The beast of yorkshire, p.18
The Beast of Yorkshire, page 18
“Here, Your Grace,” a maid handed him a towel for the bleeding knuckles he had been unaware of until that moment.
Duncan looked at the small grouping in front of him. Four people of varying ages stood there, clapping with smiles spread across their faces. “Shouldn’t you be supporting your employer?”
“Pardon my bluntness, Your Grace,” said the old man who had opened the door earlier, “but our employer is a cruel man. We only stayed because of Miss Penelope and Master Samuel. Now that they’re gone we can leave, except he will not write us letters to take with us so that we can seek jobs elsewhere. We are as good as enslaved.”
“How does he treat you?” Duncan knew it was a useless question, knew what the answer would be.
“Worse than his family, and that was horrid.”
“Gather your things. See the house right across from here?” Duncan opened the door and pointed across the square. A warm breeze blew, ruffling his hair. “Tell them I sent you, and that they’re to find positions for you.”
“Your Grace…I…” the old man who had opened the door tried to speak, but couldn’t. His eyes were rheumy with unshed tears. “Mother, I told you we would escape from here someday.”
“You certainly did, Mr. Giles, you certainly did.”
Duncan watched as the man and woman, he assumed to be husband and wife, kissed one another and danced a merry jig. Since he first viewed the man, it seemed as if Mr. Giles had shed twenty years from his life, perhaps more. Everyone was laughing or crying. “You should get your things before he awakens.”
“His Grace is right. Ten minutes everyone. Less if you can manage it. If he hears the celebrating, and we’re still here, he’ll likely shoot us on sight. Now, hop to it,” the woman he assumed to be Mrs. Giles clapped her hands and everyone quickly sprang into action. In less than ten minutes they had cleared out their belongings and left the house.
Duncan paced outside the house while waiting on the servants. Mr. and Mrs. Giles were the first outside. The couple waited patiently, and he felt their eyes watching him with each pass he made. Finally, unable to take it anymore, he turned on them. “What is it? Have I grown a horn or a third eye?”
“I apologize Your Grace, you just seem to be overly worried,” the rotund little woman said.
“Of course I’m worried. My wife has disappeared. She has nowhere to go. She has very little money and no food. London is full of danger.”
“It’s my understanding she isn’t your wife,” Mrs. Giles prodded.
“A mere oversight, no thanks to him,” he said scathingly, pointing to the house with his head. “Dammit, everything was going fine. Well, not fine exactly, but I thought she liked me. I care for her. I want to make certain she’s safe. I want to make this right. I want us to be truly married. I want to keep her safe.”
“Have you tried to harm her?”
“No. Those rumors are lies. I would never harm another human unless it was under dire circumstances.” He looked pointedly at the window to Bolingbroke’s study once more.
“Tell him, Mother,” Giles prompted his wife.
The older woman wrung her hands and looked extremely worried. “She was here. As you were knocking on the front door, she slipped out the back. We gave her food, a change of clothes, and…”
“And what?”
“We took some of Lord Bolingbroke’s finer things that she could exchange for money and put them in her bag.”
“Where did she go?”
“I honestly don’t know, Your Grace.” Mrs. Giles held her breath after answering all of his questions. One look at her and one could see she wondered if he would tell them they weren’t needed after all, that they were to return to Lord Bolingbroke’s manor and live out the rest of their lives under his horrible and hateful tutelage.
“She can’t have gotten far. I must go. Tell Hastings I sent you over.”
“You still want us?”
“You helped her and for that I thank you. You did what you could. I’ll be back, hopefully with Penelope in tow.”
“I hope so, too, Your Grace.” The two older servants wrapped their arms about one another, hoping that he did indeed find Miss Penelope before something bad happened to her.
Chapter 15
Penelope stumbled along the darkening street. The bags she carried were heavy. One of them jangled, drawing unwanted attention to her. She attempted to keep her head down and move onward, but exhaustion weighed heavily upon her. All she wanted to do was lie down, sleep for a week, and forget about her problems.
“Hello,” a decidedly masculine voice called out.
Penelope stiffened her shoulders and kept walking, ignoring the man.
“I said, ‘Hello,’” he repeated himself.
Penelope continued on, praying that he would take the hint and leave her alone. He didn’t.
“Come now, don’t be like that. It’s getting late. I thought I would offer you a ride,” he said.
She pursed her lips and kept walking. Tears burned the backs of her eyes. Why won’t this man just leave me alone? Can’t he see I want nothing to do with him? In her exhausted state, she failed to notice the loose cobblestone in the sidewalk. Her toe caught on the uprooted edge and she flew forward, landing on her stomach and face. The sacks landed with a loud crash beside her, their tops coming open, and their contents of food and silverware spilled onto the walk. She pushed herself up so she could gather everything to her. She winced as a pain shot up from her wrist, and she saw a small pool of blood on the ground. Penelope swiped a hand under her nose and balked when she saw it come away covered with red.
