The Duchess and the Dragon Read online

  “I certainly hope that is not true.”

  His tone caused tears to well in her eyes. “Thou thinkest me foolish.”

  Drake came to her and took both of her hands in his. “No. No . . . I think you are sweet and lovely and enchanting and . . . very innocent.”

  She raised her chin and glared at him through her tears. “I’m not the saint thou thinkest I am.”

  He smiled. She doubted even he realized how natural that condescending, patronizing smile was to him. How it made her want to shake her fist in his face. Instead, she reached up on tiptoe and touched her lips to his, wanting more from him, but somehow knowing it would only come this way.

  “Not a saint, eh?” He smiled against her mouth, and she pulled back, cheeks aflame. She hadn’t gotten very far away before he caught her and gathered her up close into his arms, his lips claiming hers, the force of his will in the kiss.

  She was swept away as before, but this time she felt the thoughts of right or wrong slipping, drowned in their heat. All her reasoning why she could not fall in love with him faded as she lost herself, floating on the sensation of his mouth against hers.

  Minutes passed . . . exploring minutes . . . discovering minutes.

  Time stood still, and yet it seemed so short when he pulled suddenly away and gasped out, “My God!”

  These words were no curse. They were more a prayer.

  Suddenly Drake laughed, and Serena’s spirit soared that she had caused him such joy as that sound carried. She had banished the ghosts in his eyes, if only for a little while. He smiled, and it was one Serena had not yet seen—pure and real—not meant to mean anything different than what it was.

  “What magic you weave. You always pull me out of the darkness.”

  A chill went down her spine. While she reveled in his words, she knew something was not as it should be. She could never be his savior. But how could she say so aloud? How could she break this spell that bound them, even with the truth?

  She looked at her hands. “Shall we make buttons?”

  “We should most assuredly make buttons.”

  They turned back to the silver, and Serena saw that it had become a liquid puddle in the middle of the skillet, the impurities burned away. She focused on the task as she showed Drake how to fill the molds. “Thou madest them too full before, ’tis all.” She compared his earlier work with the perfect ones she’d made, setting them side by side on the worktable and leaning over them.

  Looking up at him, a wisp of hair tickling her forehead, escaping her cap, she nodded toward the buttons.

  “Thou hast done much greater things than this, I think. Thou mayest learn this art . . . but even if thou never does, I know thou art worthy . . . of so much.” She teared up, not able to keep her convictions buried in her heart where they belonged.

  Drake exhaled, looked up to the ceiling of the shop and then back at her. “How did I find you?”

  DRAKE DRANK IN her presence, his hand reaching toward her. Her body came flush with his chest, as if a mooring place. He breathed the scent of her hair. He reveled in the feel of her comfort. With her he no longer felt like a worthless man trying to do something he couldn’t. With her in his arms, anything was possible, even a happy life as a silversmith.

  Her talent was obvious. He leaned toward her ear, clasping her close. “You should be your father’s apprentice. It is obvious you love this work.”

  She reared back and smiled up at him. “Were I a man, there would be no question. As it is, I am not able to truly learn the trade, though I spend as much time here as I can. My father is lenient and suffers my company without complaint.”

  “He would do better with your company. You are more suited to this work than I.”

  “Is it terribly trying to learn? I know my father would not want thee apprenticed to something thou art not able to do.”

  “I am not so confident of that,” he murmured. “I think your father has other lessons in mind for me. Besides, I have signed on for the next two years. It is a short term, I know.”

  Serena shook her head with a breathtakingly sweet smile. “My father will take very good care of thee.”

  “His motives are pure, of that I will agree. Now—” he peered over her shoulder at the molds—“have these hardened sufficiently to let them loose?”

  Serena laughed, taking his hand and leading him to the table. “Never hurry the process, dear one. Let us remelt thy buttons and make spoons whilst we wait.”

  He doubted she even realized she had used the endearment, but it warmed him like a blaze of light in this pit of darkness where he stood.

