Amber (Jewel Trilogy, Book 3) (11 page)

"Very well." A doubtful look in her gray eyes, Jane disappeared back into the dressing room. She came out carrying the shoes and chemise and set them on the foot of the bed. "Are you happy here, milady?"

"Of course I'm happy." Gesturing at the rich, garish chamber, Kendra forced a smile. "How could one not be happy here?"

"Mr. Caldwell!" A dozen children bounded down the steps of the sprawling Tudor manor house and clustered around Trick. Laughing, he reached to squeeze shoulders and pat heads, leaving no child untouched.

Kendra stared in utter disbelief. "Mr. Caldwell?"

"Part of your surprise." He shot her a sheepish grin before turning back to the young ones. They'd focused their attention on Kendra, gaping at her with frank curiosity. Trick waved a hand in her direction. "This is my new wife. Er...Mrs. Caldwell."

"Please, just call me Kendra," she rushed to say, smoothing the skirt of the peach gown. Goodness, a new name was a hard thing to get used to. It felt downright strange.

As a duchess, she had no proper surname anymore—she'd be signing letters with her husband's title, as Kendra Amberley. She didn't feel like a duchess, but neither did she feel like Mrs. Caldwell.

"I'm glad of your acquaintance, Mrs. Kendra." A tall, skinny lad held his hand out to her, looking toward Trick for approval. At her husband's nod, the boy reached to grasp Kendra's hand and kissed the back of it fervently.

"Ahem. Andrew." When the boy looked chagrined, Trick ruffled his dark, stick-straight hair. "Not to worry. A man cannot help but admire a pretty lady, aye?"

"Oh, yes," Andrew said reverently, and Kendra watched Trick bite his lip to keep from laughing.

"Mrs. Jackson, there you are." He waded through the sea of children, making his way toward a matronly woman with gray curls and a pleasant if nondescript face. He fished a black pouch from his surcoat pocket and handed it over. "Here you go. I apologize for being late. I've been...busy."

"I can see that." The woman smiled at Kendra.

"Mrs. Jackson, may I present my wife—"

"Mrs. Kendra," Andrew supplied in a worshipful tone.

Kendra didn't have the heart to correct him. "I'm glad of your acquaintance, Mrs. Jackson." She executed a tiny bow, for all the world as though they were at Whitehall Palace.

Mrs. Jackson's plump cheeks flushed with pleasure. "Likewise, your gr—Mrs. Kendra." Kendra heard the metallic clink of coins as the woman sifted through the pouch. "So generous, Mr. Caldwell! The children are grateful."

"The orphans of Sussex won't starve so long as it's within my power to help them."

"Starve?" Mrs. Jackson's belly jiggled beneath her apron as her laughter rang through the heavy summer air. "They're better fed than half the parish. Why, I daresay some villagers pray nightly to be orphaned and find themselves at Caldwell Manor."

Caldwell Manor? Did Trick finance this entire operation, then? Kendra looked toward her husband, his golden hair glinting in the late afternoon sun, and her heart melted a little.

He laughed. "Let's hope not. A hearty meal is a sad substitute for devoted parents. How is little Susanna?"

"Much better. Her fever is down and she's sitting and taking milk. I trust she'll be up and about in a day or two."

"I'm pleased to hear it. Maybe I should pay her a visit."

"By all means. She'll be cheered to see you."

"Kendra? If you'll excuse me?"

Without waiting for her agreement, Trick climbed the six front steps in three strides and disappeared into the house. Wearing only breeches and a shirt, no cravat and no coat, he looked decidedly unduke-ish. Through that battered oak door passed a man who had accomplished Kendra's own dream, opening an orphanage.

Stunned, she stared after him while the children scattered through the garden, picking up balls and hoops.

Two girls tugged shyly on her skirts. "Will you play with us, Mrs. Kendra?"

She smiled down at them. "What would you care to play?"

