Secrets of an Accidental Duchess (22 page)

Jonathan’s lips tightened, but he nodded. “Very well. We’ll bring her here tonight. She’ll stay the night, and if the doctor declares her fit, the two of you will be off to Prescot first thing in the morning.” He turned to Sebastian. “Will you escort them there?”

“Of course.”

Jessica rose and joined Jonathan and Serena in the middle of the room, hugging them both. She was looking at Sebastian when she said, “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

At midnight, Jessica went with Sebastian and Jonathan to Brockton Hall. They parked the carriage away from the house so any of the lingering servants wouldn’t hear it. They went in through the back door, Sebastian using an old skill to pick the lock.

While Sebastian kept watch downstairs, Jonathan and Jessica crept upstairs. Jessica went in to Beatrice’s room first, finding her wide awake.

The swelling, which had reduced enough for Beatrice to see through eye slits before Jessica had left her earlier, had gone down even more, thanks to the cold poultices Jessica had demanded the cook prepare for her. Relief shone in Beatrice’s expression when she turned her head to look at Jessica.

“You came.”

“I said I would, didn’t I?” Jessica held out her hand, and Beatrice reached up from the bed and took it. “Do you trust me, Beatrice?”

“I do.”

“You’re my friend and I love you.”

“I know,” Beatrice whispered. “I do want to go away from here, Jessica. Far, far away. I never want to see my husband again.”

“Remember how you told me that you were happy once, when you were a little girl? How you had no worries in the world?”

“Yes.”

“I want that for you again, my dear friend. I want you to be happy again.”

“I want that, too,” Beatrice said haltingly.

“The earl is just outside. He’s going to help you to the carriage. We’re going to his house. Tomorrow, you’re going far away.”

“Will I be alone?” Beatrice whispered.

“I wouldn’t send you off alone. I’ll be going with you. And my brother-in-law, Mr. Harper, will watch over us.”

Beatrice nodded, her dark eyes glowing. “Thank you. I don’t… I don’t think I could do this without you.”

Someday, Beatrice would be strong enough to do something like this on her own. She’d been so beaten down by Lord Fenwicke for so long, she was like a piece of shattered glass. Jessica would stay by her side and help her glue every last shard back into place. Hopefully, when they were finished, Beatrice would be stronger than she’d ever been before.

But now… Well, now was the low point. Beatrice was broken, and she needed to lean heavily on others.

Jessica was fully aware that she was young, and she’d lived the vast majority of her life on a small island far away from society. Nevertheless, she intended to be a rock for Beatrice for as long as she needed one.

She went into her friend’s dressing room, and with Beatrice’s help, she gathered the basic necessities: several changes of undergarments, hairpins, shoes, and a few dresses. She found a valise where Beatrice had said it would be, in her husband’s closet through the doors adjoining their bedrooms, and stuffed the clothes into it.

Finally, she went to Beatrice’s door, where Jonathan was waiting, and told him they were ready.

He came into the bedchamber. Jessica watched him carefully and observed the twitch in his jaw when he saw how terribly Beatrice had been beaten.

Not all men were bad, Jessica thought. Some, like her brothers-in-law, were very, very good.

Beatrice averted her eyes as Jonathan very gently lifted her into his arms. “Am I hurting you?” he murmured.

“No, sir.”

Cradling her gently in his arms, Jonathan passed Jessica and headed toward the door. Carrying the packed valise, she followed them down the stairs. When they reached the bottom, Sebastian joined them, relieving Jessica of the valise. Locking the door, they stealthily left the house. As they walked toward the carriage, Beatrice looked over her shoulder. “I’ll never go back there.”

“No, never,” Sebastian agreed. “Not if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t,” Beatrice said. And she didn’t say any more.

They drove home in silence. When they arrived, the doctor was waiting. Sebastian carried Beatrice upstairs to a guest room near Jessica’s room, and when he laid her in the bed, she reached up and grabbed his arm. “Please,” she begged. “I don’t…”

Jessica hurried up behind Sebastian. “What’s wrong, Beatrice?”

