The Forgiven Duke (A Forgotten Castles Novel) Read online

  The thought of it made his blood run cold as he stood outside the busy Custom House, gazing at the scene and trying to decide where to go next. A tall man lumbered past, leading a spotted mare. Wait! The giant! If Gabriel could find the man who had tried to stall him in the streets earlier, causing him to miss Alexandria’s ship, he might get some answers.

  He rushed to his horse at the hitching post in front of the Custom House and mounted. When he spun around he saw Michael Meade, his secretary, coming around the corner with his men. They must have finally calmed their stampeding horses enough to circle back to the shore.

  “Meade!” Gabriel waved to gain his attention.

  Meade saw him and motioned to the men to follow him over. Thank God. If he was to search out the identity of Lemon, Gabriel would need Meade’s ability to speak in such a way that made it easier for Gabriel to read his lips. The fact that he was deaf still gave him moments of intense despair, embarrassment like he’d never imagined, and a forced humility that still fit like a bad coat. But he was beyond thankful for his secretary. Meade was the person who made his affliction bearable, who made it possible for him to even attempt chasing down Alexandria Featherstone.

  “Your Grace! I can’t believe you’re still here. Did you find the ship? Did you find Alexandria?”

  “I watched the Achilles sail away, but it was too late. I saw her, though. She was on the deck. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Tears threatened at the memory of finally seeing her. Long, dark hair pulled back from a lovely face. Sky blue eyes staring into his. Even at such a distance, he had locked on to those eyes, as if he could pull her back to shore with the intensity of his gaze alone. He’d waited so long, and he couldn’t begin to describe how he’d felt when he finally saw her—broken to his core and flooded with emotions: protecting, loving, possessive emotions.

  Meade mumbled something as a flush filled his face. He developed a sudden stutter and inability to put two coherent words together when having anything to do with beautiful women.

  Gabriel sighed. “Never mind. There was a man with her. He acted very familiar, putting his arm around her waist in a way that said he knows her well. I’ve just come from the shipping office and seen the passenger list. There was no mention of Alexandria Featherstone, but there was an Alexandria Lemon along with a Lord John Lemon. We have to discover who he is and what he is doing with Alexandria.”

  “That doesn’t sound good. Where do we begin?” Meade asked, brows raised.

  “Remember that giant of a man with the cart blocking the street? The one who startled the horses? He knows something. That was no accident, I assure you.”

  Meade nodded.

  “Let’s spread out. See if we can find him. Send the men in all directions. You and I will head back to the street where we last saw him. His size will be to our advantage, but tell the men to use whatever means necessary to convince the man to come with them. Tell everyone to meet back at the hotel in a few hours. Hopefully, one of us will have him.”

  “Very good, Your Grace.”

  Gabriel trotted up and down the quay while Meade dispersed Gabriel’s hired outriders and soldiers. He’d hired them to make a big show of his power upon coming to Dublin; now he was glad to put them to good use. They were trained soldiers with experience. If any one of them found him, Gabriel was reasonably certain his men would be able to handle a bumbling giant.

  A few minutes later, he and Meade galloped into the street where they’d last seen him. It turned out to be ridiculously easy. The man was sitting right where they had left him, blocking the road, perched on the seat of the cart and crying like a giant redheaded baby. Gabriel and Meade stopped and stared in disbelief for a moment and then dismounted and hurried over to the man.

  “Sir, have you gone daft? What is the meaning of this?” Gabriel demanded in a loud bark.

  The man looked up from his hands and, upon seeing them, burst into another wail, his wide face scrunching up into a ball of flesh with a giant nose in the center.

  “Meade, talk some sense into the man. Get him down from there.”

  Meade’s eyes widened at the order but he turned and began to talk . . . and talk . . . and talk. Finally, the giant pulled out an enormous white handkerchief, took a deep breath, and blew his nose into it several times. Gabriel gritted his teeth and slapped his gloves against his thigh waiting for him to finally climb down.

