My Dangerous Duke (11 page)

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Authors: Gaelen Foley

BOOK: My Dangerous Duke
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Shoving the fear away, she nodded bravely. She was going to have to trust somebody sometime.
He regarded her in approval. “Good. Then let’s go get some answers.”
Laying hold of her courage, Kate followed as the Beast descended the cobwebbed stairs into the eerie netherworld beneath Kilburn Castle. She stayed close to him, trailing right behind him like his shadow.
At the bottom of the stairs, the three black-clad guards on duty were warming themselves by a small blaze in the fire pit. They stood at attention when they saw the duke. “Your Grace, sir!”
“At ease.” Reaching the bottom of the stairs, he greeted his men with a nod, then he turned to hand her down the rest of the way. His chivalrous gesture surprised her.
“We need to have a look at your prisoners,” he informed the guards.
“Aye, sir.” Asking no questions, they picked up their weapons, lifted torches from old iron sconces on the walls, and hastened to accommodate their lord’s request.
Around here, it was obvious his word was law. Kate sent him a suspicious glance as the guards escorted the two of them down a rough-hewn corridor that surely led to some back door of Hell.
“Why do you keep so many guards around here?” she murmured.
He raised an eyebrow, looking askance at her. “I don’t know … I just like having people to order around.”
She couldn’t help but smile at his wry nonanswer.
“Come on,” he ordered with a low timbre almost of affection in his deep voice.
As they moved deeper into the cavelike labyrinth of the dungeon, the echo of the soldiers’ bootheels striking rock rebounded all around them. Various aisles of rusty bars branched off this way and that.
Kate did not envy the soldiers their dark and clammy post, but it did not seem to bother them.
Torchlight flickered over the huge stone blocks that made up the castle’s foundations. A faint, foul-smelling draft moved up the inky corridor and blew gently on the shredded gray veils of hanging cobwebs, causing them to float upon the air. She glanced repeatedly over her shoulder. This place raised the hackles on her nape.
As they approached the dank cells housing the prisoners, Rohan leaned closer and murmured in her ear, “They’re in the cells ahead. Now, you tell me if any of these men took part in your abduction, all right?”
She nodded, warding off a startling frisson evoked by his nearness.
As they pressed on, desperate male faces began to appear behind the rusted bars of these godforsaken cells.
“Yer Grace!” The first was a tall, lumpy mountain of a young man with a sweaty face. “For the love o’ God, let us out of ’ere, sir!”
“The prisoner will not speak unless spoken to,” the head guard clipped out, his warning rolling down the dark corridor to the men in the other cells.
The imprisoned smugglers began to stir, leaving the stone slabs that served as their cots and coming to the bars to see what was happening.
Knowing she could come face-to-face with her kidnappers at any second, Kate felt her heart begin to pound. Instinct had her edging closer to Rohan for safety in the dark. He gave her his arm, then laid his hand over hers where she had tucked it in the crook of his elbow.
The man in the next cell was a thick-necked smuggler with a bald head and a small hoop earring. She did not recognize him, but he stared at her in her footman’s garb in unwelcome curiosity.
“Eyes down!
”
Warrington snarled at him. “Don’t you look at her. Give me that.” He commandeered the torch from one of the guards and, from there, took over her guided tour of this hellish place personally.
Giving Kate his other arm, he raised the flame so she could inspect the man in the next cell.
Her blood ran cold at the sight of a shifty-looking man in his early twenties with greasy black hair and a scruffy jaw. “Him.” She held on to his arm more tightly.
“Denny Doyle,” he said softly. “I should have known.”
The prisoner offered no sign of respect, merely sent them a sullen glance over his shoulder. “What are you lookin’ at?”
“I hear you’ve added more than just shipwrecking to your list of accomplishments, Denny.”
“I don’t know nothin’ about it,” he replied with a shrug and a ready sarcasm, both learned, no doubt, at his smuggler mama’s knee.
The guards made a disapproving move toward him. Denny Doyle jumped up and whipped around in a fighter’s stance with his back to the wall, but Rohan held up his hand, calling off his men.
“In due time,” he cautioned them. “You and I will talk soon,” he added, pinning the miscreant with a foreboding stare. He glanced at Kate, then nodded toward the pitch-black corridor ahead. “Let’s continue, shall we?”
