The Forgiven Duke (A Forgotten Castles Novel) (23 page)

Alex looked up at John’s frowning face. “All right.” She was dreading the conversation to come, but she, too, had to tell John a few things and it would be better to tell him in a quiet place.

“Ana, we’ll be back in a little while.”

Ana nodded, her face tired and tense.

Once in the main room Alex turned toward the empty forge and stared into the cavernous, blackened hole. “Before you say anything, I need to tell you something. I have made a decision, John.”

“What sort of decision?” John’s voice was terse.

“I want to postpone our marriage, indefinitely.”

“Until you know if you’re expecting, you mean. Alex, please. You have toyed with my heart too many times already. I cannot abide these games you play.”

“That’s exactly what I mean to stop doing. From now on I promise to be honest with you.”

“What do you mean to do? You aren’t making any sense, love.”

Alex turned toward him. “I believe that God has provided me with a guardian, a man who is willing to risk everything, even his own life, to protect me, and in return I have not obeyed or trusted him.”

“You’re in love with him!”

“No!” Alex wrung her hands together. “That is, I don’t know. But as his ward I will go to him and submit myself to what he and the regent think is best.” Her voice hardened. “It is more difficult than you know to give up my search for my parents. If I weren’t at a dead end anyway, I don’t know that I could. But we will let the Duke of St. Easton decide our fate.”

“You would tell him everything?”

She looked at the floor as hot, pulsing shame filled her face. “Yes.”

John took a step closer and then another. He gently grasped Alex’s upper arms. “I can’t let you do that.”

The soft menace in his voice made Alex’s gaze fly to his face. She took a step back, but he matched her step, his hands tightening like manacles on her arms.

“Think of it, Alex. Think what he will do to me.”

“You don’t know. . . . We aren’t even sure anything happened!” She tried to wrench free. “Let me go!”

“He won’t care. He’ll have me thrown into Newgate or worse. Don’t you think I saw the way he looked at you that day on Dublin’s shore? He’ll do anything to have you. That’s why I had to drug you so I could seduce you. It was my only chance, love.”

“Stop calling me that. If you’re so afraid of him, you can leave. I won’t tell him what you did. Just go.”

“If only it were that easy.” John came closer so his mouth was next to her ear. In a harsh whisper, his hands tightening so she made a noise of distress, he explained to her what he had really done. “Even if you are not carrying my child . . . even if you catch yourself a duke . . . don’t you think he’ll notice something is terribly wrong on your wedding night? Do you really think he’ll want such . . . damaged goods?”

Is that what she was now? Spoiled, damaged, unworthy of any man’s love? Alex fought back tears. “Stop it. I don’t want to hear any more. Let me go. Please!”

“Not possible. I haven’t gone to all this trouble to end up with nothing. Besides, I really do love you. If it takes the rest of our lives, I will make you believe it.”

Alex shook her head back and forth, unable to utter another word, praying silently for help.

“Now. There’s an attic I’ve discovered in this place. You will wait there while I determine what is going on and hire a ship to take us back to Dublin, where we will be immediately married. No more talk of confessions and dukes, do you understand?” As he talked he dragged her over to the brick forge, picked up an object that was inside a jar, and brought it around.

She struggled against his strong chest as he hauled her up against him and shoved a cloth over her nose and mouth. Panic snaked down her spine and spread in prickles of terror. She kicked out, fought to breathe around the horrid-smelling cloth. She shuddered, her limbs growing ever heavy.
No, no, no.

God help me.

Everything went black.

SHE WOKE TO PITCH DARK
and her head throbbing like she’d been clubbed. Thoughts flitted across her mind. Balls of fire, exploding bombs, a fiery sinking ship. John’s face. Why was he so angry? It all flooded back to her as she sat up and rubbed her head. She was in the attic. He had snapped, lost his mind, and locked her in the attic.

She stood, her legs wobbly and unsure as she staggered around the room. There was a single window and when she pushed back the thin curtain, a little moonlight spilled across the wooden planks of the floor. She looked down at the street, seeing nothing—no movement, no people. Had they all gone to bed? What time could it be?

