It was a universal truth that no matter her background, face, or charms, a widow in possession of a fortune would be targeted for theft. In my circumstance, I’d been cheated of everything, even my greatest gift. Now was the time to defy authority, to strike and win.
I’d almost been caught.
My breath came in waves as I leaned against the closed nursery door. I squeezed my stomach tight, as tight as my shut lashes, and waited for someone to push inside.
So close, only to be captured . . .
My heart ticked, numbering the follies of my life. So full of memories—sliding down a sloping banister, the chatter of silly sisters, a stranger’s whisper at sunset, a blur of signatures on a marriage contract, then a well-written note of love . . . of suicide—my soul was about to explode.
Laughter filtered beneath the door, then the haunting footsteps moved away. Maybe a maid entered a bedroom down the hall. I swallowed the lump building in my throat. The knot of bitterness went down slow. It burned.
This was my house. Those servants once worked for me. Now, I was reduced to sneaking inside Hamlin Hall.
With a shake of my head, I stopped thinking of my failures and focused on my mission, my sole purpose, my Lionel. Feet slipping in my borrowed boots, I tiptoed to his crib and peeked at my baby.
His wide hazel eyes seized me.
Tiny hands lifted, but he made no sound, no cooing or crying. I pacified myself thinking my smart boy didn’t want more trouble dropped on my head, not that he’d learned to soothe himself from neglect.
Pity my heart knew the truth, that Lionel was a prisoner.
And these circumstances were my fault.
I stole a breath and pinned a smile to my lips. I was grateful to see my boy’s face.
“My little man. Hungry?”
I unbuttoned the placard of my borrowed nankeen shirt, then unwound the bandage I’d wrapped about my bosom. This made my charms appear flat, manlike.
Scooping up Lionel, I put him to my breast. “Hamlin Hall is different tonight, Master Jordan. Is that your doing?”
My little man’s suckle was so strong. Those distant concerns about how often he’d been fed crept forward.
My insides broke into more pieces. “I’m sorry.”
I wasn’t smart, and now my Lionel suffered.
He made an extra slurping noise as if he’d spooned runny porridge. The funny notion calmed my frets . . . for now. “Tonight, you eat big.”
Our change was in the offing. I felt it. I knew it would be so.
“Your mama’s a spy again. But tonight, I was almost discovered trying to retrieve my trust documents. I had to scurry back to the catacombs, running at top speed through the secret door at the stairs. The old butler was too drunk—”
Something heavy dragged outside in the hall.
The new carpet? It would be ruined.
Hushed whispers bubbled.
Did I hear something about ruin or ripping?
That carpet was imported from the East Indies.
My hands flushed. My cheeks followed.
The fine tapestries of woven rust and gold silks I’d installed to give this two-hundred-year-old house new life would be torn up, discarded . . . like me.
A loud curse soared, then a clear complaint about a guest—a Rep? Reynolds? Remington?—his arrival, the servant said was imminent.
Was this a constable from London?
A magistrate from Bow Street?
Or an administrator from the lunatic asylum?
Any of these men could be coming for me.
I shook from the sole of my boots to the collar of my coarse shirt.
They dragged me, the mistress of Hamlin Hall from this place, from Lionel. My jet bombazine mourning gown, once so proper and refined, was wrinkled and stained as they hauled me away.
The servants and Markham, my late husband’s uncle, said I looked crazed, a yellow-eyed loon. I remember sobbing like a lunatic, but the hope in my heart said, Cooperate, all would be well.
All lies. All tricks. All meant to crush me.
I wasn’t going this time, not without a fight.
I was at war—one made for mothers, especially foreign-born women. I had Papa’s knife in my waistband. Forged in gold and white topaz, the pretty thing would be drawn to wave at them. I’d hurl threats and put on a menacing, crazy face.
But could I actually harm or kill anyone?
My father, the Sugar King, should’ve forged a golden gun. Something I could use with slight effort and at an unfeeling distance, not up close, not inches away where I’d see a man’s eyes.
Eyes, like my Lionel’s, were my undoing. They took my battered heart on adventures, somewhere good, where folks were decent, where I was loved for being me.
Blam.
Something fell and broke. It sounded steps away.
A vase?
An ugly sculpture that came with this house of secrets?
