The Duke Read online

  “A symbol written in chalk on a cloak?”

  “The same symbol is carved in stone on the lintel of the gate of the duke’s castle. That castle is quite close to Edinburgh.”

  Emily’s dear friend, Constance Read, was the daughter of a duke whose estate was near Edinburgh. But surely a man of the Duke of Read’s stature would not be mistaken for a criminal. On the other hand, Amarantha’s pious missionary husband had in fact been a cheating bigot.

  “You asked if the Devil’s Duke was a client of mine,” Mrs. Eagan continued. “He never was. But I have made his acquaintance. A year ago, I was hostess at a dinner party for a gentleman of means in Edinburgh. The duke was a guest that night. Mrs. Foster, you have never seen a man more suited to villainy. He is handsome in a dark, formidable manner, and powerfully formed. He spoke to few. Throughout the evening he studied all of us as though he had particular use for each person at that gathering, as though he were surveying his prey in preparation for the black mass over which he would preside later that night.”

  “This party occurred before the first of the maidens disappeared?”

  “Several months before Cassandra Finn’s disappearance.”

  “And did he?”

  The madam tilted her head. “Did he . . . ?”

  “Did he host a black mass that night at which he sacrificed some of your party guests?”

  Her nostrils flared. “Jest, if you will, Mrs. Foster. He is a dangerous man.”

  “Mrs. Eagan, you have succeeded: my curiosity is now thoroughly aroused. Will you tell me the name of this dark lord whom everybody fears so greatly?”

  “But of course.” Her fingers stroked the elaborately carved edge of the sofa again. “He is Gabriel Hume, the Duke of Loch Irvine.”

  Chapter 10

  The Devil

  All of the air got trapped in Amarantha’s throat. Then, upon a gasp, a great ball of laughter barked from her mouth.

  She snapped her lips together.

  “Mrs. Foster, are you unwell?”

  It had been so long since she had last laughed, she hardly knew.

  “Mrs. Eagan, you now jest, do you not?”

  “I do not. Why would you say so?”

  “I was once acquainted with the present Duke of Loch Irvine. It was before he came into his title, to be sure, but only five years ago. Unless his character has altered beyond recognition in those five years, there is nothing more absurd than the notion of that man as a twisted demon, except perhaps that he is a recluse who shuns society.”

  “Yet both are accurate.”

  “I cannot believe it. You claim that all in Edinburgh and Leith do?”

  “Everyone.”

  “Astonishing. Is there no one in this region who knew him before the girls disappeared?”

  “Until last summer, he had been absent from Scotland since boyhood, although there is some disagreement concerning the age he departed his family’s home.”

  Thirteen.

  After she learned that he had not perished at sea, she had never sought news of his naval pursuits. She knew nothing of him except his unexpected accession to the dukedom, which she had read about in The Times when it reached Kingston.

  “This is a busy port town,” she said, “and he was a naval commander. Someone here must have known him before.”

  “He owns two vessels that sail from these docks,” the madam said pacifically. “But the crew of both keep apart from others.”

  “I daresay hundreds of men arrived here last year, any one of whom could have done these crimes. Or it might have been a criminal who has lived here his entire life. Perhaps several criminals, each who committed a separate crime against the unfortunate girls.”

  “Do consider the symbol carved on the gate at Haiknayes Castle,” Mrs. Eagan said, “and its appearance on Maggie Poultney’s cloak, which proves the connection. The lairds of Loch Irvine have always made their home at Haiknayes.”

  “That symbol could certainly prove Miss Poultney’s interest in the castle,” Amarantha conceded. “But hardly the Duke of Loch Irvine’s guilt.”

  “You seem to have a keen interest in defending his innocence, Mrs. Foster.”

  “I am expressing doubt, yes.” The young man Amarantha had known in Jamaica had been no model of propriety, but she refused to believe him a vile abductor and murderer of innocent maidens. That he had gently, wonderfully seduced Miss Poultney, Miss Finn, and Miss Edwards, and that afterward the girls had fled their homes in heartbreak and shame, was however entirely likely. “The police have had ample time to place the blame on him. They must be doubtful too.”

