Historical Romance Boxed Set (27 page)

“There’s something I need to do.” Nathaniel squinted back the way they had come, knowing in that moment that he couldn’t leave Alexandra. She drew him back as surely as a river flowed to the sea.

The entire group slowed to a stop and came back to meet him. “What’s going on?” Richard called.

“I’m going back.”

“But why?” Alarm rang through Richard’s Scottish lilt.

“There’s something I have to do. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.”

“You don’t want to go back there,” Richard insisted. “Believe me, Nathaniel, Greystone will be turning that town upside down to find you as soon as he gets Clifton back.”

“If it has anything to do with a beautiful blonde with big green eyes, now is not the time, my friend,” John added.

Then when was the time? Nathaniel wondered. Once Alexandra recovered enough to leave Dr. Watts’s, he might never find her again. “I’ll catch up with you tomorrow. If not, go on to Newcastle without me.”

“I don’t think we should leave you.” Richard trotted after him. “We’ll come, too.”

Nathaniel scrutinized his friend’s battered face—the swollen lip, the black eye, the congealed blood from the cut at his temple. He was grateful to have Richard back in one piece, knew he was extremely lucky, in fact, and wanted him and the others well away from the city. “No. You stay with John. I’ll catch up.”

Richard lowered his voice. “You’re foolish to take any more chances, Nathaniel. Being a one-armed man makes you an easy mark.”

“I’ve always managed to look out for myself before,” Nathaniel told him, but he didn’t say what was equally true: though he feared the duke, somehow the thought of never seeing Alexandra again was worse.

“Nathaniel, don’t.” Tiny added his voice to those of the others, but Nathaniel waved them all off as he kicked his horse into a gallop.

“I have to,” Nathaniel told them, but he didn’t know what he was going to say or do once he reached Dr. Watts’s. Nothing had changed. He couldn’t take Alexandra away with him because it wasn’t safe. He had nothing to offer her, but he had to see her one last time. Surely he could allow his heart that one small concession.

* * *

The Duke of Greystone paced angrily behind the huge mahogany desk, inlaid with ebony and ivory, that stood in the center of his study. The man from Greenwalt Stables, who had found Jake and brought him home, had left only a few hours before. But Nathaniel and his men were already long gone from the Golden Crown, just as Jake had said they would be.

“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.”

Chapter 13

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.