  Meade turned to Gabriel and motioned toward a pub in the distance, mouthing the words, “Perhaps some food and drink will comfort him, Your Grace?”

  “Yes, yes, carry on.” Gabriel shot the giant a steely look that said he’d had enough nonsense and gestured toward the pub. “Let’s get you out of the street and buy you some dinner, and then you can tell us all about your troubles.”

  Gabriel didn’t mention Alexandria’s name yet; he didn’t want to scare the man off, but he had a feeling she was the cause of all this caterwauling. He felt the same way about her leaving.

  Meade made arrangements for a quiet table and a midday meal of Irish stew, oysters, smoked salmon, and potatoes to be served while they settled themselves. The man Meade said was named Baylor shoveled in more food than Gabriel could eat in two days. He waited until the man had drained the third tankard before he began his questions. “So, Mr. Baylor.”

  He shook his shaggy head. “Just Baa-er.” He talked with his mouth full, one spoon poised to go in while another was just coming out of his mouth.

  “Very well, Baylor. Come now, your little ruse in the street earlier has done its work—I missed the ship. So tell us, how do you know Lady Featherstone?”

  His bottom lip started to tremble at the mention of her name, causing Gabriel to sigh with gritted teeth. This was going to take all day and the patience of Job besides.

  He pulled out his very used handkerchief and dabbed most elegantly at his eyes and then blew his nose with such force it rocked the table.

  “Gad, man, get a hold of yourself. Perhaps it will help if I tell you that I am the Duke of St. Easton, her guardian.”

  “I mow who you are!” he bellowed, mouth still full.

  Gabriel could tell that he bellowed by the way his eyes grew round as saucers, he leaned in, and his mouth opened wide around the words. It was impossible to read the man’s lips so Meade repeated what he said.

  “Excellent. Then perhaps you also know that the regent has charged me with finding Lady Featherstone and bringing her back to London. It’s for her own good,” he added hastily upon seeing Baylor’s lips draw into a stubborn line. “It’s for her protection.”

  Baylor said something to that, but Gabriel couldn’t make it out. He took a deep breath with a prayer for patience, looked at Meade, then nodded toward his coat. “Best to bring out the speaking book, Meade. Let’s get the whole story if we can.”

  Gabriel glanced over at Baylor just in time to see a confused expression cross his face. So, Alexandria hadn’t heard that he’d gone deaf. Relief pooled through him. He slid his own untouched tankard toward Baylor and explained. “I have recently been afflicted with a problem of the ears and use a speaking book to communicate. Just converse as you normally would, and Meade here will write down what you say.”

  A look of pity crossed the giant’s face, but this time Gabriel was glad of it. Perhaps it would loosen the man’s tongue.

  Meade wrote while the giant talked, and after many minutes he slid the book in front of Gabriel. Baylor met Alex in Belfast. He became quite taken with her and her quest to find her missing parents.

  Of course he did, Gabriel muttered to himself, still looking at the page.

  He joined her and the man she was traveling with to help her find her parents. “A sweeter lass has never lived,” he says.

  Of course he does. If there was one thing Gabriel was sure of about Alexandria, it was her ability to win pe
ople to her side and instill in them a loyalty to her that took most people years to accomplish.

  He says her parents are treasure hunters and in some sort of trouble and that Alexandria is determined to rescue them.

  “Yes, well, so am I,” Gabriel murmured aloud. It was the only way to secure her heart. Thinking of her as someone else’s wife made him feel sick and angry. Gabriel looked at Baylor and asked the most important question. “I saw her on board the ship. She was with a man. Baylor, who is Lord John Lemon?”

  Chapter Three

  The chill southwesterly winds pushed against the larboard side of the Achilles, flattening the square sails and moving them through the choppy gray water at a brisk twelve knots. The water stretched out toward the horizon, unending in every direction, making the huge brigantine appear more a toy, a mere wooden box with sails made of scraps found in a sewing basket. Great billowy clouds rolled across the sky, lighter gray with puffs of swirling white, pregnant with rain that had yet to spill. And all around them was the eerie sound of a moaning wind that seemed afraid and haunted, aching for relief from some terrible thing it had seen or heard.

