I've Got My Duke to Keep Me Warm (The Lords of Worth) (5 page)

He had no idea who this woman and her companion really were. They could be thieves or spies. Or worse.

He made a quick mental tally of what he did know. Sebastien, he suspected, had been a valet. He was witty and clever and capable of extraordinary things with a straight razor and a pair of scissors. He was clearly a trusted friend to Gisele—Jamie had watched them communicate without words many times.

And as for Gisele, if that was even her real name, he knew nothing.
Nada. Rien
. She was titled, or she had been at one time. He was sure of it. Two days of watching her manners and her comportment, and even the way she handled her bloody horse, had convinced him. All of it was too natural to be feigned, and he would know. Aye, he didn’t have the title, but he had suffered through the same lessons thanks to his father. No matter her present dress and appearance, she was not the peasant she pretended to be.

They were still a good ways out from London, so for now Jamie was content to watch and wait. Gisele clearly had some sort of agenda in Leicester, and perhaps whatever he found there would provide him with the answers she seemed so reluctant to provide.

They skirted Leicester, diverging from the main road that would have taken them into the heart of the town and angling slightly east. Sebastien left them then, dropping
back from the pair and out of sight. Gisele waited for the expected questions from Jamie, but none came, though she was aware of his gaze on her, heavy and deliberate. The brooding silence was almost worse than a barrage of questions might have been.

He didn’t speak until they had stopped just in front of another tavern, not so different from the one they had left behind outside of Nottingham.

“Where did Sebastien go?”

“He’ll meet us later,” she told him.

“Are we staying here for the night?” he asked dubiously, eyeing the sagging thatch and the tilting walls.

“No,” Gisele answered. “We’re not.” She dismounted and glanced around cautiously at the yard and its lengthening shadows. There was no one about, but she knew it would be busy with thirsty men once the sun retired.

“Are we eating here?”

“No.”

“Then what are we doing?” Jamie slid effortlessly from his own horse, his boots creating twin puffs of dust. He crossed his arms over his chest. “And I want a real answer this time.”

Gisele imagined he had cowed men twice his size under his command with that tone. Pity it wouldn’t work on her.

“Polly Tuck,” she said after a second’s hesitation.

“Who?”

“Polly Tuck. Eighteen years old. Lives just over the ridge of oaks we passed on our way here, in a rather isolated cottage. Married for sixteen months to Garrett Tuck, a middling carpenter on the days he’s sober. Polly’s parents are both deceased, though she has a widowed sister who still lives nearby with her three small children.”

“And who is she to you? A friend? Relative?”

Gisele shook her head slowly. “I’ve never met her.”

“I’m not in the mood for guessing games, Gisele. Why are we here?”

She sighed. “Polly’s husband has an unfortunate tendency to take out his frustrations at his own shortcomings on his young wife. Usually he uses his fists. Occasionally a rake or a shovel. Once, I am told, it was a chain.”

Jamie blinked. “Jesus.” His brows drew together. “Can’t she leave? Is there nowhere she can go?”

“This is where it becomes difficult. Last fall Polly fled to her sister’s. Mr. Tuck hunted his errant wife down, threatened to kill her sister and her children and burn down her home if his wife did not return with him. Polly, of course, returned with him to spare the only family she has left. Polly was beaten beyond recognition for her defiance, though she survived. The baby she had been carrying was not so fortunate.”

Jamie exhaled loudly. “The man should be shot.”

“Yes.” Gisele shrugged wearily. “Though not everyone would agree with you.”

“Did you hire me to kill Tuck?”

Gisele slanted him a look. “No. I believe I was clear when I said it was unlikely you’d have to kill anyone. As much as some circumstances warrant it, I am not a murderer. And, I think, neither are you.”

Jamie looked away from her, his expression suddenly stony.

“Polly is pregnant again,” Gisele continued. “And her desire to protect herself and her unborn child has finally overcome her fear of her husband.” She paused. “That is why we are here.”

“To do what, exactly?” He turned to face her again.

“To make Polly Tuck disappear.” Gisele watched as understanding dawned in Jamie’s eyes.

“You’ve done this before. You and Sebastien. Made women like Polly disappear.”

