Unmasking the Duke, page 22
The watchman regarded her doubtfully, running one hand over his unshaven face.
“Well,” he said dubiously, at last, “seeing as there’s only him in there—I loosed the singing drunks go an hour ago—I suppose you can talk to him through the bars of his cell. You’re not to go near him, though.”
“I would not dream of it,” she assured him.
The watchman sighed, picked up an unfeasibly large ring of keys, and led her through a locked door at the back and down the steps leading to a passage, one side of which was made up of cells, divided from each other by stone walls, and with spars at the front like cages for wild beasts.
The watchman indicated the passage. “Second cell along. Keep to the wall on the right. I’ll just be waiting here.” And he sat down on the bottom step.
Kitty took a breath for courage, not quite sure what she would find, and then walked briskly into the passage, past the first, empty cell, and paused opposite the second. At first, she could see nothing but a vague, still shape on the pallet against one wall. She glanced back at the watchman, glad, for some reason, that she could still see him.
She cleared her throat and addressed the cell. “Mr. Smith.”
With alarming suddenness, the shape flew up, resolving into the figure of a big man standing, gazing at her. His lips curled into what might have been a snarl or a smile, revealing bad teeth and a few blank spaces between.
“Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in. Her High and Mightiness.”
She ignored that. “Why did you try to kill me?”
“I never liked you,” Alf Smith said with the same sort of casualness he might have said, “I don’t care for oranges.”
She frowned. “How can you dislike a baby?”
He stared at her as if she were stupid. “They squawk and cry constantly, demand everyone’s attention…”
“Meaning my mother’s attention,” she said flatly, beginning to understand. “She couldn’t run around after you because she was too busy looking after me.”
“You made her ill,” Alf sneered. “And then there was no running after anybody.”
“And that inspired you to—” She broke off. “What did you say?” And then there was no running after anybody. “You knew her when I was born? Before I was born?”
“Course I did,” he said disgustedly.
“But…but what happened to Reginald Penrose?”
“Who’s he?”
“My mother’s husband,” she said dryly. “Did you never meet?”
He laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant sound—hoarse and raw and without real amusement. “No, and not surprising, neither. I was as close as poor old Maggie ever got to marriage. Though I suppose I was her husband by common law.”
The blood had begun singing in Kitty’s ears. “Wait a minute. How long did you know Maggie?”
He shrugged. “All her life, more or less. We grew up in Seven Dials together.”
No, no, no, that is not right! It can’t be right, not now! She tried desperately to fight down the panic. “Then you are saying… Oh, no, you are not my father! You would not try to kill your own child!”
He studied her, head on one side. “Truth is, I never cared much whether you were or weren’t. I told everyone you weren’t mine just to annoy Maggie.”
The world seemed to be falling about her ears while she desperately looked for the holes, the lies in what he was telling her. “What did Maggie call me?” she asked in a small voice.
He didn’t even think about it, though he said it as a sneer. “Sarah. Sarah this, Sarah that. Bloody Sarah.”
“Not…Isabel?”
He regarded her as though she were stupid. “Isabel?” he mimicked. “Who told you that?”
“Vera.” She pulled herself together. “Sal. Sal Harris told me.”
“Sal, who? Oh, that cow who lived across the landing? I thought she’d taken you, you know, that day I woke up with my head and my bones aching and all my worldly goods gone. But I never heard you cry anymore, so I suppose she didn’t. Mind you,” he added resentfully, “I got evicted the day after. That was your fault, too.”
“Why would you think Sal had taken me in?” Kitty asked, trying and failing to make sense of any of this. “Because she and Maggie were friends?”
“Sal was always taking other people’s kids. Couldn’t have any of her own.”
“She has two,” Kitty said flatly.
“Not hers,” Alf insisted. “But who cares? She still knows you, don’t she? You and her boy are pulling some trick on a duke. His nibs up the road there who thinks he’s a monkey.”
“That’s what bothers you,” she said slowly, “my connection to the Duke of Dearham. Why?”
“Why do you think?”
“Because you don’t want me to be wealthy?”
“Actually, I want you dead—more to spite Bill, you understand. I don’t want him to be rich because it’s off the back of what he stole from me. I should be the rich one.”
“Except you drank everything you ever owned,” Kitty retorted.
“Not so much that I didn’t keep my eye on Bill Renwick and rejoice when he was going under. That stupid Garden of his was never going to make any money, and even he knew it in the end, so he started building a bloody hotel! And all sorts of rich bastards start giving him money for it, and the word is it’ll make them all even richer. Especially when this high fallutin’ duke enters the picture, wanting to adopt you and give Bill even more of the readies.”
“So, you tried to chase the duke away by setting fire to the hotel,” she said slowly, “making it an unsafe investment. Only then the duke took me away with him, and he still invested. You meant to kill us both last night.”
Without warning, Alf flung himself at the spars of his cells. Kitty jumped, flattening herself against the wall, and he laughed. “I still will, eventually.”
“You’re insane,” she accused.
“Then why are you standing there asking me stupid questions?”