At the same time, she quickly brought both hands up to try and staunch the flow, people seemed to appear from nowhere. They came from the recesses of the alleyways and the darkened stoops, making their way to the spilled food and silverware. Penelope tried to fight them off, but there were just too many of them. They were scavengers and would go to any length to survive. She was too innocent still and had never seen this harsh reality of the world. She had nowhere to go, no food, no money, and nothing to trade for money, except herself.
A strong arm wrapped itself around her, and she tried to shy away, but the person refused to leave her side. If she could have smelled through her nose, she would have smelled an exotic perfume wafting about her instead of a manly scent. She looked over and was shocked to see a woman in a beautiful dress that hugged her curves. It looked to be dampened in a way that she knew was only worn by scandalous women. She had heard her mother speak poorly of women that dressed in such a manner, but at the moment she found she couldn’t care less. The man seemed to have disappeared and left her alone.
“You poor dear, are you all right?”
“I don’t know,” Penelope replied honestly.
“Cecil, bring me my shawl,” the woman called over her shoulder. Soon the two women were joined by a man dressed in livery. He held out a beautiful, silk shawl in a shade that favored garnets. The woman carefully folded it and gently removed Penelope’s hands. “Here.”
“No, I’ll ruin it,” Penelope argued.
“Shh, I have plenty more where this one came from, and can easily get more should I choose to. Now, hold that tight against your nose and tilt your head back. Cecil, help me get her standing.”
Penelope swayed unsteadily once she regained her feet. The woman and her servant stood on either side of her, each gripping an arm. “Where can we take you?”
“Nowhere,” Penelope said, her voice muffled through the cloth. “I have nowhere to go.” She could no longer hold back her tears or the fear she felt. Sobs racked her slight body. The woman once again put an arm around her, and Penelope found she just wanted to curl up and let this stranger soothe her as her mother never had.
“Now, now, those tears are going to do nothing for your nose. That settles it, you’re coming with me.”
“No, I couldn’t.”
“You can and you will.”
“You don’t even know me. I could be a thief or a murderer.”
“Shouldn’t you worry the same about me?”
“What would it matter at this point?”
“You need to trust me,” the older woman instructed.
“Why would you want to help me?” Penelope asked suspiciously.
“Let’s just say I see a bit of myself in you,” the woman said serenely. “Now, let’s get you settled in the carriage, and we’ll be on our way. Before too long, we’ll have you clean and fed. How does that sound?”
Penelope couldn’t help it, she started crying once more. Somehow she managed to get into the carriage with the assistance of the kind woman and Cecil. As they drove off, the forgotten bags and a bloody, embroidered handkerchief that had come loose were the only things that remained behind on the walk.
* * *
The clip-clopping of his horse’s hooves against the brick road echoed loudly in Duncan’s ears. She couldn’t have gotten far, but she wasn’t on any of the streets he had traveled down. Nor was she in any of the alleys. He had stopped at several shops and asked after her, but no one had seen her. Even an extra coin dropped here and there couldn’t bring him the information he wanted.
He turned off a main road and onto a side one. In the distance he saw a carriage turn and disappear into the night, almost becoming one with the darkness. Duncan could hear the sound of scurrying creatures, both large and small, as they tried to escape from his prying eyes. His gaze swept from side to side as he searched for his errant wife. He had no doubt that she would be his, regardless of her grandfather’s interference, or rather lack thereof. On his left, a slight figure crept out from the dark shadows and approached a heap of something on the walk. A sliver of light from the barely there moon glinted off of something in the person’s hand.
Duncan pulled his horse to a halt and slid to the ground. He flipped the reins around an unlit street lamp and approached the person. He dropped to one knee and inspected the cloth lying on the ground. There were two cloth bags and a handkerchief, all of which had various amounts of what looked to be blood on them. Duncan picked up the handkerchief and saw on one corner the monogrammed initials done in what appeared to be a delicate, feminine hand. “P. P. A,” he read the letters out loud in the order they appeared on the handkerchief and knew immediately whose initials they were.
The small form tried to scurry away when Duncan’s hand fisted in their collar, holding them immobile. The person was so covered in grime, he couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman, child or adult.
“Let me go!” The person struggled to free themselves.
“Did you see what happened here?”
“Let go!”
“I’ll pay you. I just want the truth.” The struggles slowed until they became non-existent.
“How much?”
“Enough that you won’t have to worry about where your food is coming from for a year, if you’re careful.” He watched the person eye him carefully before making her decision. For the first time he noticed that the person was wearing a dress indicating that it must be a woman. If he didn’t find Penelope, this could very well be her in a short time.
“I’ll take the money now,” the woman said snapping him out of his thoughts.
“Half now. Half after.” Duncan waited until she nodded her agreement. He withdrew the money and pressed it into her palm. “Now, what happened here?”
“A woman fell and blood went everywhere. People came out and took everything that fell out of those bags she carried. A coach stopped. A woman got out and helped her. They disappeared right before you came up.”
