His Secret Duchess

Neither was aware of the opening door.

“What are you doing to Mary?” Richard’s treble piped from the doorway.

Mary felt the momentary hesitation in Tray wick’s hands. He lifted away from her chest, turning to look over his shoulder in automatic response to the boy’s presence.

Would he hurt the child? she wondered, and the hated image of the descending cane came into her mind. Panic made her strong, and some primitive instinct for survival taught her what to do. She raised her legs, their slender whiteness a flash of motion in the darkness of the bedroom. Her bare feet made contact with his body, and she kicked with all her strength, somehow throwing his huge body off hers.

Traywick had not been expecting it, but he was more agile that his bulk suggested, and somehow he managed to land on his feet. He was off balance, however, and he took several staggering steps backward in a futile effort to right himself.

They watched, child and woman, as almost in slow motion Traywick began to tumble backward, toward the small light of the nighttime fire, carefully banked before Mary had lain down to sleep. His head cracked with a force that was audible against the edge of the mantel and then Marcus Traywick fell, the back of his skull landing hard again on the stones of the hearth.

His head bounced with the force of the blow so that, unconscious now, he came to rest with his cheek against the black metal of the andiron that held the banked fire. The scent of singed hair and the sickening aroma of burning flesh pervaded the tiny chamber.

Mary was stunned by the unexpectedness of his stillness, and then she realized what the smell meant. She jumped up from the disordered bed and rushed to kneel beside the man who lay unmoving on the hearth. She grasped his hair, pulling his face away from its contact with the searing metal. She found she was panting with the exertion of the fight.

The only thought that moved through her brain was that she had done murder. She had killed a man. Not just any man, but one who had given her and her child refuge through these years. On her knees, her slight body swaying over the massive one of Marcus Traywick, the smell of his burning skin and hair filling the cold, still dimness of the room, she felt her son’s hand on her shoulder.

“Is he dead?” the boy asked.

“I don’t know,’ she whispered, wondering what she could say, how she could ever explain away what he had seen.

“I shall hit him if he’s not,” Richard said fiercely, and, glancing up for the first time, she saw that he was standing beside her, his small fingers fastened with his father’s strength around the handle of the nursery poker. “I shall kill him for hurting you.”

Her throat closed with the force of her love, and both arms enclosed around the small warrior standing beside her.

“No,” she said, her mouth moving against the fair curls, touched with gold by the flickering light of the flames. “It’s wrong to kill someone, wrong even to wish someone dead,” she breathed.

This was her punishment, she knew. For her pride. She had wanted Marcus Traywick dead, and now she had made it happen. The price for her sin. Perhaps for all her sins, she thought, hugging Richard more closely to her. She wondered how much more she would be called upon to pay.

Chapter Two (#ulink_0b28ea30-30dd-5e52-9f6c-219dd263f2f8)

The Duke of Vail’s long fingers lay relaxed against the smooth surface of the gaming table. Despite the amount of the wager involved, his demeanor was one of polite disinterest as the points were totaled. Most of the other patrons of White’s had quickly abandoned their own pursuits this evening in order to watch the high-stakes game His Grace was engaged in winning.

The gentlemen assembled around his table were all aristocratic and wealthy, but not nearly so much so as the man whose presence had attracted so much attention tonight, even among this elegant throng. Although long a member, by virtue of birth and reputation, of the foremost gentlemen’s club in the capital, the reclusive Vail did not often come to London now, and when he did, it was certainly not to participate in the games of chance to which the members of the ton were addicted.

No one was sure why the duke had come tonight, or why he had agreed, when invited, to take a hand, but the event was unusual enough that those who watched knew they would be able to dine out on the story for weeks to come. They could not know, of course, that they were about to be provided with a far juicier bit of gossip than they had any right to expect.

“That’s sixty points and the hand,” the Viscount Salisbury said, the words forced through lips suddenly gone numb with the realization of the sum he had just lost. He could imagine his father’s reaction. A season’s rustication, at the very least.

“My game, as well, I believe,” Vail said. His face was carefully expressionless, but there was a glimmer of sympathy in his gray eyes. He was well aware of the situation of the young Corinthian whose pockets he had just emptied. There was the fleeting thought that he might return the winnings he certainly didn’t need to the man seated across from him, but he knew that, given the constraints of their society, the attempt to do that would be far more humiliating to the young nobleman than the loss itself had been.

“Gentlemen, I thank you for the game,” the duke said, instead of making the offer he had briefly considered. Vail began gathering up the wagers, stacking the notes into an untidy pile. Forty years ago a man such as the Duke of Vail might have been accompanied by a dwarf or even a small Indian boy appropriately attired in rich Eastern garb, whose job it would have been to perform such a task for him. Times had changed, and title or no, a gentleman collected his own winnings. One might, however, as Vail certainly was, do so with an air that proclaimed the task to be hardly worth the effort.

“I was told that without your efforts in the House today, Wellington’s bill might have failed,” one of the players commented as they watched the unhurried movement of those elegant fingers. It was difficult for these young aristocrats to believe that this man could truly be interested in the dull Tory agenda.

“Although we don’t always see eye-to-eye on political matters, I agreed to speak in support. In return for a favor of long standing, if you will.” His Grace acknowledged the correctness of that information without glancing up.

“A very great favor, I should think,” Essex ventured. “I understand you returned from France to take part in the debate.”

