Chapter Two

What Had Happened Was

Frederica counted to three as she stood in her mistaken bedchamber. Fuzzy headed, trying to remember why she’d awakened in the viscount’s bed, she opened the curtains an inch, enough to see if his lordship had made it safely to the ground.

Romulus and Remus’s growls announced that he had. Hopefully, he wasn’t their breakfast. Though, it would solve one problem—Hartwell telling the duke about this mistake.

Smacking her aching forehead, she took a deep breath.

It wasn’t Hartwell’s fault she’d ended up in his bed, or that he didn’t want the consequences of being found with her any more than she did. Though she liked the man given to lectures, she didn’t want to force anyone to marry her.

No. No. No. She wanted a husband who respected her. One who could grow to love her—that was what she needed. That wasn’t Hartwell.

She waited by the window, even as Martica pounded on the door again. She had to see Hartwell’s tall form safe.

As the dogs grew quiet, she did see him hopping on the frost covered ground. She could picture him half-frowning as he tugged on his slippers, then running fast, so he wouldn’t be chewed up by the overgrown pets of the duke.

At least Hartwell was free. He wouldn’t be taking the duke’s baggage.

“Miss Burghley.”

Martica’s voice again.

“A moment,” Frederica answered, but her mind was still on the viscount, and she couldn’t move from the window. She fingered her lips. Awaking to his kiss, tucked in his arms, had frightened her.

But his kiss was awful. Dry. Very awful. Though, truthfully, she had very little to compare it with. Yet she did like his arms, big and thick, holding her like he’d feared she’d slip away.

Finally, Hartwell was out of her view, moving to the rear of Downing.

“Godspeed Hartwell. You deserve to be free.”

She tugged the curtains together and moved toward the door. The knocking became more panicked. She braced and opened the door.

Her maid stood there. Her gaze cut from left to right. “You’re alone in here, Miss Burghley?”

“Yes, Martica. I must’ve sleepwalked again. I’m quite alone.”

The young woman eyed the room again. She was similar to Frederica, a negress, but with no famed mother to speak of. Their positions would be the same if not for the duke’s claiming of Frederica, acknowledging her to the world as his daughter, because of a dying woman’s request.

Martica looked relieved, and air finally filled Frederica’s lungs.

“Just so glad you’re fine, Miss. I was so frightened when I saw the window. The duke has everyone in an uproar over it.”

Frederica wrapped her arms about her middle, but nothing could stop the trembles. “Martica, the duke knows about the window?”

“Yes, he’s in there now.”

That heart of Frederica’s, which had been contemplating her current compromising situation, dislodged and flew to her throat. “No. No. No.”

She dashed down the hall to her bedchamber. “Papa?”

The duke was at the broken window, his quizzing glass out, he was examining the shards of glass scattering the tapestry along the floor.

“There you are,” he said in his rumbly voice. Tall, thick-armed, with a grandfatherly pouch of a stomach that only she and his valet knew of, and now his new duchess. “Frederica, this is terrible.”

He put a hand to his forehead, pushing at his blond hair, which held more ash than the volcanic cloud of 1816 and a hairline which had receded to a point of surrender. “My girl. This is horrid.” His tone, commanding and somber. Perhaps it held some concern. And his hazel eyes, so much like her own had turned full questioning gray. “How could this happen?”

“I don’t know, Papa.”

“You left my party early, Frederica.”

She folded her arms, getting more chills as she looked at the hole cut in the pane. “I wasn’t myself, so I went to bed. But you noticed me gone?”

“I notice everything, Frederica. You had words with Lord Hartwell. Then you stormed off to your room.”

Hartwell? Arguing with Lord Hartwell? They had teased each other so often this past year, but last night was a blur. She pushed at her temples. The dull ache in her brainbox made everything fuzzy. “It was surely a lecture from his lordship on something of little consequence.”

“He’s a bit of a talker when you get him going.”

What was the duke implying? She shook her head. “I don’t remember. I retired, but the noise of the glass breaking must’ve alerted me.”

He came next to her, his rich brocade robe—with fine gold threading that she’d sewn edging the lapels—flapped like a cape, or Caesar’s robe. “Try to remember. This is your room.” He flipped a lock of loose hair at her crown. “There’s a bruise on your temple.”

Wide-eyed, she moved to the mirror above her chest of drawers. A lump, a big purple-gray one hidden by her hair. Snippets of yesterday returned: the sparkle of the stained glass of the church, a cake with bliss icing, yards of lace edging her lilac gown, swishing at her feet, the hard pew she sat upon at St. George’s, watching the duke marry. “I must’ve hit it somehow. I remember the wedding, not much else.”

She put her hand on top of her chest of drawers, intent on getting her pins to do something with her hair, but her jewelry box, her mother’s jewelry box, was missing. “Papa, did you take it?”

“What are you talking about, Frederica?”

