Inevitably a Duchess Page 5

She had left Richard that morning knowing nothing of what he planned to do about her observations. It wasn’t entirely unlike him to ignore her when she brought him information, whether it be about his sons or a nefarious body snatching ring.

  There was something about Richard that niggled at her in the funniest little way. She could never quite pinpoint it though, and his proposal did nothing to help the matter. She loved him unerringly. That wasn’t in question. It was perhaps in how he loved her that she questioned him. Richard was always a touch too quick to protect her, and she didn’t know how to make him stop. Yes, she had been abused by her husband, and yes, she had suffered. But just as she had woken up after the beating she had earned from her third miscarriage, so, too, did she wake up every morning with the stunning ability to carry on. So why Richard felt the need to protect her so greatly, she couldn’t say. Perhaps, he simply didn’t know he was doing it. Jane didn’t think it was quite that simple though.

  She turned the page of the paper hoping to find a more enthralling story to capture her errant thoughts. Page two, however, contained a detailed account of the disturbed graves in Browns Cemetery on the other side of Marlborough. Jane snapped the paper shut and returned to the food set before her.

  With only a single occupant of the townhouse, Jane did not require much in the way of a morning meal. There was toast and eggs only for one laid carefully before her place. She sampled some from both, filling her plate enough to look as though she were not ungrateful for Cook’s efforts. It wasn’t like she was not hungry. She just didn’t think she could eat.

  Jane had never contemplated marriage after Jonathan. Although, she couldn’t say why not. It was just simply that Jonathan had died, and her only thought had been Richard. She could be with Richard once her husband died. And she had been. Quite literally hours after her husband had passed on.

  But marriage seemed like this whole other monstrosity that required complex thinking and legal matters. She was, after all, a widow, bringing with her assets ensured only for her use with other assets she would be happy to share with Richard. That is, if she were contemplating marriage to him. But she still hadn’t fully contemplated her eggs that morning, and for some reason, she could not move her mind onto the matter of her recent marriage proposal.

  Her mind then wandered to the question of how long Richard would wait for her response. She obviously couldn’t expect him to wait forever. And it was not as if she planned to sneak out of the back of his house every evening they decided to engage in more than friendly conversation. But her mind had never gone beyond the day to day. She just thought it would all resolve itself in the end. But then, she must have been unconsciously thinking of marriage if she thought the affair would find its natural and ultimate end. It was not as if after all these years she would suddenly change her mind about Richard. She loved him. It was all very simple.

  She downed a few bites of toast and eggs before gathering the remainder of the newspaper. She poked her head into the hall to find a footman to bring her tea things to the library where she planned to do some reading before the afternoon lectures she planned to attend at College. That was why she was almost to the library when she recalled the letter that had arrived that morning. She retraced her steps, snatching up the letter before once more making her way to the study.

  Jane poked about the library when she arrived, wandering over to the fire to warm her hands even though the room was of a perfectly adequate temperature. She set down the newspaper along with the letter on her desk before inspecting the pile of books laid across its surface.

  Judging by the piles, it could easily be assumed that she had taken this lecture thing a bit too far. It was as if Jonathan’s death had released a flood gate for all things intellectual. If there was one thing the late Earl of Winton abhorred, it was a woman who could think. Jane had never actually tried to meet his lowly standards, but she had also never dared to overstep his unwritten rules by engaging in intellectual endeavors. Now, it seemed, she had reacted rather emotionally to the sudden freedom.

  She had attended an entire lecture series of insect sub-species of the Indian sub-continent. When such material would ever be of use to her, she had not an inkling. But it was a rather vibrant lecture series.

  Momentarily distracted by the daunting piles of texts, Jane leafed through the remainder of the Times. There was nothing of particular note, and as she finished reading on the very last page, she absently picked up the envelope that had been waiting for her that morning. She opened it, pulling from its depths the single sheet of parchment.

  Her gaze wandered from the newspaper to the letter in her hand and back to the newspaper once more before her mind finally snapped to alertness. She looked down at the parchment briefly before snatching up the envelope again. There was no seal on the envelope or any other markings except her name and house number in a decidedly feminine scrawl. The same feminine scrawl that articulated the single line of text found on the piece of parchment.

  I know it was you.

  Jane looked at the sentence, reading it over again and again without processing what it meant. In moments she was back in the hallway, letter and envelop in hand, searching for any servant who may have been about that morning. She encountered a chambermaid, Lucy, whom she had only recently hired on, but the lass would have to do. She was a touch on the young side with shockingly red hair and full, rosy cheeks.

  “Lucy, dear, do you have a moment?” Jane asked and watched as the servant momentarily froze, unused to being approached by her employer.

  “Yes, milady,” the young woman said, curtsying politely.

  “Were you about this morning when this post arrived?” Jane asked, holding up the separate pieces of the letter.

  Lucy nodded.

  “Oh, aye, milady. I mean, yes, milady,” Lucy quickly corrected.

  “Who brought it?”

  Lucy shook her head this time.

