The Guardian Duke: A Forgotten Castles Novel (3 page)

He could be lying. Even if he didn't look it, he could be dangerous. The thought brought to mind her gun. She lifted it, hoping he couldn't see the rust in the dim moonlight, and pointed it at his chest. It would have been so much more fortuitous to have found some bullets to go with it. The soldiers eased back . . . assessing and reaching . . .

"Don't even consider it!" Alex flashed her best squint-eyed look of disdain at the soldiers, pointing the weapon at each of them by turn. If nothing else she did have experience brazening her way out of dire situations. Why there was the time she was caught red-handed camping out in the Yardley's barn searching for the ghost they swore was knocking about keeping them awake each night. And then the time . . . oh, wait. Now was not the time to be thinking of her debacles.
Task at hand, Lady Featherstone
, as if anyone around here ever called her that! She almost snorted.

"No need to fear, sir, so you may call off your hounds, though I am an excellent shot. It's just that I realized I don't even know your name. Can you prove your story of news?"

They stared at her for a long, slack-jawed moment, and then the smaller man in the middle reached into his pocket and pulled out a heavy packet of papers. He motioned toward them with his head. "My name is Michael Meade, secretary to the Duke of St. Easton."

Alexandria's heart sped up at the sight of the papers. The Duke of St. Easton? She shook her head, spiraling down, down, down. Something was wrong. This man hadn't come to rape and pillage in the usual way. No. Some dark feeling hovered and then wrapped around her shoulders, sending spikes of fear exploding through her head and down her back.

This man had come with another kind of destruction.

"My lady?" The man, Mr. Meade, took a step toward her, his arm outstretched toward the gun. "Are you Alexandria Featherstone?"

"What do you want, sir?" It took all the control she had to ask the question without a quiver in her voice.

"I regret to inform you that your parents, the Lord and Lady Featherstone of Holy Island, Northumberland, England, are, um, presumed dead. The Crown has awarded your guardianship to his grace, the Duke of St. Easton."

Dead? Alex gripped the gun tighter in a hand gone cold. It shook from the rusted tip, up her arm, all the way to her shoulder. Her breath came in little puffs. She shook her head.

"I would have known. I would have felt it." She shook her head again. "It's not true." The gun was so heavy. Fingers, arms, chest—everything went numb. She couldn't hold the gun any longer. She dropped it to the floor, where it promptly exploded with a massive sound and spun in a circle. Mr. Meade screamed.

With wide, unblinking eyes they stared in shock at each other.

Great heavens. There must have been bullets in it after all.

T
he silence was shattering.

Music. God help him, he missed it. His bits of heaven every afternoon had turned to a dark hole that sucked him further toward the edge. The days dragged on in hellish silence and in the most inner parts of him, he wondered if he would ever hear it again. What that life would be, he couldn't bear to fathom, didn't want to fathom.

It had been weeks since Gabriel had finished his breakfast as fast as may be, sent the doctor off to find the specialist of the ear, and then closeted himself in his library. He'd been a whirl of motion at first, gathering the men he trusted to look after his affairs, while putting about rumors that the Duke of St. Easton was preparing for a long journey. It wouldn't do to let his fellow investors and speculators discover a problem, especially an illness. No, that wouldn't do at all. So he closeted himself in his town house and tried to go about his day as best he could, as normal as he could, but he wasn't fooling those close to him. He could see it in their eyes—the pity. More alarming was the bleak despair of life without sound.

There had been moments, a few precious moments, when he'd thought he heard something. It was coming back. It would come back. Then he'd seen the special ear doctors—Saunders and Curtis—both blooming idiots as far as he was concerned. They'd poked and prodded, experimented with their metal contraptions and torturous devices, and then handed him a ghastly looking ear trumpet made of tortoiseshell.

"Only the best for a duke." Saunders assured him.

He looked at the man, not much older than he was, and curled his lip. He hated it. Hated putting it to his ear and leaning toward the person speaking. He'd even once been tempted to say
eh?
He bit off the word and nearly his tongue in the process instead. It made him feel old, even though when he looked into the mirror—short black hair, black brows over what some claimed were startling green eyes, a straight nose, a little too thin in his opinion, and two days' growth of beard on his face—well, he looked like the same confident man in his prime that he'd always been. The ridiculous-looking contraption hadn't worked anyway.

