The Regency Season: Passionate Promises: The Duke's Daring Debutante / Return of the Prodigal Gilvry

‘Not at all. We Frenchwomen must stick together.’

* * *

Freddy left his phaeton with his tiger. She had apologised for not trusting him. Twice. Freddy didn’t believe it. The lady doth protest too much. Shakespeare might be every schoolboy’s worst nightmare, but he was also an insightful man. If Freddy had to make a wager on it, he’d bet his estate that Minette didn’t trust him one little bit. And he couldn’t help but wonder who had abused the trust of such a very young woman.

He glanced down at the note he had received at his lodgings.

I have what we need. Call for me in your phaeton. I will tell Nicky we have arranged to go for a drive, but come late, after six.

Given his visceral understanding, how was he to convince her to trust him to visit the seamstress’s brother without her? Appeal to her sense? The risk? Danger came in a variety of guises. If the Home Office boys followed them, who the hell knew what they would do with the information that his French fiancée was involved in Sceptre business?

The butler bowed him into the Mooreshead town house. ‘The ladies are in the drawing room, Your Grace.’

‘Thank you. No need to show me up, I am expected.’ He climbed the stairs to the first floor and found Nicky working on some embroidery while Minette read aloud. A picture of domesticity that tugged at a chord in his chest. Longing. Good God, since when had he found such dullness appealing? He didn’t.

Minette put the book down the moment he entered. ‘Freddy, what took you so long? I thought you were to come earlier.’

‘One of my horses threw a shoe.’ He bowed to Nicky. ‘Good day, Lady Mooreshead. I hope I find you well?’

‘Very well indeed,’ Nicky said with a warm smile. She looked radiant. ‘I am glad you are finally here to take this fidget out for a drive.’

Minette laughed. ‘She made me read to stop me from pacing. It won’t take me a minute or two to get my hat.’

She dashed from the room.

Nicky shook her head. ‘So much vivacity. I am glad you are able to take her out. Gabe is so busy with the estate and Parliament he scarcely has a moment to spare.’ She touched a hand to her stomach then blushed. ‘The very thought of getting into a carriage makes me feel unwell at the moment.’

A child. What would it be like to bring another being into the world? One to care for and who would follow in your footsteps? Bile rose in his throat. Not his footsteps. He forced a smile. ‘Then I am glad to relieve you of the duty and make it my pleasure. It is the only chance we have to converse alone.’

Nicky’s eyes shadowed. ‘You are sure about this, Freddy? I would hate her to marry for such a reason and be made unhappy.’

Frank words indeed. His shoulders tensed. The ice inside him spread outwards. ‘I will do nothing to make her regret our union.’ She would be a duchess, and have everything any woman could ever want. As long as she didn’t want children. Thankfully she need never know it was by design rather than accident.

Minette appeared in the doorway, bonnet on her head and sunshade in hand.

‘We are lucky it is not raining,’ she said, once they were settled in his phaeton.

‘Don’t count your chickens,’ he said, looking up at the fluffy clouds floating above their heads. Some of them had the darkness of rain in their hearts.

‘Your tiger doesn’t come with us?’

‘He will wait for our return. I assumed we needed a bit of privacy. What did Madame Vitesse have to say?’

‘I know where to find her brother. He is using the name Henry Tower and working at the docks. We can find him at an inn, The Town of Ramsgate, in Wapping, at the end of the workday.’

‘The reason you asked me to delay our drive until later.’

She nodded. ‘I am hoping we will find him there this evening.’

‘Devil take it, Minette, gently bred girls do not visit dockyard taverns. I will tell you everything when I return.’

She folded her arms across her chest and glared at him. ‘Nonsense. It’s an inn. A public place.’ She leaned closer. ‘What could happen with you there to protect me?’ She glared when she realised he was not going to change his mind. ‘Now I wish I had kept this information to myself.’

‘Wasn’t it bad enough that you came to the Paradise, without exposing yourself to the sort of men who frequent a place like the Ramsgate?’

‘There you go again, treating me like a child. Well, I’m not a child. And the taverns in France are far more dangerous than anything here England.’

