The Naked Duke. Sally MacKenzie
familiar about him. She studied his slightly glazed hazel eyes and lopsided grin. Perhaps he reminded her of the fervent young men who’d gathered in her father’s study to argue politics and drain tankards of rum punch.
“Come on,” he said. “The room’s this way.” He lurched toward the stairs and grabbed the railing.
He must have confused her with another traveler. She followed him as he stumbled up the narrow steps and weaved along the corridor. Her conscience urged her to speak up, but her exhausted body told her conscience to shush. She could not go another step tonight. Surely the woman her redheaded escort was expecting would not arrive tonight, and if she did, she would understand. Any woman would be willing to share accommodations in such a situation.
The man finally found the room he was seeking. He opened the door and stood aside to let Sarah pass through. She paused on the threshold. There was one point she should clarify.
“This is not your room, is it, sir?”
The man propped a broad shoulder against the doorjamb and grinned. It was impossible not to respond to the twinkle in his eye, even if it was a drunken twinkle, and the deep dimple in his right cheek. Sarah smiled back. He leaned closer.
“Oh, no, mine’s farther down the hall.”
“Ah.” Sarah tried not to choke on the brandy fumes that enveloped her. “Well, then, thank you.” She stepped into the room. The man remained on her doorjamb. She could not close the door without catching his fingers. She looked at him uncertainly. “I do appreciate your help.”
He nodded. “Water,” he said. “I bet you’d appreciate water to wash with as well.”
“Thank you, that would be wonderful.” Washing off her travel dirt sounded almost as heavenly as sleeping. “But I don’t want to be a bother.”
“No bother.” The dimple deepened. “James will thank me, too. I’ll have some water sent up directly.”
“Who’s James?” she asked, but her new friend had already vanished down the stairs.
Sarah shrugged and closed the door. The mysterious James was a puzzle to be solved in the morning, when her poor brain was up to the task.
In a moment, a young girl appeared with a large pitcher and a towel. Sarah waited for her to leave, then stripped off all her clothing. The fire warmed her skin as she rinsed the sea salt off her body and out of her hair. While she toweled herself dry, she eyed her discarded clothes. She had lived in them for three very long days—she could not bear to put them right back on. She shook each garment vigorously and hung them all up to air. With luck, they would be acceptable by morning. She did not want to reek of the sea when she met her uncle.
Her stomach clenched. Why had her father insisted that she come to England? She couldn’t begin to count the number of times he had railed against the aristocracy, calling it a cesspool of idiots, the fatal infection of England. Yet when he had been dying, he had insisted that she go to his brother, the earl.
“Go home, Sarah,” he’d said, his voice thin and whispery, “to England.” He’d gasped and struggled to sit up. “Promise me…”
Sarah swallowed sudden tears. She would never forget her father’s smile at her promise. When his last breath had whistled out moments later, she truly believed he had found peace.
She sighed, pulling her comb through her wet mass of hair. If only the promise had given her peace. The Abington sisters had badgered her to change her mind from the time she’d told them she was leaving to the moment she’d finally stepped onto the Roseanna bound for England.
“How could David ask you to go so far away?” Clarissa, the short, stout sister, had said yet again as Sarah had closed the door to her father’s house for the last time.
“It was the fever talking.” Abigail, the tall, thin sister, said, patting Sarah’s hand. “It’s not too late to change your mind, dear. We’ll just send word to the docks.”
Clarissa nodded so sharply that her gray ringlets bounced over her ears. “Your father is dead, Sarah. Now you need to do what’s right for you.”
“What will happen if you go to England and the earl repudiates you? You’ll be alone, at the mercy of all those unscrupulous men.” Abigail shuddered, her hands clasped so tightly their knuckles showed white.
“It’s true, Sarah.” Clarissa’s pudgy fingers dug into Sarah’s arm. “You’ve lived a very quiet life here in Philadelphia. You have no idea! Why, you’ve hardly spoken to any American men—and American men are leagues different from those corrupt Englishmen. As different as house cats from man-eating lions.”
“Woman-eating,” Abigail whispered.
“Too true. Those dukes and earls and whatnots—they think women are theirs for the taking—and discarding.”
Sarah shook her head, banishing the uncomfortable memory. It was too late for regrets. She was here. She hoped her uncle would welcome her. If he didn’t…No, she wouldn’t think of that. She wouldn’t let worry spoil her first chance in two months to sleep in a real bed on terra firma. No matter what happened with the earl, she did not intend to cross the Atlantic again.
With that vow, she snuffed out the candles and climbed into bed.
James Runyon, Duke of Alvord, looked up from his contemplation of the fire as Major Charles Draysmith stepped into the private sitting room, leaving the door ajar.
“I believe I saw your black-hearted cousin Richard in the common room, James,” Charles said, running his broad hands through his curly brown hair. “He must have come in on the stage. God, how I’d love to smash that beak of his back into his brain box!”
“Richard is here?” James lifted one golden eyebrow. “I wonder what the devil he means by showing his face in the neighborhood.”
“Devil is right.” Charles joined James by the fire. “I expect to see horns and a pitchfork every time I look at the man. You really should do something about him.”
James poured Charles a glass of brandy, then stretched his booted feet toward the hearth and watched the firelight glow through his own glass. “What do you suggest? Murder, even if justified, is still generally frowned upon in England.”
“Call it extermination.” Charles took a sip of his brandy. “You’d be ridding the country of vermin.”
“I wish everyone shared your opinion.” James’s voice was bitter. “No one will believe Richard poses a threat to my existence until he drops my corpse on Bow Street’s doorstep.”
“I can’t believe it’s as bad as that.”
“Believe it.” James ticked the events off on his fingers. “My horse’s girth suddenly goes loose and I fall going over a jump. An incompetent groom? The man swears the girth was tight when the horse left his care, and frankly, I believe him. A stone falls from Alvord’s tower and misses me by inches. The place is hundreds of years old. Mortar doesn’t last forever. I get bumped on a London street and almost fall into the path of an oncoming carriage. An unfortunate accident. The walkways are so crowded, don’t you know?” James swallowed a mouthful of brandy.
“Too damn many accidents if you ask me,” Charles said.
“Exactly.”
“And no one suspects Richard’s hand in this?”
“Richard is never nearby. There’s nothing pointing to him as the villain. I’ve made what inquiries I can, but no one can connect him with any of my ‘accidents.’ There are some people in London who think I belong in Bedlam. The last time I tried to hire a Bow Street Runner to help investigate the matter, I was reminded that the war was over and I should relax and get used to civilian life.”
“Damn!”
“Precisely.” James leaned back in his chair. “So I confess,