Dueling With the Duke (Brotherhood of the Sword) (11 page)

Chapter Ten

It had taken longer than Lilith expected for them to locate the house of Mary McCord, primarily because the woman had moved two villages over. The good news was she was still living. The bad news, no one in town believed she still spoke. Whether that meant she was incapable of speaking or simply had nothing left to say, only time would tell.

The village was small, containing only a cobbler’s shop, an inn and tavern, and a few cottages scattered about the hillsides. The rig stopped, and Gabe wasted no time in getting down, then assisting Lilith. They approached the small thatched-roof cottage; it was a cheery place with brightly colored flowers everywhere.

They walked up the dirt path to the front door, and he tapped his knuckles on the door. Several minutes passed after his knock, and Gabe raised his hand to rap on the door again when they heard shuffling from inside. Lilith nodded and soon the door opened.

The woman who stood on the other side was indeed old, but she didn’t appear as if she were on death’s door. A pipe hung from her lips, and she held a large gray tomcat under one of her arms. Her messy white eyebrows rose, but her eyes were kind and alert.

“Mrs. McCord?” Lilith asked.

When the woman said nothing, Gabe held out his hand and scratched beneath the cat’s chin. Loud purring erupted from the creature’s throat. “I am the Duke of Lynford. We have a few questions and hope you can spare some time to assist us.” His voice, not unlike the cat’s purring, had a rhythmic calming effect.

The old woman grinned and gave them entrance. A puff of smoke shuddered out of it as she led them through a darkened foyer and into what passed as the woman’s sitting room. She plopped herself into an old upholstered chair and set the cat on her lap. He stood and turned a circle, then lowered himself into a furry ball with a contented meow.

Mary held up her teacup with a questioning glance.

“No, thank you, we don’t require refreshments,” Lilith said. It would seem that the villagers had been correct in saying that Mary no longer spoke. It would make getting information from her all the more difficult. Lilith sat on the edge of the sofa, certain that when she rose, her bottom would be covered in cat hair. Gabe sat beside her. “I’m Lilith Crisp, Lord Thornton’s wife. I believe you knew our niece, Isabel.”

Mary’s eyes widened, the wrinkles around them diminished, and then she shook her head. The big gray tom flicked his ears and jumped off Mary’s lap.

“Are you certain? Because I know that Isabel lived with a woman by your name before she came to be under Thornton’s care.” Lilith asked.

Again Mary shook her head, then she pinched tobacco out of the small wooden pot and poked it into the pipe. Every jerky movement she made radiated with fear—a fear Lilith was all too familiar with.

She leaned forward and placed her hand on the woman’s knee. “I understand. He was a mean, cruel bastard,” Lilith said plainly.

Mary met her gaze, her wrinkled face full of surprise, and then a grin settled in. “That he was. Dead, is he?” The hoarse quality of her voice spoke to many years with that pipe.

“You can speak,” Gabe said.

“I can. I often find I have nothing to say.” She took a puff on her pipe. “Besides, most of the time people don’t listen.”

Gabe grinned at her, and Lilith fought to ignore the flip her heart made at the sight of his smile. “I have found that to be true as well,” he said.

Mary’s shoulders relaxed. She took a long draw on her pipe and exhaled. “Of course I remember sweet Isabel. She lived with me for a while before I took her to the school when she came of age. Pretty little thing.”

“She still is, though she is nearing her nineteenth year,” Lilith said. “What can you tell us about her from the time you had her? How did you come about caring for her?”

Mary set her pipe down and took a thoughtful sip of her tea. “I don’t know much. They wouldn’t tell me. Only that she was in danger and needed hiding, needed protection,” Mary said.

“Who is ‘they’?” Gabe asked.

“Lord Thornton and some other men.”

“Who is she?” Gabe asked. “She’s quite obviously not Thornton’s relation.”

“She is related to him, distantly. I’m not certain how, precisely.”

“Do you know who she truly is?” Lilith asked.

“I don’t know anything official, but I have my theories,” Mary said. “She has a very distinct birthmark on her hip. It is said to be the mark of the royal family of Saldania.”

“Where is that?” Lilith asked.