Beatrice flashed her a desperate look. “I don’t want to see the doctor.”

“Why?”

She swallowed hard. “He is from the village. He might tell Lord Fenwicke—”

Sebastian squeezed Beatrice’s hand. “It’s all right, my lady. Jonathan already spoke to him. We have his assurance, as a man of honor, that he won’t reveal your presence here. No one outside this house will hear of it.”

“Are you sure?” she whispered.

He nodded solemnly, and she relaxed back into the sheets, closing her eyes. “Very well.”

She insisted that even Jessica leave, though, while the doctor saw her. So Jessica joined the others in the drawing room, pacing and wringing her hands in worry.

An hour later, the doctor knocked on the drawing room door and entered to a roomful of anxious Donovan sisters and two husbands. “Well,” he said. “She is well enough to travel, but barely. And I daresay it’ll be rather painful for her, with the roads in the condition they’re in this time of year. She has at least three broken ribs.”

Jonathan made a sound that resembled a low growl.

“Other than that, she’s quite bruised, from head to foot. However, there are no other serious internal injuries
that I can find.” The doctor hesitated, then lowered his head. When he spoke again, he seemed to be speaking to the floor. “She was not only beaten, but used quite brutally.”

No one spoke. Tears slipped unchecked from Jessica’s eyes. On top of everything else, that evil man had raped her. Jessica had suspected it, but to hear the confirmation wrenched her heart wide open. How she hated that man.

There was a long silence. Finally, Sebastian stepped forward. “Thank you, doctor.”

“I’ve bound her ribs to help with the pain, and left some laudanum. She was drowsy when I left her and probably sound asleep by now. I’ll leave direction on the treatment of her wounds while on the journey.”

Jessica wiped away her tears, impatient with them, and strode to the writing desk by the tall window looking out over the driveway below. “Here is some paper and a pen, doctor. If you’d be so kind as to write the instructions out for me?”

“Of course.” The doctor dipped the pen in the ink and scrawled a few lines while the family waited in silence, then pushed the paper across the desk toward Jessica. “Here you are, miss.”

“Thank you.”

As Sebastian went to escort the doctor out, Serena said, “It’s near dawn. We should all get some rest. Especially you, Jessica. You’ve a long journey ahead.”

“Yes,” Jessica said dully.

Olivia slipped her hand in hers and tugged. “I’ll walk you to your room.”

Jessica was silent as she walked with Olivia upstairs. It
seemed all her emotion and anger and urgency had been driven away by the doctor’s diagnosis. All she felt now was utterly numb.

At her door, Olivia embraced her. “You’re such a good friend, Jessica. Out of all the people in the world, I would choose you to be my closest friend. Beatrice is lucky to have you.”

She didn’t answer. She kissed her sister, went into her room, and tumbled into a fretful sleep. Morning seemed to come within minutes, and she was being shaken awake by Serena. “It’s time to go, Jess. You’ve time for a quick breakfast, but then you must be on your way.”

At noon, they were in a carriage rattling over pitted roads on their way northward, to Prescot.

Fenwicke returned to London feeling much stronger. He’d proved his superiority over his wife. True, she was a sniveling, cowering thing, but the way he’d so utterly mastered her reminded him of how strong he really was. He was a powerful man, and he could use that power to finally master the Duke of Wakefield.

He’d succeed this time. He knew it. No longer would Max Buchanan look down that aristocratic nose at him. No, he’d beg for mercy, just like Beatrice had.

Nothing would be better. Not only would it prove, once and for all, that Fenwicke was the superior man, but he’d finally rid himself of the man who just wouldn’t stop pestering him. He would finally move forward with his life with a clean slate, finally free from Max’s tenacious hold on his self-confidence. His long-time nemesis wouldn’t know what had hit him.

Fenwicke dismissed his man with a flick of the wrist,
but he didn’t leave his dressing room chair. He studied himself for a long time in the looking glass, pressing on the light wrinkles that had spread across his forehead in the past months. They weren’t so bad. And his eyes still held a dark glint of wickedness. A promise of…
more
that he knew the ladies couldn’t resist.