They settled on blindman's buff, and the game went on for a while, other children joining in the fun. When an impish lad named Thomas stole the blindfold and ran away laughing, the others raced after him. Kendra tried to follow but got halfway around the house and stopped. Thanks to her high Louis heels, the merry chase had far outstripped her ability to keep up.

Trick had been right to suggest a plain gown—next time she'd wear flat shoes, too. Wondering what was taking him so long, she made her way over to where Mrs. Jackson was hanging laundry.

"Have you an idea where my h-husband"—her tongue tripped over the word—"might have gotten himself off to?"

"Of course," the older woman said, tossing a nightshirt back into the basket. "I'll show you the way to the sickroom."

She led her around the corner of the house and up the front steps. "I bless your husband nightly for saving these children."

"Bless you for caring for them," Kendra returned, glancing around the entry. Though the house and its furnishings had clearly seen better days, it was clean and cheerful. "Are the children receiving an education?"

"Mercy, yes. His grace has seen to it that tutors attend to that. All but the youngest can figure and read and write—"

"Girls, too?"

"Yes, indeed. Your husband has some odd ideas."

They skirted a few wooden toys on the floor as Mrs. Jackson led her down a corridor. "Are they instructed in the classics? Latin and—"

"Nay, not as yet. I cannot imagine what children like this would be needing with Latin. But with the duke directing things, you never know what will happen next at Caldwell Manor." The woman's ample bosom quivered with a good-natured if slightly befuddled chuckle. "Here we are."

In the room Mrs. Jackson indicated, a young girl, perhaps five or so, sat propped among pillows in a four-poster bed that looked as though it had rested on the same spot for a century or more. Kendra paused in the doorway.

"They're busy," Mrs. Jackson whispered.

Trick sat in a straight-backed chair by the bed, an open book in his lap. The girl leaned forward, apparently engrossed in whatever he was reading. Feeling like an eavesdropper, Kendra listened as well.

"'Then have I gained a right good man this day,' quoth jolly Robin," came Trick's throaty voice. "'What name goest thou by, good fellow?'"

"And what did he say?" the child asked.

"The stranger answered, 'Men call me John Little whence I came.'"

The girl's blond curls bounced as she shook her head. "No, it's Little John!" she corrected, her brown eyes wide with delight.

Trick glanced up from the leather-bound book. "Aye, but that was Will Stutely's doing. He loved a good jest and said"—he looked back down at the book—"'Nay, fair little stranger. I like not thy name and fain would I have it otherwise. Little art thou, indeed, and small of bone and sinew; therefore shalt thou be christened Little John, and I will be thy godfather.' Then Robin Hood and all his band laughed aloud until the stranger began to grow angry..."

Kendra could only gape. She felt like the one of the Graiae, three sisters who had but one eye between them. What was she seeing? A highwayman, telling a story to an ill orphan? Or a duke? Right now, he looked like neither.

She backed away from the doorway. She didn't know this man, not in the least.

"Robin Hood," Kendra said on their way home, in that forthright way of hers that never failed to make Trick smile. "It's fitting, I'll credit you that."

"Oh?" The caleche's wheels crunched on the dusty road as he wound the horses through the gentle hills toward Amberley House. "Whatever makes you think so?"

"Don't jest with me. It's obvious!"

"Aye?" He looked over at her, but she was gazing straight ahead, her bright hair glistening in the slanting late-afternoon sunshine.

"I do believe I'm beginning to understand you."

"Pray, enlighten me," he said dryly. "I've been struggling to understand myself for years."

She snorted. "
You
are playing Robin Hood," she said with that same cocksure confidence that had drawn him to her the first time they'd spoken.

Sweet Mary, was that but three days ago?

"Only instead of stealing from the rich," she continued, "you're robbing the Roundheads, who are no doubt responsible for making most of those children orphans anyway." She sighed. "I do believe I could love you for this."

It was his turn to snort. "The man you think you see, sweetheart, isn't me at all. I wish I could be that man," he added under his breath.

