The Duchess and the Dragon Read online

One of his shoulders lifted. “I didn’t think it would help my cause—” he paused pressing his lips together, as though struggling to stay conscious—“for you to realize that.” Then he appeared to drop back into a deep sleep.

  Serena shot to her feet, escaping her temptation and the moment, moving away from the bed to create as much distance as she could while still seeing his face. She had to get away from this man before she did . . . something . . .

  As she turned, her cheeks on fire, she saw that Mary Ann was coming down the steps with the midwife. “Serena, the soul-drivers are here! They asked about these in the hold, and I did not know what to tell them. I said thee wouldst talk to them.”

  Soul-drivers. The name alone caused her dread. Heartless men who gathered those to be indentured off the ships and drove them house to house, farm to farm, until they were all sold. They took no regard for families, splitting children from mothers, husbands from wives. Nor did they regard humanity, scarcely feeding or caring for those who’d just survived a long, nightmarish journey.

  She nodded to Mary Ann. “I will go up and speak to them.” Turning to the other woman, she inclined her head. “Good day, Beatrice. Thank thee for coming. Mary Ann will take thee to the woman I am concerned about.” She hurried up the stairs. If she could save these few in the hold from the horrors of soul driving, it would be some small gift. One thing she knew for certain: they would not have the man who now haunted her.

  They would have to fight her for him.

  Chapter Six

  Frightened people crowded the deck. A tall, burly man, biceps bulging, eyes hardened, with a slashing whip hissing through the air to keep the people pinned like animals against one rail. Children wept and clung to their parents, while the adults gathered them close, their own faces mirroring confusion and fear.

  Serena watched, overwhelmed by distress for the despised and desperate. They were a pitiful sight—except for one man. A tall, red-headed fellow who didn’t take kindly to the treatment, as evidenced by the fact that he had engaged two of the officials in a fistfight. Serena turned away just as they caught him and pounded him to the wood of the deck. Clinging to the railing, she was able to skirt around the scene and make her way toward the ship’s captain, determined to hold some rank in this world where she really didn’t belong.

  Captain Masters stood at the far side of the deck, his back turned away from the scene. Serena had spoken to him briefly when she and Mary Ann boarded the ship, and he’d seemed a friendly sort then. Now he appeared decidedly uncomfortable.

  “Captain, might I have a word with you?”

  His turned toward her as if coming out of deep thought, looking for a moment, unable to remember her.

  “I am Serena Winter . . . of the Society of Friends?”

  “Ah yes, what can I do for you, miss?” His gaze shifted toward the men shouting orders at the crowd. “You shouldn’t be on deck at the moment. As you can see, we are, ah, trying to do business here.”

  “Yes, I can see that.” Despite her training to be always moderate in speech, Serena couldn’t keep the disdain from her voice. “There must be a better way to procure indentures for these people.”

  The captain straightened to his full height, looking down his nose at her. “Young miss, you haven’t any knowledge in these matters.” His face turned gruff and red. “What do you want?”

  Oh, why hadn’t she held her tongue. She needed this man’s cooperation and riling him wasn’t going to help her cause. “I wanted to assure thee and these . . . buyers that the few in the hold are not able to travel. All but one have high fevers. That one is dead.”

  The captain started. “Dead, you say? Gad, what a stink down there! I’ll not be responsible! We’ve already docked, and I’m sick to death of this business.”

  Serena was not surprised. “Captain, perhaps we might help one another. If thou wilt assure me that those in the hold will not be moved, I will see to it that the dead man is properly buried.”

  A gleam lit the captain’s eyes. “A little businesswoman, are thee?” At the stressed “thee,” Serena gritted her teeth. The captain’s eyes narrowed, and she had the distinct impression he was trying to judge her figure through the plain, gray wool of her dress and the black, hooded cape. Serena withstood the insolent scrutiny, chin raised and waiting.

  “You are a pretty thing, aren’t you?”