  Alex stood at the rail soaking in the lonely scene despite her body’s shivering inside her red cape. They had been at sea a little over a week now, seen the land and the birds slip away into unending wind and water, salt-laden air scented by fish of all shapes and sizes. They traveled northwest toward Iceland’s shore, a journey that could take as much as three weeks, but according to Captain O’Mally would take closer to two if they didn’t run into any trouble.

  Thinking of trouble at sea brought a memory to mind. She had been around twelve years old and her parents had been gone for a very long time. Every day she went to the ruins of the monastery, knelt where she imagined the altar had been, and prayed for their safe return. One day a small ship appeared on the horizon. Alex watched it come closer and closer and then, seeing her parents on board, she ran to meet them.

  But her mother was gravely ill and her father barely said a word to Alex, so worried about his wife. Alex remembered how he’d picked up her mother and carried her across the beach toward the castle. She’d looked so thin and pale that Alex just stood and stared, more afraid than she’d ever been.

  “Alexandria, run ahead and open the door. Mother needs to lie down and then I’m going to need you to run and fetch the doctor.”

  Alex shook herself out of her trance, running barefoot and terrified across the pebbled beach to obey. She followed her father inside. “What happened? Is she sick?”

  Her father walked up the narrow stairs, turning sideways to make the turn. “Get the doctor, Alexandria. I will tell you what happened after we have done everything we can for your mother.”

  The sharp words were so uncommon from her father, and the hollow look in her mother’s eyes so unnatural that tears burned from behind Alex’s eyes.

  With a pounding heart, she ran back outside and into the village. They hadn’t a real doctor on the island; he was across the causeway in Beal, and the causeway was only traversable twice a day when the tide went out. She didn’t want to wait that long, so she ran as fast as her bare feet could take her to Margaret Henry’s house, a midwife and known for her herbal remedies. It turned out to be a very good thing as her mother was suffering from a severe inflammation of the lungs. The midwife made an awful-smelling herbal plaster of camphor and stinkweed, then instructed them to keep it on her mother’s chest day and night until her wheezing eased and color came back.

  Alex hadn’t known such depths of relief as she felt when her mother slowly recovered. Her father finally told her the story of the shipwreck they’d had coming back from South America where they had been hired to find an ancient Incan silver mine. They’d been rescued at sea by another ship but not before her mother had nearly drowned.

  Alex shivered now as she looked at the cold, harsh sea. She would not want to be floating in its icy depths, clinging to a stick of wood and hoping the sharks and all sorts of sea creatures wouldn’t think her toes worthy to nibble on. But her mother hadn’t let the fear of it happening again take hold of her as Alex half hoped she would. No, Katherine and Ian had left again as soon as she recovered, on another mission of missing antiquities. And Alex had prayed again for their safety, alone and bereft but determined not to mind too much. It was a pattern that had repeated itself over and over until now.

  Now she was going after them, and what she might say when she found them she didn’t know, but she felt it building and burning in her chest. Like a volcano waking up and stirring to life. She felt she might explode if she found them safe and well and was a little afraid of what was coming.

  Dear God, forgive me for my selfishness. I do want to find them safe and well. But why couldn’t they be ordinary people? Why did You put me with them when they don’t even seem to care?

  There was no answer to the questions, though she’d asked them many times before. She supposed God wanted her to be thankful for her life and to stop feeling sorry for herself. There were many poor and destitute, the plight of slaves and hungry children, the abused and the sick. She had plenty to be thankful for, but the hole in her heart was there nonetheless and she couldn’t seem to find a way to fill it.

  Alex sighed and turned away from the scene. She would go down to the cabin and find John. He always made her laugh.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING, JOHN?” Alex stood inside the cabin, having just opened the door, shock filling her to see John leaning over the room’s small desk, her letters from the duke scattered across it in a picture of frantic disarray.

