Son of a Duke (24 page)

Nathan continued to stare out the window.

"I know, but there is something..." his voice trailed off, but Alec's worry grew despite the silence.

"Something?" he finally prompted.
 

Nathan nodded at the window.

"There is something about her that makes me think of family," Nathan said.

The worry was now a pounding along his brow.
 
The matter of Elenora Quinton ran deep indeed.

"What are you going to do?" Alec asked.
 

Nathan looked at him.
 

"I do not know.
 
I can barely take care of myself.
 
How am I to take care of her and Samuel?"
 

Alec let the carriage roll over a few more ruts before responding.
 

"Father would help," he said.
 

Nathan did not respond, but he did not need to.
 
Neither of Richard's sons would ask their father for help.
 
Richard would give it without a thought, but the sons were too proud to ask.
 

So that left the sons bouncing around in a carriage in silence on their way to a gaming hell by the wharf at three o'clock on a Tuesday afternoon.
 

"How is Sarah?" Nathan abruptly asked.
 

Alec looked down at his hands, fumbling with his thumbs.
 

"I am sorry," Nathan said.
 

Alec nodded.
 
"Me, too."
 

~

The Four of Clubs looked like something a cat had retched out of its stomach.
 

Mold oozed from around the stones that constructed its base as they were constantly blasted with salt watery air.
 
The door was large, wooden, cracked and tilting to one side.
 
The windows that were on the front were blacked out with dark material.
 
A man, limping on a wooden stick, missing one leg and with a coat torn around the hem, knocked on the door and waited.
 
The door opened a crack, and the man with one leg spoke.
 
The door opened wide enough to let him shuffle in.
 

Nathan and Alec leaned away from the window of the carriage.
 

"This might be a problem," Alec said watching the door close on the one legged man.
 

"Whoever is doing this knows who I am," Nathan said.
 

Alec nodded.
 

"If you try to go inside and they are in there, they will recognize you surely."

Nathan looked at Alec, and he could tell that Alec was thinking the same thing as him.
 

"I believe this is the one time that our similarity will bite us in the ass," Nathan said.
 

Alec looked down at himself and then studied Nathan.
 

"Maybe not."

"How do you figure?" Nathan asked.
 

"They are expecting you to look like that."
 
Alec pointed at Nathan's greatcoat and muddy boots.
 
"They are not expecting you to look like this."
 
He then pointed to his own fine attire.
 

Nathan nodded.
 

"Strip," he said and began to unbutton his greatcoat.
 

Minutes later Nathan felt the bile rise in his throat when something resembling a human being opened the door of the Four of Clubs.
 

"Wata ye want?" it asked.
 

Assuming it was English, Nathan responded.
 
"Afternoon.
 
I have come to rid myself of a lot of money."
 
Actually, between he and Alec, they had managed five pounds.
 
But It did not have to know that.
 

It nodded and held open the door.
 

Nathan drew a last breath of fresh air and plunged into the crowded gaming hell.
 

~

Alec thought he could climb that.
 

Nathan's greatcoat billowed around him in the breeze behind the Four of Clubs, and Alec suddenly wanted his hat back.
 
His ears were cold.
 

The open window was on the second floor.
 
He could climb not so rotted looking crates, use the drainpipe for leverage to the hole in the crumbling rock of the building and then just one last heave into the window.
 
He could do it.
 

So he did.
 

The hole in the crumbling rock was slightly smaller than it looked from the ground.
 
He struggled to wedge his boot in it.
 
The drainpipe creaked ominously, and Alec tried to remember a prayer.
 
Then his boot caught, and Alec heaved in the direction of the open window.
 
He flew, less than gracefully, over the ledge and into the worst stench he had ever experienced.
 
Beer, smoke, and way too many bodily fluids mixed together.
 
He stuck his head back out the window, gasping.
 

And then he heard a voice.
 
A small voice.
 
A voice that said, rather politely, that it had to use the chamber pot.
 

Alec brought his head back in and looked around.
 
The hallway was dark, and the floor was sticky as Alec shifted his boots.
 
There were three doors to the right and a stairway to the left.
 
Which door was the lucky one?
 

He tried a step on the sticky boards, and when no creaking erupted, he took another one.
 
Pausing in front of the first door, he listened.
 
A woman was breathily asking someone to do something to her harder, so Alec moved quietly to the next door.
 
This door was silent.
 
Alec moved to the last one.
 
He heard some shuffling.
 
There was a pause.
 
More shuffling.
 
Alec waited.
 

Finally a voice came.
 
"Aren't ye done yet?"
 

The response was too muffled for Alec to hear it, but he did not need to.
 
He grabbed the knob and found it loose.
 
He swung open the door, beaming whoever was standing behind it.
 
The man was thrown into the wall and lost his balance.
 
On his way down, he tried to draw the pistol stuck in his trousers.
 
Alec searched for something to knock the man out with.
 

"Here."
 
A heavy wine bottle was stuck in his hand.
 

Alec brought it up and swung it before the man could dislodge the pistol.
 

The man grunted and passed out.
 

Alec looked down at his side.
 

"Thank you," he said to the boy beside him.
 

The boy backed up.
 
