping villages on a white horse, torch in hand.

Something close to admiration stirred in him and he dismissed it ruthlessly. He knew that if he started to feel sympathy with criminals he was in danger of compromising his principles and chaos would ensue. His father had been just such a man, adapting his view of morality to suit whatever the situation demanded. It was a weakness, not a strength. Dexter would never allow himself to fail in that way.

“That was criminal damage and arson,” he said dispassionately. “Those are capital crimes.”

“Just so.” Laura’s lashes fanned across her cheek, hiding her expression.

“Why did you do it?”

Laura stirred. “Because Sampson had enclosed the common land and refused to let the villagers graze their animals there. He is an odious man. He had forced up rents and driven some families to starvation, Mr. Anstruther, and had laughed in their faces when they begged for aid.”

“On another occasion you robbed his banker and redistributed the proceeds amongst his workers. Why?”