  Serena. This serene woman. She made him feel . . .

  Like he wasn’t alone anymore.

  Chapter Ten

  It was Sunday again and meeting time. Drake was never asked if he wanted to attend; it was assumed that he did—or at least, he supposed, that he would. And it was peaceful. He had adjusted to the long silences, had disciplined his body to sit still and straight on the hard wooden bench for exactly one hour. He was even intrigued by the softly spoken “testimonies” occasionally given. The words always had a ring of truth behind them that resonated with something inside him. But he didn’t understand some of the other aspects of their religion.

  And most of all, no matter how welcoming they had been, he never felt like he belonged. He was too strong, too colorful against their plain quietness. Too old and too world-weary for their simple sweetness. He’d eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil too many times to go back and pretend a simplicity he didn’t feel. And yet he felt pursued—not by anyone he could see, but by a feeling that there was someone he couldn’t see in the quiet meeting room with them all. Someone who knew him, knew everything about him, and still wanted him.

  Often at night, as he lay in his bed, when his body wasn’t so exhausted by the day’s work that he fell into an immediate sleep, he gave way to the cynicism over the ironic twist God or fate had dealt him. This world he now found himself in could not be more opposite to the one he’d known all his life. Yet it had so much to teach him. He wasn’t always sure what or exactly how . . . but he knew he was changing, like his old skin was being molted off and a new, more tender skin emerging. A skin that felt everything with keen awareness.

  The only thing he knew with any certainty was that all his inner wrestling ceased when he was with Serena. With her, he was able to believe that life had meaning. With her, the haunting ghosts dissipated.

  The meeting ended and Drake stood and stretched, much as the other men beside him. He had met many of these Quakers and had they been fighting men he would have welcomed any of them at his back, so completely loyal and honest they were. But they were not fighting men, would never raise arms for their country or their brother, which was another of the many mysteries he found himself thinking on.

  Today a new fellow he had never seen before had joined them. Tall and lean, with straight white-blond hair that was long and combed back from a broad forehead. His piercing blue eyes had locked onto Drake’s upon meeting. Drake read both intelligence and a questioning assessment in them. Nodding to the man now, Drake turned and followed Josiah into the fellowship hall where they had their weekly pitch-in.

  Serena’s laugh startled him, causing him to turn sharply. He had only heard her laugh like that with him, but there she stood, with the man he’d noticed, her hand on his sleeve in an old and familiar way.

  “Christopher Kingsley,” Josiah supplied from behind his shoulder.

  The man was always reading his mind, and it was disconcerting. He had always prized himself on his ability to be aloof and unreadable. “Who is he?” Drake knew his voice held the tone of a jealous suitor, but there was no sense hiding it from Josiah.

  “A farmer. Lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. His parents came over from Germany with a land grant in the valley, but died before reaching it. Christopher inherited the grant and settled there. He comes to Philadelphia once a quarter to take care
of business matters.”

  “That’s not the only reason he comes, is it?”

  Serena smiled up into the man’s face, and Drake felt it all the way down to his stomach. Jealousy, he decided, was a wretched feeling.

  “Thou seest the truth of it.”

  “And what does her father think of the good farmer?” The sneer behind the word farmer cast Drake in a bad light he knew, but it came out nonetheless.

  “He is a good man. A man of our faith and a man she has known for many years. I think he would make her . . . content.”

  Drake turned to Josiah, eyes wide. Serena’s father so rarely sounded unsure of anything he said that it came as a shock that he might not be certain of this. “But not ecstatically happy, perhaps?”

  Josiah sighed and for a moment looked older than his forty-some years. “A challenged life,” he hesitated, “can be more rewarding than a contented one. But a parent is loath to see a child endure suffering. ’Twould be a sacrifice.”

  He looked into Josiah’s eyes, understanding jolting through him. “I would never hurt her.”

  “Until thou art well settled within thyself, thou wouldst. Even whole, I think so.”

