Of Noble Birth (30 page)

“On my own life I will
avenge you,” the duke swore, crossing to the window that overlooked
the fenced gardens and the street below, his emotions too powerful
for him to remain in one place for long.

Jake sat on the other side
of the desk. He was unshaven, his eyes bloodshot, and the sight of
the white bandage that covered the end of his right arm made
Greystone want to slaughter the world.

“I should never have sent
you to the Crimea. But I thought you’d be safe with Captain
Montague.”

“There was little Montague
could do, or anyone else for that matter,” Jake said.
“Dragonslayer—”

“His name is Nathaniel,”
the duke broke in. “I will not have him called by that ludicrous
name.”

“Nathaniel, then. He
tricked us. We managed to hold him off in the morning, but he
followed us and attacked again when we least expected it. Though we
fought as best we could, most of the men were drunk by then and
there was nothing to do but surrender. And he took full advantage
of the situation, as you can see.”

Greystone faced the
window, turning away from the sight of Jake’s stump. On the grounds
below, a formal garden bloomed in the gentle sunshine—sweet peas,
heliotrope, phlox, larkspur, and love-in-the-mist.

He watched as his
gardeners worked among the plants, trimming and clipping. The
serenity of the view mocked his inner turmoil. Red roses, yellow
roses, and green shrubbery, all perfectly manicured, blurred before
his vision.

It was time he put an end
to Nathaniel once and for all. If not for his firstborn, Jake would
still have his hand. The marquess would be whole and healthy, and
there would be no threat to Greystone shipping, an asset the duke
loved almost as much as he loved his second son.

“He wanted to get to you
through me,” Jake said. “I’m your heir. He wanted to leave me no
more whole than he is himself.”

The marquess’s words acted
like kerosene on the flames of the duke’s fury. Nathaniel mocked
him? “I’ll rot in hell before I let him escape me now,” he
swore.

“He’ll pay for his crimes,
Father. I have all the information we need to put an end to
Dragonslayer—that is, Nathaniel.”

The duke whirled around.
“What information?”

“I met a man who is
willing to help us.” Jake leaned forward, his eyes alive for the
first time since he’d returned. “He’s a member of Nathaniel’s crew,
and for a price, he’s promised to provide all the information we
need to capture Nathaniel. He said he will send us word as soon as
he can meet with us. It shouldn’t be more than a few days at the
most.”

Greystone felt a tremor of
anticipation run through him. “Excellent,” he said. “Then it is
only a matter of time after all.”

* * *

Nathaniel’s horse was
lathered by the time he let it slow to a walk. As he listened to
its labored breathing, he called himself a fool for returning to
London. Alexandra would be better off if he left things as they
stood, but he couldn’t help himself. His feelings for her had grown
too strong. Had circumstances been different...

No, he chided himself. It
wasn’t wise to think like that. Love was too dangerous an
emotion.

Fog flowed in from the
Thames, settling over the streets like some biblical plague as he
headed to Oxford and then on to Broad. It was getting late,
probably too late to make a social call, but Nathaniel tied his
horse to the ring outside Dr. Watts’s small garden anyway. He dared
not delay his visit till morning. Trenton and the others would be
waiting for him in Newcastle as it was.

Nathaniel knocked at the
door, wondering what he was going to say to Alexandra when he saw
her. He couldn’t make any promises. Neither could he let her
disappear from his life.

The housekeeper answered
his knock, but before he could so much as greet her, she beckoned
him in. “Oh, Mr. Kent. Thank goodness you’re here. We’ve never been
properly introduced, but my name is Mrs. Tuttle.”

Stepping inside the cozy
house, Nathaniel let the housekeeper take his frock coat as dread
turned the blood in his veins to ice. “It’s a pleasure to know you,
Mrs. Tuttle. Is something wrong? Has Alexandra taken a turn for the
worse?”

Dr. Watts descended the
stairs. “Tutty, did I hear Mr. Kent arrive? Ah, yes, it is you.
What a relief. We were getting quite beside ourselves,
really.”

Nathaniel turned to the
doctor. “What is it?”

“Can’t say for
sure—”

“Where’s Alexandra?”
Nathaniel glanced through the door that led to the adjoining
examination room and the dormitory beyond, but all was quiet. They
seemed quite alone in the house.

“That’s the problem, my
good fellow,” Dr. Watts explained. “She’s gone. She left this
morning with a picnic lunch and a list of dressmakers she intended
to visit. And she’s not come back.”

“What?”

Dr. Watts sighed. “She’s a
stubborn lass, your sister. I told her she wasn’t well enough to be
up and about, but she kept insisting she felt fine. She was so
eager to search for gainful employment, you know.”

“She promised to be gone
only a few hours at most, just long enough to make a few
inquiries,” Tutty cut in. “But she hasn’t returned, and we don’t
know what to make of it.”

Nathaniel stood looking at
the pair in astonishment. He had expected Alexandra to move on
eventually. She needed to establish a new life in London. But he
never dreamed she’d disappear so soon. “She didn’t arrange for
other lodgings?”

“None we know of,” the
doctor replied. “She made herself a dress, managed it in a single
day, mind you. And she’s got the fabric to begin another still
here—”

“I know she planned to
return,” Tutty interrupted, wringing her hands. “She took only
enough food for one small meal.”

The burned-out warehouse
was cold and drafty. Great gusts of wind whistled through the
broken windows along the top, blowing rain inside until the wet
nearly reached the circle of seamstresses pressed against the back
wall.