  “They recently accused another man of the murder, but they swiftly released him. They had, after all, found her body near the duke’s property.”

  “I did not know he had a house in Edinburgh.” They had rarely spoken of their families or homes. Those ten weeks had been singular, at once fiercely thrilling and deliciously intoxicating, a time-out-of-time idyll. Even her heartbreak had defied reality.

  You were right to think me a beast.

  At the time she had not believed those words. Instead she had believed his lies. She was, she had discovered, a very poor judge of a man’s character when her heart was involved.

  “Despite your acquaintance five years ago,” her hostess said, “perhaps you do not truly know the Duke of Loch Irvine.”

  Without doubt.

  She scooted to the edge of the chair.

  “Mrs. Eagan, will you tell me if you have encountered my friend, Penelope Baker? She stands two inches taller than I. Her complexion is light brown, her hair is black and curly, and she has eyes the color of amber.”

  “I am sorry to disappoint you, Mrs. Foster.”

  Amarantha stood. “Thank you for your time.”

  “I regret that I cannot help. A woman never enjoys sending a caller away unhappy.” She offered a smile of feminine understanding.

  “Oh, I do not go away from your home entirely downcast. Your story of the Duke of Loch Irvine has had quite the opposite effect, in fact.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “It is horrible that the girls’ families are suffering, and I grieve for them, truly. But you have just told me Gabriel Hume is now believed by all to be a villain. That this rumor is surely false has no effect whatsoever on how thoroughly satisfied it has made me. Good day.”

  The walk back was short and as she reached the docks the sun was turning the canal a glittering gold color. She purchased rolls and ale, and carried them to the blacksmith shop.

  Corporal Nathaniel Hay sat on a stool by the forge, his single weathered hand wrapped about a poker handle, prodding the coals. A fellow passenger aboard ship, he had kind eyes that had drawn Amarantha to him, only to discover that he had served under her father’s command at Yorktown decades earlier. When he learned she was traveling alone, he had insisted on accompanying her.

  “I have bought dinner, and it is nearly hot!” she said.

  Taking up a lamp, he followed her into their temporary flat, two rooms behind the blacksmith shop. Watching him settle uncomfortably at the bare table, she recognized his silent suffering. In four years at the hospital, she had seen plenty of the chronic troubles of men and women who spent their lives laboring.

  “I have been to a brothel,” she said as she unwrapped the food and set the larger portion before him. “Now, you mustn’t scold. It was a very elegant brothel. A passerby would never know what debauchery goes on inside it.”

  “That’s a comfort to hear, my lady,” he said, the creases about his eyes deepening.

  “You mustn’t ever speak without sincerity, Nathaniel. It is a sin.”

  “Did your husband teach you that?”

  “And many more useful lessons. I’m certain I shan’t exhaust all of them before we must eventually part.” She bit into the roll and nearly moaned. To her starved senses, even this simple fare tasted marvelous. She had come no closer to finding Penny today, yet she felt a lightness of sp
irit that she had not enjoyed in months. Years. Five years. “What did you do today? Stir the coals of caution all throughout my absence?”

  “You’re as clever as the colonel.”

  “Not at all. Also, my father is much handsomer.”

  “I won’t believe it.”

  “But it is true. My mother and father’s five youngest daughters are all polished guineas too.”

  “And your elder sister?”

  “Emily is pretty, but more importantly, she is brilliant, just as Papa. Oh, how good it is to speak of them.” Paul had never liked to hear about her family. “Thank you, Nathaniel, for allowing me to trust you.” She reached out and touched his hand.

  His brow knit. “Have you written to Lady Emily yet?”

  She snatched her hand back. “No.”

  “You should seek your family’s help.”

  “I cannot.” She had tried to write to her sister, yet always the words were garbled. Too much had happened to explain in a letter. She had changed. This—being alone, anonymous—was easier. Uncomplicated. She could pursue Penny without interference. “They will demand that I return home.”

