The Duke's Counterfeit Wife
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Louise Allen
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HarlequinChapter One
‘I do wish you would reconsider and travel by the Mail, or even take the stagecoach, Miss Parrish,’ Mrs Walgrave lamented. ‘You would be in Great Yarmouth in twelve hours and with snug inns along the way.’ She looked around at the grimy dockside in the early morning light, her sniff of disapproval eloquent.
The housekeeper’s hasty sidestep as a porter rushed by, pushing a loaded barrow, somewhat diminished her dignity.
‘Snug is not the word I would use to describe most of the inns I have encountered in my travels,’ Sarah said, reaching out to steady her. ‘I always become hideously queasy on the stage—and as for the Mail, why those springs are even worse than they are on a post-chaise. I enjoy travelling by sea and I do not suffer from seasickness—it must be all that fresh air. And it is half the price, into the bargain.’ Which was always a consideration.
‘Even so, goodness knows what insults and inconveniences might befall an unaccompanied young lady. All those rough sailors!’ The Tower of London, looming on the horizon through the early morning mist, added melodramatic emphasis to the warning.
‘Millie is with me and we will have a cabin to ourselves,’ Sarah soothed the housekeeper. ‘And Captain Barlow used to be one of Papa’s bosuns and Papa was always exceedingly careful about the men he employed.’
‘Yes, but goodness knows what depths the man has sunk to since your poor father’s sad demise.’
‘I cannot imagine why he should have sunk,’ Sarah said briskly, refusing to contemplate the reference to the bankruptcy of her late father’s shipping company and his subsequent suicide. ‘After all, Mr Barlow has been promoted to captain, has he not? He will look after me well, I am certain. Now, dear Mrs Walgrave, the ship is just around this corner. Let us say goodbye here, for I know you must get back to Golden Square before Mr Cardew arrives to take possession, and time is getting on.’
‘Oh, goodness, yes. I have to say, Miss Parrish, that I fear he is not going to prove to be an easy employer, so unlike our dear Miss Trotter.’
If Sarah needed evidence of that, then she had received it in the exceedingly curt note informing Miss Parrish that, as her employer was deceased, he, her nephew and heir, had no need for the services of a lady’s companion and she would oblige him by quitting the premises before his arrival in one week’s time.
She managed a cheerful smile. ‘Mr Cardew is certain to recognise exemplary housekeeping, Mrs Walgrave. Now, thank you again, for all your kindnesses to me. Goodbye!’
‘Goodbye, Miss Parrish, dear. You will write?’
It was clear that she was going to have to make a determined effort to leave, Sarah thought, or the anxious housekeeper was going to be standing here wringing her hands until the ship sailed. She leant forward, kissed the older woman warmly on the cheek. ‘Come along, Millie.’
Her maid, who had been standing patiently throughout the prolonged farewell, picked up two of their valises and Sarah took the others, one in each hand. The thump as she turned away, only to run straight into something immovably solid, jolted her off balance. A large hand gripped her forearm as she teetered.
‘I beg your pardon, ma’am,’ the immovable object said coldly, revealing itself to be tall, dark, male and irritated. Behind them Mrs Walgrave gave an anxious squeak.
‘It was entirely my fault, sir,’ Sarah said, returning chill for chill. ‘I was in haste to join my ship.’ He was still holding her arm and she glanced down pointedly at the gloved hand.
‘The Yarmouth Gannet?’ the man enquired. ‘I believe that is the only vessel moored at this end of the dock.’
‘Yes, it is. Come along, Millie. Sir!’
He released her arm only to wrest the bags from her hands before striding off towards the corner of the warehouse.
‘Sir.’ She hurried after him. ‘I can perfectly well manage—Oh! I have hurt your leg.’ She must have trodden on his toes, or kicked him when she walked into him, because he was limping.
‘No, you have not. Here is the ship. Allow me to go first, the gangplank is steep.’
Sarah told herself that the collision had been her fault and that if this rude man had an existing injury to his leg it was doubtless frustrating to have people comment on the fact. He was behaving like a gentleman—albeit a very boorish one—by helping her, she supposed.