She turned around and fumbled about the room, finding a door that was locked from the outside and a few blacksmith’s tools and creations strewn across the floor. Svein must use this room for storage. There were horseshoes, nails, shovels, and picks. She took up a pickax, went over to the door, and very quietly tried to pry it open. If John was sleeping downstairs, she didn’t want him to hear her and come to investigate. He might use the cloth on her again.

After several tries, she let the heavy ax drop from her fingers and slumped to the floor. It was no use. Unless she attacked the door with the ax, splintering the wood and making a big enough hole to escape from, it wasn’t going to open. Maybe later, if she watched out of the window and saw John leave, then she could make such a racket. It was the best plan she could come up with at the moment.

She walked back to the window, leaned her forehead against the cool glass, and closed her eyes. The pane she was leaning on moved, giving her a sudden idea. She raised the pickax and very quietly and slowly tapped at the square pane, wincing at the sound but thinking that John couldn’t possibly hear it. After several hard taps the glass cracked.

Alex pulled up her skirt and grasped hold of the ruffled hem of her petticoat. With a mighty jerk on the seam, she ripped the fabric and smiled with success. Ripping the entire ruffle off, she had a long length of cloth that she wrapped around her fingers to act as a thick glove. With her hand protected, she pushed against the cracked glass until a piece fell to the ground outside.

With slow and careful movements, she picked out each piece of glass, some falling outside, but mostly she was able to grasp hold of the glass slivers and stack them in a pile in the corner of the room.

The opening was small, much too small to try to climb out of, but large enough for a white flag to fly from. If Ana saw the flag, like the one Tomas had used to signal for help, Alex was sure she would know what it was and devise a plan to rescue her. Thank God she had told Ana the truth.

Please God, let Ana see it and not John.

She tied one end to her wrist and let the other end flutter in the wind outside the window. She sat on the floor under the window, leaning her head against the wall and closing her eyes. She tried to stay awake. She meant to. But soon, she had slumped to the floor and was fast asleep.

Chapter Twenty-Four

T
he silence revealed a new horror.

Silent guns, silent cannon blasts, silent sailing bombs with their silent explosions—silent screams as men fell, flaming, from the deck of the ship. Vibrations all around, so loud in the silence, reaching into his core and making him feel the horrors of battle like never before.

His other senses, heightened from the months of his affliction, recoiled in anguish as he helped load the land cannons and fire them at the flaming ship. The hot burning smells of smoke and fire and burning flesh—the taste of gunpowder on his tongue. The feel of the searing bore of the cannon, the grainy gunpowder as they poured it into the bore, the soft wad of material and then the cannon balls filled with more powder and shoved in front of it all. A flash, a boom that he could feel in waves of vibration from the ground and air all around him, a cloud of smoke that filled his lungs until they spasmed, each breath an agony, and then the cheers he saw on the faces of the soldiers as it hit its mark. The gruesome sights of battle played out in slow motion, unreal and yet too real by the absence of sound.

Gabriel stood on the beach and watched the last burning embers of the ship sink under the surface of the water. His men spread out across the rocky beach, rifles ready in case any of the floating bodies decided to try to struggle up on shore. He fell to his knees and coughed, rubbing his face with blackened hands.

They’d won.

Alexandria was safe. He could take her home now. When he found her, that is. He should be thanking God for their victory. So why did he feel so wretched? Why did he grieve the lost lives of his enemy?

He stayed there, in the rocky sand, on his knees praying and grieving for a long time. The men dispersed, going back into town to celebrate, leaving only a small troupe to guard the area in shifts all through the night. Gabriel started to rise and go with them but found that he couldn’t get up. His legs were too weak. He couldn’t seem to move.

He sank back down to the ground and lay there for a while, resting and breathing, not caring if he slept the night through in the open or not. He thought of Ryan, grief stabbing at his stomach. How had the man, such a good man, gotten mixed up in all this? Bad luck? A senseless death added to all the other senseless things in this world around him. Gabriel prayed God would reward him in heaven. He prayed God’s plan for every life really did make sense.

