The Wild One (14 page)

Lord Gareth studied the old innkeeper for a
long moment, frowning.

"I say, Crawley ... about that statue — I am
sorry. I'll fix it for you when I return." He gave a wan smile, and
flipped the innkeeper a coin in appreciation for the information
about the woman. Then he gave the big hunter its head and sent the
animal thundering off after his friends.

Crawley watched him go. Then, shaking his
head, he hefted the cask of ale and carried it inside.

The Beloved One going off to America and
getting himself killed.

The Defiant One trying to invent a flying
machine.

And now the Wild One, vandalizing statues
and ruining innocent young women.

The duke might be the devil's kin, but
Crawley didn't envy His Grace The Wicked One one bit.

Chapter 10

She had caught the stage in Ravenscombe.

They made good time. The road, rutted and
puddled, had taken them through spectacular chalk downs and
pastures fenced by hedgerows, through humble villages and market
towns and along the banks of a peaceful river that one of the other
passengers said was the Thames. But heavy clouds foretold an early
nightfall, and by the time they reached Hounslow, it had begun to
rain.

Juliet watched the passing scenery with a
sort of dismal fortitude. The weather reflected her spirits, though
her future did not seem as bright as the green fields outside the
window, the purple aubrietia that spilled over garden walls, the
gay red and yellow tulips, the thousands of tiny daisies and
dandelions that carpeted the grassy pastures. England's spring was
well underway, but back in Boston, the flowers would only be just
starting to bloom, as though unsure whether to emerge after a long
and brutal winter.

Boston.

A town turned upside down, torn apart by war
and strife. She gazed out the window, dry-eyed and unblinking. Not
the best place for a young, unwed mother to bring up a baby and
certainly, no longer a safe one. Especially when people thought you
were a Loyalist.

And your baby's father was rumored to be one
of the enemy.

She let her body rock with the motion of the
coach. Best to stay in England, conserve the money the duke had
given her, and find work in London as a wet nurse or something.

Rabbits sat up and watched from the verge as
the coach hurtled past. Sheep grazed in distant pastures whose
horizons vanished into gray mist and low, rushing clouds. A
pheasant, calling in alarm, glided over a field of new, minty-green
wheat. With a pang, Juliet thought of Andrew and his flying
machine, of Nerissa defending him, of Gareth with his seductive,
romantic eyes.

And of the duke.

From the moment Juliet had awoken that
morning she knew that something must have happened overnight. She
had heard the giggles of the chambermaids as they hurried past in
the corridor outside. She had felt the tension in the air as she
made her way down to breakfast. And she had seen it in His Grace's
face when she quietly took her seat at the table.

He had not said a word to anyone as he
sipped his black coffee and read his paper. His mood was such that
even Nerissa and Andrew, exchanging swift, puzzled glances, had
been uncharacteristically silent. Only the brief drumming of the
duke's beringed fingers on the tabletop had betrayed some inner
agitation that he had not allowed his face to show. He had waited
only long enough for Nerissa and Andrew to make their excuses; then
he'd stood up, his gaze falling on Juliet. "Come with me to the
library," was all he'd said, and she had known then that the news
was going to be bad.

She had seen the veiled shadows around his
eyes, the weariness in his bleak and forbidding face as he leaned
against the mantle and raked a hand through his hair. She had
quietly taken a seat in response to his invitation — and then sat
there feeling everything crash inside her as he had calmly
explained that it was not possible for him to make Charlotte his
ward.

He offered no explanations for his decision,
nothing. Just said he could not do it.

And Juliet had stared at him numbly, as
stunned and empty as a ship suddenly becalmed, holed, beginning to
sink.
This is it, then. Pretty much what I had expected, I
guess. Farewell, hopes. Farewell, Charles, and your wish for your
daughter's future. Farewell, de Montfortes, because I cannot stay
here now...
"

You are welcome to remain at Blackheath for
as long as you wish, of course," the duke had murmured in that
disaffected, benign way of his that said he really didn't care one
way or another what she did. But Juliet couldn't remain. Not now.
She had too much pride to throw herself on the charity of a man who
did not want her little girl. She could not live in a house with
him knowing how he felt, could not raise her daughter where she
would grow up knowing she was not wanted by the man who fed and
clothed her. Never. Far better to take her little baby far away,
where her mother's love would enfold her and protect her from such
people as her unfeeling uncle....

