Page 13 of Secrets of a Duke’s Heart (Wayward Dukes’ Alliance #25)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
C larissa stormed downstairs to find her cousin.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded.
“Tell you what?”
A feral sound tore out of her throat. Men. They were all in cahoots.
“Your friend is no ordinary gentleman. He is a duke!”
“He finally got around to telling you the truth.” Nathaniel smirked. She wanted to smack it off his face. “Monty doesn’t like to use his title when he’s traveling. Or at any time outside of official business with the crown. He felt it was prudent to keep his identity a secret here, especially once Harriet was kidnapped. To protect her reputation, you understand.”
Clarissa pinched her temples. She couldn’t stop moving. Her entire body felt like a beehive, buzzing with anxious energy that had no outlet.
What Nathaniel said did make a certain amount of sense. She could see it. But she still didn’t understand why he had waited until his second proposal to tell her the truth. Her head was spinning to think she had received not one, but two proposals from a duke.
Hadn’t she been a stalwart helper from the very beginning? From the moment he’d burst into Nathaniel’s study she was ready to aid him in his quest to find his missing niece. She had been steadfast in her efforts, even to the point of risking her own reputation to help him.
Her thighs still ached from taking him like a thorough wanton, and she had enjoyed every second of their lovemaking, too—until he ruined it. One minute she’d been thinking about quaint country estates, landed gentry at most, but then he’d upended her wildest dreams by casually mentioning a title and vast estate.
Not just any title, either. The highest in the land outside of royalty.
If she married him, she would have to be presented to the queen. She would look ridiculous in court dress. Everyone looked ridiculous in court dress, but her flaws would be magnified and on full display. She could hear the room buzzing with gossip about her poor morals already.
A union with Lord Montague was unthinkable.
“I thought you would be pleased to discover you’d landed such a prize catch. Doesn’t every woman dream of marrying a duke?”
She scoffed. “I have never viewed marriage as a competition for the highest-ranking husband.”
“I know. I’m sure that’s part of why you appealed to him.”
“You’re not taking this seriously,” she fumed. “I wanted a partner. A man I could talk to every day as a friend and a companion for the next fifty years. A man who loves children and wants to raise them with me. Not a man who is beholden to carrying on a lineage so loaded with expectations that his children are thrust into adult obligations from the cradle!”
“Don’t you think you’re being presumptive? This is exactly what Montague fears, you know. That people will make assumptions about what kind of man he is, and when he fails to meet them, think badly of the whole family.”
She crossed her arms and finally perched on the arm of the fainting couch. An undignified place to sit, for certain, but the fight was leaching out of her and she was suddenly exhausted.
“Perhaps I am being a little judgmental,” she grumbled, “but what do you expect when the man doesn’t trust me with the secrets of his heart?”
“You sound like Miss Turner. All starry-eyed with love and ready to fight to the death for it.” Nathaniel smiled, unbothered by her seething outrage. He could be annoyingly rational. She had always valued that aspect of him, until now.
“How is she, by the way?”
“Still determined to make her uncle see reason. Key, please.” She held out one hand, palm up.
“To what?”
“To your prisoner’s cell, obviously.”
“Why?”
“So that I can facilitate that conversation, Nathaniel. Now, hand it over.”
Reluctantly, he fished an old skeleton key out of his pocket. “This is the only one I have. The other is with Leacham. There is no jail in Cavalier Cove, so I told him his prisoner—not mine, to be clear—would be secure in my wine cellar. The previous earl used to keep his fine clarets and brandy locked up so the staff couldn’t steal it.”
“But you don’t keep large quantities on hand.”
He shook his head. “Can’t afford to. Don’t you get up to any tricks with this.”
“I only want to take Harriet down to see her beau while the Riders are in town this evening. Will they post a guard?”
“They said they would check on him after returning from their supper. I didn’t offer them hospitality here, for reasons I know you understand and will keep to yourself.”