She swallowed hard and managed a nod.
“W-what’s going on, sir, please?” pleaded the skinny fellow in the next cell. “Has the Coast Guard come to take us away now?”
Spectacles perched atop his nose, but beneath it sat a scraggly attempt at a mustache, like a smudge of coal soot dirtying his upper lip. “Your Grace? Will you let me out, sir? I’ll cooperate, I promise. I don’t want to die!”
“Shut up!” One of the guards banged the bars with the butt of his musket.
The little man jumped back with a yelp, but when Kate shook her head to let Rohan know that this was not one of her kidnappers, the prisoner began to cry, seeing them moving on and leaving him behind.
“God! Let me out of here! There’s something down here, I tell you! Somethin’ unnatural!”
“Shut it, Fitch, you cockless worm,” Denny Doyle ordered from farther down the row in a tone of great disgust.
One of the guards scowled and marched back to tell him to pipe down, in turn, but Rohan merely sent Kate a dubious glance. “How are you holding up?”
“Well enough,” she answered grimly.
“Good. Charming fellows, aren’t they?”
She mustered a wry smile in answer.
He put his arm around her shoulders gently. “Come, we’re almost through. What about this one?” He nodded at the cell ahead.
It held a tall, lanky fellow with long, carrot red hair tied back in a queue. He unfolded his gangly limbs, shot up from his cot with a quick-tempered scowl, and glared at them.
She shook her head. “No.”
“One more, then,” Rohan murmured. “Another Doyle. This one is a cousin to the other. They’re both the old man’s nephews.”
Kate approached the last cell warily, gazed through the bars while Rohan held up the torch, and confirmed the last man’s guilt with a grim nod. “Yes. Him, too.”
“Me? What?” The fellow in the cell looked up with a blank air of utter innocence. “What’s she talkin’ about?”
“What, indeed?” Rohan answered dryly. “Peter Doyle, isn’t it?”
“Aye, Your Grace.” He stood and approached his overlord with a much humbler attitude than his cousin had shown. Sensible lad.
Rohan glanced at her. “You’re sure?” he clarified with a trace of regret in his low voice.
“Certain of it,” she replied.
“What do you want with me?” Peter Doyle whimpered.
The duke narrowed his eyes at him. “Oh, I think you know.”
“Huh?” He gulped at Rohan’s dark look and began backing away toward the corner of his cell.
Kate glared at the prisoner. “This was the man who held me at gunpoint in the carriage while the other two went in to rob my home, like I told you.”
“What the—what is she talking about?” Pete stammered, playacting amazement.
Kate seethed at his denial, but out of her three captors, he was the least intimidating.
Peter Doyle was a large but flabby rectangle of a man, also in his early twenties like his cousin, but with coarse and curly hair an uninteresting blond shade. He had nervous hazel eyes and something of a horse face.
“Is there something that you want to tell me, Pete?” Rohan focused his unnerving stare on the young man.
“Uhm, er, I …”
“Something to do with a kidnapping, perhaps, hm?”
“What? Sir!” he exclaimed with great indignation. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean!”
“Don’t you dare deny it!” Kate flew at him without warning, gripping the bars.
“Easy, Kate.”
“He was there! You dragged me from my home—”
“No, I—sir, the lass is daft. Kidnapped? What? Someone kidnapped you? I’m Caleb Doyle’s nephew!” he cried, his face beginning to look quite terrified by the flickering torchlight. “Sir, you’ve known my family for ages! Surely Your Grace cannot believe this harlot over me? Whatever she says, she’s lying!”
“Well, I believe her,” he answered softly.
“I am not a harlot,” Kate reminded him in a withering tone. “As you well know.”
“Aye, you are!” Peter insisted. “You want to become some rich man’s ladybird … in London! Remember?” His own conviction in his uncle’s lie seemed to be dwindling, but his eyes suddenly widened when Rohan took off his coat and handed it off to a guard.
Then he removed his gloves and loudly cracked his knuckles. “Show Miss Madsen upstairs,” he instructed his men. “Tell Eldred to see her settled into a guest room.”
“What are you doing?” Kate murmured.
