Page 7 of The Duke’s Price (Wayward Dukes’ Alliance #18)

7

R uth, tired though she was, had a restless night. When she did sleep, she dreamt—and woke with vague confused snippets of scenes in her head. Her, searching a great mansion for a missing Perry. Her, in a ballroom full of people pointing and jeering at the would-be duchess. Her, weeping alone while surrounded by trunks of clothing and jewellery.

At last, the carriage windows showed a lightening sky. Dawn was underway. Another day, and today they would swap the carriage for horses. Thank goodness Bella was passionate about visiting every corner of her little country, so that Ruth, who always accompanied her, was a competent rider.

She became aware of being watched. A slight turn was enough to see Perry, a shadowy figure sitting on the opposite bench.

“Good morning, Ruth,” he said.

“Is it time to get up?” she asked, and answered her own question. “If we are both awake, why not?”

“We have the bread and cheese from yesterday to break our fast on,” he said. “Dress in your men’s clothes, Ruth, and you can sit up beside me on the box.”

Much better than travelling alone in the carriage. She sat up, clutching the blanket to her chest—which was slamming the stable door after the horse had bolted, in anyone’s terms. But although he had seen every inch of her body, their discussion last night, and his astounding proposal, made her wary.

Perry reached for the door handle. “I’ve put your trunk down. Find your clothes and attend to your ablutions, and I’ll begin harnessing the horses. We can eat as we travel.”

He left the carriage, and Ruth went after him, first wrapping a blanket around her as a cloak. Apparently, he was not going to talk about last night. She was glad. She had no idea what to say.

She washed and got dressed, then tidied away their makeshift beds and repacked the trunk and bags they’d opened. Meanwhile, Perry toiled away harnessing the horses and, when he was finished, reloading the luggage onto the carriage.

The sun had just cleared the horizon when they drove out of the forest and back onto the road.

“I calculate that Sète is about six hours away,” Perry said. “Early as we are, and even allowing time for me to change to look respectable enough to be selling this carriage in order to buy horses, we should arrive in the early afternoon.”

“Is Sète where the canal ends?” Ruth asked, trying to make her tone as casual as Perry’s.

“No, the canal ends at this end of the Basin of Thau, so we’ll have to collect Bella and Walter by horse. In fact, we should check whether they’ve arrived when we pass Agde. There’s a long spit of land between the basin and the sea, with Agde at one end and Sète on the far end of the spit, where the basin opens into the sea. That will be the most dangerous time, actually—when we are riding from the end of the canal to Sète. Pray, dear Ruth, that Carlos is searching for us somewhere else. I’d rather not meet up with him or Garcia until I have my sailors and servants behind me as extra muscle.”

Dear Ruth . Her heart thrilled at the endearment, even though her mind told her that Perry was as lavish with endearments as he was with his money.

With his uncanny ability to catch her thoughts, or perhaps just because he thought of it, Perry changed the subject. “On another topic, I still want to marry you, Ruth.”

She had to be honest, at least about her worries if not her feelings. “Perry, I have been thinking and thinking, and I cannot see how it could possibly work. I am probably too old to have children.”

“I have an heir, and cousins in the wings in case of need. I do not need you to have children.”

“I would be a possessive and jealous wife. I will not share.”

“Surprisingly, neither will I. I have never been possessive, Ruth. Not since Mathilda. But I find the thought of another man putting his hands on you turns me red with rage.”

What a surprisingly gratifying answer. But Ruth’s major objection was still to come. “I do not belong in your world.”

Perry’s answer startled. “Neither do I, Ruth. Truth to tell, I have been uncomfortable in it for some time. I suppose that was why I tried to kidnap the Duchess of Haverford.”

The last sentence had Ruth whipping her head around to stare at her travelling companion. Was he joking? He looked perfectly serious.

