The Secret Duke (29 page)

“Of course not.”

“I mean that no one should be so poor as to have no choice.”

He sighed. “I forget you are a social reformer. Where is the money to come from to fund these women’s lives?”

“I don’t know. I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve experienced being penniless and it imprisoned me because I wasn’t willing to take that road. Not everyone has food and shelter, however, and thus they are forced.”

He nodded. “Perhaps we need convents.”

“Convents?”

He took a piece of bread. “Convents gave women of means an honorable choice other than marriage, and poor women a refuge where they were safe from men. They also provided commanding women a place where they could rule. I think you might have made an excellent mother superior.”

“I?” Bella said in surprise.

“You’re young yet, but in twenty or thirty years you could cow bishops and kings. You have a natural command.”

Bella laughed. “Is that truly tea, or are you drinking brandy?”

He held the cup out. “Smell.”

Bella did. A slight aroma. Definitely not brandy, or any other sort of spirit. “I assure you I’m not that sort of person.”

“Has no one ever followed your lead?”

“No.”

But then she thought about it. Peg hadn’t precisely followed, but she’d attached her fate to Bella’s. Annie and Kitty had been taken in out of charity, but instantly looked to Bella for guidance. Some of the flock had turned to her with their concerns about the Drummonds, as if they expected her to be able to oppose them.

She looked at him and read his expression. “Don’t be smug.”

“Smug?” He laughed. “I don’t think anyone has ever described me as smug before. So you do have followers. Who?”

“None of your business, and not an army. It could be weeks before Augustus visits. How long can you dally here?”

She busied herself with bread to hide her intense interest, praying it would be a long time.

“How long can you dally?” he countered. “When does your relative return home?”

She’d forgotten that. “I’m not sure.” She had to give an estimate. “Perhaps a fortnight.”

“That would stretch our local inquiries,” he said. “We’d best pray your brother’s addiction brings him here sooner. Of course, he could have more than one haunt.”

Two weeks had been too much to hope for, but Bella hoped it would be many days before Augustus needed to live on the razor’s edge.

“Tonight, I need to visit the Old Oak and learn all I can there.”

“It seems to me that you are doing all the interesting tasks,” Bella objected.

“You want to visit a brothel?”

“No, how will it look to people here? Your wife might object.”

His nonwife certainly did.

“Will you throw a scene?” he asked, interested.

“I’m more likely to throw a pot. A chamber pot, perhaps.”

“Mistress Rose, you alarm me.”

“Good.”

“But in your service, I still must visit the Oak.”

Bella could see no rational argument against it. “Very well,” she muttered. “What do we do until you can sink into debauchery?”

“Search for Hessian cat- rabbits.” He drank the last of his tea and rose. “I’ll arrange for a vehicle. Try not to get into a fight with the cat queen of Hesse while I’m gone.”

He left, and Bella looked at the closed door, fighting tears. She realized it wasn’t a matter of a brothel. It was because her plan might be completed in one day.

In the past such speedy retribution would have been cause for joy, but now it meant only that their time together could soon be over.

 

 

 

 

I
t had been dark when they’d arrived, but by daylight, even sullen daylight, Bella recognized Upstone and the countryside around. They drove along lanes, stopping at each farm or cottage to ask about cat-rabbits. They exhibited the specimens to the dubious, and for some reason Tabitha tolerated it. Sometimes she seemed to be reveling in the attention.

Even with the evidence, most of the farming folk expressed great doubt of any cat being interested in a rabbit in that way, and vice versa. Bella could see she and Thorn would be well remembered as those moon- mad London folk and their peculiar cat.

The kittens were enjoying the attention too, and Sable in particular often had to be returned to the fold.

In their wanderings, Bella noticed a few changes. A large elm had been struck by lightning near Pidgely, and someone had built a handsome house near Buxton Thrope. When they stopped in that village to make their cat-rabbit inquiries, they divided their efforts. There were some women gathered in gossip, and Bella went to them, while Thorn entered the inn to talk to men there.