Gisele’s gaze had fixed somewhere over his shoulder, and she willed her mind not to slide down into the past where her own dark, tangled memories churned and seethed. “Yes. We create a new identity, a new home, and a new life for the woman and her children, if she has any. England is full of widows, especially in the last few years, and an unknown one arriving in a new town is hardly worth comment.”

He watched her, clearly considering her words. “And this is what you hired me for? To help you save this woman?”

“For now, yes.”

He was quiet for another long moment, and Gisele wondered if he would press her further. And what she would tell him if he did.

“Very well,” he said finally. “Tell me what it is that you need me to do.”

Gisele released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Nothing you’d likely wish to share with a magistrate,” she warned.

“Are you trying to scare me?”

“Maybe.” She was serious.

Jamie snorted. “Does it involve explosives?” He gave her a crooked grin.

Gisele pressed her lips together, daring, for a second, to believe that Jamie Montcrief was the man she needed him to be. “Not this time,” she replied, meeting his gaze.

“I gave you my word,” he said, suddenly grave. “And I’ll keep it.”

“Saints be praised.” A coarse voice interrupted whatever Gisele would have said next. “You’re right on time. Good thing or I’d have to kill the bastard myself.”

Gisele turned to find a wide woman bearing down on them, her red hair tied in a messy braid and her apron stained with ale and grease.

“Hello, Martha.” Gisele greeted the woman warmly before she schooled her expression. “And no one is going to murder anyone. We’ve discussed this.” She paused. “Polly hasn’t changed her mind, I trust?”

The tavern keeper’s flushed face creased. “She’s as scared as all hell, but she’s more scared of what will happen if she stays. She wants this child to live.”

“Good.” That was the most important part.

Martha’s eyes flickered past Gisele to Jamie. “Where’s Iain?”

“Unavailable.” She didn’t want to get into a long explanation that would require her to detail Iain’s departure and the method of Jamie’s recruitment. “This is James,” Gisele continued purposefully. “He’s here to help. James, this is Martha. She owns and runs this establishment. It was Martha who contacted me on Polly’s behalf.”

Jamie gave Martha a brief bow. “A pleasure,” he replied.

“
Hmph
.” The tavern keeper eyed him skeptically. “A gentleman.” She said it as though it were a disease, and in any other situation, Gisele might have found it funny.

“Not his fault,” Gisele replied. “I can assure you, James is quite up to the task.”

Jamie’s eyes flew to her own, contemplative and assessing.

“
Hmph
. If you say so.” Martha suddenly rummaged in
the pockets of her apron and leaned close to Gisele. “The Darling brothers left this for you here this morning,” she whispered. She passed Gisele a small scrap of paper.

Gisele read the note in a glance. “All in order.” The two brothers were nothing if not brief and to the point. She nodded to herself in satisfaction.

“Tonight then?” Martha asked, interpreting her gesture correctly.

“Yes. Everything is in place.” The arrangements for Polly Tuck had been made weeks ago, long before the news of the Marquess of Valence’s engagement had reached her. No matter her haste to get to London, Gisele would see this through first. She’d never forgive herself if she didn’t and something happened to the girl.

The tavern keeper nodded. “She’s been waiting but I’ll make sure she’s ready. Thank you, Miz Gisele, for coming. For what you do.”

Gisele smiled briefly. “Everyone needs a little help sometimes.”

Martha put her hands on her substantial hips. “You ever need anything, you know you just need ask. Anything at all.”

“Thank you.”

“Now you best be on your way. Place will fill up soon. The things you asked for are around back. And you were never here.”

The first time Gisele had helped a woman disappear, her pulse had pounded uncontrollably and her heart had been in her throat the entire time. It had been nearly a week before she had stopped looking over her shoulder,
convinced that both she and the woman she’d helped escape were not being hunted like crippled foxes. Nearly four years later, the underlying fear still existed, though Gisele was glad for it. It kept her alert, and it kept her from making overconfident mistakes.

Which is why they were waiting for complete darkness, huddled against the unseasonable chill and concealed in a copse of trees.

“How many?” Jamie asked into the soft whine of the wind. It was the first thing he’d said since they had left the tavern and collected their horses.

She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Dozens over the years.”

“How do they know where to find you?”

