Malia Martin (5 page)

She stopped only when a strong hand wrapped around her arm and whipped her against an equally strong chest. “Get out of here,” the Duke said into her ear, and shoved her toward the door.

Sara tsked and started working closer to the door. The Duke did not seem to notice as he had immediately gone back to swinging mighty blows with a wet blanket at the worst of the flames. Sara beat at stray ashes and helped drench the room when water buckets were hefted through the door.

Slowly there were fewer and fewer patches of smoldering flames and finally Sara nearly crawled from the soggy room, her lungs stinging and her breath shallow. She whipped the dingy bit of cloth from her mouth as she made it out into the fresh night air and collapsed on the walk.

Trevor Phillips raked sooty hands through his hair and stared at the charred room around him. At least they had stopped the fire from spreading. Truly, if he had not worried about the rest of the houses on the street—the whole of London, in fact—Trevor would have enjoyed very much seeing this monstrosity of a house burn to the ground. One less thing to worry about, really.

He dropped the stinking, black blanket on the floor and thanked the others, mostly servants, who had run in to help him.

As he left the house, he finally saw the Duchess, lying prone on the ground, her arms outstretched. For a stilling moment, he wondered if she were dead. But then she coughed and groaned rather loudly.

He came to a stop beside her, the toe of his boot nearly touching the indentation of her waist—a very deep indentation, he had noticed earlier in the evening, when he had decided immediately upon seeing her to invite her in rather than send her away for being dirty.

Her eyes fluttered open, round brown eyes the color of chocolate. He did love chocolate.

But too much of it could give one a rather bad stomachache. And this particular bit of chocolate seemed a bit tainted. “I have no intention of going to Rawlston, even if you burn down my townhouse,” he said, as if he had just told her that it might rain.

Sara attempted to move, but winced instead. Her eyes closed again. “If you hadn’t noticed, I just spent the last hour saving your house from burning down,” she said without moving.

“I’ve seen crazier things.”

“I’m not crazy.”

“Are you all right, yer grace?” came a youthful, cracking voice from behind him. Trevor turned to see the boy, Grady, running toward them. He sank to his knees at the woman’s side. “Ah, yer grace, what have you done to yerself?”

“I am fine, Grady,” the Duchess said through cracked, dry lips. “Just bone tired.” She uttered
all this without moving an inch, or opening her eyes.

“Your grace!” Trevor turned to see Andrew Stuart mincing over sooty rags toward them. “What on earth happened?” He came close and turned questioning eyes upon the woman on the ground. The man gasped. “What is
she
doing here?”

Trevor glanced down at the Duchess. She had opened her eyes, and now wiggled her fingers at Stu. “Hello, Mr. Stuart.”

The lawyer stared at the woman in dismay for a moment, then turned on Trevor. “The woman is insane, your grace, you must not believe . . .”

“I am not insane!” Sara yelled, her voice cracking and sounding terribly strained. She groaned and pushed herself up on her arms, then grunted and rolled about before Trevor realized that she was trying to stand. He leaned down and cupped her arms in his hands, helping her to her feet.

They stood for a moment, very close, her hair sliding against his arm, her soft body against his chest. Then she moved away quickly and brushed at her hopelessly filthy skirts. “I own all of my wits, thank you very much.” Her gaze bounced between Trevor and Stu. They both stared back. Trevor took in her soot-covered hair standing about her head as if she had just seen a ghost and the torn dress and came to the
sad conclusion that the duchess was truly a bit crazed.

“It is all right, your grace.” He tried to take her arm, but she pulled it away and set her hands on her hips.

“Duchess,” Stu said in a soothing voice. “Why did you not continue to Rawlston in the coach I hired for you?”

“I had to get to the Duke!” she cried. “Do you not understand? Either of you?” She ran fingers through her hair, causing the mess to become even more tangled. “You sit here in your elegance with not a care, except which woman you will take to your bed this eve, and you give not another thought to your responsibilities!” She flicked a glance at Stu. “Both of you!”

Stu clucked his tongue. “It bothers you to see money spent on luxuries, your grace?” The man pointed to the smoldering townhouse. “The townhouse bothered you, so you set it on fire?” He spoke as if to a child.

“Oh!” Sara cried.

“I set the fire!” Grady interrupted vehemently.