“The jewelry box, the one you gave my mother, the one with the gifts that she passed to me, things you gave me for my birthdays—gone.”

“I’ve taken nothing, Frederica.”

Her breath came in spurts.

“A thief? What do you remember, Frederica? Think on what happened in here.”

She closed her eyes for a moment. Her head was empty of images, but odd sounds were in there, echoes—the screech of a tool cutting glass, a voice, low and menacing, saying coming for you, dearest. “Papa, I think I heard something. I think I heard the thief cutting the glass. Then I fled.”

“A thief.” He folded his arms. “Where did you flee?”

“I must have sleepwalked again.”

“Sleepwalking and a thief. This would happen on the night of my celebration.” Steam seemed to pour from his nostrils as if he was a dragon. “You heard something, daughter. Why didn’t you cry out?”

Why didn’t she? Frederica clutched her bedpost to right her dizzy head. Perspiration fevered her brow, and she waited for it, the forthcoming accusation. That this was her fault. That she’d disappointed him again.

But she took a breath, gathered her wounded pride, and faced the duke. “Surely I must’ve called out, but who could hear above the noise of your guests? This is terrible, Papa.”

“Some thief entered my residence. Mine. This is preposterous.”

That was his concern? Someone came into her room, broke into Downing Hall through her window, took her mother’s legacy, and the duke was fretting about his house?

Frederica loved architecture, especially old limestone buildings like Downing, but someone violated her room, her space in the duke’s world. A window could be replaced but not her mother’s things, not the little presents her father had given Frederica for birthdays or Yuletide. “I’m dizzy, Papa. I might even be sick.”

The duke nodded then turned back to the window.

She stood draped in a blanket, hug-less before the man who claimed to know everything, and he hadn’t asked more of where she’d ended up. Unless he knew she was with Hartwell and didn’t care.

“I still can’t believe this. Burghley’s jewel box taken.”

The name he called her courtesan mother, the name the duke had made into Frederica’s surname. That well of self-pity that she reserved for lonely nights started to open up again and suck Frederica in whole. She grasped the bedpost tighter. “Yes. Outrageous. If I had stayed…if I hadn’t gotten out of this room…”

The big man came to her. He towered over her, but his thick arms—the ones she could count on one hand the times they’d ever embraced her—stayed inches away. “It’s good you left. You’re not hurt. But sleepwalking is dangerous, too. Where did you go?”

She released the bedpost. Reclaiming her balance, she focused on her pale blue walls. Calm like the ocean, at least like she believed it looked like from listening to the duke’s stories of his travels. Frederica stood up straight and owned the duke’s gaze, eyeball to eyeball. “Another bedchamber. Martica just found me.”

His thin lips pressed together. “That’s very dangerous dressed as you are. Put on your pink dress. We have the Lord Mayor and Canterfield coming.”

The command in his tone took hold of the little girl inside her, shredding Frederica’s boldness. She looked to the floor, at her safe tan tapestry, not the hard-to-please man. “Yes, sir.”

He lifted her chin. “I’m glad your peculiar habit displayed itself. I wouldn’t want you hurt.”

The witless child in her stared again at the duke. It was the closest he’d come in a long time to admitting anything that sounded like love. “Yes, Papa.”

The man patted her back then returned to the arm-size hole in her window. “This was cut open…on my wedding day.”

Maybe it was a man’s prerogative to be this devoid of understanding. She needed Theodosia and Ester to help puzzle this out. In her heart, she knew this wasn’t a mere theft. Something about this, something she couldn’t remember. What? She patted the bruise. Wondering how she could put up her hair so that everyone wouldn’t stare, she shrugged. “I’m sorry, Papa.”

“This is not your fault, my dear.” He held his eyepiece again, hunting for a clue to lead to the guilty.

But Frederica was guilty.

Her innards stewed. She remembered something about the window—a word…sweetest.

Coming for you, sweetest.

The newspaper advertisement for a husband. The mysterious person who’d been sending threatening notes, probably a suitor whom she’d rejected. Could he be the thief? No. No. Maybe. “Was anything else taken from the house, Papa?”

“The butler’s counting the silver as we speak. Burghley’s jewelry box is the only thing I know of. A lot of jewels and memories gone.”

All the proof of her parents’ great love and any connection Frederica had to her mother’s life had been stolen. Looking over to her chest of drawers, Frederica remembered holding the white alabaster box, clutching it the day she’d come to Downing to live. Her fears, every thought a ten-year-old girl could have, had been quieted by that box. And now it was gone. A tremble set into Frederica’s hands as sorrow filled her stomach so full she could vomit. “Yes, Papa. It’s all gone.”

The duke turned from the glass and stuffed his eyepiece into the pocket of his robe. “No getting weepy. You’ve been very brave until now. And all is replaceable. So, stay away from the evidence and dress in pink. My longtime friend, the Earl of Canterfield, will be stopping by with the Lord Mayor. You will entertain Canterfield at the pianoforte. He asks about you often.”