“Get the last of her stuff below without breaking anything else. He’ll be comin’ any day. Repington will . . .”
The knocking and man-talk sounded closer.
“Finish up, Lionel. Feed faster.” I whispered this to his thin curls. I bolstered my spine with lass-talk. “My boy, I’ll leave out like I’ve done all week. Another day closer to getting my trust documents to finance our boat trip. Safety, my son. We’ll have it soon.”
A shadow slid across the sill at the door’s bottom.
My lass-talk abandoned ship. My panic rose like the evening tide. There was no other way out of this room. I’d be discovered.
“Law and order, Repington. He’ll take care of the problem.”
That voice, a roguish Scottish tongue—the drunk butler, one of the many servants who worked at Hamlin these past four years. Was he toying with me? Had he recognized me yesterday and sprung a trap?
The insolent man needed to be flogged with a good island switch, a thick palm frond.
I looked down at the boy suckling at my bosom. “We will win. We’ll be together.”
My babe released a yawn.
“I’m glad you’re excited about this.”
Lionel’s mouth stretched, and he burped. His eyes closed.
“Done with me, aye? Just like your father.”
If he had lived and returned with his mouth full of sorries—could we have started anew?
I lowered Lionel into the crib, then started buttoning up my disguise. I had to look like a man to leave Hamlin. “I’m going to regain custody, and that nice countess, the leader of the Widow’s Grace, she’s helping me.”
Thumb in mouth, my boy looked so peaceful.
Maybe he believed me, but since his birth, he hadn’t known much freedom. This was how it had been for me these past four years in England.
Colin’s unsocial wife.
Colin’s foreign wife.
Colin’s distant flower couldn’t withstand the scrutiny of the ton.
My baby cried out. The short outburst blasted like a loud off-key trumpet.
I looked at the ledge outside the window. If I climbed out, I could avoid detection, but this was crazy, even for a girl good at climbing. If I fell, the Morning Post would read, Crazed widow dressed like a man jumped from a third-floor window.
“Please, sir. I need to check on the babe. Might need to clean him up a bit.”
A feminine voice with clear, proper syllables.
The door cracked open.
A tall girl like me couldn’t fit into the wardrobe. I turned back, opened the window wider, balanced on the old rocking chair, and climbed out onto the ledge.
“Mrs. Kelly, the little mongrel will keep. But you need a strong man to protect you from the ghost of Hamlin Hall. Come put me to bed.”
This deeper speech, smug and amused—Markham’s. His gloating voice repeated through my nightmares. He chuckled again. The blood in my veins chilled, the pain worse than an island girl’s first snow.
Hiding from his wrath had to be done. Boots dangling, I steadied myself and scooted to the right. The jagged edges of the hewed stones tugged on my breeches, but I’d made it. I stretched and shoved the leaded glass, closing it to within an inch.
The nursery door creaked, the hinge whining as if it had opened wide. Markham might have joined the nanny.
Stiff and silent against the wall, I waited and hoped not to see his face. Thought to pray to Agassou, the Demeraran god of protection, but I didn’t know if he had dominion on English soil . . . or stone ledges.
A woman’s hand draped in frills clasped the window latch. “One moment, Mr. Markham. The night air’s not good for the baby.”
My pulse fluttered. If Mrs. Kelly stuck her head out, I’d be discovered.
But the woman stood there, not moving, her elegant fingers resting against the frame.
“Mrs. Kelly,” Markham said. “What are you staring at? Not more snow.”
My heart thumped hard like a street singer’s drummer, one whooping on his instrument to excite the crowd or rouse a rebellion.
“No. Nothing, sir. I see nothing.”
The window slammed shut.
The door whined.
Except for my panicked heart, all was silent.
I loosened my death grip on the ledge and clasped my thumping chest.
Not caught.
Not mocked by Markham again.
Not falling or tipping over . . . yet.
Breathing in and out, I swung my feet as if I sat on the docks watching ships come into Demerara. For one moment, the air smelled fresh like the sea. To go home with Lionel, that was my dream now. And we would be happy and safe, no longer sneaking and hiding, no longer living under rules that made no sense.
Elated, relieved, I laughed. I’d accomplished tonight’s mission. Lionel was fed, and there was still time to head back to Lady Shrewsbury’s before she discovered her wayward widow missing. I reached over to the window, but the pane wouldn’t budge.
