Page 7 of Secrets of a Duke’s Heart (Wayward Dukes’ Alliance #25)

CHAPTER SEVEN

R ain rolled over the Cornish countryside again that afternoon, this time without the grand theatrics of a thunderstorm. By afternoon, Jude was wet, miserable, and far from shelter.

“Keep up, Monty,” called out Leacham. Jude gritted his teeth and dug his heels into his tired mount’s flanks. He despised that nickname. The Riders were rough company, the Cornish terrain as harsh and unforgiving as its inhabitants, and his thoughts continually bounced between Harriet’s whereabouts and Clarissa Penfirth’s outright rejection of him. It still smarted.

Water dripped down his collar.

“Where is this place?” He sounded like a child whining, Are we almost there? Composing himself, he straightened his spine and patted his horse’s neck. “This one needs to rest.”

He said nothing about the harsh way his companions drove their own horses.

“Down that hill.” Leacham pointed down the slope. They had split off from the other two Riders to cover more ground. Without a reliable communication system, he wasn’t sure what the men expected to accomplish, but he supposed the more eyes they had searching for Harriet, the better. All that mattered now was that they find her.

It was too much to hope that she would return home untouched. Tonight, when he returned to Prescott’s, he would have to write to Lord Lucarran to inform him of the disaster that had befallen his bride. Putting it off any longer risked rumors getting back to London before he could do damage control.

Jude sighed. Why couldn’t anything ever be easy?

“That’s the place,” Leacham said with a sinister satisfaction that Jude didn’t like one bit, pointing down the hill at a tidy cottage with bright flowers spilling from the window boxes. The only pop of color in the landscape. Everything else here was gray. Gray rocks stained dark with wet gray rain, the gray rolling ocean waves. Even the grass had acquired an ashen hue to his eye.

But there was this cheerful little cottage with a fishing dinghy moored out front and a garden with a chicken coop. For the first time since his kiss with Clarissa this morning, he felt hope.

Leacham pounded on the door rather rudely, in Jude’s estimation. The Rider’s company had begun to grate many miles and several hours ago. He was grateful not to have to work this way. Part of him admired Leacham’s toughness and determination, despite knowing it was motivated by vengeance toward the smuggler who had bedeviled him for years. He cared little for Harriet’s safe return apart from hoping that her safe return would finally mean the smuggler’s capture.

Fine. Jude could work with a man bent on revenge. But the sooner he could stop, the easier he would feel about the situation. It was absolutely imperative that no one in Cornwall discover that he was the Duke of Montague until Harriet was safe and she was safely wed to Lord Lucarran. That included Clarissa Penfirth.

First he would find Harriet. Then he would handle Clarissa.

The thought of handling her lush curves sent an inconvenient rush to his loins. At that exact moment, the door jerked open and a petite woman with amber skin and black braids peered out. Her wide smile fell when she saw them.

“Where is your husband?” demanded Leacham.

“Benoit!” she shouted. A dark-skinned man stepped out onto the small porch and shut the door with his wife inside. Given the Rider’s overt aggressiveness, Jude didn’t blame them for leaving them standing outside, though he had been looking forward to getting out of the weather for a few minutes.

“We can talk here.” Benoit crossed his arms over his chest.

“Where is the Spectre ?”

“An’ how should I know? My boat is there. She is the Haint .”

Benoit was a Yankee, Jude realized with a start. His French-American accent wasn’t one typically found in Cornwall, and it took him a moment to place it.

“Don’t deny it. Two days ago, your ship was seen tied to the back of the Spectre heading into heavy weather. Tell me where she is.”

“She offered aid when I needed it. On the sea, we are all friends.” He shrugged, but the tense set of the man’s shoulders belied his nonchalance.

“You expect me to believe a smuggling ship stopped to help you out of the goodness of her captain’s heart?”

Jude winced at the way Leacham spoke to this man on the front stoop of his own home. Little wonder the Riders were so disliked when they treated people with such disdain.

“Is there anything you can tell us?” he pleaded. Benoit’s gaze darted to him, then narrowed as he returned his attention to Leacham. “Did she sail east or west? Could you identify her captain if you saw him again?”

“Aye.”

“Let us into your house.” Leacham attempted to swagger past.

“No.” Benoit blocked him. “You leave us alone, Rider. We ain’t nothing to do with smuggling in this house. You have no authority here.”

Before the scene could turn into a scuffle, Jude grabbed the belligerent Rider by the back of his jacket and hauled him off the porch. “Stop.”