Of course, the duke’s lecherous brother-in-law would. “Papa, I know that you and…the Duchess of Simone want me settled.” She coughed at having to mention her father’s new wife. “But Canterfield’s not the one for me.”

“He’s an old friend, brother to my last duchess. He’s a good man, and I’m sure I know what’s best for you. And you must be careful, particularly if your sleepwalking has started again. I’ll be leaving on my wedding trip soon. The new duchess wants to go abroad. You’ll be alone, and I can’t have you so vulnerable in my absence.”

She willed her eye from twitching so Papa wouldn’t see how irked she was at how he thought Frederica incapable, like a child. Yet, she couldn’t complain. She knew she had to be careful, for her position as an acknowledged bastard was precarious, accepted by some, cut-direct or scorned by others. “Tell the duchess I won’t be a burden while you’re here or if you’re away.”

“I know you don’t want to be, Frederica, but things happen—like sleepwalking to bedchambers that aren’t your own.”

There was the accusation she’d been waiting for.

She gazed at him, wondering if he suspected she’d awakened in Hartwell’s bed. Or did he suspect, like others, that she was wanton like her harlot mother? “Like you said, Papa. It’s good that I left this time. Someone wanted into Downing through my room, took my jewel box. But let me dress. Pink, you said?”

“Yes.”

She opened the door and gasped.

A massacre.

Shreds of lace and satin and silk lay everywhere in her closet.

Her best gowns slashed, sliced up like lemon peels and scattered like flower petals.

Gasping, hoping air would reach her lungs, Frederica bent over. “Papa!”

“The thief is more a fiend.”

Stabbed bits of lace lay mangled in the ripped pieces of the tissue paper that had once cradled them. Someone did this. Someone had meant to hurt her. “It’s a gutting, Papa.”

About to faint, she sank to her knees, her sore knees. Then she remembered crawling for her life. “Not a thief, a message, a threat.” A sob started as she balled her hands over her head. She wanted to be asleep and safe again. “Papa. That’s hate.”

The duke pulled her up. “Listen to me, Frederica. Whoever did this will be dealt with. No one threatens the Duke of Simone and what’s his.”

The hardened tone made her spine solidify. Yes, she was forged in sin, but her mettle was strong, and her right to live couldn’t be denied.

She rose and clasped his lapels. “Someone did this on purpose. I didn’t dream it.”

The scowl on his face softened, but the embrace she desperately wanted never came, nor any assurance that he valued Frederica more than any other of his possessions, or his hunting dogs. Who was she fooling? The duke loved Romulus and Remus.

Sick to her stomach, aching like she’d been slashed in the middle, too, she fanned her face. “Papa, this man would have hurt me.”

“It was a bungled theft. A thief, Frederica.”

Like always, she couldn’t read that look in his eyes. Sometimes she wished she could. She released him and obeyed. “Yes, a thief.”

“One who dared to steal on my wedding day.” He turned to the open door. “Martica, I know you are skulking around outside. Come in here. Find something for my daughter to wear. Get her ready for visitors.”

The maid came inside, her mouth falling open as she stared at the closet. The girl gaped at the slaughtered remains of Frederica’s formerly resplendent wardrobe. “I’ll get her ready, Your Grace. I’ll find something.” She fished into the ribbons as if there might be hidden treasure.

There wasn’t.

The duke pounded from the room, leaving a shaking maid and his sickened daughter.

Frederica almost closed her eyes when she heard Martica’s whimper.

Thinking the poor girl had cut herself perhaps upon the weapon that had done this evil, Frederica scooped up the young girl.

Martica sobbed. “This fiend would have slashed you, Miss Burghley. You’re too good for that. Too good.”

Too good?

That sentiment clawed at Frederica’s heart. It was so hard, so very hard, to keep that hope on the inside. Her eyes felt hot and damp and ready to weaken with despair. But she couldn’t.

She’d been teaching Martica to trust, to lift her head, despite her circumstance. So, she held on to the little girl in a tighter embrace. “We’ll do as the duke said. You must help me get ready. We go on. Get thread. In the attic, there’s a trunk. It has the mourning garb that I wore for the king’s passing. We’ll make do.”

Martica wiped her dripping nose on her crisp white apron.

Frederica had found her—a cast off near Magdalen Hospital—just four months ago. Would this remind her of the violent streets? “We can do this, Martica. We will rise. No one’s going to hurt me. This culprit will be found.”

“If you say so, ma’am.”

Brave, bold talk. That was Frederica’s specialty.

But words were cheap, and when she was alone, Frederica reverted to what she was—a scared little girl in want of her father’s love. Would she die not knowing how much he cared? Such doubts were awful things to take to the grave.

From the look of her closet, she might be going very soon.