The Gypsy Duchess (16 page)

She smiled to herself, remembering the chest containing the priceless Sheffield jewelry she had secreted away, along with a healthy hoard of pound notes, in case she ever found it necessary to remove Charles from England to keep him safe. Thank God for the peace treaty signed with the Americans in December, for there she would take him. Crude as life in the former colonies might be, the citizens of that infant country were free of the kind of tyranny her frail little stepson would suffer under Quentin.

She would take young Alfie with them. The lad would fare far better in the Americas with her than alone on the streets of London. She might even take John Butler; he appeared to be an adventurous soul and his loyalty to the duke was unexceptionable.

So, that was that then. She was prepared in case the worst should happen. There was nothing more she could do. With a sigh, she relaxed for the first time since she had spied the viscount enter the Langley Hall ballroom.

Devon skirted the bluff where he usually rode and edged his horse down the steep trail that led directly to the beach. When he’d called at White Oaks, John Butler had told him that Moira had gone riding. Somehow he knew that with all she had on her mind, she would seek the peace and solitude of the shore. He could use a little peace himself after the morning he had just put in.

He had watched his mother step from her hiding place behind the drape and with a regal aplomb that would have made the Empress Catherine green with envy, give the stunned viscount the cut direct and stalk from the salon through the door which had miraculously opened as she approached. Partridge had apparently had his ear glued to the keyhole as usual.

The situation had grown uglier by the minute after that. Once the viscount had realized the game was up, he abandoned all pretense of amiability. “I’ll make you rue this day, my lord, if it’s the last thing I ever do,” he’d snarled. “The Sheffield fortune is rightfully mine, and the title as well. Even the brat is mine, as his mother would attest if the sickly twit hadn’t died of the childbed fever. Think you that doddering old fool, the duke, could have gotten a woman with child?”

“Enough!” Devon had cried, though instinct told him there was probably truth in the viscount’s claim he had fathered Charles. The physical resemblance between the two was too striking to miss.

“Peddle your filth elsewhere, for I have no interest in it or in continuing this conversation longer,” he declared. “Except to say one thing. If you or your hired thugs ever come near the duke or his stepmother again, I will kill you without a shred of remorse.”

He shivered. Even now, the chilling memory of his last view of the viscount’s hate-twisted face lingered like a dark shadow over the sunlit beach on which he rode. In truth, once Quentin had let his guard down, he’d seemed more like some evil spirit from the underworld than the stylish dandy who had pranced into the salon just moments before.

His mind still in turmoil, Devon guided his horse along the water’s edge, anxiously searching for Moira. For some inexplicable reason, he had a sudden need to know she was safe. She was nowhere in sight. Yet, every instinct told him she was near.

Just as he reached the edge of the cove where a rocky ledge jutted into the sea, he spotted her roan mare nibbling on a patch of grass at the base of the cliff. His heart leaped into his throat. Had she been thrown? Was she lying broken and bleeding somewhere on the rock-strewn beach? Frantically he urged his horse toward the mare, and to his relief, found it loosely tethered to a small scrub bush. Moira must be close by.

It took him a while to find her. With her head of black hair resting on her black-clad knees, she looked so much a part of the mammoth boulder on which she sat, she literally disappeared from view.

Devon tethered his horse beside the mare and climbed up beside her on the slab of rock. She was asleep and dreaming and from the small unhappy sounds escaping her lips, he deduced it was not a pleasant dream.

His fingers itched to remove the pins from her glossy black hair and let it cascade down her back as it had the day he’d watched her ride across this very beach. With any other woman, he might have done so, but he had a feeling if he suddenly woke Moira from a sound sleep, he’d find a knife between his ribs.

“Wake up, my love,” he said softly, and watched her slowly turn her head toward him. Her eyes were open but slightly out of focus.

“Devon? I’ve been waiting for you,” she said gravely, as if they’d made plans to meet on this lonely beach.

He laughed. “Are you already so sure of me, sweet dreamer, that you can predict when I will come to you?”

“I was not dreaming.” She straightened up and stretched like a small, sleek, black cat.

“Another of your visions then, such as Stamden told me you had that day in Green Park?” he teased. “For you were obviously picturing something in your mind.”

“Yes. Another of my visions,” she said, searching his face with an odd expression he could not quite delineate. “But tell me, what has transpired with the viscount?”

“He’s done. I accorded him the discussion he demanded, then dispatched him in my carriage to the nearest inn where he could catch a stage to London.”

“A public conveyance?” She laughed humorlessly. “He won’t like that. It’s beneath the dignity of a peer of the realm.”

