The Duke (4 page)
Authors: Gaelen Foley
“But to buy them, you spent the money that was earmarked for our rent and our carriage and our food, Papa.”
“And I am the one who shall suffer for my principles, am I not? I consider myself in fine company in that regard—
Saint Paul
, Galileo. Well, you have everything you need, don’t you? The school gives you room and board and other girls to talk to.”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Then fret not over my welfare. In this life, we make our choices and we pay the price. I’m not afraid of whatever my fate holds.”
“Yes, Papa,” she murmured, lowering her head. She stewed at his deluded lecture but didn’t dream of telling him that he was comfortable in his enchanter’s study only because of her constant toil and sacrifices. Instead she brought their visit to a close. He no doubt was eager to get back to his work on the moldering text. She kissed him dutifully on the cheek and promised to return tomorrow. He patted her on the head fondly, then the jailer let her out.
She steeled herself as she followed the guard back down the stairwell. It was time to face the warden of the Fleet. The door at the back of the long lobby was open. She saw the prisoners shuffling inside from the courtyard, returning to their cells. It had begun to rain again. Bel heaved a disgusted sigh to think of her holey boots and the long walk home.
She tapped the guard on the shoulder. “May I speak to the warden privately for a moment, please?”
“Oh, sure, missy. He’ll be ‘appy to meet you—privately,” the guard said with a knowing leer.
Bel scowled at him, but a moment later, she was shown into the office. The big, hulking warden rose at her entrance but did not smile. The guard closed the door as he left.
“Thank you for seeing me,” she said nervously. “I am Miss Hamilton. My father, Mr. Alfred Hamilton, is in cell one-twelve-B. Do you mind if I sit?”
He sliced her a military nod. She eased warily into the chair across from his desk. She glanced around the small, cramped, gloomy office. There were racks of rifles fixed to the wall, a locked ammunition box, and a coiled bullwhip on a nail.
“What seems to be the problem?” he asked, brusque and impatient, his rough voice tinged with an Australian twang. Lord, but he made her nervous.
“Well, sir, you see, ah, the thing is—this month I’m afraid I have somehow come up short in regards to my father’s chamber fees. I—I’m very sorry and I promise it will never happen again, but if you could just see clear to give me an extra fortnight just this once, then I could pay in full. . . .”
She faltered as his leathery face hardened. His skeptical stare seemed as though he half suspected she had spent the money on gin or something equally disreputable.
“This ain’t no moneylender’s, miss.”
“I realize that, but... surely something can be done.” She attempted to smile winningly at him. “I already work several jobs, but some young friends of mine needed shoes for the winter. . . .” Her voice trailed off. His expression told her clearly he didn’t want to hear her excuses. “I’m in quite desperate straits, sir. That is all.”
“Haven’t ye menfolk to help ye? No brothers? Uncles? No husband?”
“No, sir, there’s only me.”
His gaze slid downward. “Well, let’s ‘ave a look.” His keys jangled as he sat down at his desk and flipped through his ledger, then fingered a column. “Appears we’ve never ’ad delays on your account before.”
“I have certainly done my best,” she agreed, feeling a faint spark of hope.
“Mm-hmm.” He sent her a glance with a gleam in his cold, glassy eyes that made her shrink back from him slightly. “Well, now.” He stroked his scar. “Under the circumstances, I’m sure we can arrive at some satisfact’ry arrangement. Let me think on it. Jones!” he bellowed abruptly, summoning his assistant. “Call me carriage around for the young lass.”
“Sir?” she asked, wide-eyed.
He looked at her after his assistant had disappeared. “You arrive here every day on foot, Miss Hamilton, so I’ve noticed. It’s pourin‘ rain. My man will drive you home.”
“Thank you, sir, that’s very kind, but it’s not necessary—”
“Yes, it is. G’day.” Having summarily dismissed her, the warden of the Fleet went back to work.
“Good day,” she replied uncertainly, rising. With a frown of gnawing uneasiness, she went back out to the front of the prison. She did not want to accept a ride from the man. It was far from proper. On the other hand, she didn’t want to offend him, either, since he held Papa’s fate in his hands. She bit her lip in indecision as she stood under the arched entrance while the rain fell, cold and dismal. She was essentially a practical woman. What if she got sick from walking home in this weather? She couldn’t afford to miss a day’s work. It wasn’t as though the man would be in the carriage with her.
A battered ex-hackney coach pulled up, drawn by a sway-backed nag. A driver in a soggy top hat beckoned her over. Hesitating only a moment longer, Bel dashed over the pavement and let herself up into the cab.
All innocence, she told the warden’s driver where she lived.
* * *
The duke of Hawkscliffe, when in Town, lived in a sumptuous urban palace with a view of
Long shadows from the lampposts sculpted the stark, elegant symmetry of its flawless facade, while great
Now he sat inert at the magnificent pianoforte in a corner of the dim library. He owned several of the instruments, being a bit of a collector and a musical connoisseur. He had a Clementi in the ballroom, a Broadwood grand in the drawing room, a Walter along with the dear old harpsichord in the music room—but this, his beloved Graf, the king of pianos, was his pride and joy. It was typical of his obstinate, highly private nature to keep his finest instrument locked away in a room where no one was ever invited. Anyone else who had paid such a sum for a pianoforte would have surely placed it on display in one of the state salons, but music was a very personal affair to Hawkscliffe and besides, there was no one to hear the Graf’s mighty voice anyway.
He touched the keys mournfully with one hand, finding he could take no solace from it now. His music and his noble causes were forgotten. There was a session in the Lords tonight but he couldn’t even bring himself to go.