  He reached out to touch her cheek, but Serena blocked his hand, leaned toward him, and took the tone of a mother admonishing a child. “Captain, I have come here to help the sick and the starving. One would think that thou wouldst know better how to take care of an investment.” Her voice was quiet, peaceful even, just speaking plain truth in a way that he could do nothing but acknowledge. “Now, about those in the hold, do we have an agreement?”

  The captain sighed heavily and nodded. “Sorry, miss.” He pressed his lips together as he watched the soul-drivers dividing the indentured into groups. “I’m not exactly sure how I ended up in this business, you see.” He looked at Serena and gave her a tight smile, then turned brisk. “I have an even better deal for you, Miss Winter. Since you are so in love with the sick ones down there, I’ll sell the lot of them to you for half the price I’m getting from these soul-drivers. You can find them indentures. But I want them out by noon tomorrow.” Almost to himself he added, “They’ll probably be dead by then anyway.”

  With that announcement, he walked away, leaving Serena standing there, her mouth open.

  What had she done? She turned, then started when she found Mary Ann and Beatrice behind her. Mary Ann rushed over. “What happened, Rena? Are they going to take the sick, too?”

  “No.” She looked at Mary Ann wide-eyed. “I believe I have just bought the sick in the hold . . . or promised that the Friends would.”

  “What?” Mary Ann gaped at her.

  “It will be all right.” Serena assured, not at all sure that was true. She turned to include Beatrice. “We will see if we can find homes for them among the Friends until they are well, then perhaps we can help them find indentures.”

  Beatrice, a plump, round-faced woman with a gentle face, didn’t hesitate. “I will take Molly, the pregnant woman, home with me. She can stay until the babe is born and perhaps beyond that. I could use a helper, but I will have to discuss it with Foster.”

  Serena nodded. “Thank thee. That should help.” She turned back to Mary Ann. “Father will know what to do with the rest.” She hoped.

  It was nearly dark when the girls got back home, rushing to the kitchen where they knew they would find their mother at this hour.

  “Mother, thou wilt not believe what Serena has done!”

  At her younger daughter’s exclamation, Leah Winter, a pretty woman with light-brown hair and eyes, turned from the stove and looked Serena over with concern. “What has happened?”

  Serena shook her head. “We are fine. It is about the indentured, is all.” Serena shot Mary Ann a don’t-say-another-word look.

  Their mother nodded, smiling, soft wrinkles crinkling the skin around her eyes. “Good. Please wash up and set the table before I hear it, then. Thy sisters have been very spirited this afternoon, and I am running behind time. Father will be home any second.”

  The girls headed for the washbasin, knowing that doing anything else at this hour would be fruitless. Supper was always ready and waiting for their father the minute he walked in the door at six o’clock. It was a ritual not to be toyed with. And besides, they may as well tell the story to both during the meal.

  With six daughters—ranging from twenty-one-year-old Serena to Lidy, who had just turned four—their father, Josiah Winter, was rather spoiled. He was waited upon, doted on, and made to feel a king from the moment he walked in till he blew out the last candle and slipped into his cool, crisply ironed sheets. His wife ran her household like a well-commandeered ship where the simple, basic comforts of a clean home, wholesome food, and contented children were the rule, not the exception.

 
; Not that Serena’s father didn’t work hard. As one of the few silversmiths in the area, he was hard-pressed to keep up with the orders from a prospering society. Philadelphia was on the verge of becoming one of the major seaports of the world and its people were becoming rich.

  Serena and Mary Ann kept their silence as they took their seats and bowed their heads for thanksgiving. After two bites their mother turned laughing eyes to her husband. “I think the girls are bursting with news. Shall we let them tell it now?”

  Mischief sparkled in her mother’s eyes at the faintly alarmed expression on Serena’s father’s face.

  “What is it, girls? Did something happen at the ship this afternoon?”