A team, and they were a good one.

Bella casually asked how old the handsome house was, commenting upon its elegant lines. She soon learned all about it, but that wasn’t her goal. She’d made an opening to ask about other notable houses in the area, and whether any might be open to visit. She was fishing for opinions about Carscourt, and about Augustus.

Carscourt was soon mentioned, and one sturdy woman muttered, “But an ugly place that is. Ugly as the hearts inside it.”

Bella might agree, but she feared that picking up that stitch might make the woman turn silent. “Is it old?” she asked.

“Old, ma’am? Nay. No’ but a hundred years or so.”

“And has it always been in the same family?”

“The Barstowes? I dunno, ma’am.”

An ancient, bird-thin woman chimed in. “They came there during Cromwell’s time. Roundheads,” she spat.

“There was a royalist family there afore, the de Breelys, but none were left, or none that returned, so the Barstowes kept it.”

That was clearly regarded as theft.

Bella had never been aware that dislike of her family went so far back, but country memories ran long. The events of the past century—the beheading of the king, the long, strict rule by Parliament when all the joyous traditions were banned, and the return of the monarchy—all were still remembered here.

“I suppose the family is thoroughly royalist now,” she said, in the manner of one making peace.

“Maybe,” said the first woman, “but they’ve still got cold, Roundhead hearts. Sir Augustus had Ellen Perkins whipped for lewd behavior, and her only a widow with her needs.”

“What happened to the man?” Bella asked.

The woman gave a harsh laugh. “Fined. Ellen don’t have the money to be fined, but he might have ordered her whipped anyway.”

“And he put old Nathan Gotobed in the stocks for selling wares on Sunday,” said another woman. “Doing no one any harm.”

“They do say Sir Augustus was frothing mad that nobody threw anything at the old man there,” said a young woman with a babe on her hip.

“That’s why he don’t use the stocks much,” said the older woman. “It’s a fine or a whipping if you’re up in front of Sir Augustus Barstowe.”

Bella sensed a silent curse at the end of that, but the women weren’t going to go that far in front of a stranger. The weight of her family’s reputation lay heavily on her as she joined Thorn near the carriage.

“I really wish I could find the strength to kill him,” she said.

“You’ve heard about him too, have you?”

“What did you hear?”

“Just general cruelty, especially against those who drink, gamble, or behave licentiously. I wonder if all magistrates are harshest on those who commit their own sins, or even the sins they wish they dared commit.”

“I’d rather they took up self-flagellation,” Bella said.

“Amen. He has no admirers hereabouts, but no one mentioned hypocrisy. What of the women?”

“No.”

“Shame. Has anyone recognized you?”

Bella hadn’t been watching for that. “I don’t think so, and I don’t expect it unless I encounter someone I knew well. And even there, apart from my family and the Carscourt servants, any memories would be long in the past.”

“We’ll avoid the area close to Carscourt, then,” Thorn said, handing her up into the chair.

“The people there are less likely to talk about Augustus, in any case. They are completely dependent on him, poor souls.”

They continued their progression around the fringes of Barstowe influence, asking about cat- rabbits, but also bringing up Barstowe and Carscourt whenever they could. The dislike was sometimes overt, sometimes subtle, but it was universal. It was linked to Augustus, but went back to her father, and included her sister Lucinda, whose idea of charity, apparently, was to visit the poorest and lecture them on their fecklessness. Bella had assumed Lucinda’s charitable visits had included soup and warm clothing.

“I feel tainted,” she said as they drove to another village. “Perhaps I’m the same beneath. Perhaps my desire for revenge is proof of it. . . .”

He put a gloved finger over her lips, drawing the placid horse to a standstill. “There is nothing warped about that.”

“ ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord’?”

“ ‘God helps those who help themselves.’ And speaking of helping ourselves . . .”

He slid his hand to cradle her face and leaned forward to kiss her.