“I suppose I had better explain,” he said. “The trouble with being outrageous to avoid boredom is that outrageousness becomes boring. So, five or six years ago, I was taking more and more risks, doing things that were sillier and sillier. One of the most stupid involved a mistress of the king—the prince regent, as he was then. I am not going to tell you the details. I am ashamed enough of them without explaining them to you. Suffice it to say that a royal lackey conveyed to me that an extended overseas trip would be good for my health.”

“And the Duchess of Haverford?”

“She was not that then. She was Lady Charlotte Winderfield, niece of the Duke of Winshire and well-known bluestocking and spinster. I quite liked her. She is intelligent, kind, passionate about her causes, full of integrity, highly moral—much like you, in fact, though you have the edge on her in looks.”

Despite herself, Ruth was flattered. The Duchess of Haverford was a pretty woman.

“I had for some time been wondering if I should marry. Various friends had done so, and seemed happy. Even Aldridge—the Marquis of Aldridge, who became the Duke of Haverford—even Aldridge was courting. Lady Charlotte, as it happened, but any fool could see that she wasn’t going to have him.”

“So, you decided to do so.”

“I thought if she refused Aldridge, who was at least still welcome at ton events, I should not give her the choice. She would come round, I assumed, and I did intend to marry her, after all.” He sighed. “It was not one of my better moments.”

“The kidnapping failed?”

“It did. And I left London just ahead of a visit from my former friend, breathing fire and swearing vengeance. Just as well, as it turned out. I heard later that she married Aldridge—Haverford, because his father had just died. They are a love match.”

Ruth nodded. Haverford was a cousin of the Earl of Chirbury, so she knew him a little, and Anne had written about how happy they were. “Did you love her, Perry?”

Perry shrugged. “I did not. I thought she was a suitable bride. And I liked her, what I knew of her. That was all.” He flashed her his cheekiest grin. “Haverford and his wife might be the most embarrassing part of going back to England. If we are married, Ruth, he is less likely to geld me.”

Refusing to be goaded, Ruth said, “You owe them both an apology, but I imagine that, if you truly are determined to turn over a new leaf, they will accept it.”

The story was interesting though. If he really had been thinking of making a change in his lifestyle even six years ago, perhaps she could have more faith in his ability to be faithful. It didn’t change her unsuitability, though.

“So, have you been travelling since then?” she asked. What she really wondered was whether he had continued to be a rake. Certainly, apart from his friendship with Carlos and his proposition to her, he had not behaved badly during his visit to Las Estrellas.

“I have. And, before you ask, I have not been celibate, but I haven’t attended or thrown any orgies, either. I’ve had the occasional pleasant interlude with a neglected wife or a willing widow. Nothing for months. Even the most casual of connections can suddenly turn sour and full of drama. There are other, more convenient, ways to deal with one’s physical impulses. Not that they are as urgent as they used to be when I was young.”

“Brothels do you mean?” Ruth didn’t like the thought of that.

He grinned and nudged her shoulder with his arm. “Not brothels, sweet innocent. Mother Palmer and her five nimble daughters.”

She frowned at him wondering what he meant, and then blushed when he held up a hand, palm towards her, wiggling his thumb and four fingers.

They had had a stroke of luck with finding horses when they stumbled across an encampment of Roma. After a few tense moments, defused when Perry proved to be able to make himself understood in their language, the impudent man negotiated for the use of two riding horses and a pack horse. And the services of a man called Hanzi, who would ride with them and take the borrowed horses back.

From their gestures, Ruth gathered that the Roma would have accepted a straight swap for the four carriage horses, but Perry insisted on leaving them at an inn, where they would be rested and then put back into traces for a return journey with another carriage.

“When I pointed out it would become a matter for the police if I let them have our hired horses rather than sending them back to their owner, our Romani friends agreed that the animals must be returned,” Perry told Ruth, as they rode towards the village where they would leave the horses. “They have suggested we just slip them into the field the inn uses, so the inn knows nothing about where we came from or where we are going.”

“That is why you abandoned the carriage,” Ruth realised, and Perry nodded.

Goodness. The man spends money like water. Precisely how rich is he?

Even more reason that he couldn’t be—or, at least, shouldn’t be—serious about marrying her.