  It took them both, with frequent interruptions and questions from the rest of the family, the length of the meal to tell the tale. At its end their father sighed heavily. “Those soul-drivers will reap their own reward and we will not spend valuable time discussing them and their evil practices. However, God has used thee, Serena, of that I have no doubt. Today, a wealthy gentleman came in and ordered a tea service. I was surprised that he paid in advance, but now I see that God has provided. We shall use the money to pay for the indentures.” He stood and told Serena to get her cloak. “We will start with the Isaacs and the Tromleys. I am sure we can find families to take in the sick and help them find work when they are recovered. Come, Serena.”

  Mary Ann bobbed up behind Serena. “Might I go too, Father?”

  He wrapped his other daughter in a hug and kissed her forehead. “Please stay behind and help thy mother put the girls down. We shall be late and thy mother looks tired.”

  No one argued with him; rather, the younger girls crowded around to get their good-night hugs.

  Serena and her father walked silently, side by side in the frosty air, to the homes of some of the other Friends. Philadelphia was peaceful at night, and Serena treasured any time alone with her father.

  “Tell me about the people and their conditions. I should like to know how best to place them.”

  Serena twisted her fingers together inside her warm wool muff trying to give an accurate picture of the pitiful plights she had seen. “There are seven women, but Beatrice took one home with her—the one expecting, which was so kind of her—so that leaves six.”

  Her father nodded, his face reflecting the white light of the moon. Serena couldn’t help thinking she’d like to paint him at this moment—the way the light of the winter moon made his face bright and pale, his blue eyes glowing with solemn purpose, the thin beard circling his chin. But she turned her mind back to his question.

  “One of the women has a son, Harry, who is three. They were mostly weak from starvation and lack of good water, though the child has dysentery and is quite thin. The other women should recover soon and be able to enter into their indenture. None require more than simple nourishment, I think.” She hesitated. Why didn’t she want to mention the duke? She ducked her head, watching her brown shoes slough through the snow as she thought of him and the name she had given him. It was so unlike her not to want to tell her father something.

  “And the others? There were men?”

  “Um, yes. Three. There was a fourth, but as I told you at dinner he was dead. Of the three, only one was very sick. He was delirious with fever. I did believe him close to death, and yet he showed a certain strength.” Shaking her head at her wistful tone, she looked up to her father who had stopped in front of the Tromley’s house.

  “The other two were sound, then?”

  “I believe so. They were all very grateful for the provisions we brought them.”

  “We should have no trouble placing them.” And yet, for all his confidence, there was disquiet on his face. And a look she’d never seen before.

  THE DREAMS CHANGED. Dark swirling voices tormented him; hot, sulfurous breath enveloping, melting his skin. His father’s laugh grew closer, gained ground upon his mind. It was so dark where his father now was . . . and hungry . . . hungry to grasp Drake’s coattails and pull him down into the pit. Drake floated in darkness, had been floating thus for as long as he could remember. Time ceased—there was only this suspended nightmarish dream.

  Then there was a voice. Soft and feminine, but with strength behind it. The voice beckoned him out of the darkness, calling, making him want to reach out for it. It too had a laugh, light and full of light. His father’s hateful cackle faded in that laughter’s easy victory. For the first time since the murder, he wanted swim to the top and live. He would see the owner of that voice . . . he would live in the reflection of its light and laughter.

  The darkness melted away into a bright nothingness.

  “OVER HERE.” SERENA brought the lantern around and held it up so her father could look at Drake’s face. At her father’s slight intake of breath, Serena swung around to look at his face, but it was hidden in the shadows of the dark hold.

  “What is it?” Never had she known her father to be shaken.

  “Him.”

  “Him?”

  They were speaking in low-toned voices, as the other occupants slept. Serena had already pointed out the other men, leaving the “duke” for last.

  “Last meeting, during silent worship, while my eyes were closed, I saw a man’s face.”

  A chill crept down Serena’s spine. “This man?”

  Her father nodded. “I am sure of it.”