“Just one of the many disappointments your reprehensible cousin-in-law suffered this morning, I fear.”

“And your mother?”

“Has seen the error of her ways. Though sadly, I was forced to cause her a great deal of humiliation in the process.” Devon frowned. “Actually, I was rather proud of her. She gave the blackguard a set-down he’ll not soon forget.”

He didn’t feel it necessary to mention that later he’d found himself uncharacteristically assuring her he loved her dearly when she declared herself a ridiculous old woman whom no one in the world cared a fig about. “I think I can safely say neither Charles nor you will be bothered with the viscount for some time to come,” he said somewhat complacently.

Moira looked frankly skeptical. “And why is that? Did you threaten him with pistols at dawn?”

“Something like that and I gathered, from his reaction, he believed me.”

“I’m certain he did,” Moira said, her face taut with worry. “He is an abject coward. Now he will have to hire someone to ambush you before he makes another attempt on the duke.”

Devon nodded, absentmindedly toying with a lock of hair the wind had worked loose from her severe chignon. “You know the blackguard well. But I shall not be easy to ambush here in Cornwall. Many of my tenants are my former comrades-in-arms from the Peninsula, and I’ve put the word out to notify me immediately if any strangers are seen in the area.”

“He will wait until you are in London. There are men aplenty there who would murder their own mothers for the price of a pint of ale.” Moira hesitated, wondering if she dare tell him the frightening picture that had flashed through her mind the minute she’d closed her eyes. She doubted he would believe her if she did. What
gaujo
would give credence to the “sight” given a gypsy seeress?

“But I have no plans to return to London,” Devon said. “All my interests are here in Cornwall.” Tenderly, he brushed the stray tendril of hair off her cheek, and the touch of his fingers made her heart flutter in her breast like a frantic, captured bird.

“Your plans will change,” she said. Somehow, she must warn him of the danger that awaited him. If he thought her mad, so be it. “In my ‘vision,’ as you termed it. I saw a man beckoning to you. A man whose request you could not refuse.”

Laughter glinted in Devon’s eyes “A man? Never, madam.” His fingers slid to her nape, and he gently kneaded her taut muscles. “Are you forgetting I am a confirmed rake? There is no man on earth who could lure me away from a beautiful woman.”

“This one can.” She swallowed hard. His strong fingers sent waves of sensation spiraling downward from the base of her skull to the tips of her toes. She forced herself to ignore the sweet torture sufficiently to continue with what she must tell him. “I do not know his name but I can describe him,” she said. “He is very tall with dark hair and eyes so astute they seem to pierce one’s very soul…and he has a nose like the beak of an eagle.”

Devon’s fingers ceased their stroking. “The Iron Duke,” he said, a startled look crossing his handsome face. “And did your vision tell you why Wellington beckoned me?”

Moira shook her head. “Only that the unbelievable had happened and the situation was extremely grave.”

Devon’s fingers began their maddening massage again. “I am too practical a man to believe in visions,” he said, “but I confess this one momentarily gave me pause for thought in view of certain news I have recently received from Whitehall.”

He shook his head, as if divesting himself of some dark thought that had crossed his mind, and instantly the wicked glint she had come to recognize all too well flashed in his eyes. “All things considered, there is nothing for it but to move up the wedding. I’ll consult with the vicar. I’m certain he will know the location of the nearest Court of Faculties and Dispensations that can issue a special license.”

“Wait!” Moira raised her hand, shocked by the unexpected effect her warning had had on Devon. “I saw nothing about the marquess in my vision. He will think you out of your mind if you suggest he change his wedding plans.”

“Ah, but it is not Stamden’s wedding plans I am changing—but my own. If, as you predict, I must leave you even for a short while, I want you to have the protection of my name.”

“Now you are making fun of me,” Moira said. “Elizabeth was right. You are a terrible tease. But heed me, Devon, I am serious in this.”

“No more serious than I, little love. Not about your ‘vision,’ for I am a firm believer there is always a logical explanation for such things. In this case, you probably have seen one of the many caricatures of Wellington in the London
Times
. Lord knows, most of the recent ones have been demonic enough to give one nightmares.”

He gave her a devastating smile that literally curled her toes. “But I am deadly serious when I say I mean to have you as my wife and the sooner the better.”

Moira’s heart leapt in her breast. For one second, she let herself imagine being married to Devon—sleeping in his arms each night, bearing his children, watching his golden hair turned to silver. Longing welled within her, so profound and so painful it threatened to rip her apart. She was tempted. God help her, she was tempted. But reason prevailed. “I cannot marry you, Devon. I told you that once. You should have believed me.”