Perry set a swift pace, avoiding villages and houses wherever he could. Hanzi knew the area well, and took them down country lanes and sometimes across vineyards between the vines. Once an elderly man chased them out of a vineyard, shaking his cane at them.

Ruth wanted to go back and apologise. Perry laughed.

They arrived in Agde, near the end of the canal, in the late afternoon. “We’ll stop and check to see whether Walter and Bella have arrived,” Perry said. “If so, we can take them up behind us, to Sète.”

They left the horses with Hanzi, and went into the town, to look for a tavern or whatever other such place that the boat people gathered.

Perry suddenly stopped, and called out, “Walter!”

His manservant was crossing the street just ahead of them, but he changed directly and loped towards them. “Your Gr—Mr. De-Ath, sir. Dear Lord, am I pleased to see you!”

“What is wrong?” Ruth asked. Something was. The man looked both exhausted and worried.

“I don’t know for sure, Miss, and that’s a fact. They are all sick, Miss Bella, too. And the doctor here won’t see canal people.”

“We’ll see about that,” Perry said grimly.

“Not in those clothes, Perry,” Ruth told him. “Go and turn yourself into a duke again. Walter, take me to the canal boat. I’ll see what I can do.”

“I’ll come with you far enough that I know where to bring the doctor,” Perry said. “Sick how? And for how long?”

It had come on after they left Beziers—first a griping stomach pain and then, as Walter delicately put it, voiding at both ends. Both other adults were ill, as well as Bella and two of the three daughters. Fortunately, the daughter and the canal horse knew what to do to get them to Agde, while Walter emptied, cleaned, and returned buckets, and did what he could to comfort the sick.

“It could be something they ate,” Ruth suggested. “Do they have a high fever, Walter? Headaches?”

“Not to say high,” Walter said. “Up a bit, I’d say.”

Probably not typhoid, then, though there were other diseases with similar symptoms.

“There’s the boat, sir.” Walter pointed.

Perry nodded. “I’ll bring the doctor,” he told them. “I will be as quick as I can.”

They parted ways, and Ruth hurried on with Walter. “What did they last eat, Walter? And did you have any?”

Bella was weak and pale, but she insisted she was well. “I have not needed a bucket for more than two hours, Ruth, but I am so glad to see you. I am worried about Madame and Monsieur.”

Ruth found the well daughter trying to look after her parents, who looked gaunt and certainly did need the buckets that Walter kept recycling. While Bella put on a kettle to make tea, Ruth washed the faces of the remaining patients and asked questions about what foods they had eaten in the past twenty-four hours.

Mushrooms picked from the canal side were almost certainly the problem, since they’d had them for lunch, all except for Walter and the one well daughter, neither of whom liked mushrooms. The doctor confirmed the diagnosis when he arrived. “The girls are already recovering, Mr. De-Ath. They should be given plenty to drink, and they must rest. Moreau and Mrs. Moreau? You are doing the right things, Mrs. De-Ath. Continue. Keep them as clean as you can. Encourage them to drink. I shall call again tomorrow.”

Perry went off to let Hanzi know what was happening, but soon returned.

“Hanzi is gone and so are the horses,” he reported

“I suppose he thought we had abandoned him,” Ruth acknowledged.

Perry shrugged. “In any case, I need to sell another gem. I’d planned to top up my purse when we returned to the yacht, but instead I’m going to send a messenger to fetch the yacht. Have you got everything you need here? I’ll head out again and see what I can manage.”

“Some ingredients to make a nutritious broth,” Ruth ordered. “Also, ginger and peppermint, if you can find them, to make tea.”

“And something for us for dinner,” Perry concluded. He gave her a kiss on the cheek in front of Bella, Walter and the Moreaus—though the couple were not thinking about anything except their unstable digestive systems—and left again.

He reappeared some time later, walking in with freshly washed buckets when Ruth expected Walter. “I have put aside the ones that need to be emptied and rinsed out,” she said, without looking around.

“Certainly.” Perry’s voice jerked Ruth’s head around.