He felt a nudge and turned his head toward it. Montague stood over him, holding out a hand and motioning that he would help him up.

“Oh, very well.” Gabriel let him, knowing that he needed water and decent shelter from the cold wind for the night if he was to survive.

He stood and took a few wavering steps. Montague reached out and started to support him with his arm around Gabriel’s waist. “I can do it.” Gabriel shrugged him off, embarrassed and harassed. “We’ll talk tomorrow. I just need some rest.”

Montague bowed, seeming to understand his need to be alone, but Gabriel could feel him watch his progression for a long time as he stumbled back into town.

With his head down he made slow progress toward the inn, thinking of a hot bowl of that fish stew, a bath if he could manage it, and then some long hours of sleep before he began his search for Alexandria.

Gabriel . . . Gabriel . . . Gabriel.

He blinked hard and glanced up. He’d heard his name.
Heard
it. Someone had said his name.

He looked around and saw no one. He clapped his hands feebly together, hearing nothing.

God?

Perhaps he was dying and God was calling him home. God knew he felt close to death. He looked at the sky.
Is that You?
The dark form of a bird flew by overhead. He followed it with his gaze, sensing . . . something. His gaze swept the sky and then the street ahead. Something white fluttered from the corner of a second-story window in the distance.

He blinked again as thoughts and ideas shifted through his mind, triggering the memory of the story of how Alexandria had saved that boy. Alexandria?

Could it possibly be her? Could she be right here in town? Right under their very noses?

And if so, was someone holding her against her will? Was she locked in up there, the flag her way of signaling for help? As the questions loomed his stride lengthened, the strength of fresh hope filling his muscles and pumping his heart.

When he reached the building, he saw it was the blacksmith shop. He peered into the front windows, seeing nothing but pitch black. Pulling out the pistol he had shoved into the back of his waistband, he tried the door and found it firmly locked. If someone was on the ground floor, he couldn’t afford to make any noise, not knowing how many there might be and how armed he might find them. No. He needed to be smart about this.

He peered through the moonlight at the smooth wood of the walls. No way to climb that. But the roofline was low on either side, with the second-story window directly in the middle of the building. If he could just reach the roof.

Further inspection of the area revealed a water barrel, half full, on the side the shop. With a grunt, he tipped it over and rolled it to the edge of the roof. Then he turned it back on its end and was able to climb on top and reach the eaves of the roof. He could reach the edge and hang from there, but he didn’t know if he had the strength to pull himself up from that position. Better to jump and gain some momentum.

With that hope, he squatted a little in a bouncing movement . . . one . . . two . . . three. With a great breath and gritted teeth he sprang up, grasped the edge of the roof, and pulled himself halfway up, arms straightening, head and torso above the roofline but his legs still dangling below it. Without much of a pause he swung his knees up, bracing them on the lowest beam of the roof. One hand clung to the side and with his stomach pressed against the peat, he used the other hand to feel for the next support beam. Finding it, he lifted his foot, stretching the two-feet distance between each beam, and pulled himself up another notch. In this way he inched up the roof until he was even with the window.

He had landed with a thud and knew someone, especially the person in the attic room, might have heard him. On the other side of that window a pistol might be waiting for him. But no one came from the shop’s door below, so perhaps he had only alerted the person inside the attic.

He peered around the corner as far as he could see, the white flag fluttering from a windowless pane. How to get inside, through panes of wood and glass, he did not know.

“Alexandria,” he hissed in a whisper.

Nothing.

God, what now?

The wind kicked up a little. The flag fluttered closer and closer to his hand. If only he could reach it!

He stretched as far as he dared toward the fluttering cloth. The wind blew cold against his face.
Just a little more, please. Just a little farther.

He stretched, his legs quivering with the effort to keep himself anchored to the roof while his arm stretched into thin air.

Got it.