Of Noble Birth (41 page)

Alexandra entered as
unobtrusively as possible, but the two still glanced up. As she
removed the tray, Greystone pulled off his glasses and spoke to
her.

“Tell Harry to get the
carriage ready. I’m going out tonight.”

Alexandra schooled her
features to show no surprise, though it was late to be going
anywhere, unless it was to his favorite tavern. “Yes, Your
Grace.”

She curtseyed, balancing
the tray in one hand, then turned toward the door. Lord Clifton
said nothing, but she felt his gaze follow her out.

She breathed a sigh of
relief as she made her way back, knowing the duke would be gone
when Trenton came.

By the time Alexandra
arrived in the kitchen, Mrs. Wright had finished moving the
preserves and was taking off her apron.

“I’m going to bed,” she
announced.

“His Grace wants Harry to
get the carriage ready. Shall I go out and tell him?” Alexandra
asked. Harry slept over the stables along with his son, who worked
for the duke as a stable boy.

“If you would. My poor
feet can hardly walk another step.”

Alexandra smiled. Mrs.
Wright worked hard, and she was a fair, honest woman. “I’ll be
right back.”

Harry was already in bed,
but his son answered her knock on the stable door. “Hello, Rory.
His Grace would like your father to get the carriage ready,” she
told him. “And I brought something for you.”

A boy of only nine, Rory
smiled eagerly, still young enough to enjoy the occasional treats
Alexandra saved for him, yet old enough not to clamor about her
skirts.

“What is it?”

“A whole handful of scones
with fresh strawberry jam inside.” Throwing back her shawl, she
revealed the handkerchief that held these treats.

The boy’s eyes went wide
with pleasure. “Yer the best, Alexandra.”

Alexandra smiled. “Just
don’t tell Mrs. Wright I gave them to you, or she’ll blame me if we
come up short tomorrow.”

“I wouldn’t tell that old
bag anythin’.”

“Rory!”

Alexandra’s chastening
tone provoked a scowl. “Well, she made me scrub behind my ears this
mornin’.”

“No doubt they needed a
good scrubbing.” She laughed and ruffled his hair before returning
to the house.

Mrs. Wright was gone when
Alexandra entered the kitchen. She sat down to her sewing, but was
interrupted again when Harry came in.

“The carriage is ready.
I’m taking it around front now,” he told her.

Alexandra started up to
the study to tell the duke, but by the time she arrived, he’d
already gone. She heard his voice in the entry below, just before
the door closed behind him. Had Lord Clifton gone, too? She passed
through to the balustrade to see for herself, but when she looked
down at the front door, she found the marquess standing there,
staring up at her.

She gave him an
uncomfortable smile before hurrying back the way she had come,
praying he would retire soon. Trenton was coming in less than two
hours.

Alexandra entered the
kitchen just as Clifton came through the green baize doors. “My
lord, is there something I can get you?” she asked, more than a
little surprised that the marquess would venture into the servants’
domain.

Taking a seat at the
table, he asked, “Why do you avoid me at every turn? Abbey or any
of the others would love to trade places with you.”

Alexandra sat across from
him and took up her sewing as she fished for an appropriate
response. She wasn’t Abbey or any of the others. She didn’t care
about the marquess’s position in society, or his money. She was
already in love.

Alexandra gulped at this
admission. Was she in love?

How could she deny it when
the mere thought of Nathaniel left her breathless?

“My lord, we are not well
suited,” she said. “You’ve mentioned before the difference in our
social status. That is reason alone.”

“But I am willing to
overlook that. Such things only matter in a wife.”

“And I will be nothing
less than a wife.” She tried to return to her work, but being alone
with Nathaniel’s half brother made her nervous.

“A mistress is treated
better than a wife,” he insisted. “You have none of the demands
placed upon a wife, only the benefits. If you weren’t interested in
me, why did you come here?”

“I told you. I needed a
job. Unlike you, I must work for my living.”

“You could have worked
elsewhere.”

“I was having difficulty.
I’d met you before, and I hoped Lady Anne would let me work off the
dress I took from her. How many times must I explain? Why do you
persist in making it more complicated than it is?”

“What about the
earrings?”

“What about them, my lord?
I’ve tried to give them back to you, and you won’t accept them.
What am I to do?”

“Are you hoping for words
of love? Would that soften your virtuous heart?”

Alexandra stood at the
sarcasm in Clifton’s voice. “I’m sorry, my lord. Gifts can’t buy my
affection. Not for anyone. Not even for you. Now, if you will
excuse me, I’m going to bed.”

She tried to brush past
him, but he blocked her path to the stairs. Pulling her to him, he
bent his head to kiss her, but she twisted in his arms so that his
lips brushed her cheek instead.

“My lord, what are you
doing?” She squirmed out of his grasp.

“Call me Jake. I want to
hear my name on your lips. I want to convince you.”

“Convince me of
what?”

“That you want me as badly
as I want you.”

Alexandra couldn’t hold
back the laughter that burst from her. “I have no feelings for you
whatsoever, my lord.”

The look that suddenly
descended on his face frightened her, making her wish she could
reclaim her hastily spoken words.

“There will come a time
when you will beg for a crumb of my attention,” he vowed, and he
struck her across the face.

Alexandra stumbled back,
surprised and momentarily dazed. “My lord, I never meant to offend
you.” She reached out to put her hand on his arm, but he jerked
away, and she fell silent.

Giving her one last
smoldering glare, he turned and stalked out, leaving Alexandra
rubbing her cheek in astonishment.