She’d been a child when Nicky had left. He could well imagine what a girl left to fend for herself might have encountered. Or seen. The idea of it made his hands curl into fists. He forced himself to ease off on the ribbons before his horses did more than toss their heads in objection. ‘You are not in France now. I will meet Henry and relay what he says upon my return.’

‘Then I won’t know anything for two days. We are invited to visit some friends of Gabe’s and will leave early in the morning. We won’t be back until the day after tomorrow.’

‘It can wait a day or two.’

She huffed out a breath. ‘I hate waiting.’

The urge to laugh surprised him. In some ways she was older than her years and in others she seemed so much younger than him. Not that he would dare show his amusement. He could certainly see from the determined look on her face that she wouldn’t accept not knowing what he learned right away, and that was something he could arrange.

‘I’ll report back the moment I have spoken to him.’

Suspicion filled her gaze. ‘You promise?’

‘I swear it. Where will you be this evening?’

‘At home. Because we leave Town tomorrow, we dine there with friends.’

‘I will come when they have left.’

She frowned. ‘I don’t think Gabe will be pleased.’

‘He isn’t going to know. Leave your window open when you retire for the night.’

Her eyes sparkled. ‘You are going to enter my room through the window?’

‘Try not to give me away, would you? I don’t want Gabe calling me out.’

She shuddered. ‘Neither do I.’

He breathed a sigh of relief. Then why did the back of his nape prickle? Damn it all, why did he have the sense her capitulation had been far too easy?

* * *

Crammed between Oliver’s Warf and the alley leading to Wapping Old Stairs, the Town of Ramsgate was indeed not the sort of place a young woman of good breeding should think about entering. On the opposite side of Wapping High Street, Minette hugged the shadows of St John’s Church. Freddy was going to be furious.

And not just because she had gone against his express wishes that she wait for him at home.

She’d meant to, she really had. She’d been truly charmed by the idea that he intended to protect her, until her doubts had bubbled up. Hadn’t she also been charmed by the way Pierre had sought to keep her safe? Hadn’t she adored him and his protectiveness? Until she’d discovered it had all been a front. Freddy had never even pretended he wanted her participation in his plans. Once he had the information she had discovered, what was to stop him going off to find Moreau without her?

He could tell her anything when he visited her after his meeting.

No, she had been finely tricked by Pierre. She wouldn’t give Freddy the chance to do the same.

Two men in rough clothing wandered down the street, shoulders slumped, feet dragging. They stopped at the door of the tavern, where the light over the door lit the profile of the taller man. Her heart picked up speed. Freddy. And from his brawny build, the other man was Barker from the Fools’ Paradise. Their disguises were perfect. What would they think of hers?

They disappeared inside.

Squaring her shoulders, she pulled her ragged shawl up over her head and around her shoulders. She and Pierre had played this game often enough to make it second nature, but as always her heart beat faster and her breathing quickened, bringing to her nostrils the stink of the clothes she’d acquired, along with the dank smell of river, fish and the smoke from river coal. She forced herself to take ten deep, slow breaths to let the air become part of who she was, let poverty and hunger wash over her and then she shuffled across the street.

Inside, the Ramsgate smelled and tasted like so many other taverns she had lingered in, listening for information. For Pierre. Never guessing the use to which he had put it. The noise of men’s voices, the acrid smoke of pipes, the stench of beer and unwashed bodies were the same. Only the language was different.

Behind the bar, a grubby innkeeper thumped a pair of pewter pots in front of his most recent customers. The men took their ales to a table in the corner, Barker lighting a pipe, Freddy burying his nose in his tankard while he discreetly scanned the room.

Keeping her shoulders hunched and her face lowered, she shuffled around the room. ‘Spare a copper for a poor auld wider lady?’ she begged in quavering tones, and leaning heavily on her cane so people would see little but the top of her head. She had been practising her accent on the street sweeper on the corner since her arrival in London. A game she’d played for entertainment mostly. She had an ear for accents and she had amused Nicky and Gabe with her imitations, and shocked them, too.

One docker shoved her away fiercely. Another pressed a ha’penny in her mittened hand.

‘She’ll only spend it on gin,’ his companion observed, and turned his back.

A glance from Freddy, who sported a scar on his cheek and nose reddened by drink, flickered over her. Without recognition.

Hah! She’d spotted him right away. To be fair, she had known to expect him. Still...

