Page 104 of Dukes All Night Long

A nnie pinned the last of the sheets to the line, and stretched her aching shoulders.

Weary and frustrated, she did as she often did to raise her spirits.

She counted blessings. The sun was warm on her face.

The sheets would dry before dark so they wouldn’t be damp when she brought them in.

Breakfast went well. Uncle Virgil had found no reason to berate her today. So far.

Peg came into the kitchen just as Annie reached it. The maid had been sent to the apothecary on some errand for Aunt Ella, one of the patent remedies the aunt relied on for one ailment or another.

“You shoulda seen him,” Peg said with a toss of her hair.

Annie stored the pins in the cupboard and turned to see Peg waiting for a response. Annie sighed. “Seen who?”

“Stranger from up to Woodglen.”

“What of him?” Annie held her breath.

“Leaving town.”

The stranger is leaving? Relief flooded Annie. She began peeling potatoes to put on to boil.

Oblivious, Peg nattered on, in the grip of some gossip and enjoying the drama. “You shoulda seen Nell Brown at the tea shop. Flirted all outrageous. Batted ’er eyes. Wiggled her hips, can you imagine?” She gazed at Annie expectantly.

“Shameful,” Annie murmured on cue.

Peg went off again. “Man wasn’t having it though. Told ’er right curt he were leaving. Nell said as how it was too bad that old manor house being empty and the duke gone, and maybe he should just stay a bit. Her mother heard that last bit and called her to the kitchen right sharp.”

“And he left?” Annie asked.

Peg shrugged. “Started to. Chatted up Miller the grocer on the street, mounted that big old beast of his, and rode on off.”

Annie concentrated on her task, half her mind on the empty music room at Woodglen.

“Can’t blame her though,” Peg said, lounging in a chair with her feet up.

“Blame who?” Annie asked absently.

“Nell! Haven’t you bin listening? She has eyes in her head, and that one was a fine-looking man. Better’n the single men around here, I can tell you.”

Was he? Annie never got a good look. She put the spuds on to boil. “Don’t you have bedrooms to dust, Peg?”

The maid flounced off, grumbling about slave drivers and those as thought they were better.

Annie leaned on the counter, stared out the window, and thought about nocturnes. And the stranger. A man might be fine looking and still a threat to her peace.

*

It took Owen all afternoon to ride far enough, circle back, and approach Woodglen through a woodlot and across fields unlikely to draw notice at dusk.

The sky was darkening when he led Caerwyn into the stables, drawing shock from the head groom.

He clapped a guinea into the man’s hand and whispered, “I’m not here. I’m long gone.”

The old man nodded, cheerful, if confused. “Aye. If you say so.”

Marshall was less surprised. Owen found the steward in the estate office finishing up paperwork with his assistant. Marshall glanced up, shook his head, and spoke to his secretary. The assistant glanced at Owen and scurried out.

“I knew you were up t’something. I told Morrit to let your room be. I assume you rode in from the north? My man here won’t talk, but someone will soon enough, you know.”

“I’m hoping it doesn’t take long. I found the place where she goes in and out the hedge. If she comes back, I’ll—”

Marshall opened his mouth to object but Owen raised a staying hand. “I promise that I only wish to talk to her. One time.”

“I see you mean well about her music, and she loves it, but I like the lass. Don’t make trouble.”

No eyebrows were raised when he turned up for dinner. He wondered how many of them Marshall had warned, how many knew to keep quiet.

How long before the footman’s cousin’s aunt tells the vicar there’s a stranger at the big house? I may only have a day or two. Once word is out, I’ll give up, Owen decided. At least that is what he told himself.

As night deepened, he carried a pillow and blanket to a small parlor that opened onto the music room and stationed himself on a settee in the dark with the door to the other room ajar. If he nodded off, the music would awaken him.

Weary from disrupted nights and his long ride, it didn’t take long.

Soon enough, he slept. When he awoke with a sudden jerk, the house was silent and, with the drapes in the small room closed, dark as a tomb.

Disappointment washed over him. Marshall was right that his presence would be public knowledge soon enough.

If she didn’t come, he might have one more night at most.

He stared into the night, unable to decide whether to seek the room the housekeeper had kept for him, make another midnight foray to the kitchen, or stay where he was.

