Charity sat within her solicitor’s office, waiting for the man to return with the cup of tea he’d promised to settle her frazzled nerves. She’d had the dream—the nightmare—again last night. Had woken with the scent of gunpowder in her nose, and the putrid stench of the dead. The roar of cannons and the last gasps of the dying stuffing her ears.
Her hands had not ceased trembling since.
She startled as Mr. Fortescue returned at last with a tea tray, and settled once more as he poured her a steaming cup, passing it to her upon a saucer.
“Thank you,” she said wearily, as the tea cup clattered with the quivering of her hands.
“My pleasure, Miss Nightingale,” he said as he reclaimed his chair behind his desk, adjusting the rims of his spectacles upon his nose.
“I’ll admit I was not expecting you. Have you reconsidered your retirement? You have had some offers, which I have declined on your behalf per your last instructions. But I have the documents filed away should you care to peruse them.”
She had always liked Mr. Fortescue, for the judgment he had never once cast upon her. Whatever his private feelings might have been, he had never once let a negative thought show upon his face, had always worked in her interests alone whenever she had received an offer from a prospective new patron. It was because of his attentiveness to detail and his ruthless negotiation on her behalf that she had ended up in such a plumb financial position.
“No,” she said.
“Rather, I have come with a—a legal inquiry. From a friend.” It reeked of the lie it was, owing to the unsteadiness of her voice.
“Oh?” Mr. Fortescue paused, his tea cup halfway to his lips.
“Of course, if I might provide advice, I will be happy to do so.”
Charity nodded, braced herself with a sip of tea.
“This—this friend,” she said, “was, many years ago, an assistant beneath a military surgeon at Waterloo. She was quite young at the time, you understand, and under a great deal of strain given the situation.”
“I can only imagine,” Mr. Fortescue said.
“Bit too young myself to have joined the war effort.”
Yes. But then so had she been. Just eighteen, far from home, struggling against the odds to save lives that were destined to be lost anyway.
“This friend,” she said, “married a young soldier there. One who had been terribly wounded in battle. Grievously wounded, one might say.”
He’s dying, Charity. He’ll not last the night.
She took a swift breath, exhaled through her nose to rid herself of the phantom scent of suppurating flesh that had assailed her once more.
“The marriage was meant to protect her,” she continued.
“He knew he was dying. Everyone knew he was dying. But she had been kind to him, and he—he wished to offer her some security in the world. And she saw no reason to refuse, given that she was shortly to be made a widow. She thought it a kindness on her part not to refuse a dying man’s last noble gesture.”
Mr. Fortescue’s brows drew together.
“I’m not certain I understand,” he said.
“Do you wish me to make inquiries as to whether there might be an inheritance to support her?”
“No,” Charity said.
“No, no—nothing like that. She is not in need of funds.” Charity balanced her tea cup on her knee, pursed her lips.
“This friend shortly became ill herself. Cholera.” An unfortunate consequence of the often-deplorable conditions on a military campaign. Diseases had run rampant—cholera, typhus, dysentery. She’d known more than a few who had fallen to them. She had been lucky to survive herself.
“Her recovery required several months. She did not witness her husband’s death.”
“I am sorry for her, this friend of yours,” Mr. Fortescue said.
“But if she is not in want of funds, I’m afraid I am at a loss as to what I can do for her.”
“She wishes to know if the marriage was legal,” Charity blurted out, rattling the tea cup balanced upon her knee.
“It has recently come to her attention that her husband has, in fact, survived. But it has been some sixteen years since they were married, so you see—”
“Regrettably for your friend,” Mr. Fortescue said, with the slightest sardonic twist to his lips, “excepting in cases of one party’s death, marriages have no date of expiry.”
“But a battlefield marriage,” Charity said, with a tinge of desperation.
“Just as legal as any other, provided her husband had permission from his commanding officer and it was appropriately witnessed. Was it?”
“Yes,” Charity grumbled, shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
“But she was just eighteen,” she said.
“Well below the age of majority.”
“Which might be of some relevance, had the marriage taken place in England,” Mr. Fortescue allowed.
“You did say Waterloo?”
Charity gave a tight nod.
“Belgium, then. A marriage overseas would not fall afoul of the Hardewick Act. If everything is as you have said, then there is no reason to suspect that the marriage is less than legal.”
“But it is unconsummated,” Charity insisted.
“They were married for hardly more than a day before they were parted. Surely there could be an—an annulment.”
“Non-consummation is not, strictly speaking, a reason in and of itself to invalidate a marriage. Oftentimes, one must prove not only that consummation has not occurred, but that it is not possible. That is to say, that one spouse is—er, unable to perform the act.” Mr. Fortescue spread his fingers out in a gesture of contrition.
“I don’t suppose I need to tell you how vanishingly small the likelihood is of obtaining a divorce instead.”
For the average person, perhaps. If she were to petition for one, no doubt she would be summarily rejected in her pursuit. But he was a damned duke with a courtesan for a wife. It would make no difference that she had thought herself a widow for nearly half her life.