Gisele stared at the light from the tavern windows just visible through the foliage. “Through people like Martha. I have other… contacts in different places. York. Nottingham. Liverpool. Bath. A few others.”

“London?”

Gisele felt her body tense. “Yes.”

“What’s in London, Gisele?”

“Let’s concentrate on one thing at a time,” Gisele deflected. She wanted to trust him. And she did, to a point. But Gisele hadn’t survived as long as she had by placing reckless faith in near strangers, no matter how gallant and decent they might seem at the outset.

The wind gusted, and she shivered. Beside her, Jamie shifted so that he blocked the worst of the chill, and she could feel his warmth through the fabric of her clothes. She resisted the insane urge to lean into his heat and lay her head against the solidity of his chest. Instead she pulled her cloak around her more tightly.

The rattle of wheels on the road became audible above the stirring leaves and Gisele watched as a tinker’s cart came into view. Two men were perched up on the wide bench at the front, the walls of the cart swaying behind them with the ruts on the road. She glanced up at the ever-darkening sky.

“Almost time,” she murmured as the cart rolled past.

Chapter 5

G
isele wasn’t a spy. Or a thief.

Part of Jamie, the part that wanted to believe his instincts had been intact when he’d agreed to work for this woman, felt nothing but relief. He wasn’t sure what she was, exactly, but this crusade Gisele seemed to have embraced—the one he was now part of—was certainly noble enough, if not skewed slightly outside the law. Which went a long way in explaining her reticent nature.

It did not, however, explain where Gisele had come from and why was she here, pretending to be something and someone she wasn’t. Further, it did not explain why she became as taut as a bowstring every time London was mentioned.

An owl screeched somewhere in the darkness, and Jamie returned his attention to the road they’d been traveling now for a good ten minutes. They’d emerged out of the trees and headed back north again, toward the oak-lined ridge, and, he surmised, toward the Tuck residence. He sighed. Regardless of the puzzle that was the woman who called herself Just-Gisele, he would certainly help Polly Tuck, if only because it was the right thing to do.

The night was cloudless, affording the moonlight the ability to touch the earth with a pale illumination. His horse suddenly lifted its head and pricked its ears, and at the top of the ridge, he saw the tinker’s cart that had passed them earlier. It was pulled off to the side of the road at the entrance to a narrow lane, though there was no one in sight. Jamie tensed, wary and suspicious.

Beside him Gisele seemed oblivious. She glanced around her once more before guiding her horse directly alongside the cart. The animal standing patiently in its traces nickered softly in greeting.

“Gisele,” Jamie warned, angling his horse next to hers, reaching for his blade. He didn’t like the feel of this at all.

“It’s all right,” Gisele said softly, reaching out to put a restraining hand on his. “They’re friends.”

A man suddenly materialized from somewhere near the mouth of the lane and Jamie jerked, startled. He watched as Gisele slid from her horse and gave the man a quick embrace. “Thank you for this,” he heard her say.

“You know you don’t need to be thanking us, Miz Gisele,” the man said.

“It is out of your way.”

The stranger waved his hand impatiently. “Hardly. Just happy the timing worked out as it did.” They were speaking quickly and urgently. “My brother’s down there now seeing to things. Best hurry.”

Jamie dismounted from his own horse. Aside from the cart and its driver, the road was completely deserted, as was the lane leading down to the cottage, and Jamie suspected this hour had been chosen deliberately, when there was little chance of witnesses. The smell of woodsmoke was sharp in the air, and somewhere in the darkened
pastures a sheep bleated. He caught a glimpse of a weak light near the end of the twisted lane that led down from the road, betraying the existence of a tiny cottage, half hidden behind a screen of bushes.

Gisele was untying the heavy pack she had lashed to her saddle. Jamie moved to help and took it from her, hefting it over his shoulder. He could feel the stranger’s attention shift to him, though the man made no effort to introduce himself, nor did he ask Jamie’s identity. Gisele, likewise, remained unapologetically mute, collecting the reins of both their horses and passing them to the silent man.

“Tie them in those trees on the far side for us, please?” she asked. “Where they can’t be seen from the road. Ground’s too soft to be taking them down the lane. They’d leave tracks that would need to be explained later.”

“Of course.”

“I’ll send her up with your brother.”

“We’ll take good care of her.”