“Shush, Grady!

Stu’s eyes widened. He looked at Trevor, then shook his head. “’Tis a sad thing,” he said, under his breath.

Trevor had to agree. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the luscious woman glaring at him. She was small in stature and perhaps a bit thin, but she certainly had some nice rounded curves. Unfortunately, the lovely package seemed to house a rather absurd person.

With a sigh, Trevor thought of his nice little apartment in Paris, where no one realized that he had been saddled with a title—a dukedom, no less—the food was good, and the women were knowledgeable in all the ways to make a man completely happy. He missed Paris immensely and he had been away only two days. And it was all the fault of this woman, his third cousin’s widow.

“Answer me truthfully,” he said to her. “Did you put this young man up to burning down my house?”

Her lovely eyes rounded and her mouth opened, showing small white teeth, the two canine ones tilted slightly forward over the front, giving her a pixie look. He remembered running his tongue over them, and wished, for about the hundredth time, that she had truly been the whore he had thought her at first.

“Of course she did not!” Grady interrupted then. “I told you, it was an accident.”

“Hmm,” Trevor said.

The Duchess rolled her eyes wearily. “Are you going to throw me back in jail, your grace?” Sarcasm dripped from her words.

“I think we just need to get you back to Rawlston,” Stu stated strongly.

“Fine then,” the Duchess agreed, with a nod of her head. “This time, though, just to make
sure I get there,” she glared at Stu, “perhaps you should send the Duke with me, Mr. Stuart.” She smiled slyly at him.

Trevor just shook his head. The woman was like a dog with a bone, he must say. “Yes, well, in the meantime,” Trevor offered his arm to the Duchess, “I think we should be getting you in the house. You need a bath.” He wrinkled his nose, “Badly.”

Without taking his arm, Sara turned on her heel and marched toward the steps of the town-house.

Trevor jerked his head toward Grady. “There’s a tub in the kitchen. Attend to your lady’s needs.”

“Yes, your grace.” He bowed.

“And be careful lighting the stove!”

The boy grimaced, but followed the Duchess.

“I am sorry, Trev . . . er, your grace,” Stu said, as soon as the two were out of hearing. “I hired a grand coach for her, as you asked, and set her on her way this afternoon, after I made sure with my very own eyes that she had been released from Newgate.”

“Not to worry, Stu, of course I believe you.”

“She is rather strange, your grace, as I have told you.” He stopped, scraping at his bottom lip with his yellowed upper teeth. “Has she spoken to you of her wild accusations?”

“Wild accusations?” Trevor tried to put his hands in the pockets of his coat, but then realized he had taken the garment off to fight the
fire. He crossed his arms over his chest.

“That is to say, she is always writing to demand money.” Stu clucked his tongue and shrugged. “As if you do not take care of them very well already.” The lawyer shook his head in obvious sadness. “I am afraid the Dowager Duchess suffers from delusions, your grace.”

“Yes, it would seem so.” Trevor stared at the blackened hole that used to be his parlor. “Perhaps we should seek help from a physician for the Duchess.”

“Oh, no, your grace,” Stu said hurriedly. “She does well enough when she is at home, surrounded by friends. Truly, we just need to get her back to Rawlston, and then I shall take care of everything as I always have.” The solicitor laughed, a shrill sound that made Trevor wince. “I am sure you miss Paris. I have made arrangements for you to return tomorrow morning.”

“Hmm.” Trevor wondered at the man’s nervousness. Of course, it could be his damned title. Turned everyone around him into ninnyhammers when they found out he was a damned duke. Still, it was hard to accept that Stu would act that part, knowing Trevor as he did. And ever since Stu had found Trevor pleading the Duchess’s case before the court, his lawyer had been acting rather strangely.

“I do not know why you had to come all the way over from the Continent in the first place, your grace.”

Trevor stared at the man for a moment. Stu blinked, linked his hands before him, then pulled them apart and smoothed his palms along his trousers.

“You could have written,” Stu said. “I would have done anything you wished of me.” He stopped, drew in a deep breath, and cleared his throat.

“I did not want to take the time, Stu. When I read of the duchess’s plight in the Paris paper, I became worried for her, since I know of her delicate state of mind.”

Stu blinked owlishly at him. “You read the papers?” he asked in true bewilderment.