“There is only one valid reason why you cannot marry me, little love, and that is because you do not love me,” Devon said, and with a movement so swift and fluid it took her completely unawares, he grasped Moira’s arms in his strong fingers, laid her on her back, and straddled her thighs with his own. Startled, she stared up at him, wondering why she felt perfectly safe even though he had temporarily rendered her helpless, while she had experienced absolute terror when the viscount had merely waylaid her in a dimly lighted hallway.

Her captor grinned down at her. “Tell me”—he kissed the end of her nose—“you do not”—“he kissed her eyelids—“love me”—he claimed her lips in a deeply passionate kiss—“if you can.”

Moira’s senses reeled from the wondrous weight of his body on hers, from his musky, masculine scent in her nostrils, from the hot, sweet taste of his marauding mouth. She knew she should lie to him—claim she felt nothing for him. Somehow she couldn’t. There was already such a monstrous lie between them.

“You know I cannot tell you that, you scoundrel,” she said. She fought back the tears welling in her eyes. “But how I feel is of no consequence. For reasons that are my own, I can never marry you—nor indeed any man.”

Devon stared at her, his eyes blank with shock and disbelief. “Devil take it, I do believe you mean what you say.”

“I always mean what I say,” Moira declared. “Now get off me, you great oaf. This rock is cruel hard on my backside.”

Devon rolled away from her stifling the groan the ache in his groin elicited, and took a deep, calming breath. “Your reason, madam? I am entitled to that much consideration now that I have made you an honorable offer.”

“My reason is my own and shall remain so” she said, reaching to pull her skirt down from where it had worked up her legs during their kiss.

Devon eyed the knife strapped to her right calf and smiled despite his acute discomfort. Things could be worse, he decided with his usual optimism. At least the stubborn little minx hadn’t sunk her dirk into him like she had that wretch Quentin.

Surely that alone boded well for the eventual success of this bizarre courtship of his.

T
he latest puzzling rejection of his suit by Moira wiped everything else from Devon’s mind, including his confrontation with the viscount. With Stamden off courting and his mother still too distraught to leave her chamber, he had plenty of time to ruminate about his problem.

He ate a solitary dinner, made a brief visit to the darkened room where the dowager countess lay with cologne-soaked compresses on her aching head, then retired to his library. He had just poured himself a brandy when Partridge announced the return of the marquess and a few minutes later Stamden joined him for a companionable drink.

For some time they sat in silence—Stamden deep in his own thoughts, Devon pondering his problem with Moira. He toyed with the idea of asking his old friend’s advice on how to proceed with the perverse woman, but he’d always felt a deep disgust for men who asked advice of him, so he remained silent.

Stamden was the first to break the silence. “Partridge tells me the viscount is gone.”

“And good riddance,” Devon said, then brought him up to date on the discussion with and dispatching of the viscount, eliminating only the damning information about Charles’s parentage.

But again and again his thoughts returned to Moira. What in God’s name could be her reason for holding out against him? Her heart was in her eyes every time she looked at him, her body trembled with passion at his touch, and even when his frustration had driven him to pin her beneath him on the rock this morning, she’d shown no fear of him. If a woman loved a man, wanted man, and trusted a man, why would she refuse to marry him?

“You’re extraordinarily pensive tonight, my friend,” Stamden said. “You haven’t quarreled with the duchess again, have you?”

“No.”

“You’ve reach an understanding then?”

“Of sorts.”

“But not the one you had hoped for when last we talked?”

“Far from it,” Devon said, then abandoning his pride added, “She refuses to marry me, even though I’ve assured her I care nothing about her shady background—and devil take it, I don’t. Not anymore. She is the most honest, courageous, compassionate woman I have ever met, as well as the most intelligent. I feel nothing but respect for her.”

He tossed off the balance of the brandy in his glass and poured himself another. “Damn it, Stamden. I love the woman and I know she loves me. Yet she claims she cannot marry me.”

Stamden looked thoughtful. “Cannot or will not?”

Devon thought back on the impassioned declaration Moira had made that morning. “Cannot. In fact, now that I think of it, she even went so far as to say she cannot marry any man.” He stared at his friend, thunderstruck, as the truth hit him. “Of course, that’s it! There has to be something in her past I don’t know—a missing piece of the puzzle that makes her think she is ineligible for marriage.”

“That would be my guess,” Stamden said. “But what it could be, I cannot begin to imagine.” He viewed Devon with sympathetic eyes. “Have you thought, my friend, that whatever she is hiding may well be something that is better off kept secret? The duchess is not some missish female to make much ado about nothing.”