She followed meekly up the gangplank, took his proffered hand at the top and jumped down to the deck. When she turned back to see if Millie was managing all right she found that a youthful manservant was helping her aboard. Presumably he was in attendance on the dour gentleman.
‘Morning, ma’am. Sir. Captain Lockhart.’ A stocky, middle-aged man with teeth yellowed by chewing tobacco and lank brown hair tied back into a straggling queue came forward, gesturing to a sailor to take their bags. ‘Miss Parrish and Mr Smith, is it?’
He eyed them quizzically and Sarah realised her hand was still resting on a sleeve of fine broadcloth. She snatched it away. ‘I am Miss Parrish, yes. And this is my maid.’
‘And I am Smith.’ The gentleman gestured to the silently waiting servant. ‘My man.’
Mr Smith? And I am the Duchess of Devonshire. I refuse to believe anyone with that accent, that arrogance and that nose is called Smith.
‘Where is Captain Barlow?’ Sarah asked, averting her gaze from that haughty profile.
‘You knew him, ma’am? Then you’ll be grieved to hear he’s dead. Fell off the dock here late last night. Drink taken, I fear. Very sad. Duncan, show Miss Parrish to her cabin.’
The sailor picked up two of the bags and she followed him, Millie close on her heels. They negotiated a steep companionway—her nautical jargon was coming back to her—and went a short way along a low, dark and odorous passageway. He opened a door, dumped the bags inside and jerked his thumb towards the stern of the ship.
‘Saloon’s along that way if you wants anything. Cook’ll have some coffee on the stove. Breakfast after we sail.’ He walked away, his bare feet slapping on the planks.
‘Rude bu—Er...bloke,’ Millie said. She was one of Sarah’s late employer’s charity girls, rescued from the local workhouse and given respectable jobs in the kitchen or as housemaids.
Once Sarah had managed to dissuade her from the worst of her colourful language she had proved to be bright and capable and eager for promotion to lady’s maid. And, fortunately, she had been more than willing to accompany Sarah to her new post rather than risk the unknown quantity of Mr Cardew. ‘We’re getting our share of ’em this morning, miss.’
‘We are,’ Sarah said, trying to sound amused about it. The sailor was an uneducated man in a tough world. His lack of address was easily understood and overlooked. But as for Mr Smith... For some reason the memory of a pair of blue-black eyes would not be erased. They had not been as cold as the rest of him...
She gave herself a little shake: it was wrong to allow one overbearing male to assume more importance in her mind than the death of poor Captain Barlow. She had known the sailor only by name, but nothing could erase the anxiety that perhaps his drinking, which must have led to the accident, had been a result of the collapse of Parrish Shipping.
‘I do not think we need go to the trouble of unpacking anything but the bedding.’ She gave the cabin a critical survey. Two bunks, one above the other, furnished with thin straw-filled palliasses, a stool, some nails banged into the bulkheads and a dubious-looking pail in the corner comprised the furnishings and, eyeing what passed for bedlinen, she was glad she had packed sheets.
‘If we hang this from those nails,’ she said, twitching the covering off the lower bunk, ‘we can place that bucket behind it.’
‘Yes, miss.’ Millie shook out clean sheets. ‘I thought sailors were supposed to scrub everything white. They could do with some well-trained housemaids around here.’
‘You are thinking of holystoning, and the top deck looked clean enough. Never mind. It must surely be better than being cooped up in a stagecoach with people whose acquaintance with soap and water is minimal and whose idea of a sustaining snack is a large onion as happened to me once,’ Sarah said.
‘Shall we see what this saloon is like?’ she suggested when they had finished their minimal unpacking. ‘I expect it is nothing more than a space with benches and tables that drop down on chains, but it might be more interesting than this cabin for our meals and there may be other passengers.’ Hopefully more congenial ones than Mr Smith. ‘Then we will go on deck: they will be casting off soon.’
They encountered the taciturn gentleman surveying the common room with an expression of distaste. He bowed slightly and continued his inspection. Two burly men who looked as though they might be traders of some kind were deep in discussion in one corner. They half rose at the sight of a lady, then sat again and continued their conversation.
‘Let us go on deck,’ Sarah said and turned back in the direction of the companionway.
