His Secret Heroine (24 page)

"He is not in,
My Lord."

"Not in. Be damned, fellow, where is he?"

"I am sure I do not know, sir."

Reggie doubted that
, but the duke hired only the most loyal of servants, so he was not likely to discover his answer that easily. Reggie slapped his hat into the footman's hands and strode down the wide corridor.

"Here,
My Lord, I have said he is not here. You cannot go wandering about as if—"

"I am the duke's son. Do not even consider telling me what I can do," he replied, and kept walking in an exact replica of his father's
purposefully arrogant stride. He rushed up the central staircase and along the first floor corridor to the suite of rooms the duke used for business purposes.

He tested the door. It was locked.

"Unlock it," he demanded.

"
My Lord, I cannot."

"Your choice is to unlock it, or watch as I break it down."

The footman shook as he inserted the key in the lock.

"You are dismissed," he said to the footman, and the man cowered away. Soon, Nash, his father's formidable butler, would
appear, but Reggie did not intend to let anyone stop him.

Reggie took a deep breath as he surveyed the room, his father's favorite place for privacy
within an entire mansion designed to protect his solitude. Enormous cases for books rose between each of four tall windows, and covered the facing wall entirely. Every book was one his father had read. Arranged in careful symmetry were groupings of formal chairs with small tables, each different from the others, yet somehow in harmony. At the far end of the room, the desk where the man would sit for hours, engaged in his mysterious doings, records of which were kept tucked away someplace that Reggie had never seen.

Now, he was going to see them. The Duke of Marmount had forfeited his right to privacy.

Reggie pulled on each drawer of the desk. A few of the smaller ones opened, but they contained nothing of any significance. The others were locked.

It was a beautiful old desk. Reggie hated to damage it, but he would if he must. Its secrets were too important. He la
y down on his back and peered beneath the desk, fingering all the little crannies in the carvings and turnings. He stood and stepped back, folding his arms. There had to be a key, but it was altogether too likely that the duke kept it on his person. Perhaps he would have to break the desk after all.

Behind the tambour were more tiny drawers. He removed each one, turning it over, but found nothing. Well then, the lower drawers. He removed each one, dumping its contents on the floor. There it was. A tiny key, tucked into a
tiny housing on the underside of the bottom left drawer. It was a perfect fit.

It was like treading on a grave. Reggie bit his lip and slid the middle drawer open. He pulled out a black leather-bound journal, nearly filled with entries in his father's neat, spare script.

He flipped through the pages, noting the names of several people he knew, each accompanied with at least a page of information. Reggie surmised a lot of it was information the subjects would rather not have anyone know.

It was also a daily journal, combined in an unusual way, a journal of activities, but also musings. Flipping back, he spotted an entry in April. Lined verse.

His father had written poetry? When he had so many times maligned Reggie for that very thing?

Reggie took the journal to the nearest window and sat down. Dated 22 April, 1813, and untitled. What the devil?

A tender and loving description of a child sleeping, clothed in white, with tiny curls like a golden halo, a rosebud mouth and lashes tipped with gold fringing closed lids. A deep ache formed in Reggie's chest as he read on.

She wakes, and blue-eyed sunshine fills my world,

This child of mine. She laughs at me, a sound that's curled

About my heart, and holds out her chubby hands.

She is the greatest treasure of all lands,

This child of mine.

Elizabeth Martens Beauhampton, born 22 April, 1792. She would have been one and twenty years today.

His throat constricted as the sudden memory of his baby sister flooded into him. Reggie shut the journal and leaned back in the tall, wing-backed chair. The scene became so real, it was as if he were there again in the tomblike darkness of the nursery.

"What's the matter with my baby sister, Nanna? What's the matter with my baby sister?"

"Hush, child. Come with me, quietly."

Nanna dragged him by the hand but Reggie fought, trying to get back to his father, who sat in the nursery chair, tears running down his cheeks, cradling little Elizabeth.

The baby who did not move. Who never moved
again.

Even now he couldn't think of it without feeling the tears forming. Even as a little boy of six, he had known something was terribly wrong. Somehow, Elizabeth had just died. And nobody was allowed to talk about it, for the duke would immediately leave the room.

What had happened? Reggie had known his father had adored his little daughter, the only one of three girls to survive birth. But had she been ill? Reggie didn't remember that, or anything else, really, only that everyone had behaved as if there had never been a sweet little cherub of a baby girl who had captured everyone's hearts. Her place in the nursery had stayed exactly as it had been since then. There had been no more children.

Reggie leaned back again
into the cold leather of the chair. That was when the family had begun to fall apart. It was strange that Reggie had never realized that before. But how could he have known his very closed-off and distant father still grieved for his lost daughter?

Still,
that had nothing to do with what he needed to know now. Reggie took several more breaths to restore himself, and opened the journal again and thumbed backward.

He startled as h
is eyes spotted a page with Chloe's name at the top. Well, he should not have been surprised. A list of facts. Her parentage, her portion, her guardian, the man's death. Ah, so the duke knew her guardian had gambled away the entire portion.

This impertinent little adventuress believes she will snag for herself a duke's son. We shall see.

That was dated 25 June. So, he had known about Chloe a mere two weeks after Reggie had first met her.

Reggie thumbed through the pages to the last entry.

