My One and Only Duke--Includes a bonus novella Read online

  He wore no coat—a terrible breach of propriety elsewhere—but different rules applied in prison. He might be paying for these comforts with that coat, or the guards might have plucked it from him “for safekeeping.” Hanging was a messy business, and few men went to their executions in Sunday attire.

  Mr. Wentworth took down a pewter mug from the quarter shelves built into a corner and poured half a tankard of ale.

  “We’re fresh out of tea.” He set the mug before her and resumed his seat. “I do apologize. Is the fare not to your liking?”

  The question became…mythological, with shades of Persephone in the underworld. Hades in this case was dark-haired and blue-eyed. His hands were as clean as a gentleman’s, his hair was neatly combed if longish. His minion was an anxious urchin watching the adults as if one of them might hurl something breakable against the whitewashed stone walls at any moment.

  Hades would not yield to that impulse, not today. Mr. Wentworth regarded Jane so steadily his gaze was a force more powerful than time. Patience and inscrutability looked out at her in equal, infinite measures. If the eyes were windows to the soul, Mr. Wentworth’s soul was a bleak, silent moor under a gray December sky.

  Though, ye angels and saints, he was a stunning specimen. His features were both masculine and beautiful—a slightly full mouth, perfectly proportioned nose, brows with a bit of swoop to them, and a jaw that put Jane in mind of Roman sculptures. Add the wintry blue of his eyes, and he was breathtakingly attractive.

  And by offering Jane sustenance, he was being gracious.

  “I am a preacher’s daughter,” Jane said. “I know better than to be ungrateful, and I’ve dined in humbler surroundings than this. For what I am about to receive, I am sincerely thankful.”

  She took a bite of surprisingly fresh bread, a small bite. She had in fact dwelled in surroundings less luxurious than Mr. Wentworth’s prison cell. He came from means as clearly as she came from righteous penury—now.

  “Himself is not to be hanged.” The boy’s voice was high even for one of his tender years, and he’d spoken as if a lapse in the conversation might permit some foul miasma into the room.

  “Your sentence has been commuted to transportation?” Jane asked, washing her bread down with a sip of cool ale. Commutations for capital offenses were regular occurrences, though far from certain.

  “Ned misspoke. I am not to be hanged this Monday. The executioner is otherwise engaged, and this is not a suitable topic to discuss with a lady.”

  “Old Fletcher’s got a terrible case of—”

  “Neddy.” Mr. Wentworth’s expression was amused.

  The child fell silent, his little chin showing a hint of sullenness.

  “A reprieve, then,” Jane said. “Is that welcome or a particularly cruel blow?” The bread and ale were sitting well—breakfast had not—so Jane tried a nibble of cheese.

  “Both, I suppose, or neither,” Mr. Wentworth replied. “It simply is. The end is the same; somebody else’s downfall will be the object of gossip when I can no longer oblige. Ned, would you be so good as to determine where Miss Winston’s father has got off to?”

  The child bolted out the door with a speed that had likely frustrated many a constable.

  “Cutpurse?” Jane asked.

  “Jack-of-all-trades and as good a lad as he can be.”

  Mr. Wentworth’s gaze remained on the half-open door, as if he harbored regrets where the boy was concerned. Condemned felons were people, Jane had learned, as were soiled doves, pickpockets, confidence tricksters, grave robbers, and other criminals. They loved, they laughed, they had their rules and regrets.

  Mr. Wentworth might well have saved lives during his years on earth, but he had taken a life that mattered to somebody, and that was prohibited by the Commandments. On the field of battle, men forgot the Commandments, though they called upon the same God in their various mother tongues. On the field of so-called honor, the Commandments never earned a mention.

  Would that Gordie had been more devout and less honorable.

  “You’re supposed to eat the bread,” Mr. Wentworth said. “I make sure to have extra of all my provisions and to never finish my portion, so that Ned, Penny, and Davies have enough to share or use for bribes. From the warden right down to the charwomen and the petty swindlers, Newgate’s population has a fine appreciation for goods and coin.”