“But how can I determine in what way to handle the problem until I know what it is?” Devon rose from his chair and paced the length of the book-lined room, stopping to stare momentarily out the bay window looking over a small, formal garden.

“Blackjack must know,” he mused more to himself than to Stamden. “I’ll pry it out of the old reprobate if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

Stamden flexed his fingers absentmindedly. “It’s possible, but I wouldn’t count on it. They don’t seem close enough to be confidants.”

“No, they don’t,” Devon agreed. “But despite his cavalier attitude, he must have some feeling for her. Enough at least to want to see her happily married. He’s her father, for God’s sake.”

“Fatherhood does not necessarily endow a man with deep sentiment,” Stamden said matter-of-factly. “I contracted lung fever when I was twelve years old and when the quack attending me declared I was dying, my mother sent for my father. He informed her that he’d made arrangements to spend a fortnight at Lord Wilmot’s hunting box in Suffolk and couldn’t beg off.”

“Still I have to start somewhere and Blackjack Reardon is as good a place as any,” Devon replied, withholding comment on his friend’s revealing story rather than embarrass him with his pity. His own father would have ridden day and night to be at his side.

He stood staring out at the garden, but seeing only Moira’s face in his mind’s eye—her passion-flushed cheeks when he’d kissed her, her beautiful eyes darkened with emotion when she’d told him of her vision, the fear reflected in them when she’d warned him of the danger she saw awaiting him in London.

When she’d told him of her vision
. He turned from the window as a sudden thought flashed through his mind. “You once called Moira ‘a fey creature’ after that incident in the park when she apparently had a vision that Charles and I were about to be attacked. What if she has these visions often? Wouldn’t that tend to make her think she’s different? Maybe even explain her tendency toward reclusion?”

“Not if it was only a one-time thing,” Stamden said. “We’ve all had inexplicable hunches on occasion. I recall one of yours at Salamanca that saved both our lives.”

“I think it may be a common happening with her. Just this morning she told me she’d had a vision of Wellington calling me to London because ‘the unbelievable had happened and the situation was very grave.’ She also warned me that Quentin would make an attempt on my life while I was there, and she was deadly serious about the entire business.”

Stamden drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair in which he sat. “I suppose that could be it, far-fetched as it may seem. If she is truly a clairvoyant, she must feel like some kind of freak—a misfit outside the normal parameters of society.” He grimaced. “I know the feeling well. Maybe that’s why I’ve felt such empathy for her since the first moment we met.”

“I’m going to confront her with it tomorrow,” Devon said. “If this mysterious second sight of hers is all that is keeping us apart—and I cannot but feel it is—I must make her understand I am willing to live with it.” He managed a sickly grin. “Though I can see how it might be a bit off-putting for the average man.”

“Everything about the duchess, except her extraordinary beauty, would be off-putting for an
average
man,” Stamden said, grinning back. “Who but a cockeyed egotist with a tendency toward self-destruction would dare take a woman to wife who was as smart as an Oxford professor, as courageous as a Northumberland fusilier, and as handy with a knife as a Spanish camp follower…not to mention one who had the ability to foretell what lay in his future? As I’ve mentioned before, I firmly believe you two are meant for each other.”

“My thought exactly,” Devon said, his grin widening. “And so I shall tell her before another sun sets over Cornwall.”

He had risen to pace the room, too keyed up to sit still, when Partridge knocked discreetly, then opened the door. “A Sergeant Evans to see you, my lord. I told him you were engaged, but he says he carries an urgent message from Whitehall which he must deliver to you personally.”

“Send him in by all means,” Devon said, an eerie presentiment assailing him. He glanced at Stamden, whose narrowed eyes held the same questions that were racing through his brain.

The sergeant was a thin, wiry fellow of indeterminate age with a thatch of sun-bleached hair and skin the color of leather. He had obviously ridden long and hard; he looked near collapse. “Captain Higgins said I was to get this to you posthaste, my lord,” he croaked from between cracked, dust-caked lips, and handed Devon a small oilskin-wrapped packet.

Devon quickly poured him a glass of brandy and watched the crusty veteran toss it back in one gulp. “I’ll put the sergeant in your capable hands, Partridge,” he said to his waiting butler. “A hot bath, a good meal, and a soft bed in that order, if you please.”

He waited until Stamden and he were alone, then tore open the letter. “It’s from Higgins all right,” he said. “Three short paragraphs obviously written in haste.” He read it aloud. “The unbelievable has happened and the situation is extremely grave.”