EMB b. 22 April, 1792 d. 15 August, 1792.

CM
E b. 22 April, 1792.

How can it be that one man's child dies, yet another man's lives?

Good God! What was going on here?

Reggie slammed the journal shut just as Nash bustled into the chamber.

"Here, now, My Lord, you must know His Grace would not allow you to rifle through his papers. You must desist this minute. Give me the journal so that—"

"Don't try it, Nash. It's worth your life. Tell me where he is." Reggie grabbed the man by the frothy stock at his neck and gave a shake, dislodging a cloud of powder from the man's periwig.

"Here, My Lord, I am sure I don't know."

"And I am just as sure you do. No man on earth knows my father better than you. Even he may not be immune from the consequences of his acti
ons this time, and you had best not be his accomplice. What has he done with Miss Englefield?"

"Miss
Englefield?" Nash stuttered, his eyes suddenly widening. "I truly do not know, sir. He left yesterday, and told me nothing."

"How did he travel?"

"His traveling coach, sir. His best one."

For some reason, Reggie believed him. It seemed to fit that the duke would not tell him all this. Reggie released the crumpled lace stock and dusted the powder off his sleeve. Perhaps he would learn more from what was missing than from what could be found. He strode out to the mews.

The pristine old coach which his father insisted on retaining was indeed gone. His favorite team had been taken, yet had just been returned and were being rubbed down by the grooms. That meant the duke had changed horses at least once.

With a little more effort, Reggie learned that the duke had taken no personal servants, yet had two hastily packed portmanteaux. And strangely, he had taken three grooms with him. Why would the fastidious duke have
taken grooms but no valet?

Three grooms. Three stops to change teams.

In short order, Reggie called together his closest friends.

"Anything you want, Reggie," said Castlebury. "You have only to ask."

"St. James, I want you to sniff about
town
to see what you can learn," Reggie said. "The rest of us are going to check every post in every direction from Reading. Someone would have noticed the duke's unusual equipage."

For himself, he had a spunging house to find.

Chapter Fifteen

She heard voices in the staircase outside the little chamber. She must have slept.

"The devil you did. This is not what I paid you for, Pauncefoot. She is a lady, and you are not to forget that."

It was the duke's voice. As bad as things were, she would really have preferred to put off seeing him for awhile.

"Yes, Your Grace, only you said I was to keep an eye on her as she was such a sly one, and the only way I—"

"Stubble it, you fool. Open the door."

She was rather glad she had not had a change of clothes for the night, but had curled up in all her garments, pelisse and all. She sat up on the straw pallet, pulling the sheets around her, for the room was chilled.

The door creaked open, and a candle backlit the tall duke as he dodged the low frame.

Pauncefoot set the candlestick down on the table. "There, I told you, Your Grace, she ain't harmed none, just because she didn't want to eat her supper."

The duke's steel-cold eyes turned hot with fury. "You were paid to house her in reasonable comfort. I see you are not up to the task. Miss
Englefield, get your belongings."

Chloe smirked. "Whatever would be my 'belongings',
Your Grace? My empty reticule, I suppose."

He tossed a glare at her. "Follow me."

Chloe shrugged, not being able to think of a reason she should not, although perhaps the duke thought a dungeon was more suitable to her needs. She stood and followed the duke, with Pauncefoot lighting the way ahead of them, down the two flights of the narrow staircase, back to the parlor she had passed on her way up. A chamber sat opposite. The duke opened the door and shone the candle into it. A mobcapped woman squealed and sat up in the bed.

"This one will do," the duke said. "Make it ready for Miss
Englefield immediately."

"But
Your Grace, my wife—"

"
—May sleep in that cesspool abovestairs. See to it."

Pauncefoot rushed into the chamber beyond the parlor and pulled the door shut behind him. Somehow, Chloe had the feeling she would be the one paying for the duke's sudden largesse.

With the grace of an eagle dipping in flight as it surveys its prey, the duke turned and set his cold glare on her. Chloe squared her shoulders and glared back.

"My apologies for the circumstances, Miss
Englefield. I had every right to expect you would be housed in comfort."

Chloe repressed a sneer. "The Bear would have sufficed,
Your Grace. And I might have had my aunt's company, as well."

"That, however, would not have suited my plans."

"And what would your plans be, Your Grace?"

"I should not think it necessary to say, Miss
Englefield. Once more, you have interfered with my plans for my son, and this time you have gone too far."

One wry corner of her mouth seemed to quirk in spite of her attempts to control it, but she said nothing.

"It appears I have come in time, and you have not yet succeeded in your attempt to spring the mousetrap. Therefore, I am prepared to make you one last offer."

"And if I do not accept?"

"You have not yet heard the offer. You will accept."

"I suspect I may prefer Pauncefoot's slophouse."

"I think not. I have what you want, you see."

Cold dread filled her, like water pouring over a dam. Chloe tucked her hands beneath her arms, balling her fists.

"I am right, am I not?" His eyes shone bright above his grim countenance. "The thing you want most is the care and custody of your young sisters, Misses Madeline and Allison Cottingham, to remove them from the care of that malicious man who is their guardian?"

She couldn't breathe. "You stay away from them!"

Nothing in his expression changed. "I see I am correct. Your protective nature is laudable, Miss Englefield. But you need not fear. They are, in fact, safer now than they have been for a very long time."