The Duchess (38 page)

A footman opened the coach door and offered a hand to the duchess who descended and hurried into the house, going directly up the staircase to her apartments. She entered to catch Honor and the duke's valet, Hawkins, in a torrid embrace. They broke apart guiltily and red-faced, as she stepped through the doors.

“M'lady!” Honor squeaked. Her bodice was quite awry.

“If you seduce my maid and put her in the family way, Hawkins,” Allegra said, “you must be prepared to make an honest woman of her.”

“Yes, my lady,” the valet said nervously.

“And you are prepared to do so? No wife, or dear friend tucked away in another place here in London, or down at Hunter's Lair?” Allegra persisted. “Honor, for goodness' sake, straighten your bodice.”

“No wife, or friend, my lady,” the valet said, shuffling his feet.

“Very good, Hawkins,” the Duchess of Sedgwick told her husband's valet. “You are dismissed. Go and be ready to help your master to bed. He will be up shortly.” Allegra turned to Honor, who was lacing her gown front. “And I am ready for my bed, Honor. Come and help me.” She turned and moved from her salon into her bedchamber.

“Whew!” Hawkins breathed softly as Allegra disappeared into the other room. “She's a proper cool one.”

“Haven't I taught you better yet about speaking rude against my lady?” Honor scolded him.

“Guess I need more lessons,” the valet said with a wink, and then he was gone out the door, and to his master's room.

With a smile Honor hurried to her mistress's aid. “You ain't mad at me, are you?” she asked.

“Just be careful,” Allegra said quietly. “I'm not certain that I trust Hawkins where you are concerned, Honor. I love you too dearly to allow him to harm you in any way.”

“He's more bark than bite, my lady,” Honor answered her mistress, “and he surely ain't as smart as I am,” she chuckled. “If he means to find himself by my side in bed, he'll have visited the parson with me first. A kiss and a cuddle don't make babies. Of that much I'm certain.”

Allegra laughed. “I shouldn't have worried,” she replied.

“I'm glad you do,” her maid responded. She knelt, and pulled her mistress's little slippers off. “Lord, my lady, your poor wee feet are as cold as ice. These little slippers may be fashionable, but they ain't meant for the cold streets of London.”

“Honor, I need your help,” Allegra said quietly. “I
know I don't have the right to ask this of you. You are free to tell me so, and I shall still love you. Do you remember when I was a little girl and you would sit with me when James Lucian and I had lessons? And how one day when we were doing a French exercise you corrected us and we were so surprised? It was then we discovered that you had learned the language right along with us and could speak it beautifully.”

“I remember, my lady,” Honor said.

“Do you think you could speak it again? I mean, given a bit of practice?” Allegra wondered.

“I wouldn't know until I tried it, my lady,” Honor said honestly.

“Comment vous appelez-vous,
mademoiselle?” Allegra responded.

“Je m'appelle
Mademoiselle
Honneur,”
the maid replied.

“Quel âge avez-vous?”

“J'ai vingt-quatre ans,
madame,” was the answer.

“You do remember!” Allegra cried.

“Guess I do,” Honor said, sounding surprised.

“Then let me tell you what we are going to do,” Allegra said, and she explained the situation with the Bellinghams' niece, the Comtesse d'Aumont, and how they were going to France to rescue her. “If you are willing to come with us it would help tremendously,” Allegra said. “I need it to look as if the local committee of safety sent a leader and enough citizens to bring the countess and her children to justice. And you speak French well.”

“Can the other ladies?” Honor asked.

Allegra nodded.

“I'll go,” the maidservant told her mistress. “It's an adventure, and one day if I have grandchildren, I'll tell
'em how their old gran helped save three innocent lives.”

“Bless you, Honor,” Allegra said wholeheartedly. And then she added, “but let me tell his lordship. I have only just convinced him that this is the right thing to do.”