Gabe stood and wiped his hand down his face. “It is a small island nation off the coast of Monaco. Nearly twenty years ago the entire royal family was killed, but there have always been those who have speculated…”

“What?” Lilith asked, impatience gnawing at her.

Gabe turned to face her. “That someone got the baby princess out, rescued her,” he said. “But there’s never been any evidence of her surviving. The Saldanians would have been in line for the Crown of England, but without any survivors it hasn’t been a concern.”

Lilith’s world seemed to stop moving, as if everything had frozen into place. She stared at Gabe, willing him to say something else, but no words came. Finally she asked, “You believe Isabel to be this lost princess?”

Mary nodded. “As I said, she bears the mark. Every member of that royal family has had the mark for the last two hundred years.” She stood and shuffled over to a cabinet in the corner of the room. There she retrieved a book.

Gabe helped Mary return to her seat, and then he sat and faced her. “How did you get Isabel?”

“I am originally from there. Saldania. I had already fled the country when the unrest began.” She opened the book and Lilith was surprised to see a big square cut into the pages, creating a hidden compartment. “I heard about the royal massacre through letters from family and friends,” Mary said. “Then a year or so later, I found her, Isabel, outside my door. She had a note pinned to her saying that she’d been orphaned during the Saldanian war, and that her family had asked that she be sent to live with a Saldanian person. Every month I was sent money, and then when the girl turned five, I was instructed to take her to the school.” She held folded pieces of parchment out to Lilith. “Here are all of the letters, though they mostly contain instructions.”

“Then how did Thornton get involved?” Lilith asked.

“In some capacity I believe he was always involved. He met me at the school that day. Introduced himself as the girl’s father, but of course I’d been told she was orphaned.” Mary shook her head. “He is related to her, though, in some way. His mother was Saldanian. He was chosen to care for the girl, though I’m not certain why. The other man, I have no notion of who he was. I’ve only seen him that one time.” She reached over and handed something to Gabe.

“Likely the fact that Thornton was an earl and therefore had money and prestige,” Gabe said. He eyed the ring Mary had placed in his palm. “Saldanian signet ring?”

“I suppose,” Mary said.

“Someone else obviously knows who she is,” Lilith said. “That’s why—”

Gabe reached over and placed his hand over hers to stop her from saying too much. She promptly closed her mouth.

“She is in danger?” Mary asked. “I also thought that if anyone from Saldania knew where to find her they would come get her.”

Lilith shuddered.

“She might be,” Gabe said. “We want to be certain. Now that Lord Thornton is dead, we can’t be too careful. He was murdered,” Gabe said.

“Nothing less than he deserved, I don’t suppose,” Mary said, her voice cracking.

“We shouldn’t have anything to worry much from the new Saldanian government. They are a democracy now, like the Americans.”

“So the lost princess would not be a threat?” Lilith asked.

Gabe exhaled. “I certainly can’t promise that, but I think the current threat here in England is more pressing.”

“Do keep my sweet Isabel safe,” Mary said.

“I shall not rest until she is safe,” Lilith said.

Gabe lingered in Mary’s cottage for a moment after Lilith had stepped outside. He handed Mary his calling card. “If you need anything, you use this.”

Mary’s eyes filled with tears.

He wasn’t normally a sentimental man, the sort to be overly concerned with the emotions of others, but something about the old woman’s obvious distress pulled at him. “I’m certain Lady Thornton would agree you are welcome to visit Isabel whenever you please,” Gabe said.

She hugged him, her tiny stature feeling almost childlike.

When he stepped outside the cottage he saw Lilith immediately. She stood off the cobbled path, her head tilted upward as she gazed at the heavens. So much of her stance reminded him of the night he’d first seen her, the night they’d met. He looked up as well, noting the stars were quite brilliant with the clear night, but their glittering light could not hold his attention long. Her curves, soft in the moonlight, beckoned him. He closed the distance between them, wanting to touch her, but not certain if it was a wise choice.

“I wanted to ask you to dance that night,” he said softly.

She showed no signs that he’d startled her with his quiet approach and instead simply said, “But you didn’t.” Her tone was neither accusatory nor teasing; perhaps more resignation was what he heard.