Alexandra sat in a dim
corner, bent over her work, struggling to see the tiny stitches in
the wavering light of several candles. Her gaze flicked toward the
windows as she acknowledged the storm gathering outside, but her
mind was preoccupied with thoughts of Dr. Watts and Mrs.
Tuttle.

“What’s the problem,
missy?” asked the woman next to her. Her long dark hair, streaked
with gray, was pulled severely off her face. “Are ye too
cold?”

Though her fingers and
toes were nearly frozen, Alexandra shook her head. “No. Someone’s
expecting me tonight, is all, and I’m far from being finished.” She
jammed her needle back into the wool of the livery she
sewed.

“Ye’d best stay till
morning now anyway. The streets aren’t safe along the docks after
dark, an’ ye won’t last long around ‘ere if ye miss yer
deadline.”

Alexandra nodded. She’d
walked a long way from the doctor’s residence, deep into the rabbit
warrens of London, and was reluctant to start back so late. But she
wished she could notify the doctor and Tutty somehow. She knew the
pair would be worried about her.

Allowing herself a small
sigh, she tried to concentrate on her work despite an audible
growling in her stomach. Tutty had packed her a few slices of cold
meat and a biscuit, but she’d eaten it long ago while she was still
visiting dressmakers on the housekeeper’s list.

“I’m Mariah,” the woman
volunteered. “How did ye come to be ‘ere? I mean, forgive my
boldness, but ye seem, well, different from the rest of
us.”

Alexandra glanced around
the circle of drawn, pinched faces. The others were obviously
tired, and judging from their clothes, poor. But then, the same
thing could be said for most needlewomen.

“Another shop I visited,
looking for work, told me Mr. Gunther is always hiring.”

Mariah nodded. “That’s
true enough. Are ye new to London, then?”

“Yes.”

“Ah... that explains
it.”

“Explains
what?”

Mariah’s eyes darted
across the room. She fell silent as Gunther, a short man with heavy
whiskers who was almost as wide as he was tall, came to stand
beside the circle of working women.

“I need to get these
orders out of here,” he barked. “Come on, ladies, we’ve got
deadlines.”

Mariah muttered something
under her breath, making Alexandra glance up at her.

“What did you
say?”

“I ‘ate Gunther,” she
whispered. “An’ Gould is almost as bad.”

Gunther had hired her, but
Alexandra could only assume Gould to be the stringy,
fair-complexioned man who stood at her boss’s side.

“Are we all working,
ladies?” Gunther’s words acted like the crack of a whip, making the
seamstresses bow closer to their needles.

One, more bold than the
rest, said, “Whippin’ a dead ‘orse won’t make ‘im run any
faster.”

“If a horse don’t run as
fast as I like, I get me another horse,” he bellowed back. “Anyone
who goes home before they get their order done shouldn’t bother to
come back.”

Alexandra frowned,
wondering how she’d make it through the night. When she’d taken the
job, she’d planned to return to Dr. Watts’s and begin the following
morning. But Gunther had pressed her to start immediately, saying
he had an order that needed filling right away. Now she realized
just how ill-prepared she was to meet his demands. She was hungry
and cold, with only a thin shawl to warm her, and she wasn’t as
strong as she should be.

Silence reigned as the
hour grew late. Even Mariah grew reticent, and Alexandra was glad.
She scarcely had the energy to continue sewing, let alone provide
any kind of interesting conversation. She was tempted to give up
and leave, but the discouragement she had faced earlier in the day
when dress shop after dress shop had turned her away had frightened
her. What if she couldn’t find anything better?

Thunder cracked in the
sky, louder than any cannon. A boisterous wind began to fling the
rain ever farther into the room, blowing out several candles, and
those women along the outer edge of the circle began to complain
about the wet.

The other seamstresses
seemed reluctant to move, but they could hardly continue to work
without light. They rose, grumbling beneath their breath. Some held
the remaining candles while others shoved the tables and chairs
back even closer to the far wall. This done, they sat wordlessly
and went back to work.

Eventually some of the
seamstresses made pillows out of their aprons or shawls and found
an empty place on the floor to grab a few minutes’ rest. Alexandra
longed to do the same. Her tired, sore body ached for a bed, but
she was determined to continue. She needed a job to provide some
sort of stability in her life, and she welcomed anything with the
potential to divert her thoughts from the one person who remained
center stage: Nathaniel. Frustrating though it was, his face
forever appeared in her mind’s eye. Even with work to distract her,
she caught herself remembering him, the things he’d said, his
smile, his touch, his pain.

“‘
Ave ye ‘ad anythin’ to
eat?” Mariah asked.

Alexandra shook her
head.

“Then ‘ere.” Cold hands
pressed a portion of a roll into her lap. It was a hard, crusty
remnant of an earlier supper, but Alexandra was hungry enough to
eat anything.

“Take a few ticks to
rest,” the woman suggested.

“Thank you, but if I do,
I’ll never get done.” Alexandra stuffed the entire roll into her
mouth so her hands could remain free.

“Listen. I just finished
my own work. I’ll stitch for ye if ye’ll take fifteen minutes or so
an’ sleep.”

Surprised by the kindness
of Mariah’s offer, Alexandra looked questioningly into her face.
“But you could go home now.”

“I don’t mind ‘elpin’ ye
for a while. Now pop along an’ do as I say.”

Carefully avoiding the
small puddles caused by the rain, Alexandra lay down, wondering if
she’d ever be able to get up again. Her back and arms ached, her
head throbbed, and the cold, unyielding cement provided little
comfort.