“Unlock the cell,” he ordered the guard in an almost amiable tone.
“Miss, if you’ll come with me.” The guard gestured to her to follow.
“I’m not leaving! This is my affair as well as yours!”
“Run along, Kate.”
“You won’t want to see this, Miss,” the guard advised her in a low tone.
“I’m not going anywhere!” she protested, shaking off the guard’s light hold and turning to the duke.
He was staring at Peter Doyle like a wolf homing in on the weakest sheep in a flock.
“M-maybe she
should
stay!” Peter said with a gulp as he pressed himself flat against the far wall of his cell. “Like she said, it is her business, too, uh, right?”
“You’d appreciate that, I’m sure,” Rohan murmured.
“I thought you didn’t know anything, Peter!” Kate reproached him.
“I think … I might be remembering.” He gulped. “Please, Your Grace … can’t the lady stay?”
“Oh, now I’m a lady?” She shook her head at Pete in disgusted surprise. Obviously, the only reason he wanted her to remain was in the hope that the Beast would not unleash his full wrath in front of a woman.
Rohan was staring at Pete when she tapped him on his massive shoulder. “May I have a word with you, please, before you sound the trump for Armageddon?”
“Of course, Miss Madsen.” He turned to her, looking as unperturbed if he did this sort of thing every day.
He took her aside.
“Is this all of the men you’ve got captive?” Kate whispered.
He nodded, gazing into her eyes. “Why?”
“I don’t see O’Banyon, the leader.”
“Do you want to look at them again? I can have them brought upstairs into the light.”
“He’s not here.” She shook her head, then shuddered. “There’s no mistake. I could never forget that ugly face.”
“Maybe the Doyle boys will know where he is. Now, Kate, I really do think you’d better go upstairs.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked uneasily.
“Get answers, like I promised you. Don’t worry, you just leave it up to me.” He gave her a rather charming smile that chilled her, given his murderous intentions. “Run along, now. Eldred will show you to one of the guest chambers. You haven’t eaten breakfast yet, as I recall. I’ll let you know whatever I find out.”
So you say,
she thought with a frown, but she was not about to take his word for it.
“Don’t make me go, Rohan, please? After all they put me through, I deserve to hear for myself what this blackguard has to say! Besides, I’m the only one who can verify if he’s telling the truth,” she pointed out.
He took this in with a skeptical look, but as he straightened up, he shrugged to himself. “Very well, but I make no promises that what you see will not offend your sensibilities.”
“Sensibilities?” She snorted. “All I care about now is getting justice.”
His expression sobered at her fierce-toned words, but he nodded, then walked back to Peter’s cell.
Kate followed, masking her amazement that the mighty Beast had granted her request.
Eavesdropping by the bars, Pete began backing away again when he saw them coming. “She’s staying, right?” he asked nervously.
“Don’t look to me for help,” Kate replied in a breezy tone. “For my part, I hope he beats you senseless.”
“Now, then, Peter, dear lad.” Rohan sounded amused at her taunt.
“I don’t want any trouble, sir!”
“Then I suggest you take a seat and start talking.”
The guards slid back the door and let them in.
The duke stalked in first, filling up the space.
Kate hung back to watch the interrogation unfold from a safer distance, staying behind Rohan as her giant human shield. Peter didn’t sit down, he just kept backing away from the duke, like some poor Christian tossed in with a lion.
“Why was she taken? Did you three mean to sell her? Are there more girls you’re hiding down in the village?”
“God, no, Your Grace!” Peter blanched. “I swear, it ain’t nothin’ like that!”
“Then why did you kidnap her?”
There were several more rounds of denials before Rohan grabbed him by his shirt and threw him up against the rough stone wall. Peter squealed and looked away, squeezing his eyes shut in anticipation of a punch that did not come.
“You’d better start explaining.”
“It was O’Banyon’s idea!” he cried. “I was only doin’ as I was told!”
Kate held her breath.
“Denny said it would be good money! We didn’t hurt her, I swear! Nobody touched her! If she said otherwise, she’s lying!”
Rohan glanced over his shoulder at her with a piercing look of question; she conceded this point with a nod and a shrug. At least she had not been subjected to the most extreme form of violation.

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