"You are not Nathan."

Alec saw the wariness but turned to shut the door first.
 

"No, I am not.
 
I am Nathan's brother, Alec."
 
He set the bolt this time, hoping it would hold.
 
The screws were starting to work their way out of the boards of the door though, so he doubted it would hold much.
 

The young boy who Alec presumed was Samuel did not speak.
 
Alec glanced over him, attempting not to frighten him.
 
The boy looked to be in solid shape.
 
A bit dirty, but he did not appear to be hurt.

"Your mother is safe with our father, the Duke of Lofton."
 
Alec kept talking with his voice low, as if soothing a wild animal.
 

"You are wearing Nathan's coat," Samuel said.
 

"Yes, I am.
 
And he is wearing mine."
 
Alec smiled slowly, trying not to frighten.
 

"What are you two doing?" Samuel asked, scrutiny written on his face.

"Honestly?"
 

Samuel nodded.
 

"I do not really know," Alec said.
 

~

Nathan held the mug of ale but was not brave enough to drink it.
 

He studied the people around him.
 
Mostly what the gutters had spit back out with the rare gentlemen between them.
 
The gentlemen were not ones that Nathan had ever seen.
 
He wondered as to their reasons for being in such a dive.
 
Then he remembered what he was wearing and wondered even more.
 

"Ye lookin' to 'ave some fun, sir?"
 

A skinny woman with little hair and less teeth bumped into him, sending ale out of the mug and onto the floor.
 

"No, thank you," Nathan said, creeping away.
 

He looked around the room again, seeing if there were three big blokes and one nasty little one with red hair grouped together anywhere.
 
A haze of smoke clouded most of the occupants' heads, but Nathan kept looking anyway.
 

"Ye be searching a long time, sir, and still not find what quenches ye thirst."
 

Nathan looked over at the barkeep.
 

"How is that?" he asked.

"What ye seek isn't here.
 
This hole is merely a stop over on a much longer journey."
 
He paused, filled a mug, and slid it down the length of the bar.
 
"The final stop being Dover, o' course."
 

Nathan waited, leery to take the bait.
 
Dover seemed too obvious, and the War Office had it crawling with agents now.
 

"But upstairs might slack ye thirst for now."
 

Nathan still did not move.
 

The man looked left and right before planting his grimy hands on the sticky bar and leaning in.
 

"For God's sake, Nathan, get your ass upstairs, get the boy, and then get to Dover.
 
Must I make myself more clear?"
 

Nathan almost dropped his mug.
 

"Wally?"

"Shh!" the man shot spittle from his grisly beard.
 
"Gibbs, man, it's Gibbs here."
 

Nathan nodded, set down his mug, and walked away from the bar.
 

A tiny, red haired man slouched in the corner, watched, and drank from a mug of ale.
 

~

"He truly is rather good at this sort of thing," Lady Stryden said probably to reassure Nora, but she did not feel like being reassured.
 

Nora felt like being rather depressed.
 
First Samuel was taken, and then Nathan went off after him to some dive by the river.
 
She was not open to reassurance.

The Countess of Stryden had returned to the drawing room rescuing Nora from her own torturous thoughts when the men had left for the gaming hell.
 
The duke and duchess of Lofton had still not returned, and Nora could only imagine what two seasoned spies were discussing in private.
 
Her mind was capable of conjuring up many things at the moment, and she was certain she could formulate an incredible story.
 

"Alec is not bad either, come to think of it," Sarah murmured drawing Nora's attention.
 

Nora looked up at her.
 
"Oh?"
 

"I am not talking about him," Sarah said firmly, moving briskly to refill her teacup.
 
She held the pot up to Nora questioningly.
 

"Oh, no thank you.
 
Any more and I may burst."
 

Sarah smiled and set the pot down.
 

"May I ask you a question, Sarah?" Nora asked.

Sarah sipped her tea and eyed her warily.
 
"I suppose."
 

"Why do you dislike your husband so?"
 

Sarah set her cup back into the saucer.
 

"I do not dislike him.
 
I loathe him," she said.
 

Nora nodded.
 
"Then why do you watch him so closely when you think no one is looking?"

Sarah choked on her tea, and Nora worried she had overstepped her boundaries.
 
The borrowed gown was giving her a confidence she did not know, and it was going to get her into trouble.
 
But there was something about the Earl and Countess of Stryden that upset Nora.
 
And she wanted the matter resolved.
 

"I beg your pardon?" Sarah said, wiping her mouth with a napkin from the tea cart.
 

"You watch him," Nora said, "Like you are afraid he is suddenly going to leave.
 
And you want to make sure you catch him, so you can stop him."
 

"Alec is not going to leave," Sarah said.
 

Nora smiled.
 

"I never said he was."
 

Sarah set her cup on the table between them and leaned back to look at the ceiling.
 

Nora waited, listening to the fire in the hearth, studying the shelves of fine intricate China figurines that surrounded the drawing room, hearing the tick of the clock.
 

Finally Sarah spoke.
 
"He is going to leave, and I do not know when."
 

"How do you know?" Nora asked.

Sarah brought her head back down and looked at Nora.
 
"He deserves better than an orphan for a wife."