  “It was slipped beneath the door it was, milady. No one delivered it for sure and certain.”

  Jane’s arms fell to her sides with the letter and envelope dangling from her fingertips.

  “You know nothing of whence this letter came?” she asked, trying one more time to glean any information at all from the lass.

  But Lucy only shook her head.

  “But I could try asking Daniel if you’d like. I hear he was up and about early this morn,” Lucy said.

  Jane waved away her offer with a distracted hand.

  “No, that will not be necessary.”

  Daniel may have been up, but he was most certainly not paying attention to who was sneaking letters beneath the front door whilst trying to also sneak his mistress in through the back door before being caught by politely judging eyes.

  “That is all, Lucy. Thank you,” Jane said, dismissing the servant as she returned to her library.

  She sat down now behind her desk and stared at the letter and envelope. She examined every crevice of the post, refolding and unfolding the piece of parchment, examining the inside and outside of the envelope, placing the letter back into the envelope before extracting it again.

  Without waiting to see if it were the proper time for a call, Jane stood and pulled the chord in the corner of the room to summon a footman. One arrived promptly as Jane nearly reached the door of the room.

  “Fetch Daniel for me, please. I must visit Lofton House this morning.”

  ~

  Richard studied the missive in his hand before tossing it into the fire before him. He watched it burn as a series of emotions moved through his body even as his mind stayed in a single space.

  Jane was right.

  Not that he had doubted Jane for a moment since she had come through his library doors with the proclamation that the Countess of Straughton was masterminding the ressurectionist gang he was tailing. He had found the proclamation rather abrupt and had questioned the logic of it, but he had never doubted that Jane believed it to be true. He had always known Jane would make a good spy
, and it appeared that circumstances needed only to present themselves for Jane to act on it if not to elementally realize she was doing it.

  So it was not the facts of the case that had him reeling. It was the emotions that such a thing welled up within him. Richard had seen Jane mere days after she had taken her first beating from Winton. She had jumped at the slightest noise or raised voice. A touch would fell her to her knees in an uncontrolled faint.

  And now she was spying. She may use whatever term she wished, but it still came down to the same action. Jane was engaging in espionage. The act itself did not lend well to the wounded and meek, and as the now burned missive proved, Jane excelled at it, a contradiction between how he saw her and how it appeared she truly existed. The two halves did not meet up in his mind, and he had to shake his head with the incongruent thoughts.

  So while his emotions roiled at this new development in Jane’s wellbeing that did not seem to match everything else he had come to believe of her, there was still a spy game to attend to.

  At the first chance that morning, he had sent an encrypted message to the War Office requesting details on Lady Straughton, so he could better assess the situation in conjunction with Jane’s findings from the day before. What had returned was a single sheet of parchment with a single line of text written across it.

  Heavy lies the head.

  The missive had been tucked into an envelope and sealed with the crest of the War Office, and with that simple correspondence, Richard had his answer.

  Lady Straughton was under surveillance already. Richard’s inquiry into her affairs had triggered a series of events. The agent observing Lady Straughton would have been notified that another agent was asking questions. Both agents would be summoned to the Office for a rendezvous. The single sheet of parchment that he had just burned was his summons, so Richard quickly exited the library of his townhouse and made his way to the foyer below.

  But before he could finish receiving his hat and coat from his butler, Jane came through the door without knocking. She appeared to wish her entrances memorable as she had never before acted with such haste. And similarly in staying with her grand entrances, Jane did not speak but thrust a missive of her own in his direction.

  Her lips were firm and her eyes set as she gazed at him over her outstretched hand. She wore a depressing garment of black, but the bonnet surrounding her face was of dove gray hues. He wanted to think her choice of hat color was in direct response to his proposal of marriage, but he sincerely doubted such a thing.

  Coming to the conclusion that she was of a sound state if not a sound mind, he took the parchment she extended in his direction. He read it quickly and then read it again. As the words seeped into his conscious mind, a new set of reeling emotions replaced the ones he was just beginning to become accustomed to. Keeping the parchment in one hand, he grabbed Jane’s elbow with the other, pulling her away from the still open front door.

  “Hathaway, secure the house,” he said, speaking to his butler even as he pulled Jane in the direction of the stairs.

  She did not speak, and it was a fact he noted well. Jane was smart enough not to try to fill the silence smothering the situation with unnecessary chatter. She was also smart enough to see he was being deadly serious, and this was not a time for idle gossip.

  They reached the main floor quicker than he had expected, and he looked back at Jane to see how she was keeping up. Besides a slightly more labored breath, Jane’s person seemed to have sustained the dash up the stairs adequately. He brought her into the library, depositing her at the first seating arrangement.

  “This will be rather rude of me, but stay,” he said and left.

  He did not wait to see if she obeyed him, but he had hoped that she would. He took the stairs to the upper floors two at a time, watching as servants passed him in equal haste, presumably carrying out instructions received from Hathaway to secure the house. He reached the nursery but did not stop. Nurse already had the boys prepared for a sudden departure from the room, a single bag of toys and clothes at their feet. Richard bent and scooped Alec into his arms. He would have done the same with Nathan despite his age, but he knew his older son had become more man than boy and would not appreciate the gesture. Nathan was in fact grabbing the packed bag at their feet.