“Men don't have a whole lot of common sense, m'lady,” Honor replied. “I think that's why God created us womenfolk. Men surely need someone to tell 'em what's right, and what ain't.”

Allegra giggled. “Oh, yes, Honor,” she said. “How absolutely correct you are!”

F
rederick Bellingham looked at the three young men standing before him. “Are you certain you want to do this?” he asked for at least the third time. “It is dangerous, but she is my brother's daughter. I must get her safely to England. Yet do I have the right to put you three in danger?” Past sixty, Lord Bellingham looked weary with his worry.

“We have discussed it carefully, my lord, and we are willing to help you. The plan is formulated, but I shall not burden you with the details. You, however, must tell me where your niece and her children live. How far from the coast are they?”

“The village of St. Jean Baptiste is located but eight miles from the town of Harfleur, which as you know is directly on the sea,” Lord Bellingham told them. “My niece's home is nothing more than a large gray stone house. The family's small wealth comes from their flocks of sheep and their apple orchards. It's a most modest establishment.”

“A perfect little estate for someone now in a position of power to confiscate for himself,” the Earl of Aston remarked. “A helpless young widow and her children. The fellow, whoever he is, is a proper villain, I fear.”

“And you are certain your niece is willing to give up
her home under the circumstances?” the duke asked. “Her missive to you has said so? She will come to England?”

“She writes that she has been foolish, and should have put her son's estate with a trusted friend, and then come to England until order is restored in France. She never expected that anyone would bother them, for they are neither rich nor powerful. They are just simple country folk,” Lord Bellingham said, sighing again. “What kind of a monster would prey on a woman and her children? The Comte d'Aumont was a good man. A hero of reform!”

“More ordinary folk have died in this revolution,” Lord Walworth noted. “That dressmaker who does for our wives, Madame Paul. She lost family to the guillotine. What harm could a dressmaker's family have possibly caused to have required such a sentence as death?”

“I will give you a letter to carry to Anne-Marie,” Lord Bellingham said to the duke. “That way she will not be afraid.”

“Does she speak English?” the duke asked the older man.

“I have no idea,” he replied. “We always spoke French to her on the rare occasions that we saw one another. She writes to us in French,” he noted.

“Probably don't speak the king's
langue,”
the earl remarked. “You'll have to do all the talking, Quint.”

The duke nodded, and then he said to Lord Bellingham, “We will go tomorrow, sir. We will inform you when we return.”

The two men shook hands.

“God bless you all, whatever happens,” Lord Bellingham said.

“Ah yes, God bless you, my boys,” Lady Bellingham said. Silent until then, she wept.

Outside they entered the duke's coach which took them directly to Boodle's. Settled in the club's dining room they ordered their luncheons. Boodle's was noted for its excellent food, and was a particular favorite with country gentlemen come up to town.

“You said we're going tomorrow?” the earl remarked.

“I assume your yacht is anchored at Brighton as usual,” the duke returned. “The coach will carry the ladies, and we will ride.”

“You can't be serious about taking our wives,” Marcus Bainbridge, the Earl of Aston said. “You know it ain't no pleasure jaunt we're off on, Quint. Too dangerous for the ladies. Much too dangerous.”

“Nonetheless they are going,” the duke replied.

“Tell me why I am going to allow Caroline to put herself in such jeopardy,” Lord Walworth said quietly.

Quinton Hunter explained, and when he had finished he said, “Well, is my wife not clever?”

“Damn me!” the earl replied. “If that ain't cunning. What's more, I think it will work, Quint.”

“Allegra has spoken with Madame Paul this very morning. She will have the clothing our ladies need ready by the time we leave tomorrow. The old lady wanted to come with us,” the duke chuckled, “but my wife convinced her otherwise.”

Lord Walworth sighed. “If I don't let Caroline go she'll never forgive me. All she's done is natter on about this cousin she ain't never even met, and how she must help her. I suppose we'll be obliged to take 'em in when we get 'em here.”

“Maybe they won't want to live down in the country,” the earl said helpfully.