It was locked.
No! No! No.
No?
Three stories up. What to do?
Break the glass and be caught? Bedlam.
Stay here and be caught in the morning’s light? Bedlam.
Jump and be caught dead? The notion deserved Bedlam.
Wait for the ghost of my dream or one of Hamlin Hall’s to come and float me down? Yes, Bedlam again.
Staying here was impossible. I’d have to get help or turn myself over to Markham.
My stomach clenched at the thought of being at his mercy again. If my mother were alive, she’d put a root on Markham so that bad luck would be his and only his.
But West Indian magic nonsense was as bad as English ghost lore, and none of it could explain why Markham kept winning—he had my house, my son, my dignity.
I slapped the ledge. My fingers stung, and my resolve wavered. Better to live and fight another day. “Lionel, your mother’s not crazed. I tried.”
I readied my knife to break the glass, but a flash caught my gaze.
I squinted toward the woods outside Hamlin’s stone gates and saw the light again. I put down my knife and used both hands to cup my eyes.
The pattern repeated, bright to dark, bright to dark.
A signal?
It was steady, like the ones on the big ships slipping through the fogged bay. Could that be Jemina St. Maur sending a warning? My friend insisted on coming and keeping watch tonight. Brave woman.
My risk-taking had endangered my friend.
I couldn’t surrender and save Jemina, too. Markham wouldn’t let me help her.
Sweating through my shirt, I opened my livery. My flailing elbow brushed leaves, the thick English ivy, the long vines I’d admired from the first day Colin brought me to Hamlin. I reached over and pushed at one. It was solid and gnarled like a tree. Like a coconut tree.
Would it hold a reformed tomboy? It was now or never. I wedged a boot into the mortar joint between the limestone bricks.
On the count of three, I’d grab the fat tree trunk.
One.
Two.
Two and a half.
Two and a third.
Three. I started and clung to the vine like it was Papa’s waist. The ivy swayed but bounced back like a spring.
Heaving, I climbed down, foothold after foothold.
The herbaceous fragrance of the leaves mingled with my perspiration. The scent reminded me of summer—of sneaking from my bedchamber window to escape chores, to hide from endless dress fittings, to avoid the suitors coming to sway the Sugar King’s daughters.
It meant a couple of hours of not hearing Mama’s critiques, her coughs, or the awful moment when she’d cough no more.
Hand over hand, toehold after toehold, I lowered myself until one boot hit the ground and then the other. I drew my arms about me and made sure my heart was still inside my ribs.
But it wasn’t.
It was in a dingy crib, three stories up.
The hawthorn hedgerows at my hips left tiny white petals on my breeches. The flowers reflected the moonlight, making my menswear look like lace. Mama must be looking down laughing.
I scrubbed off the flowers and headed across the wide field toward the gate, toward Jemina.
A screech sounded, followed by a wave of thunder.
I halted in place.
Then a drum, drum, drumming caught in my ear. It chiseled inside, hammering down my spine. I reached for my knife, but it wasn’t in my waistband.
I’d left it on the ledge.
Headstrong, impatient girl. Mama’s rebuke rang in my brainbox.
The ground shook beneath my boots.
A fast rider led one, two, three carriages. They barreled through Hamlin’s stone gates.
Men galloped toward me with guns drawn, flintlocks, the ones with the long barrels, the ones meant for war.
Kicked-up rocks stung my shins as the first horse passed, but the lead carriage shot toward me. Its large side lanterns blinded, stunning me like an insect mesmerized by light.
Couldn’t move, couldn’t stop staring. I’d survived Bedlam and the high ledge, only to be trampled.
No surrendering, not me, not this time.
I straightened and faced the raiders head-on.
The tart stench of horses’ lather and the odor of burning pitch wrinkled my nose. The carriage moved closer, coming for me, but I wouldn’t back down. I’d hidden too much.
My father’s blood pumping inside kept me from a faint. His endless talk of insurrection from the American rabble, Samuel Adams, stuck in my heart. I understood and absorbed his troubles, his defiant quest for life and liberty.
Each time I picked up my son, felt his skin next to mine, I became a revolutionary. For him, his life, his liberty, I charged forward.
The driver cursed at me but steered to the right.