“You’re back.” Ruth had been feeling weary, but Perry’s presence made her feel she could manage anything.

He touched her cheek. “For that smile, darling, I would climb mountains. Emptying a couple of reeking buckets is easy enough. But where is Walter?”

“I sent him to bed. Bella, too.” Everyone else, in fact. “They were up all night, Perry, and you and I slept well after…” She blushed. After their coupling, her emotional outburst, his unbelievable proposal.

“Then we shall look after the Moreaus,” Perry said. If his thoughts had marched with hers, he gave no sign of it, but trudged away, uncomplaining, with the buckets.

He had managed to purchase broth and the herbs and ginger Ruth had asked for. He sat with the canal boat couple while Ruth made them a drink each, and heated enough of the broth for the patients. For him and Ruth, he’d bought bread, cheese, and fruit, and they ate that, washed down with a rather pleasant local wine, while he told her what he’d achieved.

“No jeweller, but I had enough cash left for the food, and I gave one of the fishermen a pearl to sail across the basin to Sète with my message. The yacht will arrive in the morning. Hopefully by then the Moreaus will be able to manage without us.”

At that moment, Mrs. Moreau called for another bucket.

It was a long night, but by morning, both Mr. and Mrs. Moreau were past the worst of it. Pale, weak, but no longer voiding, and sleeping peacefully. “Go and get some sleep, Ruth,” Perry suggested. “I shall watch our patients, but I think they are on the mend.”

Ruth wasn’t sure where she could sleep. Every cabin was occupied. In any case, while her body ached with tiredness, her mind was still racing. Again and again in the night, Perry had come up with reasons she should marry him. If he only knew, his greatest argument was his presence, washing Mr. Moreau’s face, spooning broth into the poor man, holding a bucket for him. Who could not want a husband who was so kind—and so practical in his application of that kindness.

Could she do it? Could she marry him? If only she could be certain he would not regret it. Regret it and, in time, come to resent her. It would be different if he loved her. Love was the one persuasion she could not refuse, and the one he had not offered. She stepped up on deck. Perhaps a short walk along the dock, just to have a breath of fresh air.

Several of the canal folk were up and working. They called out enquiries about the Moreaus and were pleased to hear that the whole family was on the mend. Walking from group to group to answer their questions took her further than she had intended. She was surprised, when she looked back towards the Moreau boat, by how far she had come.

She had better return before someone came looking for her.

Ruth was almost back at the boat when she heard the horses. Glancing over her shoulder, she could see riders coming—a dozen men, with Carlos and Garcia at their head. She lowered her head and tried not to run. She was still dressed as a man. In her cap, she must look much like the other canal people. Just an anonymous man. Nothing to see here .

What went wrong, she never knew. Perhaps they knew she was disguised. Perhaps she did not walk like a man and Garcia was perpetually suspicious. One moment she was walking, and the next she was slamming into the ground, Garcia on top of her, shouting with triumph in Spanish, “I have the English bitch, excellency!”

Bella wandered into the cabin some time after Ruth left. “Would you like some coffee and a bun, De-Ath?” she asked. “Is Ruth sleeping?”

Perry went from half awake to panicked alertness in a breath. “Ruth went to bed. If not with you, then where?”

“I’ll check with the sisters. You look at Walter,” said Bella, and whisked herself out of the room. But Ruth was not below deck in any of the tiny cabins.

“Look after your parents,” Perry told the Moreau girls, all of whom were looking much better. “Don’t wake them. Sleep is their best doctor now.”

“That is what Ruth always says when our patients are out of danger,” Bella observed, almost tripping on Perry’s heels in her haste to follow him up the narrow stairs to the deck. Walter clattered up behind them.

The scene on the docks was spread out before them as if it was on stage and they spectators at a play. A chorus of boat and townspeople, drawing away into worried clumps to observe from safety, a cluster of heavily armed horsemen, Garcia jerking Ruth to her feet by an arm, Carlos striding across the wooden boardwalk, reaching Ruth as they watched and yanking her from Garcia’s grip into his own.