She had hoped, not only for her own sake, to leave her scandalous days in the past. While there was no chance of repairing her reputation, which had been beyond sullied for years now, still the thought of a quiet, comfortable life had been appealing.
But a divorce from a duke? It would vault her once more straight into the notoriety she had hoped to escape. The quiet, secure, peaceful life for which she had longed seemed now well beyond her reach.
***
Always the damned whispers. As if he’d lost his hearing rather than half his sight.
Anthony cast back the last dregs of his gin, scowling over his empty glass, already regretting his rash decision to spend the evening at his club. It wasn’t really his, to his mind—but it had been his brothers’ and his father’s. Perhaps it would have been his, had he done as his family had expected and gone into some other profession rather than purchasing a commission and going to war instead.
There were so few dukes to be had that every club of any renown wished to claim one. He’d been extended an offer of membership practically the moment he’d come into the title. Now, he suspected, he was less a feather in their cap than an object of speculation and curiosity amongst the other members.
He’d only accepted the extension of membership because he’d done so many other things entirely wrong that he’d been determined to get at least one of them right, and carrying on the family tradition had seemed a reasonable course of action.
Of course, family tradition meant little any longer to a family now so torn and tattered. Three lives ripped away at once. Three good, solid men gone forever, leaving behind grieving wives and two devastated little girls in mourning for their father. Leaving the title in the hands of the scapegrace youngest son who had never been meant to wear it.
The shame upon Mother’s face—on those rare occasions she deigned even to look upon him—made him all to aware that he would fall forever short in her eyes.
Anthony hadn’t even held it against her, for he felt the same. Not half worthy enough to fill the shoes of those who had come before him.
“Warrington, isn’t it?”
Anthony jerked, his fingers clenching upon his empty glass. Somehow he bit back the instinctive rebuke to the interloper who had come up upon his blind side—a blond man with one hand curled around the silver handle of a cane.
“I prefer Captain Sharp,” Anthony said, striving to keep the scowl from his face.
By the lift of the man’s brows, this was an unanticipated response.
“Really? Can’t say I know of many who wouldn’t insist upon a title if they had one to claim.” The man abandoned the cane to lean it against Anthony’s table and turned to seize the back of a chair going spare at a nearby table, either oblivious of or indifferent to the exasperated indignation of the gentlemen seated there. The legs of the chair produced a harsh scraping sound as he dragged them across the floor and spun the chair about to position it at Anthony’s table, at which he took a seat as casually as if he had been given an engraved invitation to do so.
“Heard you been makin’ certain inquiries.”
The scowl Anthony had contrived to vanquish spread across his face anyway.
“In what way are my inquiries—whatever they might happen to be—any of your concern?” And how had this man heard of them? He had the clothing and the general affect of a gentleman, but his speech slipped indiscriminately between genteel and coarse. How had he gained admittance to this club?
“They concern me when they also concern a woman I count among my friends,” the man said with a shrug.
Anthony peered past the man’s shoulder to the gentlemen at the neighboring table from which the man had stolen the chair, both of whom cast the occasional annoyed glance toward them.
“And do you count them amongst your friends?” he asked, indicating the table with a subtle nod.
“Worse,” the man said.
“Brothers-in-law. Got an awful lot of ‘em. Every one of ‘em titled, if you can believe it. I put in an appearance here now and again to keep my wife happy. And to rile up her family, when it suits me. It’s great fun.” The man’s boot thumped Anthony’s chair as he stretched his legs out and assumed a posture of indolence.
“Now, about Charity.”
Anthony did not know whether to be aghast or impressed at the man’s temerity.
“Who the devil are you?” he blurted out.
The man produced a shrill whistle of surprise, which attracted more than a few disapproving looks.
“You’ve not been in England long then, I take it,” he said.
“I’m Chris Moore. Notorious ne’er-do-well, former spy, and current gentleman of leisure. What do ye want wiv Charity, Captain Sharp? Ye lookin’ fer a mistress?”
“For the love of God, keep your damned voice down,” Anthony snarled. It had been bad enough that the few people of whom he’d made subtle inquiries had all cast him pitying looks, as if to wordlessly convey that even if he did manage to gain an introduction to Miss Charity Nightingale, his face alone precluded any offer of patronage from being accepted.
“If you are seeking a mistress, I’d encourage you to look elsewhere,” Chris said.
A sneer curled the corner of Anthony’s lips.
“What? Am I too ugly, then?”
Those blond brows lifted once more, that sharp blue gaze turning assessing, and Anthony had the strangest sensation that he had been—measured. Like a tailor would with a tape. A weakness identified and catalogued.
“I’ll own you ain’t what anyone would call ‘andsome,” Chris said as his fingertips tapped out a rhythm on the surface of the table.