  Nobody had as fine an appreciation for coin as a poor minister’s widowed daughter. “You were a banker?”

  “I am—I was.”

  Mr. Wentworth wasn’t a cit in the usual sense. He’d not been born to wealth, and he’d not been lucky at the tables. From gossip in the prison’s common, Jane had gleaned that nobody was sure where his fortune had come from.

  “Are you sorry for your sins?” Jane asked. “My father would gladly hear your confession, if you’re of that persuasion.”

  Papa was good at sitting with the guilty and the sick and listening to their regrets. Jane had regrets, and the last person she could confide in was her father.

  “Sorry?” Mr. Wentworth sat back. “I am angry, Miss Winston. Angrier than I have ever been, which impresses even me. Of course I have regrets. Ned has already found regrets that will haunt him all his days, short though those days are likely to be. I am not sorry.”

  Jane was sorry. Sorry she’d trusted Gordie not to get himself killed. Sorry she had chosen a man of unsteady temperament to pry her loose from Papa’s household. Sorry Papa had lost his congregation, sorry her mother had died.…The list was endless.

  “I might be able to help Ned,” Jane said. “If he’s awaiting transportation, arrangements can sometimes be made—for coin, you understand.”

  Mr. Wentworth was a banker in Newgate, and he’d been the one to mention money. If Mama were alive, Jane would not be having this conversation with this man in this place. Mama had departed from the earthly realm three short years ago, but Jane could barely recall a time when genteel rules and polite conventions had defined her world.

  She had resented those rules with the bitter fury of a minister’s daughter, more fool her.

  “What sort of arrangements will free Ned?” Mr. Wentworth asked.

  “If you think I’d sell him to a brothel, you are sadly mistaken. Ask anybody in the common wards, Mr. Wentworth. Reverend Winston is the genuine article, pious to the much-mended soles of his boots, and I am his loyal offspring. This is good cheese.”

  “Made on my properties in the north. If Ned is released, I want him sent to my sisters. They will be in need of projects and they have the means to see to the boy.”

  Ned struck Jane as a child who wouldn’t tolerate much seeing to. He had run wild too early and too long to be tamed at this stage. Mr. Wentworth had the same air, despite his fine tailoring and clean fingernails.

  But Ned could be freed, while Mr. Wentworth’s death warrant had been signed.

  “I will need some time,” Jane said, “and you will need a day or two to make arrangements. Ten pounds will be more than sufficient to see Ned released into your siblings’ care.”

  “A boy’s life is a matter of ten pounds?”

  Ten pounds was two years’ wages in some households. “A girl wouldn’t have cost you half so much.”

  An emotion flared in the man across the table, gone before Jane could label it. “You’ve freed girls, Miss Winston?”

  “They aren’t safe here. The whores try to protect them, and if the girl has a parent or older sibling with her, she’ll fare better, but your door is locked at night in part for your safety, Mr. Wentworth. In the dark, the guilty and the innocent are indistinguishable.”

  A convicted killer should know that.

  “Excellent point. How long does your father usually tarry among his flock?”

  Mr. Wentworth wanted his privacy. Jane would have resented being sent on her way, but he was facing death. How did anybody remain sane under that burden?

  “Papa is much too enthusiastic about his calling. I’m
to visit with the women, but this late in the week, we’re down to some regular offenders, and they prefer to be left in peace.” The women had been polite about it, but they’d shooed Jane off, warning her to mind where she stepped.

  Mr. Wentworth took a sip of his ale. The tankard was appropriate for that large hand, though he likely knew his way around a tea service too.

  “Tell me, Miss Winston: Do you honestly prefer to remain here among the lost souls when you could be enjoying London’s fresh air, such as it is, and your liberty? I account myself impressed.”

  Jane finished the last of her bread and cheese. The meal had fortified her. One could be hungry and bilious at the same time—a recent revelation.

  “Your window has bars,” Jane said. “Some of us live behind bars invisible to the eye.”

  “Profound, but the only way I will be freed of these bars is on the end of a rope. Achieving your own liberty is likely a less fraught undertaking. What do you suppose has happened to Ned?”