“I know you will.” Gisele touched the man’s shoulder. To Jamie, she said, “Follow me.” She didn’t wait for a reply from either man, simply started down the lane, treading along the edges where the grass grew thick. Jamie fell in behind her, careful to do the same.

It was like a perfectly scripted play, he realized. One that had been performed many times, and he wasn’t entirely sure if he should be impressed or alarmed.

“Who are your friends?” he asked.

“Men who are familiar with every back road and trail from London to Edinburgh. They’ve helped me many times before. They’ll take Polly with them, safely away from here.”

Maybe Gisele should have been a spy. She had answered his question without answering anything at all.

“Where’s Sebastien?” he tried.

“Treating Mr. Tuck and all his friends to rounds at Martha’s tavern. No one is likely to leave when ale is flowing on someone else’s coin.” She came to a stop at the door of the tiny cottage. Her eyes met his, gleaming in the gloom. “But that doesn’t mean we have time to waste. I need you to do exactly what I say, and I need you to do it quickly. Understood?”

“Yes.”

“I need you to pull down as much thatch as you can from the edges of the roof and bring it inside. Or straw if you can find it in the back shed. The drier the better.”

Jamie blinked. “Thatch?”

“Yes. And do it quickly.” Again Gisele didn’t wait for an answer, simply took the pack from Jamie’s hands and ducked through the door into the run-down cottage.

It took Jamie less than three minutes to assemble a good-size pile, and he pushed into the pitiful dwelling, depositing his load inside the door. He found Gisele standing in the center of the room, her pack open at her feet, a pair of gleaming scissors in her hands. A discarded dress lay on the floor and a painfully thin woman stood in front of her, dressed in boys’ breeches and a loose shirt. Her knotted hair fell along the sides of her face and down her back in a dark mass.

Gisele grabbed a handful of the woman’s hair. “Don’t move.” The scissors flashed, and a curtain of hair fell to the floor unceremoniously.

Jamie tried not to stare at Polly Tuck’s face but he couldn’t help himself. Even in the weak light offered by
the sputtering fire, he could see the left side of her cheek was a mass of discolored bruises. Her left eye had swollen closed altogether. A gash, crusted with blood, ran along her hairline. He felt his jaw clench.

Gisele snipped a few more times, leaving the woman with a rough but passable haircut. She bent and picked up a well-worn hat. “Put this on. It’ll hide your face, and if anyone asks, you got into a fight. Scraps between boys are unremarkable. Expected, even.”

A movement caught his eye, and a man stood from where he had been crouched behind the table near the small hearth. It was difficult to tell in the shadows, but he looked like an exact copy of the man waiting up at the top of the lane. He met Jamie’s eye briefly and tipped his head before turning to Gisele. “I need her ring.”

Polly twisted a band off her finger and dropped it in Gisele’s palm.

“Are you ready to do this?” Gisele asked the woman quietly. “Because once you leave, there is no coming back.”

Polly put her hand on her abdomen, the swell almost unnoticeable, especially under the bulk of her shirt. “Yes.” Jamie heard steel in her answer.

“Good.” Gisele tossed the ring to the waiting man, who bent, disappearing again briefly behind the table. She turned back to Polly. “There is a woman who is expecting you in York. You will live with her for as long as you require, certainly until the baby is born. She’ll help you find a means to earn a living and take care of your expenses until then. You’re not the first to come through her door, nor will you be the last. Do you understand?”

Polly offered Gisele a brave smile and wiped a hand across her eyes. “Yes,” she said.

The man near the hearth had moved and picked up a warm jacket from the table. He held it out for Polly, gently helping her into it.

“Time to go,” Gisele said.

“Thank you,” Polly whispered, giving Gisele an impulsive hug. Over Gisele’s shoulder, her one eye that still opened met his. “Thank you,” she whispered again, this time to Jamie. He simply nodded, swallowing the urge to protest that he hadn’t really done anything. And then, without a backward glance, Polly and her guide were gone into the night.

Gisele was already emptying the rest of the pack, lining up jars of what looked like lantern oil.

“You’re going to burn the place?” Jamie asked in sudden comprehension.

“To the ground.”

“Why?”