“Get your hands off my wife!” Perry roared, sheer instinct driving both shout and words. Bella shot him a startled look, but he had no time for her. “Protect the princess,” he muttered to Walter and leapt from the canal boat to the dock.

“I said,” he repeated, “Get your bloody hands off my wife. Now, Carlos.”

“Not before she tells me where I can find my princess, Death,” Carlos growled back. “I thought she had kidnapped Isabella. I might have known you were the thief. And married? To a mouse of a governess? The Duke of Depravity? What a joke! Have you ruined them both, Death? For if you have, I shall kill you.”

“I escorted the Princess Isabella to safety after you threatened to force her to be your wife and her governess to be your mistress.” Several of the Carlos’s escort shifted uneasily, so Perry continued, infusing a taunt into his voice. “The princess knows you plan to kill her as soon as you have got a son or two on her, to be your excuse to keep control of Las Estrellas. How did you get yourself named guardian, Carlos? Or were you? Did you forge Prince Rodolfo’s signature on the will?”

He was too successful. Carlos tugged Ruth against his body, wrapped an arm around her to keep her trapped, and set the edge of his knife against her throat.

“Where is Isabella?” he demanded.

“Here,” said Bella’s clear young voice, and Carlos’s eyes widened. Perry didn’t want to look away from his beloved, standing straight and proud with a knife to her throat, her eyes fixed on him, sending a message of confidence and love. When his gaze met hers, she smiled, the gallant creature.

“Put that gun down, princess,” Carlos ordered. “Females should not play with guns. Put the gun down and I shall let Miss Henwood go.”

Perry spared a glance in that direction. Bella and Walter both stood on the canal boat, one with each of his pistols. Bella looked as if she knew what she was doing, and Walter was a champion sharp-shooter, but Ruth still had a knife at her throat, and Perry was not going to be able to breath until she was free and safe and in his arms.

“You put the knife down, Uncle Carlos,” Bella responded. “And let the Duchess of Richport go. You are in France now. You and your men are breaking the law. I am not in your control any more, and I shall not marry you.”

Behind Carlos, the same men exchanged an uneasy glance. Perry recognised some of them—they were all from Estrellas rather than the Spaniards who had come home with Carlos. Would they stand with the princess? Or with the duque?

“I’d heard that about you, Carlos,” Perry said, strolling casually a few steps closer. “That you were bravest when faced by women and children. Why don’t you let my wife go and face a man!”

“What man?” Carlos sneered. “You? A warrior of the sheets? A man whose only sword is fitted between his legs?”

“And a fine weapon it is, too,” Perry replied, unperturbed. He had the man! “Get one of your men to loan me a sword and we shall see who is the better man. You! Garcia—or should I call you El Lobo? The devil’s wolf, are you not?”

The boat people drew further back, and Perry heard a few low growls as some of them recognised the nickname. With luck, if he fell today, the onlookers would get Bella and Ruth away. The Estrellasan men would help, unless he missed his guess, but there were only five of them to the seven Spaniards, and the Spaniards were all vicious men without family or any friends except their comrades. Dangerous as wounded wolves, in other words.

“Give him your sword,” said Carlos, and when Garcia obeyed, he shoved his knife and Ruth at Garcia. “Keep the bitch for me. After I have killed this dog I shall enjoy her, then give her to you while I take the princess.”

Garcia’s sabre was heavier than the foils Perry usually used in duelling and in exercise. It was a cutting weapon rather than a thrusting one, but it could be used to thrust, and if Carlos gave Perry an opening, he might not expect Perry to use a fencing trick.

Carlos returned to his horse for his own sabre, and came at Perry in a rush, swinging with deadly precision. But Perry was ready for the attack, and danced out of Carlos’s way, sweeping his own weapon in a wide arc that should have connected with Carlos’s side. Except that Carlos was already moving, spinning out of reach, and then attacking again. Slash, slice, crash as Perry lifted his own weapon to block, slash again, and withdraw. Each was more cautious now, eyeing one another for a moment.