Slouching on the bench, he stared down at the keys, black and white. The dim illumination from the low fire in the hearth flickered over his face, but it did not rout the chill in his heart that had descended three weeks ago, when Lucy had gone missing.
With the silver locket containing her miniature portrait curled in his hand, he lifted his fractured gaze and reached for his glass of brandy on the coaster atop the mute piano. He raised it and inspected the hue of the firelight glowing through it. The color of her hair, he thought. But, no, her long tresses had been redder than that, not strawberry blond, but glossy chestnut.
Who, what, where had he been before Lucy Coldfell had come into his life and sidetracked it utterly? he wondered. Ah, yes, he thought bitterly. Hunting for a wife.
He tossed back the brandy, remembering the first time he had laid eyes on Coldfell’s young bride. He had certainly never reacted to Coldfell’s daughter that way, which would have been a damned lot more convenient.
This is the woman I should have married,
he had said to himself.
Too late.
Too late to love her. Too late to save her.
He suddenly rose and hurled the glass with all his might into the fireplace. The glass shattered and the flames exploded up into the chimney from the last drops of alcohol.
Trembling with rage over what Coldfell had told him today, he got up and paced the length of the room, crushing the Aubusson carpet under his boots. Stalking toward the fireplace, he leaned against the carved alabaster mantel and rubbed his mouth with his fist in thought.
At some point in the past, he had been introduced to Coldfell’s coarse, lusty braggart of a nephew, Sir Dolph Breckinridge. He had certainly heard of Dolph’s reputation as a hunter. The baronet was known as a crack shot. He was also known as a Corinthian who liked to live beyond his means, and for that reason, Hawk surmised that Dolph wanted very much to come into his inheritance as the next earl of Coldfell.
Hawk didn’t know and scarcely dared wonder if old James was capable of siring a child in his advanced years— Abraham in the Bible had managed it, hadn’t he? All he knew was that if Coldfell had gotten Lucy with child, then their son, and not Dolph, would have stood in line to inherit the earldom. Thus, with free access to his uncle’s properties, Dolph had ample opportunity to confront Lucy alone; as a notorious hunter, he certainly had the killing skill; and with the threat of the countess’s possible pregnancy, he had the unassailable motive to remove Lucy from his path to fortune and rank.
Hawk considered hiring a Bow Street Runner to investigate the matter for him, but decided it was too deeply personal to commit to a stranger.
After leaving her grave this afternoon, a brief stop at White’s and a few casual questions had informed him that the Regent was throwing yet another party at
Brighton
. All the wastrels who chased after the Carlton House set would be following the prince there, Dolph and his companions among them.
Hawk burned to go immediately and call Dolph out, but as Coldfell had said, he did not
know
—he only suspected. He dragged his hand through his thick black hair.
He would go mad if he did not find out the truth, but he couldn’t simply go on the rampage, hurling wild accusations with nothing to back them up—accusations involving another man’s wife. Such rash behavior on his part would generate a whirlwind of gossip in the ton and scandal, by God, was the one thing he would not tolerate.
Always he had to think of his family’s name, his own reputation and his young sister’s. Jacinda would be making her debut in another year or so, and he wanted no taint of scandal whatsoever to touch her. The child was capricious and willful by nature, and secretly, as her guardian, he already feared their mother’s famous wantonness ran also in her daughter’s veins.
His political aims had to be protected, as well. The prime minister, Lord Liverpool, was keeping his eye on him for the next cabinet vacancy that arose. In the meantime, Hawk sat on the board of a dozen Parliamentary committees; his reputation for integrity translated to power and influence to muscle his bills through both houses. A loss of personal credibility could damage his efforts to see the penal code reformed, among other projects. Nor could he bear for Lucy’s memory to be tainted with sly talk. Besides, he thought, if he made accusations prematurely, Dolph might slip through his fingers and he would only succeed in making a fool of himself.
Folding his arms across his chest, he stared at the rug, brooding. Reason commanded him to admit there was a slim chance Lucy’s death could have been the accident it appeared. As a man of justice, he was bound by principle to give cool objectivity its due. He could not spend his waking hours fighting for justice in Parliament, then murder a possibly innocent man in a duel in a fit of rage.
He needed the facts before he could take action, but it was not as though Dolph would simply admit to murder. A subterfuge was necessary. He would have to study Dolph, he mused, perhaps even feign friendship until he found the way to back him into a corner. Every man had a weakness. He would find Dolph’s and lean on it until he broke him. He’d get the truth out of him somehow.
Patience.
Wrath welled in him for justice now, but he checked it, letting his plan take shape in his mind. Though it would require a gargantuan effort of self-control to bide his time, with more information he could act more circumspectly... and more lethally.
Resolved on his course, he strode over to the door of the library and sent the footman posted in the hallway for his valet.
He would leave at dawn for
Brighton
.
The dim illumination from her tallow candle flickered over her single room as Bel finished up the shirts she mended for piecework.
At length she stood, stretched her aching back, then went to put on her gray wool cloak. She had promised the laundress that she would return the shirts tonight so that they could be starched, pressed, and returned to their owner in the morning. Smoothing the mended shirts over her arm, she locked the door to her room and pulled the red-lined hood of her cloak up. Its billowy folds floated behind her as she set off into the dark streets.
The moonless April night was black as pitch. The temperature had dropped ten degrees or more. Her breath misted, catching the light from the lone lamppost on the corner, but when she glanced around the intersection, she didn’t see the night watchman. The Charleys were a nuisance during the day, always telling her to move on and sell her oranges elsewhere, but she was glad of their presence at night.