The Duchess and the Dragon (37 page)

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Authors: Jamie Carie

BOOK: The Duchess and the Dragon
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But still, she was afraid. Was this new Drake someone she could trust? His motives seemed so pure these days, and yet she felt she didn’t even know him. Tears started to well up, blurring the painting.
“Dash this pregnancy!”
She wiped her tears away. Now was not the time for weeping. She must be strong. This meeting was about to dictate the course of their lives. She took a shuddering breath, readying to stand beside her husband, no matter what he deserved. Later, if he escaped this horrid tangle with his life intact, then she would consider their future and how she must proceed. Staring at the painting, she muttered the prayer that had become a salve to her mind: “Please, God, have mercy on my husband.”
The minutes dragged by, her pulse racing and then slowing so that she thought she might need to sit down. The room was nearly empty, many of the members of court purportedly out on the green viewing a flock of swans recently brought in from Germany for the king’s pleasure. Serena was glad. What little she knew of court life was intimidating in the best of circumstances. The questions and looks and behind-the-hand whispers had the room been crowded would have been excruciating.
DRAKE WAITED IN the growing silence.
He had stated his case, told of Ivor’s will and his plan to prepare Drake for the dukedom and then destroy the man he had raised as son. He told the king that he believed himself to be the son of Lord Richard Weston and produced the letter as evidence. And then Drake told His Royal Highness of his own diabolical plot to take back that which he’d believed stolen from him.
Finally, he asked the king for mercy, explaining that his Quaker wife was with child and his only desire now was to be a good husband and father and somehow provide for them in his homeland of Northumberland.
The king sat thinking and staring at Drake with beady eyes. Drake felt the hardness of his chair, his body straining to stand and pace.
“Your father—Ivor, that is—was a rascal and a liar.” The king’s statement carried sudden heat. “He and Robert Walpole had more than one fierce battle. Ha! But you—you have tread on the sanctity of the law and acted with vile greed.”
Drake nodded, but kept his mouth safely closed.
I will not defend my actions. I am in Your hands, God.
The king peered at him intently, and Drake felt a trickle of sweat run down his back.
“I shall have to consider what will be done with you. In the meantime, it would please us to see you consider your ways in the tower.”
Drake bowed low. “In the tower, my sovereign.” The words repeated themselves in his mind, numb but ringing. “Is there anything I can add to my defense?”
The king waved him away. “I have heard enough for today.” He turned to the guard at the door behind him. “Have this man escorted to the tower.” The bellowed order echoed about them.
Drake stood, shaking, and felt the guard grasp his upper arm and pull him toward the door, felt the newfound, untried foundation of faith waver, felt the old self rear its protective head to be noticed.
Upon entering the anteroom, Serena’s terror-filled gaze slammed into him, and again he felt the blow of his betrayal and its consequences.
“A moment with my wife,” he begged the guard.
The man turned indifferent eyes upon him, then nodded, letting go of Drake and summoning additional guards to do the actual transport.
Drake hurried to her side, taking up her hands in a tight clasp. “It’s not the worst yet, my love. The king wants to consider the matter and is having me bide my time in the tower until a decision is made. You must pray . . . and wait. I will not see you again until the matter is settled.”
Serena looked up into his eyes, tears glittering. “I had not thought of this. I thought at the least we would know.”
Drake nodded. “Nor I.” Two guards were coming toward him. “I love you.”
The men grasped his arms, escorting him away.
“Yes,” she managed back, though the word was tight with sobs. “Yes!”
SERENA TOOK A deep, fortifying breath and opened the door, leaving the sanctuary of the quiet walls of the townhouse. She knew what awaited her in the society of London. She had endured their scorn, their accusing or pitying stares for the past twenty days and she would endure it again today.
Liddell, her driver, a burly man who looked and acted more a guard, helped her into the carriage. At least there had not been anyone waiting outside her door. Many days she’d had to fight through the press of the curious and scornful to traverse the path to her carriage. So many seemed glad to see one of Drake’s class receive their comeuppance. She hadn’t allowed it to stop her, though. Every day she went to the palace and requested audience with the king. And every day she was turned away.
She stared out the window at the now-familiar streets, the shops and houses, as they crossed London, a city she had never dreamed she would ever see.
“Why me?” she whispered aloud. She talked to God often these days, almost exclusively. She sought Him as she had never known she could, and she knew deep within her one thing: She must fight for Drake’s life. It was her destiny to be his help and his hope . . . his
petit chevalier
, as he’d called her so long ago. If she never did another thing for him for the rest of her days, she would know that she had carried out her mission on earth concerning Drake Weston.
They swung up to the entrance where the guards tipped their tall hats at her with something like respect from their stolid posture. She nodded at them, no longer fearful in the familiarity of such routine.