  His gaze held worry for the child, despite a casual tone.

  “Young Edward is sitting in a corner, his eyes glazing over, every particle of his body longing to fidget, while Reverend Winston maunders on about sin, salvation, and scripture. Every time Papa pauses to take a breath—which occurs about twice an hour—Ned will attempt to say, ‘Excuse me, sir,’ and Papa will ignore him, talk over him, or shush him.”

  “Would you care for more bread and cheese?”

  Jane consulted her belly, which was calm for the first time in days. “I’d best wait a bit. I can fetch Papa.”

  Mr. Wentworth put a hand over Jane’s wrist when she would have risen. “A little preaching won’t hurt the boy. Stay and tell me how I’m to get him out of this place.”

  His grip was light. Jane was being asked to help a child whom society had discarded as unworthy of notice. She’d aided four other children, three girls and a boy, all of whom had disappeared back into the stews as if snatched by the fairies.

  “This scheme must go right the first time,” Jane said, lowering her voice. “Ned must do his bit perfectly, and you can’t tell a soul. Not your favorite guard, not the kindliest of the wardens, not the charwoman who sneaks you a cigar, and especially not the whores. Absolute discretion, Mr. Wentworth.”

  She’d almost said he must be as silent as the grave, and he seemed to realize her near-slip.

  He patted her wrist and withdrew his hand. “I am a banker, a successful banker despite my present circumstances. My discretion eclipses even that available in the confessional. Not a soul will know.”

  Mr. Wentworth smiled, mostly with his eyes. His gaze conveyed the intimacy of conspirators intent on a delightful prank, and when he looked at Jane like that, she could not believe he’d taken a life.

  Though he likely had. Killers did not announce their vile deeds on street corners and then go sniveling and slinking into the nearest alleys.

  Jane explained which charwoman to approach, how the straw bedding in the common area was changed, what Ned needed to say to be identified as the child whose freedom had been purchased. Mr. Wentworth listened, he asked a few questions—how was the money handled, how soon could this be accomplished—and all the while, Jane was plagued by a question of her own.

  What sort of condemned killer troubled over the fate of a boy he’d just met, was no relation to, and had no reason to help?

  * * *

  “We’ve found him! Sir, we’ve found him at last!”

  Mr. Thaddeus Dodson set down his quizzing glass. “Must you find him so loudly, Timmons?”

  The clerk was tall, graying, and thin as a coachman’s whip. Dodson had never seen Timmons perturbed, much less aquiver with excitement. Quivering was frowned on at the College of Arms and dignity much respected.

  “But after three years, sir, three years, of searching and searching…We have a legitimate heir to the Duke of Walden. A legitimate male heir and a younger brother and two sisters of childbearing years.”

  Beyond the door to the pursuivant’s office, the other clerks bent over their documents, though their pens were still. An heir was a victory for them all, a spare gilded the victory, and sisters of childbearing age spoke to underlying titles being preserved through the heirs general.

  Three feathers in the cap of the College. Of course the clerks were proud.

  “Good work, Timmons. Good work indeed. The Crown will be most grateful. Let’s have a look at what you’ve found, and please do close the door. Damned draft can give a man a lung fever.”

  Timmons closed the door and spread out his genealogical research on Dodson’s desk. To rescue the Walden dukedom from escheat—and the Crown from an enormous pile of debt—Timmons had had to go back nine generations. He’d racketed all over the North of England, visited graveyards without number, and studied parish rolls so dim with age as to be mere whispers of records.

  He’d interviewed grannies, taken tea with earls, and called upon vicars no London gentleman had called upon in years.

  His diligence had been rewarded. “Thank God the heir is not some shepherd living in a hut,” Dodson said. “I do so hate to see noble titles thrust into the hands of those unprepared for such responsibility.”

  “He’s wealthy,” Timmons said. “Rich as a nabob, beautiful London house, equally lovely estates in Yorkshire, gives handsomely to charities and doesn’t make a great fuss about it. We have only one problem, sir.”