“Bloody hell.” Duncan roughly pushed the rest of the money towards the woman, tucked Penelope’s bloodied handkerchief into the pocket of his weskit, then quickly untied and mounted his horse. He dug his heels into the stallion’s flanks and shot off down the road. He turned the corner and traveled almost ten minutes before pulling the horse to a stop. Duncan stood in the stirrups and looked in every direction. “Penelope!” he yelled, his voice reverberating off of the buildings around him. “Penelope!” It was useless. She had melted into the darkness with some stranger. In that moment, he wondered if he would ever see her again, or if all he would ever have to remember her by was a blood-stained handkerchief with her initials on it that smelled faintly of lavender. Dejected, he turned his horse and slowly made his way to the Mayfair mansion.
* * *
“Giles!” the old man yelled from his position on the floor. When no one answered his calls, he slowly pushed himself up, cursing all the way. Never in his life had he fainted before, and he would never admit to anyone that he had. He walked out of his study towards the foyer. An eerie hush greeted him. “Giles! Hortense!” Silence. The front door stood open. He walked to it and just as he was shutting it, he saw a male servant wearing his livery disappear in the house across the way.
The old man slammed the door. Anger coursed through his veins. He stormed through the house taking inventory of the meager items he had left. The silver that had been in the family for several generations was gone.
“They’ll pay,” he growled. “First, that little whore will rue the day she came crawling back to me, and that bastard of a beast will pay for stealing my servants out from under me.” He stomped back into the study and sat behind his upside down desk and began plotting.
Chapter 16
Penelope lay curled up on a bed that was made of soft goose down and smelled of roses. She now wore a clean night rail provided by the kind woman who had literally picked her up off the street. Her nose and face throbbed. A brute of a man the woman called Abram had set her broken nose. She had blacked out for several minutes when that had happened. When she came to, there had been a hot bath ready for her. After bathing she had made the mistake of looking in a mirror. Not only was her nose swollen from the cloth they had used to pack it, but both of her eyes were blackened. She looked a sight and probably would for quite a while.
The older woman’s name was Helena, but she knew nothing else about her. Her house was tastefully decorated, but there was something that Penelope felt slightly uneasy about. She couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was, and found herself too exhausted to try and figure it out. Penelope felt alone and heartily wished for Duncan’s large frame to be next to her. What she wouldn’t give to feel his arms wrap around her and pull her close to him, for him to push her hair aside and his lips to brush kisses along the nape of her neck.
“Stop it,” she ordered herself. She had no means of finding her way back to Yorkshire. Would he even want her if she did find a way back to him?
“No, he doesn’t want me. I’m no better than a harlot thanks to Grandfather,” she whispered. “If only he would come after me,” she voiced her most fervent wish aloud. “But why would he?”
“Henry, keep your voice down. I have a guest,” Penelope heard Helena say as she walked past her room.
“And just who is this guest? It had better not be another man. You are mine and mine alone.”
“I think I’ll make you wonder just a bit longer exactly who lies beyond that door,” Helena taunted. “There’s no need for you to remain complacent and think I’ll always be here for you. You expect me to be only yours, but what of you?”
“I didn’t come here to fight. I could have stayed at home if I had wanted that.”
“Then what did you come here for?” Penelope could hear the sauciness in the other woman’s voice. There was a male growl followed by feminine giggles, and a door slammed shut farther down the hall.
Silent tears slipped onto the pillow. She found herself growing jealous of what the couple was sharing behind that closed door, even if it did appear to be rather illicit. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself as she attempted to go to sleep. Tomorrow was soon enough to come up with a plan for her future.
* * *
Penelope had been up for hours. When she tired of the lonely bed, she paced the length of the room. Now her stomach growled reminding her how long it had been since she had last eaten. Her clothes had been taken from her last night and had yet to be returned. A light robe lay across the foot of the bed. Even though she couldn’t smell because her nose was packed with bandages, her stomach continued to rumble loudly. When her stomach growled a third time, she worried her bottom lip and pressed a hand against her cramping stomach.
Her decision made, she pulled on the robe over her night rail, left the room, and made her way downstairs. She sniffed the air as well as she could and followed the wonderful aromas into the depths of the house. Penelope ended up in the kitchen and was greeted warmly by the staff that was present. One of the women that had helped her bathe last night guided her to what she assumed to be the breakfast room. There was a small buffet that stood along one wall. A small table sat in front of the window where the morning sun attempted to infiltrate the clouds, with no luck. Fat raindrops splattered against the window before sliding slowly downward.
She stared out the window, her chin propped in her hand, as the servants carried in dish after dish. Once they had finished traipsing in and out, Penelope picked up her plate, stood, and crossed to the buffet. She quickly piled food on the plate, sat at the table, and devoured everything edible. She cared very little that she couldn’t taste most of it, she only knew she had to stop the ache of her stomach from lack of food.
“Good morning, Penelope. How are you this morning?” Helena asked as she breezed into the room. She too wore a night rail and robe.