I was saved, but I knew from the number of guns I’d seen, the battle hadn’t been won. Clenching my gloved hands, I remembered my disguise and waved the carriages toward the steps. I acted like a footman and did what those servants did whenever my husband arrived from Town. I kept signaling with arms wiggling and pointing.
Soldiers ran around me, charging the entry. A few ran toward the secret entrance to the catacombs. These invaders had knowledge of Hamlin, deep knowledge. It took more than two years for me to learn its secrets.
Sweat drenched my forehead. My powdered wig had to stay pinned in place. The dabbed-on theater cosmetic had to stick to my face, or I’d never be able to walk free through Hamlin’s gates.
“You! Man the door.” A groom pointed to the big carriage, the one that almost ran me down.
I nodded and stiffened my walk to seem more brutish. I prepared my countenance, thinking burp and rough things like burlap. Escape was impossible until I passed this test. Bracing, I threw open the carriage door.
A man bounced out, tall and thin, looking cross. “I guess we’ve arrived. Winning already, Duke?”
The other fellow inside struggled toward the opening, like he couldn’t get a good push on the tufted seat. He shrugged and fumbled with a shiny gold watch. “Eleven on the dot. An excellent time to storm the castle.” He chuckled. “And yes, we are winning. You. Don’t just stand there gawking. Help me out.”
My name wasn’t You or at least it wasn’t the last time I’d written it. I pointed to my bosom. “Me?”
The big man flopped a little closer to the door and exposed a heavily bandaged leg. “Yes, you.”
“Yes, sir.”
The urge to check my white wig for escaping dark hair or adjust my livery to see if I’d wet through pressed. My milk was heavy again, and my nerves rattled like the silver toy Lionel should have in his crib, the one Markham sold off.
“You’re a might scrawny, but tall enough for the task.”
“For what?”
“To help me balance. You’ll do as a crutch. Let’s get on with this.”
First a you and now a crutch? I grimaced and tried hard not to gawk at his slow, scooting movements, tried not to think of my baby sister flopping about learning to crawl. Tried and failed to not let missing my family mist my eyes.
The thinner man returned. “I’ll have a proper crutch brought to you in a moment. Slow down. Napoleon’s not inside, just Markham and a baby.”
“And all his corrupt minions, Gantry. We know he’s been hiring reinforcements.”
The other man shook his head and turned to me. “Minion, don’t drop the duke on his head. It won’t help.”
Me a minion? Never to Markham. “I won’t, sir.”
I stuck my hand inside the carriage, like a girl, like a scared little girl who thought a furry spider might crawl onto her hand. Dukes didn’t bite and make sticky webs, did they?
He grabbed my flailing arm and towed himself to the opening. “This one has a sense of humor, Gantry, complete with flopping limbs.”
The duke’s laugh was full and lusty. He didn’t look so mean, not chuckling like a schoolboy. Then his expression sobered. “My soldiers surrounded Hamlin. Markham can’t escape. Not this time, not with my ward.”
“Yes, Repington.” Gantry shrugged and moved toward the second carriage.
Repington? Colin’s dead grandfather? How did this man have this name? He looked too solid to be a ghost.
Was this the person the servants said would come to fix things?
I didn’t know what new conspiracy had begun, but this peer had my arm, and he’d come for Markham.
But who was his ward? Lionel?
“I’m not one who waits,” the duke said. “No more antics. Do you think you can help me balance? From your stares, you can see I’m injured. I need to get inside at once.”
Hope built in my veins, pumping me up, floating my heart like a heated paper lantern. I ducked my shoulder under his arm. “Non-corrupt minion here, Your Grace. I can help until a true crutch is brought forward.”
The duke’s laughter sounded richer, like a full-bodied dessert port. Then his full weight came down on me.
Ugh.
All the wind, all the heated air gushed out of me, but I didn’t buckle. I couldn’t. The duke was here to stop Markham.
We took a step together, and he stumbled.
“I typically despise assistance, but I hate waiting more.”
I sympathized.
Waiting wasn’t my strength, either. Charging forward with little hesitation was my special talent. As I strained under his weight, I feared that this time my flaw might be fatal.
The duke and I wobbled, each of us trying to lead the other to Hamlin’s grand entry.