"Balderdash. It's well done of you, Trick."

"Nonsense. My father wanted to build himself a bloody monument, so he spent every shilling he'd ever made on the mansion and abandoned that perfectly good manor house. I wanted to see it put to use. Filled with children, as it might have been had he ever made something of his marriage."

She turned to him, her heart in her eyes. "That's why you play the highwayman, then, isn't it? To pay for the children, since your father spent all his money on the mansion and left you without adequate funds."

"Not precisely." He was about to add that he'd turned his father's illicit enterprise into a prosperous legitimate shipping company, but thought better of it. Not that he wanted to hide things from her, but damn it, his hands were tied.

It was no fault of his he was stuck in this situation. He'd been wracking his brain for a believable excuse to continue playing the highwayman, and she'd just dropped one in his lap. Never mind that he could support Caldwell Manor ten times over. She didn't have to know that. Not right now.

"When I tell my brothers—"

"Don't. Don't tell them anything. I promised them I'd stop the highway robbery."

"No, you didn't. You ducked that issue cleverly." She was entirely too perceptive for his comfort. "If you stop, the children will suffer, and I couldn't bear to be responsible for that. I was an orphan, myself."

"Aye, well, any feeling human being would be sympathetic to their plight." Trick's mind raced, searching for a way to avoid these secrets and lies. But he saw no choice. He'd promised King Charles he wouldn't breathe a word of the real purpose behind the highwayman ruse.

He sneaked Kendra a guilty glance. She twisted her hands in her lap, and the imported lace fell back from her wrist, leaving it bare. "Why aren't you wearing the amber bracelet?"

"It doesn't go with this plain gown."

He wondered why he found her flip answer so disturbing. "Are you still mad at me for being a duke?"

"I'm not sure what I feel. I don't like being lied to." Though she directed those words to the sky, she soon looked back to him. "Did you feel abandoned as a child?"

"In a sense," he said slowly, wishing he could go back in time and start this marriage right. He didn't want it to end up like his own parents'. "My father took me from my mother when I was ten. I'd seen him but a few times over the years, and I'd never been more than a dozen miles from our home in Scotland." The caleche bumped over a particularly rocky stretch of the path, and he reached to steady Kendra. "He took me to France. A cold man, was my father. He wanted me only to further his business dealings."

"His business dealings?" She subtly shifted away from his touch. "He was a duke, was he not?"

"An impoverished one. He lost everything, including Amberley, helping finance the war. Upon the restoration, King Charles returned his title and land to him. But believe me, Father could never have abandoned the old manor house and built that mansion without the enterprise that sustained him through the Commonwealth years. He was ruthless, underhanded—not a man one would be happy to claim as a relation."

"What was this enterprise?"

"He traded in spirits, among other things. Madeira was his ticket to riches. Every bottle that graced the tables at the courts—French and English alike—passed through his hands." He hesitated, then decided to come clean with it. Enough secrets stood between the two of them already. "He was a smuggler."

She gasped. "A smuggler?"

"Aye. One doesn't amass a fortune paying import taxes—at least not on the scale that he managed. You can see now why I elected not to continue his enterprise, no matter that it was highly lucrative." And since that half-truth caused him no small discomfort, he added, "As I was only a pawn in his game, you can see as well why it is I felt orphaned as a child."

Some small measure of honesty, at least.

"But your mother—"

"She let me go," he said, the words calm and unemotional though he ached with an inner pain that would never ease. "Any warmth or love she showed me was naught but a facade. Elspeth Caldwell is a wicked woman. A Covenanter, plotting against king and country." Crickets chirped as they drove beneath a canopy of trees silhouetted against the cerulean sky. "And a loose woman, besides."

"How would you know all that? You were ten when you left."

"In eighteen years, she never once tried to reclaim me, or even make contact. In all that time, I haven't seen so much as one letter. Blackguard that my father was, I believe what he told me where she was concerned."