Relief flooded her so hard her knees went weak. She wanted to laugh at herself for being so gullible. “You’re lying to me. Making things up.”
He bared his teeth again. “Why would I do that?”
“To punish me, to punish Bill Renwick. But I know you’re lying because Maggie gave a valuable locket to Sal Harris, a locket I’m very sure did not come from you.”
And he did pause, frowning. “What locket?”
“It had my hair inside it. And on the front was a miniature painting of the old Duchess of Dearham.”
He was staring at her and then began to grin. “Oh, this is priceless! You’re not flim-flamming the duke, are you? You really think you’re related to him! Because of a lock of baby hair in a necklace, clutched in Sal Harris’s greedy hands! That bloody locket was mine—or was after Maggie died because Sal gave it to her. Only then the stupid cow gave it back to Sal so I wouldn’t get it, and Sal never did hand it over. Of course, she and Jimmie were always very thick with Bill Renwick.”
Kitty felt her skin turn cold. “No. The locket was Maggie’s. She gave it to Sal for her kindness.”
“Rubbish, Sal gave it to Maggie to keep her mouth shut.”
“About what?”
Alf laughed because he could see she already knew.
*
Somehow, she got herself out of there. She wanted to sit down in the street and cry. She wanted to run back to the duke and never let him speak to Alf Smith…except he already had spoken to him. What Johnny had said, and didn’t say, made sense now. As did his sudden withdrawal from her bedchamber last night.
The duke was a good man. He loved her and had offered her marriage. But neither of them was so naïve as to imagine Alf Smith’s daughter could marry him and be his duchess. He would go through with it, though, if he had to. Only he wouldn’t make it necessary by risking the conception of a child.
In her heart, her whole being, black despair was spreading like some insidious disease. But it could not drown her love of the duke. She ached for him because he did love her, and Johnny, more than anyone she had ever met, deserved to be happy. But he would not be so with her, not now.
Something dripped off her chin, and she realized she was weeping while stumbling away from the goal, and from the town square where she had left the carriage. She dashed the back of her hand across her face and deliberately straightened her back, trying to pull herself together.
What to do? Where to go?
Back to Uncle Bill, of course, where she belonged.
Tears threatened afresh because she had missed him and the boys so much…and she could not even begin to imagine how much she would miss the duke, who had come to mean so much so quickly.
Coming to a deserted alley, she ducked around the corner and flattened herself against the wall, gasping.
She had money in her reticule. Money the duke had expected her to spend, only she never had, apart from the couple of shillings she had used to bribe poor Aidan the footman to fetch her a hackney in London. Right across the road from her now was the Black Bull Inn, from where she knew the mail coaches went up to London.
Her misery formed into tasks and those she could deal with.
Straight-backed, she walked out of the alley and across the road to the inn. A mail coach was due to leave in an hour, and she was lucky that someone had just canceled their ticket, so she could have a place inside. She handed over the required coin and went into the coffee room, where she asked for coffee and writing implements, and refused the offer of breakfast that she would never be able to eat.
Having drunk her coffee and written her letter, she left the inn and hurried back to the square where the carriage still waited for her. The rain had gone off, and the under-coachman was standing at the horses’ heads, gossiping with a couple of fellows who had probably spilled out of the tavern on the corner.
Seeing her, he immediately sprang around to the carriage door.
“No, I’m not going back just yet,” she told him. “I find I have more to do. But I would like you to return to Dearham Abbey now and see that this is given to His Grace.” She handed over her letter.
He took it, frowning. “I’m to leave you here? But how will you get back?”
“His Grace will give you any further orders,” she said pleasantly. “Thank you, Jeremy.” And she spun away before she choked, hastening back the way she had come, to the inn and the mail coach that would take her home.
*
Johnny was a little surprised that Kitty had not risen to join the family in bidding farewell to the guests who had stayed after the ball. He supposed she was exhausted after her busy day and traumatic evening. And he had hardly helped by all but assaulting her in her own bedchamber. He had let his hunger, his need to possess her, overcome his patience and good sense, at least for a little. Although he knew why, that didn’t excuse his behavior, and he was eager to see Kitty, to assure himself he hadn’t frightened or hurt her.
And, in truth, he just wanted to be with her.
He wondered if he could just sneak up to her rooms without anyone noticing. But then, perhaps that wasn’t such a good idea either. So he sent Martha.
“Will you go up and see if Kitty is awake?” he asked her casually.
She snorted. “Oh, I wish Meg was here to see this.”
“To see what?” he asked with what dignity he could muster.
“Our brother chained to propriety by love. At last!”
He hurled a cushion at her head, which she easily intercepted before tossing it back and sweeping, laughing, from the room.
Johnny let the smile die on his lips, realizing that his sister had a point. He had always known he would have to marry one day to produce heirs, and one of the things that had always bothered him about the whole matter was whether or not his wife would expect him to remain faithful. And if she did, whether he could, for he had become so used to following his desires wherever they led. Somehow, it had never entered his head that he would want to be faithful. He had not truly imagined himself capable of that kind of love. But Kitty…
The smile returned to his lips, a different kind of smile that was totally involuntary. Kitty was everything.