  Anger filled him, had him blowing air through his clamped teeth. Drake looked over at Serena, saw the way her dusky green eyes glowed as she spoke, the way she gestured with her hands . . . all so known to him, so beloved. He looked back at Josiah, his voice low and harsh. “You wrong me, sir. She is . . . she is all that is light to me. Do you understand? She is the only hope I have.” It sounded pitiful. His eyes almost swam with the emotion of it. Here, in this crowded room, with strangers possibly looking on, he had come as close to declaring what lurked in his heart as he ever would.

  Josiah’s eyes did fill with tears. “She can help thee, son. But thou must seek deeper and further for Truth. Only the One who made thee knows how to fill thee. Serena will fail if thou puttest her in that place.” Josiah’s eyes blazed with certain truth.

  Drake couldn’t endure the intensity. He had to get out of there! He spun and headed for the door. Serena tried to stop him as he swept passed her, but he shrugged her off as he tore out of the room.

  Air . . . he needed the fresh, cold air so that he could feel his lungs and rid himself of this sensation that he couldn’t breathe. Taking great gulping breaths, the fog of it surrounding him, he stood outside in the yard of the meetinghouse and forced himself to calm down. When his heart slowed, he started walking.

  He walked the streets of Philadelphia, seeing and yet not seeing the largest city in the colonies for an hour or more, trying to outpace the haunting words that he would not, could not examine too closely.

  He walked along the shore of the Delaware River and marveled what man could do in a few short years. Where once there was wilderness and Indian camps, now giant ships moored, swaying majestically at the docks. Warehouses and shipyards lined the shore. Neat and freshly painted houses and shops filled the streets, sitting like little jewels in the crown that was Philadelphia. Finally, he found himself in an alley looking up at a sign that made him laugh despite the heaviness of his heart. Man Full of Trouble tavern, complete with a sign of a man carrying his wife piggyback. Shrugging, he went in.

  He couldn’t ask for a place more fitting to his current mood.

  Inside the brick building was a semi-dark room, with crude wooden tables and chairs. A long bar ran along one end, but Drake choose a quiet table in a back corner. Josiah had been paying him a small wage aside from room and board, and Drake was glad he had brought some money with him.

  It wasn’t long before the man behind the counter came over and asked in a friendly voice, “What might ye be havin’ sir?”

  Drake ordered an ale, counting out the coins in his pocket. It was strange, having to concern himself with the amount of coin on his person. Never in his life had he had to be frugal. Now . . . he could soon run out.

  Halfway through the brew the door burst open to admit a tall, red-headed man. Drake barely glanced up, so deep in morbid thought, until he heard the booming voice. “Drake Winslow? Is it you, then, man?”

  Drake looked up into the face of Daniel McLaughlin, the Scotsman and his one friend from the voyage over. He stood and shook Daniel’s hand, getting a hearty clap on the shoulder in response.

  “Daniel, I didn’t expect to see you again. How are you?”

  The Scot sat down and motioned for a drink from the barkeep. Lowering his voice, he leaned in. “I have a tale for your ears, the likes of which you willna soon forget.” He grinned from ear to ear. “But first, where did you end up? If you don’t mind my sayin’ it, I thought you might be too far gone by the time we reached the shore, and that’s the God’s honest truth of it.” He motioned at Drake. “But you look fit!”

  “I am, thanks to an angel of mercy. She nursed me back, but I have yet to decide whether to thank her.” Drake gave him a self-deprecating grin.

  “Sounds like love to me. What’s her name?”

  “Serena Winter. A Quaker, if you can believe that. Her father has taken me on as a silversmith apprentice. I’m currently residing with them.”

  Daniel whistled low. “You had better luck than most of those poor souls we traveled with. Have you heard anything of the others?”

  Drake shook his head. “Just the few who were sick in the hold with me. The Quaker families have provided for them as well. Come now, what happened to you?”

  Daniel grinned lopsidedly and leaned in. “Actually, I’ve been looking for you. I believe I have something that is yours, my friend.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A medium-sized brown trunk.”