She sidled up to their table, clawed hand shoved under his nose. ‘Spare a copper.’

‘Clear off.’ Barker tossed her a coin. It glinted silver as it spun on its edge on the scarred and stained tabletop. A ‘thruppny bit’, as the street sweeper called it. Threepence. She reached for it.

Strong fingers clenched around her wrist as she caught up the coin.

‘What in hell’s name are you doing here?’ Freddy rasped in her ear.

She tittered. Let the shawl slip down to her shoulders, revealing the tangle of her hair and red-painted lips, changing from hunched old crone to ravaged prostitute. ‘Want company out in the alley?’ She danced the coin between her fingers. ‘Sailor’s choice.’

Freddy cursed.

Barker buried his face in his tankard, his shoulders shaking. Was he laughing?

The man who had given her the coin started towards them. ‘You cheating baggage.’

Freddy’s lowered brows halted him in midstride. He took the coin and tossed it back to the man. ‘Sit.’ He jerked down by her arm to perch on his knee.

She batted her eyelashes. ‘Changed yer mind, guv? Wot’s yer fancy?’

Barker choked back laughter. ‘Does yer want me to leave yer to it?’

Freddy grinned. An evil leer. ‘You can leave us to it, mate, when we get outside.’ His accent was also of the lower orders and spoken with the ease of long practice.

A shiver went down her spine at the lecherous promise. Not fear. Anticipation. Damn him. Because she had no doubt he intended it as a threat of retribution, not a promise.

Freddy gestured to a waiter passing with a tray. ‘Gin.’

Barker nudged Freddy with his elbow, and Minette caught the jerk of the innkeeper’s unshaven chin at a man entering the taproom.

Minette gave Freddy a winsome smile, careful not to reveal her teeth. ‘That our mark?’

Freddy lifted his pot of ale to his lip. ‘It is.’

He nodded, and the innkeeper handed the new customer a bumper of gin and gestured in their direction.

The man, Henri, narrowed his eyes at her and then at Freddy, then shouldered his way to their table. ‘You ask for me?’

‘’Ave a seat, mate,’ Freddy said, lifting his tankard in salute.

The man glanced around him, grabbed a stool and subsided with a sigh. He took a long pull at his gin. ‘So, messieurs?’

Freddy lowered his voice. ‘You sister says you have news of a certain party.’

‘Name begins with M,’ Barker added.

‘This man, he arrives six week ago. Here.’ He made a vague gesture, encompassing them, the river, London.

‘Where does he stay?’ Freddy leaned back and swigged at his beer.

Henri shook his head and leaned forward, his voice little more than a whisper. ‘He recently travels north. Urgent business.’

How vague could the man get? ‘Not helpful, mon ami,’ Minette muttered under her breath.

He looked startled.

‘Ignore her,’ Freddy ground out. ‘Tell us what you do know.’

Minette bristled but contented herself with a scrape of her nail across the table, knowing it would irritate Freddy and, more importantly, not allow him to forget her presence.

‘Un homme.’ Henri grimaced. ‘My friend. He says he returns.’

‘He’s coming back to London,’ Freddy rephrased.

Henri nodded. ‘He is expected. Soon.’

‘What is he doing in the north?’ Barker asked.

Henri shrugged. ‘Gathering information?’

‘Is there anything else you can tell us?’ Minette asked, ignoring Freddy’s glare. ‘His appearance. The name he is using?’

Freddy kicked her under the table.

‘Beard. Spectacles.’ He touched his cheek. ‘Dark of skin. He goes by Smith.’

Smith sounded nothing like Moreau. But, then, none of them looked like themselves tonight. Moreau was a master of disguises. He’d certainly fooled her for years.

‘You will let your sister know the moment he returns,’ Barker said. ‘Warn him and you are a dead man.’ He issued his threat in a dangerously conversational tone of voice.

Henri ignored him and kept his gaze fixed on Freddy’s face. ‘’E is a bad man. I speak truth.’

Freddy nodded. ‘Then we will get along famously.’

The Frenchman got up and went back to the bar. Minette leaned against Freddy’s shoulder and started playing with his hair and stroking his cheek. He looked at her. She raised a brow in the age-old question.