Martha sauntered back into the room. “She is awake, for she’s not in bed. She must have gone for a walk. I expect it would clear your head, too.”
“I expect it would,” he said amiably, rising and strolling to the door. “If I had a thick head, which I don’t.
“Celibate and sober,” Martha marveled. “You are clearly an imposter, sir. What have you done with my brother?”
“I left him crying over his beer for the good old days.”
Martha’s laughter followed him from the room. He was still smiling as he reached the front hall, shrugging into his greatcoat, and noticed the letter on the silver salver. Picking it up, since it was addressed to him, he unfolded it and stopped in his tracks.
My dear Johnny,
I hope you will permit me to address you so one more time in parting, as part we both know we must. I have spoken to Alf Smith, and I know I am not the child of your Cousin Margaret. In no way am I fit to be your duchess. I suspect you knew this, too, when we spoke last night, and I thank you for trying to spare me. You are too kind and too honorable to bid me go, and so I have taken matters into my own hands.
Your family has shown me nothing but kindness, so it is with heavy heart that I ask you to pass my farewells and my humble gratitude to the duchess, your mother, to Lord Peter, Lord and Lady Harry, and Lord and Lady Calvert. I am honored to have met your family and friends, especially Princess Hagerin.
For Your Grace, I have no words. Only the love I will ever bear you and the cause of your happiness could have made me leave you. I step out now upon another course and wish you only the best in yours.
Your servant,
Kitty Renwick.
He stared at the letter, feeling a surge of something very like irritation among the panic.
“Daniel!” he called to the footman by the front door. “Where did this letter come from?”
“Jeremy, the under-coachman brought it.”
“Did he, by God?” Without further discussion, Johnny strode from the house, barely giving Daniel time to wrench open the door for him.
He all but ran to the stables, and Jeremy clearly saw him coming, for he detached himself from the carriage he was washing down and walked toward him with the sort of reluctance that grasped he was in for the dressing-down of a lifetime.
Johnny had no time for that. “Where did you take her?”
Jeremy didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “To Dearham. I waited for her in the square as she asked, for about an hour, until she came back, gave me a letter to be delivered to you, and sent me home.”
And you went? But of course he did. And Johnny would not waste time in unjust and unproductive scolding. “Do you know where she went then?”
Jeremy shook his head.
“When was this? Are you just returned?”
“Only ten minutes or so. By the time I left her in Dearham, it must have been heading for eleven.”
“And the London mail leaves when?”
“Eleven,” Jeremy replied, with the knowledge of the man who had frequently been sent with all speed to catch it arriving or departing.
“Then I’ve missed her,” he said flatly. But he knew where she was going. He just hoped he would be fast enough to catch her at the coaching inn in London. His curricle would be fastest…only he needed a chaperone for Kitty, and the curricle would only accommodate one passenger.
“The light traveling coach,” he said abruptly, already striding back to the house. “In ten minutes.”
*
“You’re going now?” In the morning room, his mother stared at him in clear consternation. “When the house is full of your guests?”
Johnny shrugged impatiently. “There is only Calton, Harborough, and Dornan, and they’ll be gone soon enough. The rest are family.”
“But where are you going?” she asked, bewildered.
Johnny drew in his breath, but he couldn’t not tell them. Not when he needed Martha to come with him. His sister and Aline sat gazing at him from the sofa while Calvert leaned one shoulder against the mantelpiece, and Peter gazed out the window.
“London,” Johnny said briskly. “Because Kitty has bolted there.”
“Oh God,” Martha said resignedly. “I knew it was too good to be true. What did you do to her?”
Johnny kicked at the chair leg in front of him. “I kept from her something I should have told her immediately. And now she has probably misconstrued my reasons.” He drew in a breath, and for the first time ever, he felt like his father glaring around his family. “You should know Kitty is not who we believed she was. She is not Margaret’s daughter, after all, but I will still marry her. Do I have your support?”
“If she’s not Margaret’s daughter, who on earth is she?” the duchess demanded, bewildered.
“No one,” Johnny said on a slightly shaky laugh. “Everyone. And it does not matter who she is. Do I have your support?”
“Yes,” Martha said. “And I speak for Meg, too. Peter? You have to agree—admit you’ve never seen him so…complete.”
Peter—stern, upright Peter, who really should have been the duke—scowled. “We have to consider what is owed to the family.”
Johnny’s smile was twisted. “Am I not family?”
Peter’s eyes widened, and a rueful smile touched his lips. “I have never seen you so…un-restless, so settled. What do you mean to do?”
“I have no time to explain it. But nothing that will bring disgrace either to Kitty or the rest of us. I’ll make sure of that.”
“Then go and bring her home,” Peter said and stalked out of the room.
“Who’d have thought it?” Martha murmured. “Mama?”
“I wanted Margaret’s daughter,” her mother whispered. “But I like your Kitty.”
“It’s the best we can do,” Johnny said gently. “Martha, will you come and play propriety for me?”
“I’ll come,” Aline said, rising from the sofa. “Lady Martha has children to care for, and Her Grace needs family support with her guests.”