It was a very gentle kiss—not tentative, but respectful. Not perhaps gentle so much as tender, and it melted Bella’s heart. Her lids drifted down and she sensed only warm lips. And birdsong, and the touch of a breeze, which both seemed to add to the magic of the moment.

He drew back and she opened her eyes. “Thank you,” she said without thinking.

“Thank you,” he said, with a sweet smile.

She’d never have expected a sweet smile from Captain Rose. “Changeable as the sea,” she murmured.

“What?”

“You told me that about you. At the Compass, when we were both drunk.”

He seemed blank.

Bella chuckled, feeling extraordinarily happy. “Perhaps you were drunker than you seemed.”

“I must have been. And yes, I am. Changeable. I prefer to think of it as many-faceted, but perhaps I deceive myself.”

“Many-faceted is like a stone. It’s hard. I prefer changeable like the sea.”

He laughed. “You clearly haven’t encountered a hurricane.” He took up the reins and they drove on.

Maybe not
, thought Bella,
but I might be experiencing one now.

 

Thorn tried to keep his features calm, but he was irritated with Caleb for coming up with the word “changeable” without telling him.

And that was ridiculous. In fact, he was angry because more slips like that could make Bella question whom she was with. For example, Caleb did not like tea, and thus as Captain Rose, Thorn avoided it. He’d ordered it without thinking at the Crown and Anchor, and Caleb’s aunt Ann had served it, as she knew he liked it. She was Caleb’s aunt and could tell them apart, but she treated them both with the same warmth.

The tea had been a mistake, however, and he might make more, and—he almost laughed aloud at the oddity of this—he was worried that if Bella realized he was the duke, he’d lose her entirely.

What a topsy-turvy world.

She seemed to have strong opinions on injustice, however, which he feared might go along with a radical dislike of the aristocracy. His challenge might not be to win her without dangling wealth and a title in front of her, but rather to win her despite those handicaps.

And he wanted to win her.

He’d enjoyed the past few days with Bella more than he could remember enjoying time spent with any other woman. A week ago he would probably have said that days with a woman would be deadly dull, especially a woman who wasn’t a lover.

These days had been different, however, despite the ordinary activities—walking, traveling, eating. . . .

Sleeping in the same bed?

Kissing?

Kissing in the sweetest, gentlest way, however, that was completely new to him. Not flirtatious kisses. Not kisses as prelude to passion.

Simply kisses, which he wanted more of, for their own delights.

He feared he was going mad.

 

Bella was aware of the silence as they drove back to their inn, but didn’t know what to make of it. She’d like to think that he was as overwhelmed by the kiss as she, but she doubted it.

She suspected he was troubled.

He was troubled, no doubt, because he feared he’d raised expectations, and that would trouble him only if he had no intention of meeting them. It caused a pang, but not a severe one, because truly, she expected nothing else. Dreamed a little, yes, but expected, no.

At the inn she adopted a calm, mildly cheerful manner and acted as if the kiss had never happened. They went up to their room, but the silence lingered. He was uncomfortable. He wished he weren’t stuck here with her.

“Perhaps we could sup downstairs?” she said. “In case we overhear anything?”

He agreed so smoothly she suspected he’d been thinking the same thing. “We should perhaps be a little cool and distant,” he said, “given that I’m about to go off to a brothel.”

She hated the reminder of that. “If I indulge in a screaming harangue, that could be your excuse to go to the Oak.”

“So it could,” he said, opening the door for her,

“but perhaps you shouldn’t attract quite so much attention?”

“How very frustrating,” Bella said, and led the way downstairs.

They ate mostly in silence, which would have given an excellent opportunity to listen to other conversations, but the only other couple eating in the dining room was silent too.

Afterward, Bella returned to their room, bitterly aware of where he was, and vaguely aware of what he probably was doing. When she realized she was pacing the room, she made herself sit down and read for a while, but the words hardly made sense, and the candlelight strained her eyes.