‘I’ll see you back at the club,’ Freddy said to Barker, and drew her closer to his side, bit the point of her shoulder, hard enough to make her twitch away. ‘This mort owes me thruppence-worth.’

Barker stretched, got up and left. When he was clear, Freddy grabbed her arm and staggered out into the night air. While his steps were sloppy, his eyes slightly unfocussed, his grip was steely. He didn’t lighten it until they were well clear of the inn and he was sure, as she was, that they had not been followed.

He put his arm around her shoulders. Slowly, inexorably, he backed her into the shadows of the nearest alley. He took her chin between her fingers and tipped her face up so she was forced to meet a gaze glinting from a nearby streetlight. Oh, my, he was angry.

‘So, tell me, my dear Minette, what the hell did you think you were doing?’ He spoke in a voice so calm as to be terrifying.

Intimidation. Her own anger rose. ‘I wanted to hear what he had to say for myself and well you know it.’

His gaze dropped to her bosom. ‘Dressed like that, you could have got a lot more than information.’

She pulled her knife from the pocket hidden in her ragged skirts, the pocket she’d sewn into the seam when Christine had come back with the dress, and held it to his Adam’s apple. ‘I think not.’

He cursed softly and fluently. At least she guessed he was cursing. They were English words and not familiar.

‘Now, do you want the value of your thruppence,’ she said softly, ‘or do you take me home?’

He took her wrist and forced the blade away, taking it from her now nerveless fingers and stuffing it into a pocket. ‘A man can get a lot for three pennies, my dear.’

He meant to frighten her. She knew those tactics.

He bent his head and took her mouth in a scalding kiss. Well-remembered sensations struck her low in her belly. She found she could not recall why they were standing in an alley late at night. She was too busy returning his kiss, tangling her tongue with his, plastering herself tight to his body while his fingers cradled her head and held her still to receive his punishing kiss.

Punishing, ravishing and utterly delicious.

Enough to make a girl lose her mind for want of more. Especially a girl who’d been celibate for years and had been tempted for days and days by this virile man.

As if he sensed her thoughts, he backed her up against the wall, while he kept her head angled just right. She felt his lovely weight all down her length and the ridge of his arousal against her belly. Her hands explored the musculature of his shoulders and the bones of his spine. She burrowed beneath his coat to feel the warmth of him, to shape the narrowing of his waist and the firmness of his buttocks.

A lean, beautiful male body she wanted on top of her, all around her, inside her.

He tasted of ale and smoke and of Freddy in the faint whiff of his soap.

He groaned softly and dragged his mouth away. ‘Where on God’s sweet earth did you learn to kiss like that?’

The words were like a dash of cold water. Like a wanton, he’d meant. A woman no better than she should be. As he’d soon find out, if they didn’t stop now.

She pushed him away, breathing hard. ‘You kiss pretty well yourself.’ She flicked her skirts straight. ‘For an Englishman.’ Let him make of that what he would.

He gave a shake of his head as if to clear it. Then struck the wall behind her with the side of his fist. ‘There is no need for you to take such risks. You are not in France any longer. You are not friendless and alone. When will you learn I am not your enemy?’

‘Never.’

‘Then we have a problem.’

‘We have a worse one. We have lost Moreau.’

‘We know he will return to London in due course. In the meantime, I will have men searching the north for him.’ He took her arm. ‘Come, time to see you home. We will be able to pick up a hackney in the next street.’ He glanced down at her. ‘I presume you left the garden gate open?’

‘Naturellement.’ She kept her voice calm. It wouldn’t do to let him see how much Moreau’s disappearance had her worried.

Chapter Nine

Minette climbed down from Gabe’s carriage at Falconwood Hall. Dear man that he was, he’d insisted that his coachman drive her, along with a footman and her maid, while Freddy went on ahead, to be there to greet her along with his mother. Gabe was still angry at the incident that had brought them to this pass and hadn’t been about to trust her to Freddy’s tender care when he’d realised that he and Nicky would not be able to accompany her to Kent. Gabe’s parliamentary business could not be abandoned on a whim.

She stared up at the house while she waited for her maid to gather up their belongings and alight. She had expected something on a grand scale—after all, Freddy was a Duke—but she had not expected anything quite so old and rambling. Freddy had called it a pile. It was a sprawling, warm red-brick place with stone towers above the arched front entrance.