  “You should.”

  She cleared her throat. “How did you pass the afternoon?”

  “A boy called for you.”

  “Nathaniel! Why didn’t you tell me this immediately? Who was he?”

  He shook his head. “Just another urchin looking for money from the lady who’d doled it out at the pub.”

  “Which pub?”

  “I gave him a coin and sent him on his way.”

  “Good grief, which pub?”

  “The Blue Thistle.”

  Beyond the window night had fallen.

  “It is too late already. I will go at first light.”

  “You won’t go then either. ’Tain’t safe for a lady. And you’re looking peaked.”

  “Peaked?”

  “You haven’t slept a full night since we arrived, seems to me. You should take better care of yourself, my lady.”

  “I do not understand,” she said, standing, “why I cannot seem to impress it permanently on my mind that all men feel the need to control women’s actions. Even good men.” She went to the doorway between the two tiny rooms. “I understand that you wish to keep me safe, Nathaniel. But I do not need safety.” Only answers.

  The following morning Amarantha counted the remainder of her coins: a dispiritingly quick task. Paul had not allowed her to keep money. He thought her too irresponsible to make proper use of it.

  Leaning her brow against the shelf above the brazier on which the kettle heated, she closed her eyes to relieve the pressure behind them. In her marriage she had been more fortunate than many women. Paul had never beaten her. He had never spoken disrespectfully to her when in the company of others. He had given her a comfortable home and just enough liberty to work several hours each week at the hospital.

  She had been so grateful to him for allowing her to continue that work, despite his disapproval of Mr. and Mrs. Meriwether. When she discovered that he had done so only in order to hide his liaisons with his lover, Amarantha had not wept or screamed. Instead, she had walked the two miles to Penny’s house, and found there warm, welcoming embraces.

  Paul had regularly insisted the rumors that Penny was his father’s daughter by an enslaved woman were false, that his father had never been unfaithful to his mother. Yet after his death she learned that he had lied about that too.

  A scratch sounded at the door. She opened it to a grubby little boy.

  “G’day, miss!” He snatched his cap from his head. “I be Rory Markum. My da’s place be the Blue Thistle you came by yesterday.”

  “Oh, do come in, Mr. Markum! I am preparing my breakfast. Will you share it?”

  He blushed to the roots of his matted hair.

  “I’ve already took breakfast, miss. Mum dinna like to be spreading anybody’s secrets. But after you left she said as you spoke respectful an’ honest, she took a fine impression o’ you. She sent me over here to tell you the lady you be looking for, Miss Baker, stayed a sennight with us at the Thistle.”

  Relief washed through Amarantha.

  “She was—”

  “Like you described her to Mum. The very image!”

  “Do you know where she went after she left you?”

  “She told Mum she was off to Edinburrah to find the devil,” Rory declared.

  A frisson of unease tickled Amarantha’s belly. “What devil?”

  “The Devil’s Duke, o’ course!”

  The simplest explanation sufficed. The female population of Leith and Edinburgh had been whipped into a frenzy of anxiety with stories of missing maidens and bloody cloaks. Surely the pub mistress was as gullible as Mrs. Eagan.

  When the boy left, Amarantha packed a satchel with necessities, tucked three of her five remaining coins into Nathaniel’s bedroll, and donned her cloak. A blacksmith by trade, Nathaniel had already made himself at home in the pub nearby and in the smith’s shop that kept this little flat warm throughout the damp nights on the Firth. She could not drag him with his aching joints the two miles to Edinburgh.

  Nathaniel was a good man, and too observant: she was in fact not feeling her best. But she would never again allow any man’s demands, even kindly offered, to impede her.

  Sliding her notebook into the satchel, she paused, then opened the volume and drew from it a folded paper: a letter written to Emily but never sent. For five years she had kept it as a reminder to her unwise heart.

  Unfolding the page, she stared at the words her trembling hand had penned, the ink smudged by her hot tears.

  He did not perish. He is alive.