A hatch had been opened halfway along the passage and a large crate or box, about three feet square and wrapped in canvas, was being manhandled down by a gang of sailors.
There was a volley of instructions from on deck. ‘Watch yourselves, you clumsy lubbers!’
Sarah put out a hand and drew Millie back into the slight protection of a cabin doorway as the box thudded to the deck, twisting slightly as it landed. A corner of the canvas caught on one of the iron brackets for holding lanterns and tore the stitches free along the length of one side.
The language from above increased in violence and Sarah slapped her hands over her ears, even as she peered at the damage, unashamedly curious. It was a well-made crate under the canvas, good wood tightly jointed with, on the top edge, a small branded mark made with a hot iron. R. B. & R., she thought, squinting at it. And was that odd lumpy thing a crown?
When the canvas was wrestled back in place, the men hoisted up the crate and made off down the passageway away from her, shuffling like crabs to move their burden in the narrow space.
Once their way was clear the two women went up on deck, found a small clear space by the rail and wrapped their cloaks firmly around them. Ropes were being cast off and sailors in a large rowing boat struggled to get the Gannet’s prow out into the flow. There was always something to look at on the river, Sarah thought, an almost forgotten contentment stealing over her.
‘The tide’s with us and will carry us down until there is wind for the sails,’ she said, half to herself as she inhaled deeply. The familiar smells of tarred rope and bilge water mingled with the scents wafting from the warehouses—the exotic perfume of spices and tobacco, the greasy smell of wool, the clean scent of sawn timber. Her father would have been able to tell exactly where they were along the length of the docks, simply from the air around the warehouses.
She had stood like this too many times to recall, close against her father’s side as one of his ships had slipped into the Thames and made its way to the ocean. He had taken her aboard when she was only a week old, he had told her on her sixteenth birthday. ‘The business will be yours one day, Sally girl.’
Her mother had died at her birth and Papa had never seemed to have the heart to consider marrying again, even though it meant he had no son to inherit the business.
On her seventeenth birthday they came to tell her that he had shot himself at the firm’s offices, just minutes before the bailiffs arrived, and that his business manager, Josiah Wilton, had vanished, taking their best ship, sending orders that diverted the rest of the little fleet to goodness knows where. All the cash and bonds in the safe went with him. Sarah had been on her own then. No family, no money, only debts. Everything had been sold to meet them: their home, the warehouse, Mama’s pearls...
Sarah blinked away the tears that were blurring the view of the crowded riverbanks sliding past. She had survived then, found respectable employment as companion to a very distant relative, and now, five years later, almost to the day, she was bound for a new position, one that Cousin Eliza had arranged when she had realised that her heart was failing her. She could survive again. No, more than that: she would thrive because now she was older, more confident, more certain of herself.
Norfolk would be a stimulating change of scene and Mrs Gladman was, by the evidence of her letter, a busy person, the widow of a small landowner in Acle, a village not far from Great Yarmouth where she took, so she wrote, a great interest in parish affairs. She was very fortunate, Sarah reminded herself, yet again. She would not repine and she would enjoy her new life. Of course she would.
‘I’d say that gentleman looks like someone who’s lost a crown and found a farthing,’ Millie whispered as Mr Smith walked past. The slight halt in his gait did not appear to hamper his balance as the little ship danced across the wake of one of the new steam tugs that bustled noisily through the choppy water of the Pool of London. ‘But he’s so top-lofty I reckon he wouldn’t even know what a farthing was.’
‘Hush now,’ Sarah warned. ‘He’s coming back.’
Nick paced back along the deck, resenting the nagging ache in his thigh and cursing the likelihood that two days at sea would probably make it a lot worse. But he had the need to see for himself just what the passenger accommodation was like on these coastal vessels. The answer appeared to be that it was appalling, if this one was any indication. At least the experience was helping him clarify his thoughts.
‘Miss Parrish.’ He stopped next to the women. ‘I strongly recommend that you move away from the side. The motion of the vessel can only become more marked the closer we get to the estuary. This is not some Ramsgate pleasure steamer designed for passengers.’