  Drake sat up eagerly. “Does it have money in it? About four hundred pounds?”

  Daniel whistled again. “I knew there was more to you than met the eye.” He shook his head. “Sorry to say it dinna come into my possession with money in it, but—” he dug into a pocket and pulled out a heavy, gold signet ring—“I’m betting this is yours, is it not?”

  Drake’s fingers wrapped around the ring, gripping it, afraid to look at it. “Yes. Tell me everything, Daniel. I will hunt down the blackguards who robbed me.”

  Daniel settled back into his chair. “Well, we dinna all get the treatment a man such as yourself got in the hold thar, with a pretty lass hovering over you. The rest of us were herded up like cattle by the slave drivers.”

  Drake nodded. “Serena told me about them. A wretched business.”

  Daniel nodded and grinned. “Oh yes, wretched indeed, but I got my say in the end. There were four of them, big meaty, brainless sorts. I tried to pummel my way out on top deck of the ship, but they got the better of me. Divided us into four groups, they did. A Mr. Joseph Linney was my group’s boss, which I don’t mind telling you was a gift from heaven above.”

  Daniel laughed, taking a long pull from his cup and slapping his thigh.

  “He drove us west of the city, farm to farm, through little towns and villages. This land is amazing, Drake, untouched and wild, just waiting for a man to tame. They drove us hard, though. We were getting weaker and hungry all the time—none of us looking our best and dinna he like it that way.”

  Drake shook his head in disgust.

  “Like I said, he wasna too bright. I soon devised a way of looking a little mad, a condition that would worsen should any prospective employer come to look us over.” Daniel struck a dumb face, one eye roving to and fro while the other looked glazed.

  Drake laughed quietly.

  “A little talent I picked up in my school days. Always sent the lasses running home with delightful screams.”

  “I’ll bet it did.” Drake interjecting, laughing despite the sorry tale.

  “So, finally, it was down to just me and Mr. Linney. He was getting a mite put out with me and suspecting my game. He told me he would find the worst, most despicable job in the next town and just give me away as I wasna worth any more of his trouble. About that time, I noticed a fine trunk on the back
of his horse. It looked familiar and I guessed it might be yours. So, being the crafty Scotsman that I am, I concocted a plan to steal it back and escape any plight the good Mr. Linney had for me.

  Drake shook his head with a smile. “Would that it had been filled with not only my money, but the proceeds of all the indentures.”

  Daniel nodded. “I had hoped to find something to sustain me. When we stumbled into the next town, sure enough, as I hoped, we headed for the first tavern. I’m counting on Linney’s powerful thirst for whiskey to aid me, you see? Once there, it wasna hard to goad him into trying to out drink me, and by the time night fell, the man could barely stagger across the street to the boardinghouse. I took the trunk under my arm and half carried him to his bed. Making like I was the slave driver and he the idiot indentured, I instructed the woman who owned the place to lock him in till midmorning as I wanted to sleep in.”

  Drake leaned back in his chair, laughter shaking him. “You didn’t!”

  “Aye, I must confess brilliance struck.”

  “And the landlady was, of course, charmed by your good looks and charming manners and believed you,” Drake drawled out, shaking his head in admiration.

  Daniel shrugged. “It wasna too difficult. Soon as I had my room, I quickly went through the trunk. When I found the ring, I knew it was yours. I don’t know how Linney got ahold of it, but at the time I was glad. I did not think it could hurt my cause to borrow some of your belongings, and don’t you own some fine things! It wasna too hard to act the spoiled Englishman on my trip back to Philadelphia. I kept my mouth shut, stared at everyone like an English blueblood—a gesture of which you are a master, if you don’t mind my sayin’.” He grinned. “It worked like a blessed charm. I had people scurrying to do my biddin’ within a day of practice.”

  Drake frowned. “You didn’t meet any other gentry and try to pass yourself off as me, did you?”

  Daniel leaned in. “Nay, but come, man, tell me. Are you what that ring says you are. Are you an English nobleman, then?”