The anteroom was also well-known, now crowded with members of the ton. Here, too, Serena rarely found a friendly face or heard an encouraging word. They all seemed hungry for the downfall of one of England’s greatest. Serena knew they hated what Drake had done, making them believe he was someone worthy of their respect because he held the title of duke. She knew they remembered how they had acquiesced to him and could only imagine how bitter that memory must be now. They’d bent their frame to an illegitimate son.
Albert and a friend or two of Drake’s were sometimes present to lend her support, but as she looked around she realized none were present today.
That suited Serena’s mood. Today she felt the stirrings of a battle within her. Her eyes swept over the people of the room, flashing in her conviction, silencing a few and challenging others. With regal ease—learned from Drake, yes, but rooted more in the rightness of her mission—she approached the king’s inner chamber.
“I would request audience with the king.” She stated it in a firm voice to the standing guard, ignoring the vicious chuckles in the background.
He nodded, as he had nodded to her every day. “Yes, my lady.”
She wandered away from the door, toward a window alcove. The request could take some time to issue, so she sat on a cushion and closed her eyes, blocking the room and focusing her attention on the only other thing that mattered these days: her baby. As she thought of the babe inside her, she placed one hand on the small mound hidden beneath her voluminous skirt, drawing comfort and strength. The warm sunlight filtered through the tall window at her back, warming her with its intensity, relaxing her with its heat. Suddenly, she felt movement. A fluttering on the inside of her like a leaping heart, but lower, deep in her belly. She smiled with the joy of it. She had never felt the babe move before.
“Something funny, Serena?”
The voice cut into her dream world, and her eyes fluttered open and focused on Lady Chamberlain’s smirking face.
Serena dropped her hand, not wanting to reveal her pregnancy. Drake had told the king of their situation, but she did not think the entire court had learned of it. Just as well. She could withstand their scorn but didn’t want any of it to sully their child.
When she didn’t immediately answer, Lady Chamberlain lifted her chin. “I would not think you would have anything to smile about, my dear. Such a tragedy your life has turned out to be.”
Serena didn’t want to use any of her resources crossing verbal swords with this woman and so only nodded. “As you say,” she returned with gentle dignity, borrowing the phrase from her husband.
The woman huffed and, thankfully, strode away.
A commotion at the door gained the crowd’s attention. Voices could be heard inside the king’s chamber. The guard searched for and found Serena’s gaze. With a hand he beckoned her forward.
“The king will see you now,” he murmured when she reached him. She could feel those behind her straining to hear every word.
“Very good.” She gave a confident nod, then swept into the chamber, a richly appointed room that she had never been allowed to see before. As she did so, the strange, confident fight stirred within her.
The king sat on a raised dais, upon a throne of gold. The chair beside him was empty, but the king’s advisors and attendants stood about him in differing postures. Serena approached the throne and immediately sank into a perfect curtsy. She waited, as she had been taught, for the king’s permission to rise.
When it came, she stood silent while the king studied her. She knew she looked fine, being dressed every morning in the elaborate manner of full-court dress. She was accustomed to the styles now and felt more natural in them.
“You are a most persistent wench.”
Serena dipped her head at the king’s forceful comment. “My cause is great, Your Highness.”
“Well, I can see why he married you. The talk of your beauty was not exaggerated.”
He seemed to be talking to himself in the matter and Serena remained perfectly still.
“I suppose you have come to beg for your husband’s life, eh?”
Serena again nodded. “With thy permission, I would like to put the begging into words, sire.”
He chuckled and waved his hand at her. “Yes, yes, go on.”
She had practiced what she would say, but as she opened her mouth, new words sprang to life. “When I first met Drake Weston, he was not a duke. He was barely alive and a haunted man. I did not understand at the time the demons he fought, but in the time since, I have become intimately acquainted with those demons. They are the ones who say a man’s worth is based on the status of his birth, not his character or being one of God’s creation. Drake suffered from the belief that without his position in society, he was as nothing.”
She took a breath. “Sire, I have not known nobles and kings before now, but I have known noble men. My father is one such man, and even though he is to the world a silversmith, I must tell thee that there is no other man on earth that I would value as highly as a worthy man and friend.” She allowed a little smile, then paused. The king smiled back, though whether from being drawn into her words or from the shock of them she didn’t know. Still the action bolstered her courage.
She sank to her knees. “My husband, Drake Weston, may no longer be a duke, a member of nobility by birth, but please hear me say that through his trials he has faced his demons and become a noble man. Sire, I plead mercy on his behalf. Please spare his life.”
The king studied her, his face stern. “As you have so little admiration for the nobility, I assume you plead only for his life.”
“Yes.”
He paused, steepling his hands to his chin, and then smiled, a mischievous light in his eyes. “Yes, yes,” he nodded to himself. “Lady Weston, you have suffered much through this ordeal. I understand he lied to you, and you only recently learned of this will and the plot to outmaneuver it—” the king waved his hand in circles—“etcetera, etcetera.” He paused, letting the moment loom over them. “If the choice were yours, what punishment would
you
give your husband?”

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