  A wave of emotion arose in her, an echo of the excessive feelings that had propelled the writing of those words.

  Am I wicked to pray for his safety, or merely foolish to do so when he has dealt me this hurt? I know it is the latter—yet still I pray.

  She had continued to pray for months after that, guilty for the secret she hid from her husband, yet justifying it as piety, as though the Eternal Almighty had not known precisely the root of her prayers. She had only ceased praying for Captain Gabriel Hume the day she discovered God had given her another soul for whom to pray, a precious new life wholly in her care.

  Nine months later, she had ceased praying to God entirely.

  Papa once warned that my heart trusts too swiftly and too deeply. I did not understand the warning then. I do now, for a naval officer has taught me a fine lesson: to believe a man’s words and deeds rather than my heart’s desire.

  I will never make that mistake again.

  Yet she had, throwing her affection and good intentions into her marriage. Youthfully naïve, passionately innocent, and so easily tossed to the heights of pleasure or hurled to the depths of misery, even in the midst of heartbreak she had sought happiness. And love.

  No longer. Five years older, she was much wiser. And the lessons her marriage had taught her—lessons in dampening her emotions and mistrusting her desires—could never be unlearned.

  She wrote a swift note to Nathaniel. With rumors of abducted women flying about, she would not give him cause to worry.

  For her own sake she was unconcerned about the diabolical duke. Gabriel Hume had long since stolen the innocent girl in her. If the Duke of Loch Irvine were, in fact, the demon people believed him to be, she among all women in Scotland had nothing to fear.

  Edinburgh, Scotland

  A dozen naked women gazed languidly at Gabriel.

  “The roof is leaking again,” he mumbled.

  “I beg your pardon?” his companion replied, obviously surprised.

  Gabriel scratched his fingertips across his two-day’s growth of whiskers. Awakening from the old dreams this morning, he had been too unsettled to hold the razor steady enough to shave.

  Cloverleaf eyes fevered with desire. Tresses like fire and sunshine. A smile that stripped him of all but the hunger to taste her. Laughter that unhinged h
im and shot his body through with hot, hard need.

  He had awoken with a head full of confusion and a cock so eager to please it ached.

  He scraped a hand over his face again. How she could remain so beguiling in his dreams after five damn years, he’d no idea. Probably because he was an idiot.

  He knew the reason for the dream’s return, though. News of the death of Paul Garland had arrived in Leith aboard Gabriel’s ship a fortnight ago. Every night since then he had dreamed.

  The dreams had never really ceased, not entirely, not in five years. He had simply gotten accustomed to them coming a wee bit further apart.

  Focusing his eyes again on the letter, he reread the final lines.

  “The roof is leaking again,” he repeated. “Worse than before.”

  “It is not,” Ziyaeddin replied. “The roof of this house is perfectly adequate.”

  “An’ they’ve need o’ more sherry barrels.” Crumpling the page in his fist, Gabriel blew out a breath and raked his fingers through his hair. “The fifty barrels I’d Courtenay send up from Spain a year ago cost the better part o’ the quarter’s income. Judas, the place will suck me dry an’ those females will still be asking more o’ me.”

  “Ah, Kallin. Again.” The young man shook his head. “How you can stand there in the midst of these”—he gestured to the paintings lining the gallery—“and grumble about leaking roofs and sherry barrels, I cannot fathom. Although perhaps the inner beast is in fact awake, merely caged in ducal cares.”

  Gabriel dropped his hand. “Inner what?”

  “Suck you dry? Honestly, Your Grace, if you had not been such a fine naval commander, I would think you entirely lacking in intelligence.”

  “Fortunately, Your Highness, a man dinna require intelligence to understand idiot innuendos.”

  “True. Now, which of these do you prefer for your study?” Ziyaeddin nodded at the array of paintings. “There is no space on these walls for the next. One must go.”

  Gabriel perused the canvases hung the length of the gallery. Daylight shone through the windows, but the late afternoon was rainy and the room dim. Employing few lamps in his studio allowed his houseguest to paint in natural light while securing privacy.