What time is it anyway? he wondered. The room had no clock. It felt like the deep darkness before dawn when the entire world slept. He pulled the blanket to his chin and closed his eyes, certain his bones would ache in the morning, but too despondent to move.

His eyes flickered open moments later, disturbed by a sixth sense or perhaps a faint sound. A sliver of light broke into the unrelenting darkness. It shone through the crack where he left the door ajar. Owen’s heart beat a rhythm all its own, anxiety mixed with anticipation.

A few notes rewarded him, followed soon by the opening chords of the Mozart he had left on the piano. Joy drove out thought, and he gave himself over to the sound of a masterwork in the hands of a master pianist.

When she began the second movement, he gave himself a shake and took stock.

He had removed his boots. That was good for approaching softly, but less so for following outside.

He stood and put on his coat, buttoned up his waistcoat, and tied the top of his shirt closed. It would have to be stockinged feet.

He approached the door, hardly daring to breathe and opened it, thanking God and a finely-ordered house for well-oiled hinges.

For a moment he could only stare, enchanted by the player’s graceful back and absorption in her music.

He still couldn’t see her face. He took a step into the room and then another, attempting to position himself between the woman and the window.

He tried for perfect silence, but he failed to notice a metal music stand just behind him, but not quite far enough.

The clang of falling metal brought a halt to Mozart and sent Annie Potter running for her escape route. In the moment it took Owen to untangle his stocking from the metal, she was out the window. He wouldn’t be left that easily this time.

“Annie, wait! I just want to talk to you. About music,” he called, climbing over the sill and making his way confidently to the opening in the hedge, his eyes adjusting to the light of the waxing moon.

The lantern he had left was just on the other side of the hedge, and he had it lit in a trice. New marks added to the footsteps he’d followed the morning before. He set off in pursuit.

“Annie, wait. I won’t hurt you,” he called.

A few steps later, another sound echoed across the dark field. A man’s angry voice. Owen couldn’t make out all the words, but one echoed clearly. “Harlot!”

The sound of a slap—or worse—and a woman’s sharp cry followed it. He ran toward the sound and skidded to a stop. In the light of his lantern, he saw an angry man, gaunt but tall, holding a woman half his size in an iron grip and shaking her violently while he spewed a torrent of ugly words.

“There. There he is,” the man screamed, stilling his assault, and glaring at Owen. “The man you have been meeting. I knew it. You are no better than your strumpet of a mother. You are worthless. I won’t have such filth in my house, Ann Ella Potter. I won’t tolerate your sins. You shame me. You—”

“Let her go. You have no business treating her that way,” Owen shouted over the tirade. He set his lantern on the ground, prepared to intervene.

“No business? I have every business. This hussy has been living in my house, eating my food. Shaming me before my flock.”

“She has done no such thing.” Owen could stand it no longer. He stepped forward to remove the old man’s hands from her, but the villain spared him the trouble. He tossed Annie to the ground and spat on her.

Waving a bony finger at the woman in the grass, he said, “No more. Don’t bother to come to my house. The door will be locked to you. You can die on the street. It is no more than you deserve.” With that, he strode away.

Owen swallowed the urge to run him down and pummel him. The woman weeping quietly at his feet needed him.

He knelt and gently brushed her hair back, feeling the moisture of her tears when he did. “How badly are you hurt?” he asked.

She shook her head, and attempted to rise. He put a hand at her back to support her. Her entire body shook as she tried to stem her weeping. “Not hurt,” she said at last, gulping. She gazed up at him, eyes wide in the faint lantern light. “I have nowhere to go now.”

“Have you friends who will take you in?” Owen asked, peering closely at her face in the shadows, hoping for some familiar sign.

“No. He—He never let me make friends.”

“You have a friend in Curtis Marshall,” Owen mused. “Can you stand?” He put a hand on her elbow to help her up, but she teetered when she got to her feet.

Owen swept Annie up into his arms, one arm under her bottom, the other around her back.

“Hold on to my shoulders; I’ll carry you to the house,” he said.

She looked as if she wanted to object, but she sank against him, holding on as he ordered, a picture of despair, and Owen’s heart twisted in his chest.

He left the lantern where it was, cradling his precious burden in both arms. He strode back to Woodglen through the dark, praying he was right about the people there.