“Charity’s retired. ‘As been for some time now, though it’s not stopped some particularly persistent blokes from sniffin’ round her skirts. So when I find ‘em, I”—Chris shrugged in a way that was more sharp than blasé, more practiced, more dangerous—“encourage ‘em to look elsewhere. Sometimes gently-like. Sometimes not so gently. Depends on the bloke. ‘Ow am I to encourage you, then?”
“And how does your wife feel about your interest in a former courtesan?”
“Oh, she and Charity are thick as thieves, they are. Must be twice a week at least Charity’s ‘round mine for tea or some other such nonsense.” A nonchalant roll of his shoulders.
“Even when Charity was my mistress, they got on like a house on fire. But she’s not only my wife’s friend, you see. She’s mine, and I’d take it ill—”
“She’s my wife.” Anthony hissed the words in rough whisper, conscious of potential eavesdroppers.
“I’m not seeking a damned mistress. I am seeking the woman I married half a lifetime ago.”
Chris snorted, an inelegant sound that served to punctuate the disbelief scrawled across his face. A long silence drew out between them, growing more fraught and tense with each moment that Anthony failed to retract the claim. At last Chris said, “Fucking hell. You’re in earnest.” He blew out a breath, his brows arched toward his hairline.
“You’re the bloke. The one what gives her nightmares.”
If aught kept her up at night, it was hardly likely to be the husband she’d not seen in damned close to two decades. But the war—the things they had seen—yes, that would keep a body up at night. It had kept him up too many nights to count.
“Suppose that makes her a duchess, then,” Chris said with a gusty sigh.
Yes, Anthony supposed it did.
“So you can see, then, why it is necessary that I find her,” he said.
“If you’ll give me her direction.”
“I won’t.” The blasted man flicked a bit of imaginary lint off his sleeve.
“Leastwise, until I talk to her m’self. Frankly, Captain Sharp, I don’t care whether ye’re seeking a mistress or a wife, you’ve still got no business with her unless she says you have.”
Anthony could have happily put his fist through the man’s smarmy face.
“I’ve the weight of the law on my side—”
“Ask me how much the law means to me,” Chris invited.
“A suggestion for the future: one needn’t find a wife who’s not been lost in the first place.”
“I thought she was dead. I learned differently only days ago.” Probably, he imagined, she’d thought the same. There had been so many deaths—too many deaths. In war, in sickness. It had been a blasted miracle he’d survived. Weeks of illness caused by his own putrefying flesh, sliding in and out of delirium. He’d not learned she’d been afflicted with cholera until the worst of his own illness had passed.
For months he’d been too weak to go looking, had assumed she would have applied to his family for support if she had survived, to one of his superior officers—to anyone who had known of their marriage. That someone would have passed word of her survival along to him. But it had never happened.
He’d thought himself a widower at the age of one and twenty. A widower with a face so ruined he’d been unable even to glance at himself in a mirror. There had seemed little point in returning home, and less still to which to return. So he hadn’t. He’d sold his commission and lived off of the proceeds. Traveled the continent. Eventually leased a little cottage in the countryside of Tuscany.
Kept to himself, mostly. At least until he’d been summoned home once again.
Chris folded his arms over his chest.
“Ye could petition for a divorce,” he said.
“There’s no doubt ye could obtain one, given the circumstances.”
“I’d speak with her first,” Anthony said.
“Hardly seems sporting to drag her through the courts without so much as a by-your-leave.”
“You’d…speak with her,” Chris repeated, agog.
“She’s been a courtesan. A mistress of more men than only me.”
And he’d been an absent husband. If that look of horror upon her face had been any indication, she’d been every bit as in the dark as had. Once, she’d been a battlefield nurse, an angel to the injured and ailing. An angel to him. He could still remember the feel of her small, soft hand in his own as she’d sat by the side of his bed. The soothing stroke of her fingers through his hair as he’d tossed and turned in the grip of pain and fever.
What she had done to support herself in the intervening years mattered less than what she had done for a wounded soldier who had relied upon her soothing presence. Who had reached for the comfort of her fingers in that all-consuming darkness he had lived within and had found them every time.
He hadn’t loved her like a man loved a wife. But he had worshiped her like a flower worshiped the sun.
“Whatever else she may have been,” Anthony said, “she is still my wife. Perhaps it is not a…particularly desirable position for her. But it is one nonetheless worthy of my respect.”
A queer silence stretched out again, and once more Anthony felt himself being measured, assessed, evaluated. Those icy blue eyes raked over his face, but strangely did not linger over any one particular distorted feature. As if the scars Anthony wore were immaterial.
“Fair enough,” Chris said at last, as he pushed back his chair and rose to his feet, seizing the silver handle of his cane.
“I’ll speak wiv ‘er. And if she cares to speak wiv you, she’ll come round yours.”
Come round his? “A moment,” Anthony said as Chris turned his back.
“My address. You’ll have need of it.”
Chris gave an answering scoff as he sent a nod of farewell to the nearby table, occupied by his brothers-in-law.
“No need,” he said as he turned to go.
“I know where you live.”
And damned if he hadn’t made it sound like a threat.