“Family business had occupied me there for the last few months. That was finally completed, however, and I was very glad to be able to return in time to put myself at Wellington’s disposal.”

“But you’ve missed most of the Season,” someone said sympathetically.

The duke’s eyes lifted, gleaming suddenly with an unexpected amusement, to the speaker’s face. “Indeed,” he said, a trace of humor also clear in that single word. It was somehow made obvious by his tone that the charms of the famous London Season were certainly lost on him. “I am so sorry,” he said, although it was also obvious to them all that he was not.

No one knew whether or not to laugh. That was the trouble with Vail. One was never certain whether his quietly sardonic comments were intended to evoke amusement. The silence stretched uncomfortably, until the duke, as if suddenly becoming aware of their discomfort, raised his storm-gray eyes and allowed his gaze to skim the circle of faces surrounding him.

“Was there something particularly entertaining about this Season?” he asked, allowing one brow to arch slightly in question. His brows and lashes were several shades darker than the gold of his hair, which shone now almost silver-gilt in the soft glow of the chandeliers. The fine lines imprinted on his handsome features were not those of dissipation, of course. Given his family’s tragedies, it was not surprising that the face of this man bore the marks of suffering.

The slightly patronizing question reduced the social highlight of the London year to the most inane of activities—at least as far as His Grace the Duke of Vail was concerned. They were well aware that the duke seldom left his vast country estate, disdaining the society they adored. So they racked their brains for some town event that might prove he had, by his voluntary seclusion, missed a great deal that was entertaining.

“Lucy Sanderson produced a new brat to add to her brood.” someone ventured. “And, of course, no one may be sure of his patrimony—other than that it is certain not to be Sanderson’s.”

A poor choice of topic, since there was nowhere to go with the story. Although there had been heavy wagering posted in the betting books on the outcome of that pregnancy, the child had proved remarkably ordinary, and no one had been certain enough of the father to claim to have won.

The polite boredom in His Grace’s eyes did not change.

“Cheatingham’s youngest eloped with a fortune hunter. The earl chased them halfway to the Border, but a broken axle delayed him long enough that the wicked deed was done by the time he arrived,” Lord Alton added.

“More than one wicked deed had been accomplished by the time of Cheatingham’s arrival,” another corrected archly, and appreciative laughter greeted the sally.

“Since the girl has spots and a squint, besides her ten thousand, she’s lucky someone was willing to suggest the anvil,” Alton said.

The story was greeted with silence by the man they were attempting to entertain. Vail apparently found the petty scandal exactly that.

“And then there is the ongoing rustic sensation,” someone suggested. “That entertaining morality tale of Mary Winters and the merchant.”

It was a story with which they were all familiar. The interest with which the ton had followed the unfolding events, was rather amazing considering that the scandal involved no one who had the remotest connection with the beau monde. Their fascination, however, was characteristic, bred from the same ennui that caused them to worship the latest opera dancer or prizefighter, or to choose the worst of the numerous highwaymen who plagued the countryside to lionize and applaud, even as the man dangled on the gallows, as inevitably he did.

The story of Mary Winters contained the sordid elements that titillated the jaded imaginations of London’s elite: sexuality and violence. The tale had circulated for weeks, and as her trial approached, one still might find animated arguments in the clubs on aspects of the case that had not been brought to any suitable resolution and might never be.

“Mary Winters?” Vail repeated the name softly, his tone subtly different from the gentle cynicism of a moment ago. The deep voice had expressed the merest hint of interest in what the speakers had said, but since it was the first he had shown in any of the gossip they had offered, they hurried to enlighten him.

“A serving girl who tried to murder her master,” Alton began to explain, only to be silenced by several protesting voices.

“Governess,” someone corrected. “She was the child’s governess.”

“There’s no proof she was attempting to kill him.” Another voice came clearly through the hubbub. “She claims she struck in self-defense.”

‘Of course,” someone else said derisively. “What else could she say, given what she had done?”

“Apparently the merchant discovered the woman had been stealing the household moneys, as good as taking food out of the mouths of his dying wife and his son while he’d been away on business,” Alton continued, over several protesting voices. “Naturally, Tray wick was horrified, angry enough to upbraid her, even to threaten legal action. The thought of prison must have frightened her to death. Later that night, she attacked him with the poker and knocked him unconscious into the fire. He suffered the most abominable burns to his face. It’s said his visage is permanently marred.”

“That’s the merchant’s version,” the viscount said dismissively. “The few villagers who had contact with the woman, however, are openly doubtful of that sequence of events. For one thing, it doesn’t explain the blow to her face.”

“And what do they believe?” Vail asked. His eyes were not on the speaker, but rather on his fingers, which, despite the sudden pounding of his heart, still appeared relaxed, idly playing with one of the cards from the now forgotten game. Ironically, he noted, the card was the queen of hearts.

“That Mary Winters was defending herself from Traywick’s unwanted sexual advances,” Salisbury said succinctly. “His wife had recently died, and the merchant is deemed to be a man of strong and…somewhat strange sexual appetite. He has an unsavory reputation for cruelty among the local prostitutes. Despite the death of the wife, the governess was still living in his home. She has no family, no one to offer her protection. Maybe he thought he could get away with assaulting her, or that a spinster in her situation would welcome his advances in the hope that eventually, if she pleased him, they would lead to an offer of marriage.”