The Duchess Read online

  “Until they kill her,” Claire said. “Do they kill her with a very sharp ax? I do so hope they are thoughtful in their method of killing the woman they have worshiped for five whole years. I’d hate to think of her being tortured.”

  “You shouldn’t talk about what you know nothing of.” He clenched his teeth together for a moment before continuing to tell her of his journey.

  At dawn they stopped at an inn and had an enormous breakfast. Claire yawned.

  “Why don’t you stay here and sleep, and I’ll go into the city and get Nyssa?” Trevelyan said.

  Claire merely smiled at him, but smiled in such a way that she left no doubt that she didn’t plan to let him out of her sight.

  Trevelyan sighed. “All right then, hurry up and finish. We still have a long way to go.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  They traveled until three in the afternoon, with Trevelyan telling her stories throughout the journey. He told of Africa and China and talked of the places he wanted to go. Only once did she feel any anger. He told how he’d gone into an African village where the chief had a great desire to see what kind of child would result from a union of black and white. So the chief had assembled twenty-five young women from his village and asked Captain Baker to impregnate them.

  “What did you do?”

  “I did the only thing I could under the circumstances.”

  Claire smiled. “You told him no.”

  Trevelyan’s eyes twinkled. “We were an hour late getting away the next morning.”

  It took Claire several minutes before she understood what he was saying. She started to ask him lots of questions, but she forced herself to keep her mouth closed.

  At three they stopped at an inn and Trevelyan hired two rooms for them. “We are near the city and Powell’s house. We’ll sleep until midnight.”

  Claire refused to go to bed until he’d sworn that he’d wake her and not leave her behind when he went to Powell’s house. After she had Trevelyan’s promise, she went to her room, so tired she could hardly remove her clothing. She dragged her nightgown over her head, then fell across the bed, too tired to even pull the cover up.

  When she awoke, she realized that it was dark outside but there was a bright lamp lit within the room. She rubbed her eyes and looked about her. Sitting on a chair at the end of the room was Trevelyan, a sketchbook in his hand, and hanging from a hook in the ceiling was her bustle frame.

  Claire rubbed her eyes again. Trevelyan was making a drawing of her bustle frame.

  “Sleep well?” he asked without looking up.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” She flung the covers back, got out of bed, and jerked the frame from the ceiling.

  “Interesting thing, that. There are some tribes in Africa that wear something similar, but theirs are made of grass. More of a basket than wire. Of course, in a pinch, the grass ones can be used to carry water. For the life of me, I can’t see a practical use for that.”

  “I am not one of your tribes to be studied.” She was standing near him, her eyes blazing.

  He looked down at her in her nightgown and smiled. “I’d like to study more of you than just your undergarments.” He glanced toward the bed. “We could postpone our visit to Powell’s for hours. Hours and hours and hours.”

  Claire stepped away from him. “You shouldn’t come into my room in the middle of the night. You should have knocked. You should have—”

  He cut her off because he didn’t want to listen to her. “How soon can you be ready? And don’t wear that thing.” He nodded toward the bustle frame. “We’ll probably have to go in through a window and it’ll never fit.”

  “I have to wear the frame. My dress is cut to go over it. Without the frame the dress wouldn’t fit properly and it would drag in the back.”

  Trevelyan gave her a cold look, his black eyes sparkling. “Don’t wear it.” He turned on his heel and left the room.

  Thirty minutes later Claire appeared downstairs wearing her dark green wool walking costume, with her bustle frame holding out the back of it. She also wore a look of defiance, one that told Trevelyan that she was ready for a fight that she meant to win.

  He started to say something but then shoved a pasty into her hand. “If you can’t get into the house it’ll serve you right. Let’s go.”

  Claire made him wait for her while she arranged with the landlord’s eldest son to deliver a package for her. Trevelyan didn’t ask her what she was doing and she didn’t volunteer to tell him.

  It didn’t take long to reach Powell’s pretty little Edinburgh town house with its bright red door.

  “Are we really going to break in?” Claire whispered.

  “Yes.” Trevelyan looked down at her. “You can stop now if you want.”

  Claire shook her head no, then took a deep breath and followed Trevelyan to the back of the house. “Well?” she said once they were at the back of the house. “What do we do now?”

  “We wait for Oman’s signal.”

  Claire sat down on the side of a little porch and didn’t say anything else. Within minutes came a noise that made her nearly jump out of her skin. It seemed that cannons were going off in the street in front of the house.

  “Now!” Trevelyan yelled above the noise and threw a rock at the nearest window. Before Claire could think what was going on, Trevelyan picked her up and shoved her at the window.

  Claire wiggled through the opening but then her bustle caught on the crossbar of the window. Without daring to look at Trevelyan she moved backward a bit, reached back to the frame and pulled it upward so it collapsed against her back. Still holding it flat, she finished moving through the window.

  Once she was inside the house, it was only seconds before Trevelyan was beside her. They were in a service room at the back of the kitchen and they could hear the noise in the street outside. Near them they could hear people, servants she assumed, moving about.

  Trevelyan took Claire’s hand and confidently moved through the dark house toward a narrow staircase. It was obvious that he had been in the house before and knew it well. Once they were upstairs, twice they had to flatten themselves in doorways to keep from being seen. Claire saw Powell hurry down the stairs as he pulled a dressing gown on over his nightclothes. She recognized him from the several photographs she’d seen of him.

  As the noise in the street continued, Trevelyan led Claire down a corridor of the upstairs until he came to a door at the end of the hall. It was locked. Trevelyan lost no time in raising his foot and kicking the heavy door in.

  The minute the two of them stepped inside the room, it was as though they’d entered another country. The large room was hung with gauzy silks of a hundred pastels. One color seemed to blend into another. There was a smell of sandalwood and jasmine in the air. Trevelyan didn’t seem to notice the surroundings, but Claire stood by the door and gaped. The floor was covered with expensive hand-tied silk carpets, one on top of the other, and through the draperies that hung from the ceiling she could see piles of silk-covered pillows.

  Trevelyan pushed the gauze curtains aside and made his way through the room, Claire close behind him. He stopped in front of her so abruptly that Claire ran into the back of him. She peeped around him to see what had made him stop.

  In front of him, kneeling on a fat cushion before what looked to be an altar, her hands clasped together in prayer, her head slightly bowed, was what was surely the most exquisite creature on earth. Claire saw only her profile, but the small features and the perfection of them was astonishing. Long, sooty lashes rested on a honey-colored cheek. Her lovely little nose made a perfect line down to her sculptured mouth.

  Claire stepped from behind Trevelyan and stared at the woman. She was small, smaller than Claire, but the sheer silk robe she wore did little to hide the delicate, womanly curves of her body. She was so still that Claire wasn’t sure she was alive.

  There was a loud boom from the street outside, followed by shouts, and the noise brought Clai