Devon’s heart thundered in his chest.
Moira’s very words
. He raised his head and met Stamden’s startled gaze.

“Uncanny,” Stamden said. “Read on for God’s sake. What else does Higgins have to say?”

“The Corsican Monster escaped from Elba on March first and landed at the Gulf of Juan with a small force, which our informants report is swelling daily.” Devon cursed obscenely before continuing. “Rumor is he will be in Paris, with a sizeable army, before the first of April and ready to reclaim France.”

Devon sank onto the nearest chair, sick with shock and disbelief that the horror could be beginning all over again. With aching heart, he read the last paragraph. “I trust you will impart this information to Colonel Stamden, whom I know is residing with you at present. Wellington needs the help of all his officers who have faced Bonaparte’s legions before.”

He handed the missive to Stamden and watched the same stunned incredulity as he was feeling spread across his friend’s ravished face. “The power-crazed lunatic will see every Frenchman dead before he gives up his dream of ruling as Emperor of all Europe,” Stamden said. “He must be stopped once and for all.”

“And disposed of like the rabid beast he is,” Devon agreed.

Wearily, Stamden rubbed his hand over his eyes. “I must bid Elizabeth goodbye first thing tomorrow morning. Then I’ll be ready to ride with you to London.”

“And I must speak my piece to Moira,” Devon said. “If by any chance, I should not return from this mission, I would want her to know that, whatever she may be, she was truly loved.”

Devon found Moira, shortly after seven o’clock the following morning in the kitchen garden of White Oaks, on her knees, digging a shallow trench with a small flat-bladed trowel. It was a strange thing for a duchess to be doing; somehow, it seemed appropriate for Moira.

At first he wasn’t certain it was she. Her face was shaded by a wide-brimmed straw hat that had seen better days and her usual somber black gown was so covered with dust, he thought she must be a local widow hired to help the gardeners with their weeding. She was gloveless and so engrossed in her task, she failed to hear him until he stood directly in front of her.

She looked up, a startled expression on her face. “Devon! You are out and about at an early hour.” She flushed. “You have found me out. I am a peasant at heart. I love the feel of rich, black soil on my fingers.”

“I have suspected something of the kind for some time, madam,” he said, squatting down on his haunches beside her. “But still you take me unawares. I have seen titled ladies gathering flowers from their gardens to arrange bouquets, but I confess I have never before seen one planting vegetables.” He grinned. “A great part of your charm is that you constantly surprise me, my love.”

“I am not your love,” she said severely.

“An arguable point and one I intend to pursue more fully when I return.”

“You are going away? But of course you are. I can see you are dressed for the road.” Her eyes clouded with sudden anxiety. “Wellington has summoned you, then?”

“Exactly as you predicted; almost to the very words, in fact. It is enough to make the staunchest skeptic a believer in visions.” Devon rose to his feet and gave her a hand up. “It seems Bonaparte has escaped Elba and is gathering an army to begin the holocaust all over again.”

“Oh, no!” Moira pressed her fingers to her lips to keep from uttering the cry rising in her throat. “But surely Lord Wellington cannot expect you to go into battle again—not after all you have been through.”

“I don’t know what he expects; nor does Stamden. But whatever it is, we cannot refuse him. The fate of England, indeed all of Europe, is in jeopardy, and he is the one man who can save us from the clutches of the Corsican madman.”

He surveyed her face with grave eyes. “Walk with me where we can be alone for a few minutes,” he said softly. “I have already said goodbye to Charles; I want to say it to you in private, and I can see eyes peering at us from the kitchen window.”

Moira managed a small smile, despite the paralyzing fear invading her limbs. “Cook is a dear soul, but a dreadful snoop.”

Devon chuckled. “She would have much in common with Partridge, my butler. I am surprised the old fellow doesn’t have the permanent imprint of a keyhole on his earlobe.”

He offered Moira his arm, and she led him through the gate of the wall surrounding the kitchen garden and around a corner of the massive stone manor house to a small garden at the base of the rear terrace.

“This looks familiar,” he said a few moments later. “Unless I am mistaken, there is a water-spurting fish beyond that next clump of trees which was privy to one of the less glorious moments in my career as an accomplished rake.”

Moira stopped short, smiling in spite of herself. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think. This is my favorite garden and the only one that is really private.” She felt a flush creep up her neck and into her cheeks. “In case you had it in mind to kiss me goodbye, that is.”

“I do indeed have it in mind, my love, as well you know. Or is mind reading outside the scope of your mystic powers?”