My Dangerous Duke (12 page)

“O’Banyon wanted her for himself,” Peter added hoarsely. “He still does, once she’s served her purpose.”

“What purpose?” Rohan demanded.

“I swear, sir, I don’t know!”

At his words, Kate shivered from more than just the cold, but she rallied her courage. “Tell us about O’Banyon,” she ordered Pete. “What do you know about him?”

He glanced fearfully at Rohan.

“Answer the question,” the duke commanded.

Pete swallowed hard. “My cousin Denny said O’Banyon used to live just over in Brixham years ago.”

Rohan eased his grip on him slightly.

“He went to sea with the navy or something,” Pete continued. “He was gone for a decade or more. Then he came back. Showed up at Birty’s Tavern down by the pier, looking to find some help for some new scheme. That’s the first I heard of him or what he was planning.” He shook his head. “I knew right away Denny was gettin’ us both in over our heads. It was no good. I wanted to ask my uncle’s advice. But Denny said I was yellow. Twenty guineas apiece plus whatever we could carry from her house.”

“Not a bad deal,” the duke murmured in biting irony. “Was O’Banyon targeting other girls or just Miss Madsen?”

Pete frowned and looked at him for a moment. “Madsen, sir? No. That ain’t her name.”

Kate began to scoff. “Don’t start that again!”

But Peter was staring at Rohan with a gaze that seemed to plead for forgiveness. “O’Banyon let it slip her name is Fox. Kate Fox. As in …” His voice trailed off, but the duke appeared suddenly riveted.

“As in … Gerald Fox?” Rohan murmured.

“Aye, Your Grace.” Peter nodded slowly, holding his stare. “That is why Uncle Caleb vowed we had to get rid of her.”

Kate did not know why Rohan had gone so still. “This is nonsense,” she informed him. “I think I would know my own name!”

“Would you, now?” He turned around and pinned her in a stare full of sudden dark suspicion.

Chapter 7

R
ohan’s whole body had tensed.
Gerald Fox.
He knew that name from his boyhood days. The ex-Marine gone bad, a bloody hurricane on two legs—the privateer captain who had got his start with the local smugglers.

Years ago, the bold, brash Captain Fox had served Rohan’s father in the same capacity that the tamer Caleb Doyle now served
him
. Delivering messages. Spiriting agents back and forth between England and the Continent, no questions asked.

Unwitting courier to the Order.

An extraordinarily dangerous job, but very well paid. A man could lose his life in it.

Or his soul.

At once, Rohan’s mind whirled back to the last case his father had handled for the Order before he died.

The DuMarin affair …

Twenty-odd years ago, while the Red Terror had raged in France, the previous duke had hired Captain Fox for the dangerous mission of secretly transporting a beautiful French aristocrat girl to safety in America.

Lady Gabrielle DuMarin—the informant’s daughter. The DuMarins had been a leading family of the Prometheans. Indeed, they were descendents of the very Alchemist who had laid the curse on Rohan’s line.

All he knew was that after Lady Gabrielle DuMarin had sailed away with Captain Fox, neither had ever been heard from again.

Now Peter Doyle’s claim that Kate’s last name was Fox suddenly had Rohan wondering if she might be the product of a forbidden union between the English captain and the young French belle.

“What is the matter?” Kate exclaimed. “You’re looking at me as if you’ve seen a ghost! Who is Gerald Fox, anyway? I don’t know anyone by that name.”

“How old are you?” he asked abruptly.

“Twenty-two.” She shook her head with a mystified frown. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

The very ground seemed to toss beneath his feet.

The timing matched.

It was almost too uncanny even for
his
superstitious brain to accept. He stared at her with a chill in his bones, like someone had just walked across his grave.

God, he had known from the first moment he had seen her in the great hall that somehow their destinies were intertwined.

But if the suspicions now flooding his mind were true, then that meant that Kate
… had Promethean blood.

And he trusted her at his own peril.

Good God, if she was a creature of the enemy, then he saw that she had played him expertly so far. Laudanum? A perfect ruse to make him lower his defenses.

Obviously, no well-trained spy would ever willingly take leave of their senses on the job—and that could be exactly what she wanted him to think.

Perhaps she had even tricked the smugglers into playing an unwitting role in her game.