  John reared up and turned toward her. “I, ah, knocked the stack on the floor and was trying to put them back together again.”

  It was a blatant lie and they both knew it. Alex had a choice. She could pretend to believe him and brush the issue under the proverbial carpet or continue her interrogation. She found she wasn’t ready to decide quite yet. She walked over to the desk and picked up the letter that was spread open, the one he had been reading.

  John backed away with a wary expression. She held it up, noting to herself the date and that it was the first letter she’d received from her guardian. She read aloud in a clipped and angry voice:

  10 September 1818

  From the office of the Duke of St. Easton, His Grace, Gabriel Ravenwood

  Madam,

  I deeply regret the cause of our recent introduction and am as surprised as you must be at our ancestral tie. Upon the prince regent’s order, I have spent considerable time investigating the claim of your parents’ deaths and their current estate. (Do not ever put in writing again what you wrote about our most-honored monarch, do you understand me?) I have been astounded on both accounts. Firstly, your parents have had no contact with anyone known to us in nearly a year. Does this not surprise you? You mention your lack of faith that they are deceased, and I am sure it is difficult news to accept, but a year is a very long time to have someone’s relatives come up missing. Please advise if there is something you know that I do not. In the meantime, I think it wise to continue as the regent deems appropriate with my taking charge of your estate and well-being.

  This brings me to the other surprise of my brief investigation into the Featherstone affairs. It would appear that your parents have been hiding, hoarding perhaps, a very large fortune. I tell you this only in the vein of protecting you from fortune hunters should the news come out. You, my dear Lady Featherstone, are the sole heir to lands and moneys that I must confess nearly equal my own. And my dear, I am among the wealthiest of Englishmen at this time. Do be careful.

  She paused there and looked up at John. “Should I be careful, John?”

  His face turned a shade darker in the dim light. “Of course not. But why didn’t you tell me? If we’re to be married, I won’t have you keeping secrets from me.”

  “I hadn’t planned to.” Alex arched
a brow at him and waited for further explanation.

  “Alex, love.” His mouth turned down in a pout. “It’s as I said and innocent. I dropped the pile and then . . . was curious, I admit. Your relationship with your guardian seems a little intimate and I–I was jealous.” He took the necessary steps to reach her and grasped hold of her hands, bringing them to his chest. “Imagine if I had a pile of letters from some rich and powerful duchess. You’d be curious at least, wouldn’t you?”

  He traced the curve of her jaw with a gentle caress. Alex breathed in and then expelled it in a rush. He was right. She would want to know what those letters said. “I’m sorry. I thought for a moment you were a fortune hunter like the duke warned me against.” She laughed and leaned into his chest a little, thinking how good he looked and how he made her feel so many new feelings all at once. “But you don’t need my fortune, do you?”

  John cupped her cheeks and pressed a light kiss to her lips. “What if I did?” he murmured against her cheek.

  Alex reared back. “Are you in financial difficulty? Tell me now if you are. As you say, if we are to be married there shouldn’t be any secrets between us.”

  “The truth?” His blond brows rose and the blue of his eyes deepened. “I haven’t told anyone the whole truth of it, not even Uncle Montague.”

  “You can tell me.” If her fortune could help the man she loved, then why not? It wasn’t as if she had any idea what to do with so much money.

  “Well, it’s a sad story to be sure, but not uncommon. My father hadn’t any knack for estate management and mortgaged the Lemon land to the hilt until he finally had to sell. He left me with the title and a mound of debt, debt I’ve worked hard at trying to pay off. I had a little money from my mother’s side and invested it carefully.” He looked aside and sighed. “It’s been a struggle, I can tell you. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, keeping up appearances so I can travel in the right circles to have the opportunities I need and well, doing whatever I can to maintain a decent living in Dublin. I kept telling myself to marry for money, but I just couldn’t seem to do it.”