She had quickly packed her things. The duke
had been waiting for her in the Great Hall, standing alone near the
suits of medieval armor. The silence of the ages had echoed around
him.

"I will tell my siblings of your decision
after you have gone," he'd said simply. "Better not to make a
scene, I think."

"But I should like to say good-bye —"

"It is for the best."

His face had been as much an enigma as the
man himself. Wordlessly, he had escorted her out to his own private
carriage waiting out in the drive to take her into Ravenscombe.
There he had courteously handed her up into the vehicle, passed
Charlotte to her, and stood there studying her for a long moment
while the footmen had lashed her trunk to the top and a groom stood
at attention by the horses' heads.

And then he had pulled a fat pouch from his
pocket and pressed it into her hand.

"Take this. It will keep you and your
daughter safe, even if I cannot."

Money. A
lot
of money. Her pride
demanded she hand it back. Her practical nature, that he had so
praised, bade her to accept and be grateful for it.

She had taken it. Thanked him for it. And
seen, in his inscrutable black gaze, the brief gleam of something
she could not identify before the door was shut, he bowing deeply,
and the coach rolled down Blackheath's long drive of crushed stone,
taking her away forever.

She had not looked back.

Now, as the stagecoach thundered down the
road, the gray Thames occasionally peeping from behind the newly
clothed stands of English oak, hawthorn, sycamore and chestnut,
Juliet told herself she had no reason to grieve. After all, she
hadn't really expected that one so high and mighty as the Duke of
Blackheath would deign to acknowledge his own bastard child, let
alone his brother's. She had known all along that he wouldn't help
her, hadn't she?

But what about Lord Gareth? Why did he fail
us, as well? I thought he was my friend.

She blinked back stinging tears of
betrayal.

When the stage stopped at a coaching inn in
Hounslow, she took a room for the night, deciding to continue on to
London in the morning. Carrying Charlotte and her trunk, she stood
at the counter and waited for the innkeeper to fetch a room key.
The door stood open behind her. Rain fell steadily, plopping into
puddles and making her feel all the more homesick and alone. Mixed
scents of damp vegetation, horse manure, and hyacinth came in on
the breeze, mingling with the stale aroma of beer and smoke, a
scent that the rain seemed to bring out of the old stone walls of
the coaching inn all the more.

She carried Charlotte up to their room,
fighting despair and vowing to make the best of things. Beyond her
window and the slate roof that shone with rain, she could see the
trees waving in the breeze, dark against a dark sky. English rain,
English cobbles, English trees, English wind. How out of place she
felt. How far away from home. Oh, what she wouldn't give to have
Charles here by her side....

Or even Lord Gareth, for that matter.

Pain sliced through her. Best not to think
of the de Montfortes. Best to look forward, not backward. She
washed the baby's napkins and hung them up to dry beside the fire,
trying to take her mind off things and telling herself she wasn't
as lonely as she suddenly felt. She put the duke's pouch of money
beneath the pillow, fed Charlotte, then picked at the supper the
landlord kindly sent up to her. But she kept seeing Gareth's
charming smile, those romantic blue eyes. Kept seeing him lying in
his bed, playing with Charlotte, laughing down at her as they raced
home the day of that spring thunderstorm. A lump rose in her
throat. She pretended that he meant nothing to her, absolutely
nothing. She pretended that it really hadn't hurt that he had not
come out to stop her from leaving — as she had thought that he
would. And outside the rain still fell, that tarnal, infernal rain,
streaming down the window's cracked glass and trickling down the
slates, pulling at the awful lonesomeness until it became
unbearable.

She felt suddenly alone in a world that was
much, much bigger than herself.

A half-hour later, her dark hair hung in a
plait down her back, her petticoats, gown, and cloak were draped
over a chair, and she, clad only in her chemise, was sliding
beneath the cold bedsheets, Charlotte beside her.