“Mum’s the word.” She mimed locking her lips and throwing away the key. “I would never betray your secret. I expect you to tell any lady you intend to marry what you’ve been doing, however. Preferably before you propose.”
She made a face and pocketed the key. Harriet lurked by the front door, watching the retreating backs of the Riders as they went into town for their supper at the Cock and Bull Tavern. Maggie would not be pleased to see them again.
“Now is our chance,” Harriet whispered loudly. “Please. You have to help me free Rémy.”
“I’ll have a word with him,” Clarissa said, though she had already promised herself that she would free him, if the smuggler didn’t seem to be a danger. Guilt twinged within her. Mr. Montague would certainly repudiate her if she aided the young lovers.
Lord Montague, she reminded herself sternly.
They went down into the cellar together, taking the stairs as quietly as possible. One squeaked under Harriet’s slight weight, so she made sure to avoid it.
A single candle inside a glass lantern illuminated the underground space. It was dry and clean, if mostly empty. Wooden boxes were stacked in one gated cell. Old furniture sulked in the dusty corner of a second cage. The previous Lord Prescott or one of his ancestors must have had an enviable wine cellar at one point.
Imagine what a duke’s collection would look like . Immense. Vast. Intimidating. Like everything duke-related.
She shoved the thought away. The empty center cell was locked, and upon closer inspection, it was occupied by a man with tawny hair wearing a white linen shirt that had seen better days. A bruise graced his cheek. He scrambled forward to press his face against the bars when he saw them coming.
“What is this?” he said in better English than Clarissa had expected.
“We are breaking you out,” Harriet said breathlessly. “This is Miss Penfirth, Viscount Prescott’s cousin. She stole his key. We’re coming to save you!”
That wasn’t quite a truthful accounting of what had happened, but Clarissa let it pass.
“Mon cher, I cannot allow you to do this,” the smuggler said, sagging back. Harriet seized the key and thrust it into the lock, ignoring him.
“I won’t let them hang you.”
Hanging did seem a rather severe punishment for a man who had kidnapped a willing victim. Clarissa judged the handsome young man to be around her own age, late twenties. Any reservations she had about him being a violent threat disappeared when he took Harriet into his arms and stroked her hair. It was obvious from the way he held her that he cared about her very much.
Her heart ached.
She turned her back to give them a few minutes of privacy, as much as was possible when three people were milling about an empty cellar. This must be where Nathaniel stored his ill-gotten goods before he transported them to London. Incredible to think that a peer of the realm would deliberately undercut the Crown on taxes. How American of him, despite being French. Those rogues had tossed tea into a harbor and fought an entire war over having to pay tariffs on imported goods.
Very relevant to the present moment, Clarissa, she chided herself. Anything to avoid thinking about Jude. She ignored a sharp pinch of envy.
“—for your own safety, I must set you free,” Rémy was saying.
“Rémy Desmarais, stop being so self-sacrificing,” Harriet said indignantly. “I still want to marry you. Are you going to get out of that cell and make good on your promise to elope with me or not?”
“When you put it that way, marrying you is a far superior fate to a hangman’s noose.”
Clarissa bit back a grin. “If you have concluded your lover’s quarrel, we ought to be going. Quickly.”
They had been down here for too long. She waved the lovers toward the stairway and tromped up after them feeling like a lost puppy. Harriet’s squeak of surprise and the Frenchman’s muttered warning indicated that they had been caught.
But it was only Nathaniel.
“This is why you wanted my key,” he said.
“You can have it back now that he’s free.”
“Montague will be furious.” He cocked his head. All she could do was shrug, though even hearing his name made her heart hurt.
“There is nothing I can do about that. Harriet has made her decision. The question is whether or not he will honor it.”
Watching the lovers bolt down the drive under a rising moon brought a sad smile to Clarissa’s lips. If Jude loved her with such headlong passion, they might have had a chance together. But tonight, she had irrevocably broken it.