* * *

Alexandra reached up to
touch him. Her fingers skimmed through his hair, making his blood
stir and his heart pound. Mesmerized, he reached out and hooked the
small of her waist, pulling her to him. Her arms encircled his
neck, and her lips parted in invitation as her eyes fluttered shut.
Nathaniel quivered to feel her breath on his face, but just as his
lips were about to drink from hers, Alexandra’s sigh became nothing
more than the fetid exhalation of the man sleeping next to him, her
fingers, the cockroaches that slithered about the place after
dark.

Nathaniel shivered,
leaving the dream unfinished as his mind returned by degrees to
full awareness. He was sharing a narrow bunk with another man
aboard the creaking, stinking hospital ship—one of the hulks
reserved for those too ill to work, where dying men were sent but
from which they rarely returned, receiving too little medical help,
too late. Still, it was an improvement. There were no chains, and
the fare, though mainly broth, was better than the slop served on
the other hulks. The doctors were unfeeling, perhaps numbed by the
great number of patients they lost, but apathy was preferable to
antipathy.

At least they weren’t like
Sampson. Because of him, Nathaniel had already spent more time in
solitary confinement than any other man in the history of
the
Retribution,
but it was the last few days that had nearly broken him.
Riddled from the flogging they had given him when he attacked the
guard, his back refused to heal, and a raging infection had taken
hold. Finally the chaplain had intervened and had the guards move
him to the hospital.

Since then, he had tossed
miserably about in his bunk, breathing the stale air so common to
the hulks. Mold and mildew combined with the pungent body odors of
the other sick men, who were never bathed, until he would have
traded his last meal for one breath of fresh air.

The voices of the doctors
hovered above him during their three routine visits each day.
Though the sores on Nathaniel’s back oozed pus and blood, he had
hardly felt them until today, which was why he imagined himself to
be getting better. At least he knew that he hurt, and he knew
where.

Squeezing his eyes shut,
Nathaniel fought his awakening and tried to recall the dream, but
it was gone. He could remember those things Alexandra did or said,
but he could not conjure up the feel of her, not like it was. So he
channeled his thoughts to her letter. At least that was
real.

Prisoners’ mail was
unreliable and heavily censored; it was not uncommon to receive
only a portion of one paragraph, or half a page at most. In fact,
Nathaniel had received just a few lines from Alexandra:

... am living in Berkeley
Square with your beloved father... found you as Trenton and I
planned and am doing all I can... it shouldn’t be long now...
Trenton is coming soon... stay alive and well...

Alexandra

Nathaniel groaned. As if
he didn’t have enough on his mind, Alexandra was now living on
Berkeley Street with the duke and his half brother—which was like
sticking her head into a lion’s mouth. Still, she might not have
found him otherwise, and he was infinitely grateful that someone
knew of his whereabouts. That was the only thing that helped him to
hang on, to fight Sampson’s cruelty a little longer.

His thoughts having made a
complete circle, Nathaniel sighed in frustration and shifted to his
side. He was damp with sweat, his back pained him no small amount,
and a constant hunger gnawed at his gut, which the watery broth did
little to relieve. Sleep was ever more appealing than
consciousness, for only then was his misery forgotten—if not
completely, then at least it was merely represented in some strange
or fantastical way in his dreams.

Today, however, something
more concrete disturbed him and kept him from returning to that
blissful labyrinth of sleep. Though sickness and fever dulled his
senses, danger signals penetrated his brain: hushed whispering, a
number of men moving as a group, and finally, the voice of Sampson,
the clerk.

“Watch that, you
fool...”

In the next instant, three
men rushed him. One carried a black bag, another, a strong, thick
rope, and the third, what could only be a knife. Nathaniel caught
the gleam of its blade a split second before someone forced his
head into the bag and bound his arm to his body.

The sharp prick of metal
at his back confirmed his first impression. They had a
knife.

“Take it easy now.
Struggling will only get you killed,” Sampson warned.

“Isn’t that the idea?”
Nathaniel asked, but he didn’t fight. His limbs felt as though they
were made of wood, and the knife at his back provided a convincing
deterrent.

“If you so choose, I
wouldn’t mind,” the clerk whispered, “but you’re too smart for
that, eh? Now move.”

Half pushing, half
dragging Nathaniel from his bed, the three men hauled him through
the corridor and up the companionway. It was cool and soggy
outdoors, and Nathaniel pictured a delicate, low-lying fog moving
on top of the water like shiny white satin. He’d seen it a million
times before, but he couldn’t see much now. Only vague shapes and
deeper shadows. He stumbled again and again until a familiar voice
halted their progress.

“What goes
here?”

It was the chaplain,
Reverend Hartman. Nathaniel was sure of the soft, almost effeminate
voice.

“Father, what are you
doing about at this ungodly hour?” Sampson demanded.

Nathaniel nearly fell as
the clerk’s beefy arm shoved him back behind the others, but he
knew he was much too large to escape notice. No doubt Sampson was
betting on the reverend’s mild manner, and more than that, fear.
Chaplains generally held considerable power in the hulks, second
only to the overseer’s, but not on the
Retribution.
Here the pecking order
was clear. Reverend Hartman was allowed to go about his business of
saving souls only so long as he did not interrupt with discipline
or any other weighty matter. No one dared thwart
Sampson.

“There’s a man who’s
dying. I promised I would sit with him,” the chaplain
explained.

“‘
Tis a rare man indeed
who takes his job so seriously, Reverend,” the clerk
mocked.

“It’s no more than you
would do. I see you have already begun the vigil of caring for
another brother who is similarly afflicted.”

“Mind your own business,”
Sampson snapped. “Things that go on here are best left as they
stand—for your own good.”

“So I’ve heard,” Hartman
replied calmly.