  There was always a problem and seldom only one. “The king is in Brighton, where he’s expected to bide for the next fortnight at least. We have time to tidy up a few loose ends, and it’s to His Majesty that this good news must be conveyed.”

  Timmons’s excitement dissipated, and a tired, aging clerk stood where a dedicated royal herald had been a moment before.

  “Waiting a fortnight makes sense, sir, because the present candidate for the title is enjoying the king’s hospitality, so to speak, though he’s not likely to do so for long.”

  “Have a seat, Timmons, and pray do keep your voice down. You said the heir was wealthy, generous, propertied, and in good health. In what sense is he enjoying the king’s hospitality?”

  “The bad sense, sir. The criminal sense.”

  Damn and blast. Why couldn’t a man blessed with every possible advantage in life keep himself from the magistrate’s clutches?

  “Tell me about the brother.”

  Timmons lit up like an ember finding a fresh breeze. “The brother’s a right enough fellow of seventeen years, not yet married. He should inherit all that wealth in less than two weeks. His Majesty will like that part. Can’t fault a man for having his affairs in order, even if he is convicted of taking a life.”

  Dodson took up his quizzing glass and pulled Timmons’s painstakingly detailed family tree closer. “There’s nobody else? We have the criminal’s brother or nobody?”

  “That’s right, sir, but for a distant cousin. We can have the convict or his brother—who’s young enough to need a guardian, of course—and I can guess which option His Majesty will choose.”

  “So can I.”

  Chapter Three

  Nothing helped.

  Not reading, though how many times had Quinn promised himself he’d read all the classics his lordly customers were always quoting? He’d been beguiled by numbers, while words were simply a means to an end: Pass the salt. Can’t you see I’m busy? The bank is not in a position to make a loan to you at this time.

  Showing Davies how to play chess did not help. He was a clever young man, but impatient, and chess wanted nothing so much as patience. To teach Quinn chess, Cousin Duncan had needed patience without limit and a Wentworth’s full complement of strategy.

  Teaching Ned to read did not help, because the boy would never be able to afford books, and in his own words, he couldn’t eat books or use them to stay warm unless he burned them.

  Which he would do without a qualm.

  Training Plato, Ned’s favorite mouser, to shake paws did not help. Only
a bedlamite tried to train a cat—even a hungry cat—to do anything. Plato doubtless knew this and occasionally performed the desired waving of a front paw, likely out of pity. The beast was all black with yellow eyes that never seemed to close or blink in the presence of food.

  When Plato appropriated a place on Quinn’s lap and commenced rumbling, that truly did not help. Purring when death was less than a fortnight away made Quinn want to pitch the cat out the window, and that reminded Quinn that every window was stoutly barred.

  A knock sounded on the door, which was open only a few inches.

  “Come in.” Even in Newgate, a man didn’t have to be home to callers, one of the many odd dignities the prisoners granted one another.

  Miss Winston—Quinn forgot her first name, something that began with a J—peeked around the door. “Do you have a moment, Mr. Wentworth?”

  All he had were moments. “I can fit you in to my schedule.”

  She was attired in the same gray shroud of a cloak, the straw flecking her hems up to midcalf today.

  “I won’t take up much of your time,” she said. “Ned should be warned to remain alert on Wednesday. These situations are always subject to change—routines shift, people fall ill—and Wednesday is the next opportunity.”

  Less than a week away, but before Quinn’s scheduled departure, as it were. “Then you need the ten pounds. Could I interest you in some lemonade and gingerbread?”

  He’d given Ned all the strawberries. The boy had lined them up on the windowsill in order of size and consumed them from smallest to largest, one at a time. He’d sniffed each berry before popping it into his mouth, and Quinn had added another regret to the list:

  I wish I’d taken the time to enjoy all the sustenance I consumed so absentmindedly, a pencil in my left hand, a column of figures absorbing my attention.

  Figures would wait, while strawberries rotted all too soon.

  Miss Winston pulled off her gloves. “Lemonade? You have lemonade?”