The Duchess and the Dragon Read online

  He looked at the scene around him with new sight. Across the way a couple stood, the woman beautiful and smiling up into the handsome face of her companion. She beckoned a serving girl to come closer with the umbrella. Her bracelet entangled on the handle as the slight servant maneuvered the umbrella as close as she dared. The woman jerked her hand back, her face not quite so lovely now as she berated the servant with harsh words. Drake watched as the servant’s face turned ashen and panicked. Had he done that countless times without noticing?

  The theatre must have just let out, Drake thought bitterly. Servants held carriage doors open, waiting with warm blankets to ensure their betters were comfortable. All the trappings of what used to be his life.

  He resisted the urge to slam his fist into the wall. If he could just get up to Albert’s business quarters, he could at least gain the comforts of a fire.

  It had been two weeks since his hasty flight from Northumberland. After reaching London, Drake took up residence with Charles for a few days. He’d hated to come to London, knowing his chances for capture increased with every mile he came within the king’s court, but it was the best—no, the only—place to liquefy his assets and hear news that would either bring him out into the open or exile him from the continent.

  The latter had soon proved true.

  It hadn’t been long before Justin Abbot returned, questioning his closest friends, saying only that he was looking for Drake. The noose drew ever tighter, and Drake knew he had to get out of London. England too. But to travel any distance, he needed more money than he had been able to spirit away. And to gain the comforts of a heavier purse, he needed to see Albert.

  He had waited all day for the cover of darkness and now stood there, skulking in the shadows like a common thief, waiting for this theatre crowd to disperse.

  Finally, he slipped around the corner of the building and hurried to the entrance, rain dripping from the lowered brim of his hat. He ducked into the hall and drew a deep breath. The marble floor and tall ceiling caused his footsteps to echo through the deserted place. Head down, he followed the familiar path to Albert’s office.

  “Drake,” came a scratchy voice from an inner room, “is that you, then? In here.”

  “Albert?” He didn’t sound well. Drake picked up a lantern, which cast a gloomy glow in the outer office, and crept toward the inner sanction.

  At the sight of a single candle lighting Albert’s craggy face, Drake released a held breath. His friend was alone.

  “Put the light out,” Albert wheezed. “Abbot was sniffing around earlier today.” Pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, he dabbed at his dripping nose.

  Drake studied the corners of the room before obeying. Then, setting the lantern on the floor, he took the seat across from Albert. “Are you being followed? Watched?”

  “No . . . no, I was not here when Abbot came by today, but he will be back.” Albert pushed a bottle across the desk. “You look frozen through. Here, have some Madeira.”

  Drake wished it were something stronger but grasped the bottle. He hadn’t allowed himself to spend any unnecessary money and the restraint had been surprisingly difficult. He had always prided himself of the mastery of his will, but recently discovered the magnetic pull of the forbidden. The liquor slid down his throat with smooth familiarity, bringing a rosy warmth to his chest. “Do you have the money?”

  Albert sighed. “’Tis not as much as you hoped, my lord. But I didn’t want to cause questions by overtly rippling your financial waters. There seem to be eyes and ears everywhere.” He slid a heavy purse across the desk.

  Drake felt the weight in his hand and glanced inside. “This will not last a year.”

  Albert nervously rubbed the loose skin of his jaw line. “I shall send you more as I can. I have not been able to learn what they know, but I know they have not given up looking for you.” He leaned across the table toward Drake. “We must get you out of England, my boy.”

  Leave England? Had his life really come to that? Drake dropped his head in his hands and drew in a deep, ragged breath. “What of the shares in the East India Company. Have you sold them?” When Albert didn’t answer Drake looked up, eyes narrowed at the old retainer. “Have you managed anything else for me?”

  Albert cleared his throat, his gaze darting away from Drake’s scrutiny. “I have a plan to buy you some time until this debacle is sorted through. You’re not going to like it, but it will get you out of the country with no one the wiser.”

  Drake found he had no voice, could only stare.