The drive from the gatehouse, where she was sure there had been a portcullis at some point in time, had been extraordinarily beautiful, spreading oaks scattered across a rolling green park filled with deer. She could almost imagine Freddy riding hell for leather around the grounds as a boy. It would have been a wonderful place to bring up children.

A pang caused a hitch in her breathing. A sense of loss. The knowledge that it would not be her children who would grow up in this lovely old house. The footman climbed down from the box and hurried to ring the doorbell, but a butler with a prim mouth and small stature was already walking sedately down the steps. A groom appeared around the side of the house and led the carriage away, along with her maid and luggage.

‘If you would care to follow me, miss, Their Graces are waiting in the drawing room.’

At that moment Freddy stepped out onto the drive. ‘It is all right, Patterson,’ he said. ‘I will show Miss Rideau the way.’

The tension in her shoulders flowed away, though she hadn’t realised quite how nervous she’d been about this meeting until it dissipated. After their last encounter, when it had been obvious she didn’t trust him, she hadn’t been sure he wouldn’t withdraw from her completely. Every time she thought of the way she’d dressed and played her part, she flushed hot then went cold. If he didn’t know the extent of her carnal knowledge, he must now guess she knew far more than a gently bred girl ought.

Pierre had been bad for her in so many ways, and not just because of his betrayal.

With the utmost courtesy, Freddy held out his arm and walked her beneath the stone arch, through an ancient door and into a rectangular medieval great hall. A beautifully carved screen occupied one end and a huge fireplace dominated the centre of one long wall. Faded banners and painted shields hung on stone above the dark panelling, along with ancient weaponry. The only items of furniture were an enormously long trestle table and some horribly uncomfortable-looking carved wooden armchairs.

‘Mon Dieu,’ she said in a low voice. ‘It is positively antiquated.’

Freddy patted her hand. ‘Don’t worry, most of the house is quite modern. We only use the Great Hall for large events and when the Duke needs to make an impression.’

She breathed a sigh of relief. ‘I can just imagine the three of us dining here in state, you at one end and your mother at the other and me in the middle, unable to speak without shouting.’

‘If Mother had her way, your imagination might not be far from the truth.’

Another wry remark about his mother. The woman must be a veritable dragon. But then, she was a duchess.

He led them through yet another arch into a paved corridor and from there into an elegantly appointed room full of light, with pale green walls and cornices of white and gilt. It was, she realised, a perfect cube in the Palladian style.

The woman seated where the light from the window fell on her embroidery looked up at their entry. She was lovely. Dainty, with gold-blonde hair shot through with threads of silver and skin that made one think of peaches and cream. She was dressed in lavender. Half-mourning? Blue eyes arctic enough to freeze one’s blood remained fixed on Minette’s face while Freddy made the introductions. Now she knew from where Freddy inherited his cold expression.

Minette dipped a curtsey.

The eyes assessed her performance with chilly intensity, while the face showed no expression at all. The perfect aristocrat.

‘Miss Rideau.’ The duchess gestured for her to take a seat. ‘Welcome to Falconwood. My son has told me much about you.’ There was a fragility to her air, in the lightness of her voice. As if it was almost too great an effort for her to speak.

Oh, dear. This was likely to be a lot worse than she had hoped. She sat down in the seat set at a right angle to the Duchess.

‘Was your journey bearable?’ the dowager asked. ‘I would have sent our carriage for you. It was built for me by my husband, who took every care of my person, but Freddy said it was not necessary.’ The blue eyes turned to her son. ‘Not worth the bother of getting it cleaned and polished, I think you said.’

The barb apparently sailed over Freddy’s head. ‘Lord, no. You haven’t had it on the road in years. The last time you went in it to Town you said it was the most dreadfully uncomfortable trip you had ever undertaken.’

‘You misremember,’ his mother said. ‘It certainly was not the fault of the carriage. The roads are much improved since then.’

The atmosphere in the room was frosty. Minette smiled. ‘It was a very pleasant journey, thank you. Mooreshead made sure I had all the necessary comforts.’

The duchess frowned. ‘You accent is quite noticeable.’

‘Miss Rideau is half-French, Mother, and lived in France until quite recently. I informed you of that fact both in my letter and when I arrived yesterday.’