  “I’m ready, Father,” he said, as he hoisted the over large bag on his shoulder. He wobbled a bit but held firm.

  Richard nodded.

  “Well done, son,” he said and then turned to Nurse.

  “I’ll just be about securing the nursery, Your Grace. Be down momentarily,” she said to him even as she picked up her skirts to move about her tasks.

  The return trip to the library was slightly slower as Nathan struggled with the bag, but he made it valiantly to the room before collapsing on the rug in front of the fire. Alec squirmed to be let down to join his brother on the floor in what seemed to be a grand adventure.

  “Hello, Lady Jane,” Alec said as he flew by her in his attempt to reach his brother, completely unaware in his boyish enthusiasm that Jane had suddenly arrived.

  “Is it bad then?” Jane said to Richard as she stood, her first words since arriving.

  He took her hands in his as he noticed for the first time a deep line of concern forming between her brow.

  “I need to go to the War Office. Lady Straughton is already under surveillance, and we may have spooked her. I need more information, and I cannot get that without rendezvousing with the agent tasked with observing Lady Straughton. You will be safe here. The servants have strict orders when I request the house be secured. No one will enter or leave without my permission. But Jane-“ He had to stop and swallow at this point, “Will you please take care of my sons?” he finished.

  He watched Jane’s face, his gut clenching on the request. He knew the topic of children hurt Jane on a level he could not begin to understand, but he also knew that his sons brought Jane a level of joy nothing else had or could. And he hoped that by asking her to protect his sons, she would begin to find a kind of peace with herself, with her inability to be a mother by nature. For Richard already thought of Jane as the mother to his sons, the mother he hoped he could convince her she was, before it was too late.

  But instead of pain, Richard saw determination on Jane’s face.

  “They would have to kill me before getting to those boys, Richard. I swear it.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “I’ve never roasted chestnuts before,” Nathan said as he scooted closer to the fire.

  Jane put a restraining hand on his shoulder before he scooted not only the roaster but himself into the flames.

  “I did it quite often with my mother. Although, I believe it’s a tad less fashionable now,” Jane said, adjusting the chestnuts in the roaster she held for Alec, who sat on her lap trying his best to hide his face from the heat of the flames while still looking brave for his brother.

  Richard had been gone for nearly three hours. Jane had been unable to eat or drink when a teacart had arrived nearly an hour before with sandwiches and two pots of tea. She had fed the boys, being diligent in making sure they ate heartily enough to sustain them for an indefinite amount of time filled with Jane trying to distract them from the fact that she had them locked in their father’s library.

  Richard had been right when he had said the house would be secure. She wouldn’t have felt safer if she had been at the Queen’s House. But even though she felt safe, it did not mean the anxiety relented its grip on her.

  She imagined several scenarios of what may have occurred during Richard’s short journey to the War Office and what he would find there. Several involved decapitation at the hands of a ruthless assassin while others followed the lines of stunning chase and inevitable capture with a concluding episode of unyielding torture. Jane’s imagination could be quite robust when given proper stimulation.

  It was hard to believe that only that morning she had received an offer of marriage from the man she loved, and she hadn’
t had but a moment to think on it. When she had sought distraction from her thoughts that morning, this was not what she had in mind. It was not as if she had planned to receive a threatening note in the morning’s post that would demand she return to Lofton House to exist in a state of near military prison. She knew such a description was unfair as she was quite certain military prisoners did not receive fresh pots of tea with chocolate biscuits every hour, but the restrictive nature of their situation was vastly different from how she had planned to spend her afternoon.

  But even as this thought drifted into her head, she became aware of the curious conversation occurring between the boy on her lap and the one trying to pitch himself into the fireplace.

  “So you see, Alec, Father cannot be killed with a gun because bullets cannot get through his skin armor,” Nathan said.

  “What on Earth is skin armor?” Jane asked, instead of properly concluding the current conversation and moving the topic away from inappropriate subjects for children, but she really did indeed wish to know what skin armor was.

  “It’s what Father uses to repel bullets when the enemies shoot at him,” Alec said plainly.

  Jane bent her head to look at him as he pretended to hold up the heavy chestnut roaster she was in fact holding up for him. She narrowed her eyes, wondering not for the first time, how much the boys knew and understood about what their father did.

  “Do you even know what the word repel means?” she asked Alec then.

  Alec looked up at her.

  “Nathan said it means to catch something and throw it back at the person who threw it at you.”

  Jane nodded.

  “Indeed,” she said, looking back at Nathan, “And how is it that you know about your Father’s skin armor?”

  Nathan’s jaw dropped open, his eyes growing round.

  If the boys were going to create things that kept their father safe in their minds, Jane was not going to be the person to prove them wrong. But Nathan could only shake his head, and Jane nodded in response.