  “There is a ship, The Prince Royal, leaving for America in two days. If the king’s men are watching the roads and ships leaving England, you would do well to adopt a disguise of some sort. They will be looking for an aristocrat with the usual trappings of nobility. The captain of this ship is signing on indentured servants.” He hesitated at Drake’s dark look, cleared his throat and continued. “I know it sounds intolerable, but it may work. They will not be looking for you among the masses of poor going over to be indentured. Once safely in America, I can send you more money and, while you are away, I will see what I can do about getting your name cleared. When we know what the king is thinking, we can act accordingly.”

  Drake stood and paced the small room. “If you think a pardon is possible, I should stay and face the charges.”

  Albert’s jowls swayed as he shook his head. “Drake . . . I do not think that would be wise. We need time for the facts to come out and for tempers to subside. You must leave the country.”

  Drake placed his hands on either side of the desk and leaned toward Albert. “How could this have happened? Albert, tell me. Am I not my father’s son? Have you but to look at me to see his face? I see him every time I look in the mirror. Why did he do this to me?”

  Albert looked down at his clasped hands in his lap, his lips pressed together in a thin line. “I do not know, my lord. I do not know.” He paused, sudden speculation in his gaze as he looked back up at Drake. “You have just reminded me of an old rumor. I have never put any stock in it, mind you, but . . .”

  “Tell me.”

  Albert shrugged. “Rumors are rarely reliable, Drake.”

  “You will tell me regardless.”

  “Well, your father did have two brothers, did he not?”

  “Yes, Cousin Randolph’s father, Clinton, dead for many years now, and Richard, the youngest brother who lives in Bristol, I believe. Quiet man, I’ve met him only once. What of it?”

  “The tale was that your mother fell in love with Richard. She was already betrothed to your father, had been since she was a young girl, but hardly knew him. Not long after the marriage Richard came to see them, and your father was away. I do not know the details and I certainly cannot believe it true—”

  A deep dread made Drake’s stomach tremble.

  “—but some say you were conceived during his visit.”

  No! The denial echoed inside him. Impossible. He couldn’t be anything other than Ivor’s son. It was unimaginable. “How could anyone think such a thing? There must be more to the story.” That anyone should question his parentage on the simple fact that his mother was alone with his uncle for a time was absurd.

  “The only fact that gives the tale some credence is that when your father returned, he banished Richard from Northumberland and said he would never see him again. No one knew exactly why, but rumor was rife, as it always is in such cases.”

  “Preposterous!” But the quaking inside him grew, threatened to become a full-blown panic. He thought of his mother, a sad, pale wraith of a woman, possessing an ethereal beauty that seemed to fade each year until she was a ghost on her deathbed. And always, that faraway look in her eyes . . .

  His hand, a balled fist in his lap, shook so that he had to press his other hand against it. He looked down, willing a stillness into his body. He would not, could not think of his mother doing such a thing. She would have never betrayed his father in such a manner. She would never have made h
er son illegitimate—would she?

  Drake stood and paced, pulling his shattered emotions into brisk action. “So your plan is to indenture me to the colonies? I, Drake Alexander Weston, reared to a dukedom, shall become a servant?” He let his mockery show in his smile as he looked down at the older man from his full height of six foot three inches.

  “My lord . . . that is, I see little alternative.”

  “No!” Drake turned to the desk, snatched up the half-empty bottle of Madeira and flung it against the wall.

  Albert sat in stunned silence, fear lighting his eyes. Drake struggled to control his emotions. He caught a glimpse of himself in a small mirror hanging on the opposite wall. Wild-eyed, unshaven, and so angry. The man who stared back was not a man he knew. The careful control bred into him since birth was gone. In its place he saw a fire-breathing dragon capable of murder.

  Yes—he saw a murderer, and it terrified him.

  Breathing fast he flung himself into the chair, his hands balling into fists. “What shall I do? What would you have me do?”

  Albert rose from his chair and handed Drake a piece of paper, then laid a bracing hand on Drake’s shoulder. “Sign this, son. Buy some time. It is your best hope.”

  Drake stared at the paper. Had the world gone mad? Sign the paper. Indeed.