“You’ve a lot of heart, minion, but get in step with me. It will be easier.”
Nothing was easier when I complied. Submission was a softer shade of hard.
But I acquiesced like I’d done with Colin and leaned in closer. The duke’s brawny arm smashed my face into his chest. The white cosmetic smeared onto his ebony greatcoat.
Then I heard him counting. The rhythm sounded strong like a conga rattle. I swayed with him. It became our music. No longer struggling to show him the shortest path, I fell in step, my full stride matched his two half jumps.
My reward was his scent. Enmeshed in his cloak was something heady and familiar. It wasn’t like my sweet milled soaps, but something honeyed and peppered with hints of cloves.
“I’m heavy, young man, and you’re scrawny. Your employer, well, former employer, must not be giving you a decent wage to fill your belly.”
“I suppose you eat enough, Your Grace. You’re weighty.”
“I suppose I do.” The duke chuckled, but this noise sounded forced, as if to cover his winces when we stumbled over rocks hidden in the melting snow.
I felt the tension in the man like I’d felt his laugh. He was more hurt than he wanted anyone to know.
I steadied my arm about him. He’d made me into a crutch, and I’d be a decent crutch. He was coming for Markham. That had to be good.
Yet, this close to the duke, I felt the hardened muscles of his stomach and knew the leanness of his thigh. The man was injured but not indolent or lazy.
His scent hit me again, deeper, more acute. I knew what it was, a blend of fine cigar tobacco and rum.
I inhaled once more. Definitely rum, and it was the expensive stuff. It would be wrong to cling to him, sniffing his coat to see if it was Demeraran rum, but this aroma was the closest I’d felt to home in four years.
“Maybe you’re not so scrawny, son. You seem to be keeping me upright.”
Both of us heaving a little, we stopped in front of the fourteen perfectly hewed steps that led into Hamlin Hall. Moonlight and lit torches highlighted the strong, curved stones of the portico covering the doors. Hamlin was majestic and isolated, a lovely loner in the countryside.
“Someone lit the grand chandelier. Good,” the duke said.
It was the biggest, brightest wrought iron fixture I’d ever seen. As a new bride in August of 1810, I stood under that chandelier and watched my husband leave for London the night he’d abandoned me here.
He said it was for my protection, my comfort, for his, for a hundred other excuses, but I was made to stay at Hamlin and accept his comings and goings.
“What a house.” The duke’s breathing was heavy, and his voice sounded wistful, but I could barely fill my lungs.
Colin and I had a marriage of misunderstandings, a morass of letters inked with halfhearted apologies, a mattress made for two that, almost always, held one.
Then Markham told me Colin was dead.
All before my twenty-fourth birthday.
“We’ve caught our breath, son. We move forward, now.”
The duke pulled me, but I couldn’t move. “How, sir? How do we go forward? The obstacles . . . these steps are too steep.”
“Son, it’s just one foot in front of the other. That’s how I do it, even if I need a crutch.”
Where was my crutch?
I had none, nothing to take away my guilt. Colin’s suicide was my fault. My last note pushed him into the Thames as surely as his depressed thoughts.
“Young man, you’re fatigued. See, my weight is too much. Gird your loins.”
“What?” I wasn’t sure I had those. My eyes crossed as I stared at him. “What, Duke?”
“Strengthen your hold. I’m not looking to fall, not on a night where I’ve caught that rascal. Markham will be evicted on the hour. He’ll be away from my ward.”
That was the crutch I needed, the duke taking Lionel from the scoundrel.
Maybe I should say who I was, a widow dressed as a man and . . . and get tossed out of Hamlin, too.
I grunted, then forced myself to take a step, then another.
The duke, this stocky man of six foot four or more hopped onto the first step. Was he pausing for me? Was I slowing him down?
I made my voice deeper. “Let’s continue. I don’t think I’ll dump you, sir. Yet.”
“You have a good sense of humor for a crutch.” The duke pulled out his pocket watch. “Only five minutes have passed. Still on schedule.”
Gantry stepped in front of us with a wooden staff and presented it as if he held a sword. “Here, Repington. It’s better than a minion for keeping your balance.”
The duke allowed him to slip it under the arm I held up. Standing on his own, he released me and powered up the next step. “Is the perimeter manned?”
“Yes. . . .
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