“You’re a fool, English,” Carlos proclaimed, “and today, you shall be a dead fool and your widow shall be my whore.”

“Haven’t you heard, El Diablo?” Perry taunted. “I am Death. I am, in point of fact, your death, for you threatened my wife.”

Another rush from Carlos. Another clash of arms. Another pause to examine the enemy and to breathe. Perry might just win this. Carlos had experience in sabre fighting, but little science. Furthermore, Carlos was out of practice and he had let his fitness slip while lolling around on a throne pretended to be the ruler of Estrellas.

“You’ve grown podgy while you were planning to take over Estrellas as your own personal kingdom,” Perry observed. Carlos reddened and rushed him again. Perry met him, sabre crashing against sabre, feeling the sting through his hand but holding on as Carlos fell back, almost giving Perry an opening.

Almost. Not quite. Perry was saving the rapier move until he was certain he could connect.

“How did you find us?” he asked. “I thought we’d covered our tracks.”

Carlos drew off again, putting a distance between them so he could crow. It was a hopeful sign that he couldn’t fight and talk at the same time, so Perry let him. “It was easy. Iago found a canal man who was happy enough to sing like a little bird, and so he followed the canal, and sent me a messenger to bring me here, too.”

Poor canal man. El Lobo had a reputation for the methods he used to make people sing. The man was unlikely to have survived the experience. This time, Perry rushed Carlos, letting a little of the anger he felt past the barrier that allowed him to remain calm.

Carlos fell back, driven blow by blow around the circle that the watching crowd had formed. There! He had exposed his side with that swing. Watch for it, Perry. Watch for it . Four of five more loud rings as the swords met, and then Perry’s chance came, and as Carlos’s sabre swung in a great arc, he leaned out of its way then leapt forward, sabre point first, and thrust the weapon into Carlos’s chest.

Carlos dropped backward dragging Garcia’s sabre with him. Perry stood there, unarmed, and at that moment, Garcia gave a huge shout and flung the dagger he had been holding to Ruth’s throat. At the same moment, gunshots sounded.

Perry looked at the knife, standing out of the flesh of his shoulder. There should be pain. Is there pain? His knees suddenly folded, and he was lying on the boardwalk. Ruth was holding him, begging him to live. No. Scolding him. That was more like it. He chuckled. “Ruth, my dearest love, never change,” he said. “Even if I die.”

“You shall not die, Perran Albert Kendrick De-Ath Frampton,” she admonished. “You have called me your wife in front of all these people, and now you have to make good on it.”

He chuckled again. “I love you very much,” he said. “I never expected that to happen, Ruth.”

She had tears in her eyes. “And I love you, you impossible man.”

“Mrs. De-Ath, please move over while I see to your husband,” said the doctor, and Perry had little thought to spare for anything for the next short while, beyond Ruth’s hand in his and what the doctor was doing.

“You’ll do,” the doctor said, once he had checked that the knife appeared to have missed everything vital and had stitched up the wound. After that, Walter and Bella reported.

Bella and Walter had both shot at Garcia—and both had found their target in the man’s head. “A moment late, DeAth,” Bella said. “But we killed him.” After that, the Estrellasan men had turned on the Spaniards, with help not only from the canal men, but from a small troop of Bella’s soldiers, who had come from Las Estrellas, and the gendarmes to whom they had taken their story of a princess running from a usurper and a gang of guerillas loose in France.

Carlos’s remaining men were under arrest. And Carlos had already lost the kingdom. When Carlos left with his Spanish bullies, the bishop had sent for Madre Katerina, who had returned to rally the countryfolk behind their princess.

“Las Valle des Estrellas is mine again,” Bella said. “Will you come home with me to finish your recovery, Your Grace?

Ruth wanted to do so. Perry could tell. “Perhaps we could get married in your church,” he said. “Ruth would like you to be at her wedding, princess.”

“You, sir, are travelling nowhere until those stitches are out,” scolded his duchess, his darling, his dear delight.