“No, I did not. A dance wouldn’t have changed things.”

“Perhaps not,” she said.

“I would still have been the brother of the duke. Not exactly the choice for an advantageous union.”

“The choice was never mine to begin with,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

He stood directly behind her then, so close that he could smell the lavender in her hair. He slid his hands up her arms, lightly gripped her shoulders. “Would it have mattered? Had you been the one to choose?” He realized, in that moment, that he desperately wanted to know her answer, wanted to hear her say that she’d have chosen him had things been different those years before. Instead she said something he hadn’t expected.

“So had your brother not interrupted us and we’d danced, how would you have proceeded that night?”

“I would have taken you by the hand.” He linked their fingers then. “And we would have strolled through the gardens.”

“Scandalous,” she said. A smile graced her lips and she squeezed his hand. “I would have dared tell you more about the stars.”

“Scandalous, indeed. You are a lady of good breeding. Certainly that means you don’t have scholarly aspirations,” he said, enjoying their charade. Even more so he enjoyed the feel of her hand cupped within his own. He ran his thumb against her soft skin. Despite the chill in the air, neither of them wore gloves, a fact in and of itself that most Londoners would have found shameful. But here on this quiet village road, it felt intimate and quite right.

“Ah, but I do. I hope this isn’t disappointing to you.”

“Lovely and with an academic mind. My dear, you could be too good to be true.” And with that he swept her close to him and waltzed them down the path.

She laughed. The sound was something truly magical, as if he’d never before heard anyone laugh. “What are you doing?”

“Dancing. I told you I wanted to dance with you.”

“Yes, but we were actually attending a ball then. Right now there is no music.”

But in a ballroom he would not be able to hold her so closely, drop his hand so low on her back to where he could feel the subtle curve of his backside. “Certainly you jest, my lady. Can you not hear the musicians playing Beethoven’s Waltz in F Major right now?” he asked.

She met his gaze and smiled. “Yes, now I do, though admittedly the cellist is lagging behind.”

“And probably hoping no one will notice.” They danced for several minutes. Only the two of them, under a blanket of twinkling stars, no music, merely the sounds of their feet shuffling against the road.

“We would have caused quite the scandal. The second son and the fortune hunter,” she said.

For a moment he allowed the fantasy to run its course. They could have fallen in love. Would her father have driven them apart or been satisfied by Gabe’s family purse strings? Would she have been willing to run away with him, far from everything in search of their own private happiness? His steps slowed and he studied her face, wondering if she too had imagined what their life might have been. There was a pause before he finally spoke again. “Your father gave you no choice?” he asked, in spite of himself.

“Had there been two dukes of equal fortune and property warring for my hand, he might have allowed me to select one of the two,” she said.

He knew this was a common practice among families. Girls were wed off to the best offer, much like their fathers were dealing in horseflesh rather than their own flesh and blood. Marriage was a business transaction, a commodity to be traded for a pretty girl’s virtue, but that did not mean she would have chosen him had things been different. He’d been so much younger when they’d met, and chances were he wouldn’t have been able to maintain her interest. Life tended to not ever work out so perfectly, though. Gabe knew that. He’d certainly lived that.

More than likely things would have proceeded as they had. She would have picked Rafe, and Thornton, well, had he been a true contender or merely her father’s choice? Gabe had a mind to ask, but right now, he dared not shatter the fantasy they played in. Right now, she was with him and this was the most honest he’d seen her.

He slowed their dance until they stopped; their breaths mingled as he still held her close.

True to form, she tilted her head, her lovely eyes darting upward to the skies. “See there?” she asked, pointing. “That is Draco, or the dragon. I always loved how long his tail was. And there”—again she pointed—“that is Cassiopeia.”

“The queen of unrivalled beauty. She certainly does shine brightly.”

“Indeed.”

“You still know their names,” he said.

“They were my only friends for so long. A girl doesn’t forget the names of her closest friends.” And then as if her admission had taken too much, she shook her head. “We’d best be getting to the inn before it gets too late.” And just like that the Lilith who had laughed and played disappeared and in place was the shield that kept her hidden from the world.