“He is in cahoots with Le Fant?me,” Leacham seethed, shaking him off. “I have come too far not to succeed at capturing him now.” He stormed back up the steps, forcing Benoit to back up. “A search of the premises would reveal hidden stores of lace and tubs of brandy, wouldn’t it?”

Benoit shook his head vehemently. “If I tell you which way they sailed, will you leave us alone?”

“Yes,” Jude said firmly, cutting off Leacham.

“They sailed toward Falmouth. The captain, he’s a Frenchman. Young. Handsome.” He glanced uneasily at Jude. “There was a young miss with them. Didn’t seem too happy to be there.”

Jude’s pulse quickened. She was alive, and relatively unharmed. Harriet didn’t have a quick temper, but once set off, she could be fiery. Being kidnapped would certainly do the trick.

“Them?”

Benoit hesitated. “There was another crewman on board. Old.”

“What were their names?”

“Didn’t get the crewman’s. The captain is called Rémy.”

“Not Thierry?” Leacham leaned in eagerly. Warily, the American shook his head. “There must be an entire gang of them. Le Fant?me isn’t one man, he is a syndicate!”

His eyes glinted with excitement. This was the most animated Jude had ever seen the man.

“We’ll send every Waterguard boat off the coast of Cornwall scouring the sea between Polperro and Falmouth. Riders searching the shore. They must be holed up in a sea cave somewhere!”

He patted Jude’s chest with a damp hand and hastened to their tired, waiting horses.

“I am so very sorry to intrude upon your evening,” Jude said to Benoit.

“You know the girl, don’t you?”

“She is my niece.”

Perhaps it was foolish, but he trusted this man. There was relief in speaking the truth. Yet the family’s name depended upon him continuing to carry the weight of decades of lies—all told for a noble cause. Heavy all the same.

“He won’t hurt her. He’s a good man, Rémy. A bit rough around the edges. Impulsive, but he has a good heart.” He tapped his chest with his fist.

“That’s reassuring. If you see her again, please tell her...” He trailed off. His heart ached. He couldn’t think of the right words. Any words. All he had was a well of feelings he didn’t know how to describe. Not that he should attempt to describe his state of mind to a complete stranger. “I just want her home safely. That’s all that matters.”

Benoit’s lips parted as if he might speak, but Leacham called out at that moment. “Onward, Monty, we have a smuggler to catch!”

He nodded and made his way through the mud to his horse.

* * *

Hours later, well past his usual supper time, Jude dragged himself into Prescott’s mansion and shed his wet clothes and boots with the help of a footman. It was uncouth to undress in the foyer but he couldn’t be bothered to care. Every muscle in his body ached. He hadn’t ridden that long or that hard in years.

“Mr. Monty!” exclaimed a female voice as he ascended the stairs to his bedroom.

“Miss Penfirth. Forgive me. I thought you would be in bed by now.” Although he was clad in nothing but his trousers and shirt, barefoot, cold, and hungry, his mind promptly forgot all about his sad state and leaped into a soft, warm bed with Clarissa, naked. Images of her lush breasts filling his hands and her moans echoing as he?—

Good God, get a grip on yourself, man.

“I shall let you tend to your…erm…yourself.”

Her cheeks were crimson as she passed by him. Jude stared at the ceiling and blew out a breath, willing his cock to stop responding to the heated visions of sex wheeling through his brain. Utterly futile.

In his room, he dropped into the hip bath the servants had brought up for him and scrubbed away the day’s rigors with bay rum-scented soap. Imported from Provence, France. A luxury he had denied himself for years in the interest of patriotism. With the Napoleonic Wars finally over for good, he was free to indulge his taste for fine French products without guilt.

Once he was clean and had eaten the tray of supper brought to his room, he made his way downstairs. As tired as he was, he ought to fall into bed, but he wanted to find a map of Cornwall. How far was it between Polperro and Falmouth? He didn’t know. But now that there was a clearly defined area in which to search, he was invigorated to get out there again.

His thighs protested. Jude braced one hand on his back. He would go by carriage, if the roads were clear enough. Not on horseback. He was too old to take that kind of punishment.

“We meet again.”

He stopped short. “Miss Penfirth. What are you doing in the library?”

“Searching for evidence.”

“Evidence of what?”

“I think my cousin is involved in the trade. You know. Smuggling.” She raised her candle higher. “I have suspected it for some time.”