He smiled at himself in the mirror. He was still a handsome devil, if he did say so himself.

He rose, adjusted a soft wrinkle in his banyan, and wandered downstairs. He entered his morning room, finding his steaming coffee placed to the left of the morning correspondence, which was to the left of today’s
Times,
which was to the left of his boiled egg. Everything was as it should be.

He seated himself, spread his napkin carefully across his lap, and smoothed all the wrinkles from it. Then he drank half of his coffee, and when he began to feel it work through him, he filtered through his correspondence. There were only two letters today. One was from his father—the old man who refused to die—and the other was from Brockton Hall.

That was fast. Frowning, he broke the seal and read the childish, nearly indecipherable handwriting of his cook.

Fenwicke stared at the letter for a very long time. At first, he couldn’t believe it. Beatrice couldn’t have left Brockton Hall. He’d forbidden her to. She always obeyed his orders, because she knew very well the severity of the consequences if she didn’t.

Yet the cook wouldn’t have written this letter to him if it weren’t true.

Well, well, well.

It seemed his wife had grown a rebellious streak. When he found her, the punishment would be severe indeed.

Damn the Donovan sisters. Damn them all to hell. They’d done this. They’d caused Beatrice to misbehave in a way that had the potential to cause him a great deal of trouble. Those sisters had caused him nothing but difficulty ever since their arrival in England.

His fury mounted, and he crushed the letter in his hand and tossed it into the fire.

Beatrice certainly hadn’t kept her simpering little mouth shut. She’d probably told those Donovan sisters all manner of lies. And the Donovans had probably told Stratford. Stratford was someone Fenwicke had once admired—they’d gone carousing together many times over the years. Ever since he’d married the eldest Donovan sister, however, he’d become quite dull.

Fenwicke clenched his teeth. Was Stratford involved in Beatrice’s disappearance? If so, this could become
extremely complicated. Difficult, even. Stratford was a powerful man, with powerful connections.

Not as powerful as me,
Fenwicke reminded himself. His title, though only the courtesy title for his father’s heir, was higher than Stratford’s. He held precedence over the man. He always would.

Maybe Stratford had some plan to ruin him. To steal his home in Sussex. To steal his wife.

Fenwicke hissed through his teeth.

He blinked hard and stared down at his hands clenched in his lap. If he was to beat them—beat them all—he must focus.

He spent the afternoon at Tattersall’s, dreaming, thinking of all the horseflesh he’d keep in his stables once his father was dead. After he grew bored of that—because thinking of all the things he’d do once his father was dead sometimes started to grow into thinking of ways to kill the man—he went home and changed his clothes, and then he took his carriage to White’s.

As soon as he walked into the card room, a hush fell over the room as, one by one, the men looked up at him. Every single expression was full of antipathy. Of
disgust.

He wound through the tables, feeling eyes on him, and joined a group of men at a table.

“May I join you, gentlemen?” he asked, sliding into the empty chair.

No one spoke. No one looked at him. Instead, they collected their winnings, stood, and walked away from the table, leaving him alone. As the last departing man walked past him, Fenwicke heard the slicing accusation like a razor across his throat.

“Wife beater.”

Fenwicke stood. Keeping his chin high and his back straight, he left White’s. He summoned his coachman and went straight home and into his drawing room, where he put out all the lights and sat on his most comfortable chair facing the fire.

He really preferred his London house to his home in Sussex. It was a large, stately home situated in Mayfair on an enormous piece of property—well, enormous for a private dwelling within London and considering its proximity to everything important.

He stared into his drawing room fire—the only supplier of light in the room—for a long while, but the flames died down until there were only a few glowing coals. Then those went black, and still he sat.

Where had this newest scathing gossip come from? His first thought had been that it must be Beatrice spreading filth about him. But surely not. She didn’t have the gumption.

It had to be someone else. Someone who hated him. The Earl of Stratford wasn’t in Town, and neither was his wife and her damnable sisters.

That left one man. One person in the world who was always trying to better him, who hated him. Who liked to pretend to be an innocent but had obviously been plotting to destroy him from the beginning.