The foolish female had perched actually on the rail, one hand carelessly holding a rope that descended from the mast to a fixing on the side of the ship.
Not rope. Shrouds—that was it. An appropriate name under the circumstances.
‘Thank you, Mr... Smith.’ She spoke coolly and did not stir, merely regarded him with eyes the colour of good sherry. ‘My sea legs are very good. I have been on the deck of smaller craft than this in a storm.’
‘Parrish,’ he said, suddenly struck by why the name had seemed familiar. ‘Your father—’
He got no further. Miss Parrish stood up. ‘My father is dead, sir. Come, Millie, we will walk a little so you can learn to keep your balance before we reach the sea.’
And that put me firmly in my place. It was a novel experience and one he did not enjoy, Nick realised. The fact that he had been abrupt and intrusive and fully deserved a snub was no help to his mood. Was Miss Parrish indeed the daughter of Richard Parrish, whose career he had recently reviewed along with other merchant fleet owners? It seemed she was, to judge by her reaction. If so, she had every excuse for not wishing to discuss her father. He had been either the innocent dupe of a dishonest employee or an inept fraudster, depending on who you asked.
He remained on deck, leaning against some of the cargo stowed under tarpaulins at the stern while the Gannet turned her prow into the wide waters of the estuary. The morning light glinted on the mudflats of Canvey Island on the port side. Here the clean tang of salt was dominant, the stinks of the Pool of London left far behind them.
At last Miss Parrish and her maid walked back from the prow. He heard her mention the Isle of Grain and Sheerness and then remark, with a gurgle of laughter, that it was time to sample the delights of whatever was on offer for breakfast.
A handsome young woman, if one appreciated that kind of tall, self-assured directness, very unsuited to her single status. She had a straight nose, apparently designed for looking down, and arched brows, one shade darker than the coiled hair that showed under the plain and unflattering bonnet. His fingers twitched with the urge to pull it off her head and toss it into the water. And then there were those assessing sherry-coloured eyes: definitely her finest feature.
He gave the women a minute’s start, then followed them down to the deck below and along to the grandly named saloon, pausing to bang on the door of his cabin as he passed. Pendell, his valet, had expressed some concern about seasickness and was doubtless flat on his back with his eyes closed, but Nick suspected that a full belly would help the young man more than lying braced for the first twinge of nausea to strike would.
The saloon appeared no more inviting on the second inspection. Essentially this deck had simply been divided up into boxlike cabins, leaving a virtually bare open space for communal use. Nick nodded to the two other passengers, the men he had assessed as merchants, and took a place at the end of the board at which they were seated. The two women were at the other board, heads together in quiet conversation, and did not look up when he sat, but the maid glanced up when Pendell entered, gave him a saucy smile, then looked away, a healthy colour in her cheeks.
‘You appear to have made a conquest,’ Nick said drily.
Pendell wrinkled his freckled nose. ‘She’s a silly young chit, sir.’
‘Not so much younger than you,’ Nick observed. Pendell’s uncle had been his valet until a heart attack had led to the man’s retirement. He had recommended his nephew to replace him and Nick was still deciding whether to be amused or irritated by the young man’s attempts to appear twenty years older than his true age.
A pewter jug was banged down on the board in front of them along with two thick china mugs and two tin plates. A scrawny lad of about ten followed the sailor, dumping handfuls of knives, forks and spoons, all of them slightly bent. The sailor returned balancing three larger plates, one for each pair, and deposited those, then he and the boy vanished into whatever hole they had emerged from.
Pendell peered at the food. ‘What is it, sir?’
‘Herring,’ Nick diagnosed. ‘And bacon—I hope that is what it is—with some kind of beans and either a piece of the deck or possibly bread. Get it down you, your stomach will thank you for it.’
It was more likely to come straight back up again, but he speared a rasher of the bacon, slapped it on the bread and took a bite. It took a while to chew. ‘Probably bacon. Go on, eat.’
‘Sir.’ Pendell chewed valiantly and eventually remarked, ‘The herring tastes better than it smells.’
‘One can only pray for bread and cheese at midday,’ Nick said, braving what he could only assume was supposed to be coffee.
There was a muttered, ‘Amen,’ beside him.
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