“They live in the country now, Marcus, you dolt,” Adrian, Lord Walworth grumbled. “Well, as she's a
widow, maybe we'll be able to match her up with some lonely gentleman and marry her off quickly.”

Their luncheon was brought. The three gentlemen tucked into the beefsteaks and potato soufflés. The attentive staff made certain their goblets were kept filled with good red wine. Afterward the duke left his two friends off at the house they were sharing, and returned to his own house on Berkley Square.

“Where is Her Grace?” he asked Marker as he entered the foyer.

“The duchess is upstairs napping, my lord,” the butler replied.

The duke hurried up the staircase to his wife's apartments. Entering her salon he found it empty. He moved through the room into her bedchamber. Allegra lay, wrapped in a muslin chamber robe, asleep on her bed. Her dark hair was loose and lay all tumbled across the lavender-scented pillows. Quinton Hunter smiled to himself. If he lived to be a hundred years old, he would never understand how he had been so fortunate as to have found a wife like Allegra. This time last year he hadn't even known she existed. And in his pride he had believed there was no woman in all of England fit to be his duchess. What a fool he had been. Yet his angel had guided him safely. Reaching out, he fingered one of her soft curls.

Allegra opened her eyes, and seeing her husband standing over her opened her arms to him. “You're back,” she murmured sleepily.

He pulled off his cloak, and lay next to her. “It is all settled, my darling. We leave early tomorrow morning for Brighton. We'll be there by noon, then off with the tide.”

“And we sail for France,” she replied. “Where is the countess?”

“About eight miles from Harfleur,” the duke said.

“We'll probably have to walk it to avoid suspicion,” Allegra responded thoughtfully.

“Walk?
Eight miles? Do you think that you can?” the duke wondered. “Surely we can find a cart.”

“We probably should,” Allegra considered upon reflection. “We will need to get away from the countess's home as quickly as possible, but as for walking, my darling, we are all country lasses, even if we are fancy ladies. We must not, however, draw attention to ourselves, Quinton. I shall have to think carefully upon it.”

“Do not think now,” he said, kissing her brow, his hand slipping beneath her robe to cup a breast. His thumb brushed lightly over the nipple as he bent to find her lips.

Her senses reeled. They always did when he touched her breasts which they had both discovered were very sensitive. “Mmmmmm,” she murmured against his mouth, and then she pulled away. “Get out of your clothes, my lord. I do not want your dirty boots mucking my coverlet.” She gave him a gentle shove.

With a chuckle he arose, and began to draw off his garments. Boots first. Then his shirt and neckcloth. His stockings, his breeches and his drawers. Allegra watched him. He had wonderfully firm buttocks. Her fingers itched to touch him. He turned about to reenter the bed, and she sighed with pleasure at the sight of his manhood, which stood at half-mast amid the tangle of his dark bush.

“Why you shameless wench,” he teased her, noting the direction her eyes had taken.

“It's like an ivory pillar,” she told him. “All blue-veined, and beautiful.”

“If the French ever get out of Italy,” he said, “I shall take you there one day to view the art, Allegra. The ancients
sculpted a great many nudes of men and of women. I can see you have an appreciation of such things.” He lay next to her, fingering her curls.

“There are statues of naked people?” she asked him, surprised.

“Oh, indeed there are,” he said, unfastening the sash of her chamber robe, and pushing back fabric. “But none, my darling, are as fair as you are.” He bent his head to kiss her breast.

“And these statues are displayed in public?” she continued.

“They are.” His mouth closed over a nipple, and he began to suckle upon her.

“Oooo,” she released her breath with an audible sigh. His mouth was warm, and the tugging upon her flesh was very exciting. Allegra knew she had more questions to ask him, but somehow they all fled from her mind as he filled her with pleasure. Her fingers found the nape of his neck, and she began to knead it with one hand. He had imprisoned her other hand with his as he feasted upon her breast.