Trevor went instantly still. It had been so long since he’d lived among people who knew of his problems that his mind stalled as he wondered how to deal with Stu. Trevor found himself actually hunching his shoulders forward as his palms began to sweat. The whole situation reminded him vividly of days he would rather have forgotten entirely.

A small shiver of foreboding traced a path down Trevor’s spine. He should never have placed his interests in Stu’s hands. The man knew too much. But of course, that had been part of the reason Trevor had let the man deal with his newfound responsibilities. Better that than find someone else and have to explain in detail his problem.

Stu huffed the same deprecating laugh Trevor had heard throughout his school years. “Must take days to get through one page.” The man actually sneered at him, “Your grace.”

Stu should not have used Trevor’s title, for it snapped him out of his small moment of consternation entirely. Trevor pulled himself up and stared at the top of his solicitor’s head. “Why did you not take care of the problem on your own, Stu?” Trevor asked. “Why did I have to find out from some Paris rag that the Dowager Duchess of Rawlston was languishing in Newgate Prison?”

Trevor pinned the smaller man with a glare he rarely used, but knew to be quite tremor-inducing. “I have put the management of Rawlston in your hands, man. That includes the well-being of the duchess, especially since she is not in full control of her wits.”

“Well, I . . . of course, I . . .” Stu puffed out an agitated breath and straightened his peacock blue cravat. “I must inform you, sir—that is, your grace—that taking care of the Dowager Duchess is a terrifyingly difficult job . . .”

Trevor arched his brows, enjoying the position he now found himself in immensely.

“Should I give it to another?”

“No!” Stu yelled, then stopped and took a breath. “Your grace,” he began again, more sedately this time. “I am very sorry that it took me so long to help the Dowager Duchess out of the situation she found herself in. I was trying, but the channels that are so easily open to you are not as accessible to me.”

“You should have let me know, then, Stu, of the problem.”

“You have asked me not to disturb you with Rawlston estate business, your grace.”

Trevor sighed. He had said exactly that. It was just that an imprisoned dowager duchess did not equate to estate business in his mind. Of course, his mind never seemed to run along the lines that others’ did. “Very well, but I must ask that you inform me of problems with the Dowager Duchess from this point on, Stu. I had not realized the extent of her . . . problems.”

“Of course, your grace.” Stu nodded, his thin lips pressed into a tight smile. “Now, perhaps I can find rooms for you? I shall take care of this mess with the Dowager—never fear, your grace.”

“No, I shall stay here this evening, and make sure the Duchess is well on her way in the morning.”

“But—”

“I will feel better knowing for certain that she is in the bosom of her family.”

“She has no family, actually. But I would be pleased to escort the Dowager personally to Rawlston this time.”

Trevor turned toward the doors of his town-house, which he had just seen the petite Sara stomp through. “No family, you say?”

“Except you, of course.”

Stu continued with some discourse, but Trevor did not hear him.

The sudden clear thought that Sara was most definitely his family, and the only family left to him, really, made his skin feel clammy and his throat dry. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to control the complete terror that paralyzed his mind.

The last woman in his family left to his caring had been his mother. In his mind’s eye, Trevor saw the image of his slight, pale mother, her eye blackened from another beating.

“I shall take full responsibility for her grace.”

Trevor heard his lawyer’s final words and turned away quickly. Stu would, once more, take on the responsibilities that Trevor could not handle. He stared at the dark sky for a moment. How little that meant to Stu, to perform his duties efficiently. How much that would mean to Trevor, to have that ability . . . and not fear his inevitable failure.

“Your grace.”

Trevor waved his hand in a thoughtless gesture he had perfected over the years. “Yes, yes, Stu.” Trevor started toward the house. “Just let me get my coat. The Duchess can stay here tonight. I will find a hotel.”

“A very good idea, your grace,” Stu said, as he followed Trevor up the stairs. “I—ooomph!” The lawyer ran into Trevor’s back.

Trevor stood in the entry, staring at a lone piece of paper weighted down by his smartly folded coat. He bent, grabbing the coat and sending the note twirling away on a current of
air. The jacket was lighter than it should have been. Trevor shoved his hand in one pocket and then the other, then dived for the paper. He stared at it as the words swarmed together before his eyes.