Outside, the rain fell softly, and somewhere
in the distance sheep bleated, a lonely sound in the vast English
night. She felt every one of the three thousand miles that
separated her from Boston, from home. Her eyes burnd with sudden
tears.

I failed you, Charles. I failed you, and
your brothers failed
us
. I'm sorry. God help me, I'm
sorry... I tried my best.

The back of her throat ached. Her nose
burned. Beyond the window, the rain came down and down and
down.

I will not cry.

Tears wouldn't win her a duke's sympathy.
Tears wouldn't gain her a home, a family, or a future for her baby.
Tears wouldn't change her situation one bit. She set her jaw and
determined to cry no more, to get on with her life and make the
best of things. As her mama used to say, the only thing tears ever
brought a person were wrinkles before their time. She would not
give in to them.

But a single one slipped down her cheek and
melted into the pillow.

Then another.

Suddenly there was movement on the pillow
beside her — Charlotte, reaching for her in the darkness, her
little hand grasping. Swallowing hard, Juliet pushed her forefinger
into the baby's palm, feeling the tiny fingers close around hers
with surprising strength.

She choked back the sobs, reached deep
inside herself and found strength. They were in this together, the
two of them. She had failed Charles, but she would not fail her
baby.

On that thought, Juliet closed her eyes, and
eventually, lulled by the rain falling steadily beyond the windows,
found sleep.

~~~~

"Stop here — we must check every major
coaching inn from Ravenscombe to London!"

The Den of Debauchery members reined up
their steaming horses outside yet another inn. Before Crusader
could even come to a stop, Gareth was out of the saddle, leaping
puddles and charging through the front door.

He was back a moment later, frantic with
disappointment and rising anxiety as he leeaped back aboard the
tired horse.

"Not there," he cried, yanking his hat down
against the rain and setting his heels to the animal's sides. "Damn
it, we must find her!"

~~~~

At about the same time that Juliet Paige was
settling down to sleep, and a soaked and streaming Gareth de
Montforte was charging out of the Hare and Horses, the Duke of
Blackheath was calmly finishing his evening meal.

He was not alone. His closest friend, who
had dropped by for an impromptu visit several hours after Lord
Gareth had stormed off and set the house in an uproar, sat across
the table from him. Sir Roger Foxcote, Esquire, had first met the
duke in '74, just after the barrister had been knighted for his
brilliant defense of a prominent Whig MP accused of murdering his
wife. Lady Chessington had been found in the bedroom of their
London town house with a knife through her heart, and, as everyone
knew she and her husband were estranged, a hangman's noose had
seemed quite imminent for poor old Sir Alan. No barrister in the
land would defend him. He was a good friend of the king, and if
Chessington went to the gallows, so would any royal favors for the
man who failed to save him. But Foxcote, twenty-five years old at
the time and eager to prove himself, had accepted the case. On the
stand, he had dramatically exposed Lady Chessington's lover as the
murderer, and the news had swept the country. When the tumult had
died down, the grateful king, beside himself with elation, had
wasted no time in bestowing upon his "Clever Fox" a knighthood for
his efforts.

The nickname had stuck. And so had the
reputation.

Fox, the second son of an aristocratic
Oxfordshire family, was not a diffident man. Nor was he
particularly restrained, either in his opinions or his dress. He
was handsome, something of a dandy. But those who knew him, or knew
of him, were not deceived by appearances. Fox and his friend the
Duke of Blackheath were two of the most dangerous men in
England.

Tonight he and Blackheath lingered over
their port in the duke's immense dining room while his private
quartet struck up an after-dinner violin concerto. It was a
glorious room, with ornate plaster columns, Italian art, and scenes
of Bacchus and the gods painted on the high, friezed ceiling. Fox
liked this room well, but not because of its rich ambience; he was
in love with one of the portraits just over the doorway and enjoyed
looking at the beauty's mischievous eyes as he ate. It didn't
matter that Lady Margaret Seaford had lived and died nearly two
centuries past. Fox still liked to look at her.