“Fire is best whenever possible. It’s all-consuming, and it destroys any evidence that may be left behind. It has the added benefit of becoming a very public tragedy, making believers out of an entire community as opposed to a single man.” Gisele’s voice was grim.

Jamie stared at her before moving closer to where she crouched. “Believers of what? I don’t—” He froze as he caught sight of the spectacle laid out in front of the hearth. “What the hell is that?”

A skeleton lay across the floor near the meager fire, the eyeless sockets of a skull staring sightlessly in his direction. Polly’s abandoned dress had been draped over the torso and legs and, with a morbid horror, Jamie saw the glint of the ring Polly had relinquished placed carefully on a bony digit.

Gisele barely glanced up at him. “It’s one thing to set a fire in the hopes someone believes a soul has perished in it. It’s another to convince them wholly. Polly Tuck needs to die tonight in order to live.”

Jamie gaped first at the bones, some with sinew still holding them in place, and then at Gisele. “Jesus. Is that really necessary?”

“While it is unlikely Garrett Tuck would ever be able to find his wife, it’s always better if one such as he never has reason to look. And there are the others to consider as well.”

Jamie raked his hands through his hair in agitation. “Others?”

Gisele was twisting the lids off jars with clinical precision. “Mr. Tuck already threatened Polly’s sister the first time she ran. What do you think might happen now if he believed she survived and he went looking?”

Jamie was struggling to comprehend the pure cunning that was unfolding before his eyes. This wasn’t a cleverly rehearsed play, it was a tactical campaign, planned and plotted by a web of individuals beyond the scope of his imagination.

It made the fine hairs on the back of his neck stand up. “And your nameless friends just happened to have a body in the back of their cart?” he demanded.

“The Darling brothers are devoted purveyors of fine specimens for the advancement of the medical research field,” Gisele said calmly as she stood, a jar in her hand. She dumped the contents over the table, where it splashed and soaked into the skirts of the abandoned dress. The overpowering scent of lantern oil assaulted his nose. “They are in possession of any number of bodies.”

Holy hell. It took Jamie two tries before he was able to
utter a sentence. “They’re resurrection men?” He was rapidly revising the list of questions he would be demanding answers to when he wasn’t in the middle of committing a multitude of felonies in a wretched cottage on the edge of Leicester. “Body snatchers?”

“They do not snatch bodies,” Gisele said, sounding impatient. “They collect those that remain unclaimed from prisons or workhouses or any number of unfortunate situations. What they provide has helped surgeons and physicians save the lives of patients everywhere. Soldiers included.” She paused. “And tonight it means a woman and her child will survive. Don’t you dare think I take that lightly.” She stalked over to the pile of rotting thatch Jamie had brought in and kicked it across the dirt floor before she upended the contents of another jar over the mess. The smell of oil in the cramped space became suffocating.

Jamie stared at her. “Are you insane? You’ve trusted a woman to the care of two criminals.”

Gisele’s face flushed visibly, even in the dimness, and her eyes flashed. “I’ve sent a woman away from a criminal in the care of two good men,” she hissed. “Men who have done, and will continue to do, everything in their power to see Polly to safety. Men who will see her to a place where she will never have to suffer again the way she suffered at the hands of the one person who should have protected her.”

Jamie didn’t have an answer for that. His declarations of chivalry yesterday morning suddenly seemed laughably naïve now that he found himself standing in the stark reality of his ideals. She’d given him fair warning, and though he’d listened, he hadn’t heard her.

Gisele was still watching him, as though waiting for him to respond. “Do you wish to leave, Jamie?”

“Leave?” He jerked.

“You can keep the horse. Consider it payment for services rendered. I only ask that you do not speak of what you saw here tonight. For Polly’s sake.”

Jamie stared at Gisele, something angry and defiant rising within him. She expected him to run—to just fade away in the face of adversity and complication. Dammit, was that the kind of man she thought him to be? Given where and how she had found him, he supposed it probably was. If he was honest with himself, it was exactly what he had done a year ago.

But he would not do it, not this time.

With deliberate movements he stalked over to the struggling fire in the hearth and withdrew a burning stick from the edge. He thought of Polly and the abuse that had hurt her but had not broken her. He thought about the child she’d lost and the one she would have a chance to know, thanks to what Gisele had done and the risks she’d taken.