Robert nodded his thanks and took the stairs two at a time, heading in the direction of the west wing. His rooms were located well past his father’s. Wall sconces sputtered, giving off faint light along the dark hallway. He and his brothers knew the dark rooms and corridors by heart. This was where his father kept alive the history of their family, with portraits on the walls, and rooms that housed weapons and suits of armor.
He and his brothers had spent their youth in these corridors, dressed in armor, fighting imaginary dragons and enemy knights. Good memories. It was not his intent to occupy his father’s rooms, but he longed to see them, nonetheless, to briefly evoke a few memories.
When he reached the double doors to his father’s rooms, he hesitated. He could not bear to claim these rooms as his own just yet. But seeing them would help him feel closer to the man he wished had been here with his mother to welcome him home. Taking a deep breath, he opened the doors.
A fireplace glowed amber, giving the only light. His father’s crossed swords were over the mantel, as always, and on a nearby wall hung the stuffed head of an elk. Robert remembered that, near the bed, his father had pistols placed within easy access. His father’s fear of attack had bordered on obsession, after someone had once attempted to assassinate his brother. The duke’s habit had been to have his pistols cleaned and then reloaded on a regular basis.
Whispered voices drew Robert’s attention. On the far side of the room, the firelight briefly illuminated the silhouette of a man and woman locked in each other’s arms. His first inclination was to leave them to their privacy. The second was irritation at their insensitivity and disrespect by choosing his father’s rooms for their rendezvous, when the castle overflowed with other meeting places.
“Who goes there?” Robert heard the man say.
Robert froze in place, recognizing the voice. Lord Reginald Devonshire was as familiar to him as his brothers and sisters. Devonshire was his cousin, the only child of Robert’s father’s brother Henry. When Lord Henry committed suicide after his wife’s death, Robert’s father had taken his brother’s seventeen-year-old son under his wing.
Devonshire emerged from the shadows holding a pistol in each hand. “Who goes there?” Devonshire’s eyes widened, and then his mouth curled. “You made a grave error coming here.” He aimed the pistol in his right hand toward Robert and cocked the hammer.
Chapter Six
Madeline and her mother had been shown to connecting rooms in the west wing and were assured that if they needed assistance they were to pull the bell cord. There was still the smell of fresh paint on the windowsills, and the mahogany furniture was polished to a high sheen. The walls were covered in paper hangings with images of rosebuds and hummingbirds, adding to the cheerful atmosphere.
They had been treated like Madeline envisioned those of royal blood were treated. There was a lot of bowing, and their clothes were unpacked and either hung in the wardrobe or taken to be washed. The whole experience was unsettling.
She and her mother were frauds and they did not deserve such luxurious surroundings. What would happen when the Duchess of Conclarton discovered their secret? Would they be sent to Newgate Prison? Or shipped to Australia as criminals?
“My stars,” her mother said, pulling Madeline’s hands down from her waist. “Stop fidgeting. What is wrong with you?”
Madeline pressed on the tight corset. “How do women breathe in this contraption? Please help me remove it.”
Her mother, still slender at forty-and-three, used the bell cord on the wall to ring for assistance. “Remember that we are wealthy ladies from America who need help dressing. We must play our parts, even when we believe no one is watching. And ladies do not breathe deeply in England. Gentlemen value a slim waist over a woman who speaks her own mind.”
“Censuring our opinions will be difficult for us both.”
Her mother gave a short laugh. “Difficult but not impossible. Those were my mother’s words, and she was the wisest woman I ever met.”
“You speak of her often. I wish I had met her.”
Her mother tucked the pistol she had brought from America into the top drawer of the desk. After the incident in Boston, her mother had insisted that they carry protection. “I did not appreciate my mother when I was a girl younger than you, or what she had to endure. I suppose that is the way of most relationships between mother and daughter. What I never doubted was that she loved me beyond measure. Over time, I came to realize she was a survivor, a trait she passed down to us.”
“I hope you are right. But I worry about this plan of ours. How did you talk me into this scheme? It was doomed from the beginning. We will never pull this off. Besides, I do not want to marry. Marriage is little more than servitude. I want my independence. Like you, I want to own my own business and live life on my terms.”
Her mother lit a cheroot. The flame at the tip matched the shades of red in her mother’s hair that matched her own. “Fancy words,” her mother said, “and spoken by women of means, or women with little sense of how the world turns. You want a business like mine, then? All glitter on the outside, and tarnish and ruin on the inside?”
“No,” Madeline said and looked away toward the embers of coal burning in the fireplace box. “I have other ideas.”
Her mother sat beside a table by an open window and took a drag on her cheroot. “Until those ideas become reality, we will continue with my plan.”
A woman screamed, followed by the sound of a gunshot.
Madeline yanked open the drawer where her mother had placed the pistol, grabbed the gun and raced out, down the hallway in the direction from whence she had heard the sound.
Chapter Seven
“Bugger! You shot me!”
Robert pressed his hand to his shoulder, fighting to stay conscious. Blood seeped through his fingers as he staggered back. He felt numb in body and soul. He had been wounded in battle enough times to recognize the signs—his vision was blurring and his muscles weakening. He was losing too much blood and would soon lose consciousness.
A faint smile lifted the corners of his mouth. Ironic that he had survived the battlefield, infections, broken bones, gunshot wounds, poor rations, and nights sleeping on the ground in the pouring rain and the freezing cold, only to return home and be shot in his own home.
In his father’s rooms.