  Fingers shaking, he took the quill from Albert’s hand and dipped it in the black ink. Just as he pressed tip to paper, Albert halted him. “Sign your name as Drake Winslow. You dare not go by Drake Weston any longer.”

  He stared at the tip of the quill, the ink so black and ready to drip, wondering if he could do it. Then he hunched over the page and scrawled the foreign name.

  “It is over,” he whispered into the dark.

  DRAKE STOOD WITH the rest of the indentured in a long line on the docks of the River Thames. The mid-morning shadows of the warehouses fell across them, shading the sun as it rose beyond the Tower of London. London Bridge sat in the distant west, a familiar black outline against the gray sky. How many times had he clattered over that stone edifice and thought nothing of its magnitude, its memories of such a great city. Now he might never see it again.

  Turning toward the west and his new future, Drake felt a shaft of doubt for his own sanity. Two ships bobbed in front of them on the dark green waters of the Thames. One, massive and sturdy, was being loaded with supplies, her hull sitting low in the water. Next to it floated their ship. Studying that rickety craft with the eyes of a man who had financed and inspected many a cargo vessel, Drake fought the urge to slink out of line and back into the shadows.

  Being indentured was the least of his worries. His shaky resolve to follow Albert’s plan threatened to dissolve into the wisps of a nightmare. Mere weeks ago he wouldn’t have considered trusting a barrel of tea aboard this heap and now he was boarding it himself? Ludicrous! And yet, what choice did he really have?

  He looked around at his companions, dock workers and passersby, half hoping for some miracle to jump out and save him. Instead, his feet shuffled forward with the rest.

  A sudden shout drew his attention and that of his companions. A constable was leading a man, hands tied behind his back, down a gangplank and back to shore. The constable jerked to a halt, his eyes sharp as he scanned the crowd. Drake ducked his head. The hat he wore was pulled down low over his eyes, two weeks’ worth of beard darkened his cheeks and chin, but he was tall and stood out. His chances of being caught in such a disguise were slim, but still, sharp tension stiffened his spine. The colonies were better than Newgate.

  Or so he kept telling himself.

  A woman behind him coughed, a rasping sound that boded ill. His skin crawled of its own accord as he took an involuntary step forward. They were a downtrodden lot, his fellow passengers. The stench of poverty hung like a bleak aura around them. Drake shuffled even further forward, hunching down, allowing the hollow feeling in his gut to reach his eyes.

  No one he knew could possibly recognize him. He scarcely recognized himself.

  His mind fixated on the murder—those few moments replaying in his head with razor-sharp clarity. Sixteen long days since an interrupted breakfast and a poor man’s death. Days filled with watching and waiting, but Drake knew not what he was waiting for. Sixteen days of anxiety gnawing at him till he’d lost so much weight that his clothes hung from his frame in heavy folds. Sixteen nights of fitful sleep for fear the nightmares would come. Nightmares that strove to ensnare him and pull him down into madness where murderers belonged. Truth be told, he had little need for a disguise; his mask of wretchedness was only too real.

  They drew closer to the gangplank—a wet, narrow board slippery from muddy feet. The dank, fishy smell common to the Thames assaulted his nostrils; the screech of seagulls above their heads grated in his ears. A mother and two small children set foot upon the gangplank, and Drake found himself holding his breath. The youngest child, a little girl, began to cry and wouldn’t move; the boy clung to his mother’s skirts threatening to topple them all.

  “Get a move on!” A shrill voice from behind yelled.

  The woman took another step, but the younger of her children swayed. All eyes in line watched as the mother screamed and grasped a fistful of the girl’s shirt. There was a collective sigh of relief as they righted themselves.

  Before Drake could think better of it, he stepped out of line and was walking to the front.

  “’Ey! What’s to do, ’ere?”

  “You cain’t step ahead in line!”

  Drake stilled the complainers with a look, the mantle of authority still draping him.

  One woman nudged the man beside her. “Who’s he think he is, eh?”

  Drake leapt onto the gangplank, swinging the tiny girl into the crook of one arm. The lad looked up at him with big, round eyes as Drake grasped his hand. “Step lively now, my boy. You can do it.”