If Drake, the Order’s captured agent, had given up Rohan’s identity under torture, then the Prometheans need only look at his rakish mode of life in London to see that, while any man attempting to come at him with a weapon would probably not survive, a woman would have a much easier time getting close to him.

Close enough to sink a knife into his back?

Was Kate the one they had sent to slay him in her own delicate way—to beguile him and perhaps, in time, to lead him to his doom?

Impossible!
he thought, unable to believe it as he searched her troubled green eyes, trying to discern the truth.

On the other hand, he had battled the Prometheans long enough to know better than to put any sort of elaborate ruse past them. What lengths would they not go to, especially if they thought they had finally found a way to target one of the Order’s most capable assassins?

He had to find out more.

Like who Kate really was, if there was any truth to her kidnapping tale, and, if not, what the hell she was really doing here.

Turning back to Peter Doyle, Rohan was now doubly eager to continue his interrogation, but until he knew the truth about Kate—whether she was an innocent or some enemy spawn—he did not want her made privy to the rest of this conversation.

“Why did you ask me how old I am?” she pursued, while Rohan stared at Pete.

He kept his back to her, so she wouldn’t notice any change in his demeanor—and because he suddenly did not want to face the acute temptation of her beauty.
Promethean blood!
God, and to think he had almost made love to her last night.

“Naturally, Miss Madsen, if you were underage,” he said smoothly, “that would make their crime against you even more abominable.”

“Oh. I see.” She sounded mollified, but Pete, meanwhile, cringed before his dark stare.

“I’m tellin’ ye the truth, m’lord! Her name is Fox, not Madsen!”

“Peter, I don’t know sort of game you think you’re playing,” Rohan replied in a businesslike tone, “but you can quit wasting your breath and my time on these foolish lies. Obviously, the lady would know her own name, just as she said. Go upstairs now, Kate,” he ordered. “I’m afraid this conversation is about to get more serious. I warned you to cooperate, Peter.”

“But, sir!”

“Rohan, you needn’t shield me—”

“Parker! Wilkins!” he barked, ignoring her protest. “Escort Miss Madsen upstairs. Have Eldred show her to one of the guest rooms. And stay with her, in case she needs anything,” he added with a sharp glance over his shoulder at his men.

Parker’s eyes instantly registered the stern warning behind his communicative look. “Yes, sir! Miss Madsen, if you’ll come with us now.”

“I will not! Your Grace, this is as much my business as yours! Besides, as soon as my back is turned, this weasel is going to start lying about me, I know it!”

Her protests sounded a little too emphatic for his peace of mind. “Miss Madsen, you will go, now, of your own accord, or I will have you forcibly removed.”

She stopped, looking startled at the rumble of thunder in his command. “Fine,” she replied stiffly after another stubborn heartbeat. Pivoting in her borrowed boots, she flounced out of the cell, muttering under her breath, “If that’s the way you want to be about it!”

Watch her,
he told his men with a hard look as she marched back up the shadowy corridor ahead of them.

Parker nodded to him and followed her. Wilkins also fell into step. At least he could count on his men to obey, whether or not they understood the whys and wherefores.

When Rohan turned back to Peter Doyle, the young man braced for a thrashing. “Please don’t kill me, sir! I swear on me granny’s grave, I’m tellin’ the truth—”

“Be quiet!” he whispered harshly, grabbing him by his grimy lapels. “I believe you!”

Peter stopped, his eyes widening. “You do?”

“Peter, our two families have been associated for a very long time. Your people have long been the Warringtons’ tenants, and we have always looked out for the Doyles. Now, I don’t want to inflict any unpleasantness on you, God knows. With the lady out of the way, perhaps we can speak frankly.” He released the lad’s coat.

Peter sank against the wall, staring at him in wonder and stunned, newfound hope. “Aye, sir, gladly!”

“Good. Now, listen to me. You can get yourself out of this hellhole and into more comfortable quarters if you will answer my questions with complete and total honesty. Agreed?”

Peter nodded quickly with a gulp. “Aye, sir! Agreed!”

“What makes you think she’s Gerald Fox’s daughter?”

“O’Banyon mentioned it. He kept callin’ her Miss Fox, but I didn’t think nothin’ of it till I saw Uncle Caleb’s reaction to that name.”

Rohan narrowed his eyes. “So, your uncle
is
involved?”