  “What dost thou think it means?”

  Josiah shook his head, only asking, “Is he very ill?”

  Serena reached out and touched his forehead. It was still hot, but he was breathing deep and regular. “Yes, but he seems more at ease. I will give him more water.” She had left an extra flask of water and a tin cup beside the man’s bed in case he woke. Her father watched as she filled the cup and then helped her lift the man’s head so that she could coax him into swallowing.

  “We will take him home with us.”

  Serena turned her head to stare at her father. They had found more than enough volunteers to take in all the sick in the hold. Her father was paying for their indenture papers, and no one expected the Winters to bear this burden also. But something inside her soared, said this was right. “Yes, he will improve with our care.”

  Her father nodded. “I do believe he will. Now, stay with him while I go hire a carriage to take him home with us tonight. The others will be helped in the morning, but I will not leave here without him.” He nodded at her and left.

  Serena turned back to the man on the cot. He hadn’t swallowed much of the water so she tried to give him more. She shifted, sliding him so that his head lay on her lap. He didn’t seem interested in drinking and finally, after a few more attempts, she gave up. Stroking his hair back from his warm brow, she spoke to him in a soft, quiet voice, yearning for a response.

  The ship swayed and creaked beneath her feet, lulling her into a world of water and shadows. She stared into the darkness, something deep within her straining to find the shadow’s edges . . . places she’d never known existed. It called to her, making every nerve alive as Serena sensed something here with the two of them.

  Something incomprehensible.

  She looked down at the man. His face appeared different than the first time she had seen him, as if he’d fought some battle and won. A peacefulness stole over her, causing her to take a deep breath. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply. His scent filled her mind and her fingers began to glide through his hair, exploring the shape of his head, then his temples, then down to the sharp plain of his cheekbones. “Come back, my duke,” she whispered. “I have need to see thee fattened up and shouting orders.”

  Suddenly she felt a touch on her cheek. Caught in the dreamlike spell, she turned into the hand without opening her eyes. As she had done, he caressed her cheek. Now his thumb ran along the line of her jaw. When fingers touched her lips, her eyes fluttered open.

  “Your voice saved me.”

  His own was raspy and deep, but gratitude glowed in the dark pools that were hi
s eyes. And he was even more devastatingly attractive with them open.

  Serena drew a sharp breath, wanting to get up, both trapped beneath his weight and that of his words. “Thou hast been very sick.” She strained to right her senses. When she started to slide out from under his head, he grasped her hand with surprising strength.

  “Stay.”

  “I must not. My father will be back soon.”

  “Have we reached Philadelphia then?”

  “Yes. The others have already been sold. ’Tis fortunate thee wert so ill and escaped the soul-drivers, sir.” As she spoke, she slid out from beneath his head and refilled his cup. “Here, have another drink, and thou wilt hear the tale.”

  He smiled at her with such a look that she thought she might melt into the wood of the floor.

  “A long story, I hope. I would listen to your voice forever.”

  Heat surged to her cheeks, her gaze dropping to the floor. Her mind told her how inappropriate it was to behave like this with a complete stranger. And yet, it was as if other parts of her—her heart, her soul, her very skin—knew him as deeply as she knew herself.

  She told him about the soul-drivers, the others that were ill in the hold and the Society of Friends who were to take care of them. She told him about her conversation with the captain. He laughed, then, a deep rumbling sound that reached into her and then down to her toes.

  “And what shall become of me, ma petit chevalier? You said your father is coming with a carriage?”

  She blushed again and looked down at the lantern at her feet. She knew just enough French to understand he’d called her his little knight. “Yes. We will take thee home with us tonight, where thou wilt stay until thou art well. I would see thee well, sir duke.”

  The duke part had slipped out, as that is how she had been thinking of him in her mind, but the sudden glower on his face startled her.

  “Why would you call me that?” His voice was imperious and demanding.

  “Th-thou said’st it in thy fever while sleeping.”