  The child nodded, chubby cheeks rounding in a smile. When they reached the other side, Drake jumped down onto the deck of the ship. The girl in his arm hadn’t moved during the crossing, but now cried out for her mother. Drake turned to the woman and helped guide her down to the deck. He then deposited the toddler into her arms. “Your children, madam.”

  The woman stood, mouth open for a moment, and then blushed. “Oh thank ye, kind sir. I was so afeared they’d be drowned afore we ever begun.”

  Drake inclined his head, then turned from her—and stilled. Countless numbers of eyes were upon him. Fool! How could you have forgotten? Can you not for a moment remember who you are now, what you are supposed to be? This was going to be impossible! He gritted his teeth and turned away, following the others down into the hold to claim a bunk.

  A rickety ladder, a creaking, swaying floor, a dark hold, a place where the air didn’t move. This would be his new home.

  It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust. He stared, heart sinking, at row upon row of double or triple-tiered bunks. Alnwick Castle, its grandeur, its imperial force against nature and man, rose up to taunt him. Against all will, a sob grew in his throat . . . followed immediately by shame. Making a quick judgment, Drake staked his claim on an outside row with easy access to the ladder leading up on deck. Some of the others claimed a bed and then returned to the deck for a last look at England before sailing. Drake thought better of leaving his belongings unattended, so he sat on the bed and waited. It wouldn’t do to court more trouble by standing up on deck for all to see him—a fugitive, a dependent on the winds of fate, a poor wretch leaving his homeland.

  His new home amounted to about six feet long and two feet wide, his bed a thin straw-filled pallet on a rickety looking frame. Underneath the frame was the only space to store his belongings and the meager supplies he had purchased for the journey that would take about fourteen weeks. They were packed in here like slaves, except slaves were shackled. Drake’s appreciation for freedom suddenly made itself known, startling him.

  Embarrassment stole up his neck as he realized that he wanted to collapse—to l
ie on this shoddy iron bed and wallow in self-pity like he hadn’t since he wore gowns. Instead, he took a shaky breath and steeled himself. He would make it to America, get out of this ridiculous indentured servant business altogether, and begin a new life. What he would do to support himself once the meager funds in his trunk ran out he didn’t know. Still . . . news traveled slowly. Perhaps he could join the other impoverished nobility on the new continent.

  He wrapped the thin blanket about him, lay back, and closed his eyes, hoping sleep—and the nightmares—wouldn’t come just yet.

  Chapter Four

  Serena stared out her bedroom window, taking in the late fall scene of her yard and street. The leaves were mostly fallen now, lying in brown, tumbled heaps, blown about by the breeze. An old, gnarled tree filled the north corner of the yard, where a wooden swing twirled, the wind its only occupant. She had swung on that swing countless times, reaching her toes up toward the sky. A sky that today was the pale blue-gray of weather coming.

  She smiled as inspiration filled her. Closing her eyes, she let the colors swirl behind the darkness of her lids. The rope of the swing turned from weathered tan to a shocking yellow. The seat of the swing became golden brown. It rose in her mind’s eye, tossed by the wind into an azure sky.

  Then she shifted her focus to the trees—their trunks slick and shiny with her black paint, bubbles of deep green like little mossy outcroppings popping up and down their mighty lengths. The leaves were in juxtaposition—the ones still attached to their branches, the stubborn ones, growing old and brown while the dead ones on the lawn became bright, alive again in golden yellows, fiery orange, and violet reds. Their veins pulsed with a blue-green blood. The grass brightened to a yellow-green, swaying in the breeze, then she deepened the color in her mind, adding a hint of blue. Her breath caught as the world outside her window became a fairy place where princesses and dragons roamed, a place not seen on this earth.

  “Yes, the light is soft but bright.” She breathed the thought aloud, imagining the slant of the sunlight and all the shadowy places. Her eyes shot open, her hand pressed flat against her beating heart. Where were her paints? She had to get this image onto canvas before it blew away on an earthly breeze. She knew nothing this astonishing would last long in her imagination. A part of her feared it—this knowing of what she wanted and then the battle to get it down. It was always like this—elusive and frantic. But she had to try.