“Not like that, sir—Uncle Caleb had nothin’ to do with the kidnapping. But afterwards, well, we couldn’t keep her hidden from him very long. She’s a loud, angry, rowdy lass when she’s a mind to fight. Pirate’s daughter, plenty.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed.”

“When some of the womenfolk found out we had her, they insisted we tell Uncle Caleb about her. They said we must have his permission to hide her in the village, and if
we
wouldn’t go to our uncle ourselves,
they
would rat us out. So, we had no choice. We went and told my uncle what we done, and showed the girl to him.”

“What did he say?”

“He was furious.” Pete gave a morose shrug. “He said we’d brought down ruin on the whole village. He was scared to death that Captain Fox was goin’ to come with his whole wicked pirate crew and sack our town when he heard what we done to his daughter. Fear o’ Cap’n Fox is why Uncle Caleb planned to pass her off to you,” Pete admitted. “Better the devil you know, he said—no disrespect intended.”

Rohan quirked an eyebrow and folded his arms across his chest. “Pete, your uncle’s well aware that Captain Fox disappeared over twenty years ago. The man’s presumed dead, so why would your uncle expect Captain Fox to come with his men and sack the village?”

Pete’s eyes slowly grew as round as saucers.

“What is it?” Rohan prodded, waiting. “Come, you can’t quit now, Pete. A comfortable room in the tower awaits you. No rats. No foul smells. No phantoms,” he added knowingly. “Answer me, or you’re staying down here with the others.”

The lad glanced about nervously, then screwed up his courage. “My uncle thinks Cap’n Fox is still out there somewhere on the sea, alive and well. And he ain’t the only one to say so.”

“Really?” Rohan murmured, scrutinizing him.

“O’Banyon claimed he worked for Cap’n Fox aboard his ship just a couple o’ years ago. Served as first mate, chasing merchant vessels all across the seas. That’s how O’Banyon learned about the daughter and where she was livin’ in Devonshire under the false name her father gave her many years ago.”

Rohan furrowed his brow.

“See, O’Banyon found out about Miss Kate from working on Fox’s ship,” Pete explained. “There were letters from the girl’s caretaker datin’ back for years. He said the daughter was Captain Fox’s one Achilles’ heel. Take the girl, O’Banyon said, and you can get her father.”

“Why would O’Banyon want to ‘get’ Cap’n Fox?”

“Partly for revenge,” Pete admitted. “I don’t know the whole story, sir, but there’s bad blood between ’em. The two was close for a while—Cap’n Fox and O’Banyon, like father and son. Fox was grooming O’Banyon to take over the ship for him in a few more years.”

“Hm.”

“But something must’ve come between ’em, for now they are sworn enemies,” Pete continued. “Fox got so fed up with O’Banyon that he tricked him into getting caught by a bounty hunter—that’s how O’Banyon ended up in Newgate.”

“Newgate?” Rohan echoed.

“Aye, O’Banyon was supposed to be hanged for piracy, Yer Grace, but he got out, and now he wants revenge on Fox for gettin’ him thrown into gaol in the first place. That’s all I know, but I have a feelin’ there’s more to it that O’Banyon didn’t tell me.”

“Hold on.” Rohan shook his head. “O’Banyon was in Newgate?” he repeated.

“Aye, sir, he bragged of it constantly, how hard he was, that it didn’t break ’im.”

“Nobody gets out of Newgate unless it’s in a coffin or a gallows cart.”

Pete was looking increasingly frightened.

“Did O’Banyon say how he got out? Well?” He braced his hand against the rough stone wall. “I’m waiting, Peter. Would you rather I ask Denny?”

“No, sir,” he forced out, steadying himself with a deep breath. “O’Banyon claimed that some Old Man came down to Newgate and sprung him.” He hesitated. “A lord.”

“Well, well,” Rohan murmured barely audibly. All things considered, his first thought was of James Falkirk, the Promethean magnate believed to be holding their captured agent, Drake. “What is this lord’s name?”

“O’Banyon refused to speak it. He just referred to him as the Old Man.” Pete’s voice dropped to a whisper: “Sir, it was the Old Man who paid for the job.”

“The kidnapping?”

“Aye.” He nodded grimly. “That’s where O’Banyon got the gold that he paid out to Denny and me, and the other sum, too, for the girl’s upkeep while we guarded her.”