The best the doctors could do was to stare at him with their pinched lips and scribble out driveling sentiment. "So sorry, Your Grace. We don't know what to make of it. There appears to be nothing wrong with your ears." He'd sent them packing with sharp words much as if he'd been shooting bullets at their heels.

Nothing wrong with his ears! Gabriel slammed the book he was reading down on his desk. If there was nothing wrong with his ears, then why couldn't he
hear anything
! His mind screamed the question, but he really didn't know if he'd said it aloud or not. And he really didn't care. Let the servants pity him. It was why he stayed locked in this room, refusing to see anyone, even his cloying, meddling sisters and mother. The thought of his reportedly distraught mother brought a pang of regret to his chest, but he just couldn't bear it. He could not endure her grief—the wringing hands, the weeping, the feeling that all was lost for the family.

He felt the vibration of his throat as he growled like the panther he'd sometimes been compared to with his short black hair and green eyes. He was about to rise to pace again when he saw something white on the floor. He bent and picked it up. A letter, the letter from the prince regent. He flipped it open and reread it.
One hundred thousand pounds annual.
The Featherstone estate was well provisioned, it would seem. Who knew such wealth could be found in the northern climes of Northumberland, on a craggy island in fact. There must be investments. Coal? Shipping ventures? He would have to find out if the estate was to be administered by him until the girl married. His Majesty had not mentioned her age or situation, typical of the prince regent, but without knowing any details and unable to go himself, he'd been forced to send Meade after the chit. She could be a babe for all he knew, and what he would do with a baby or a child was more than he could fathom. Mayhap he could foist her off on one of his sisters.

Charlotte was the eldest sister, married and already tied down with four youngsters, but when he thought of the way they'd been as children, she always bossing him and looking at him with that stern-eyed, tight-lipped glare whenever he did something annoying, he shivered with the memory of it.

Then there was Mary, a sweet thing, shy and becoming. She was married but he'd always wondered if it had turned out a happy union. She seemed smaller, somehow, when Lord Wingate was about. She rarely spoke or smiled. It was something he should inquire about. He hadn't given it enough attention, and as head of the family it was his duty to see that his sisters fared well. Yes, he would give Roger a summons and have a little chat, put some of the panther's steady gaze on the younger man and watch him sweat.

The fact that he could not have that chat drove into him like a fist in the stomach. Oh, yes. He was
deaf
and
could not hear anything anyone said!
He growled again, tears pricking, balling into his throat until he could hardly breathe. He'd never known such frustration: stifling, choking, enraging . . . heart wrenching—he hung his head. He buried his face into his hands, holding on to his sanity with little more than a thread of reason.

Alexandria
.

Alexandria Featherstone. The name comforted him somehow, brought to mind a fairy creature from a world too brightly colored to ever be sad. He would concentrate on her and distract himself until his hearing returned. Stay focused on the task at hand.

She was most likely a child. Behind his closed eyes he imagined a pretty little girl, bright blonde hair and blue eyes with a laughing smile. She wouldn't know he couldn't hear her. She would smile at him and laugh at his attempts at humor and make his heart feel light enough to take another breath. He would not give her to Charlotte or Mary or even his youngest sister, Jane. Jane would be perfect for her as she'd only been married just above a year and was pining for a child from all accounts. But no, he would raise her himself. He would double her estate with careful investments, making her one of the wealthiest women in the world, and then he would find her a perfect match . . . and she would love him for it. She would love him just as he was.

Oh, God help me.

He had truly lost his mind with such thoughts. He wanted to lie on the floor and sob, but he couldn't do that again. He'd already shamed himself beyond the pale by lying in his great bed and very quietly crying into his feather pillows. Enough was enough.

He rubbed his face with his hands and sat back up. Maybe he would try fencing this afternoon. It was a face-to-face sport and might not be dependent on sound. The thought of a quick succession of parries and then the elegant thrust of attack with a turned-out wrist and forward hip thrust caused a rush of anticipation to course through him. Physical activity—that's what he needed.

He turned in his chair to see that the door was cracked open and his secretary had poked his head in. As soon as Gabriel made eye contact, Meade waved and motioned that he come in with raised brows. His secretary had proven skilled at making up signs Gabriel could understand, which should have made him happy, but it only made him more surly and embarrassed.

"Meade, you're back from the wilderness. Do come in."

The door opened a little further and to Gabriel's astonishment, his secretary made a slow hobble into the room with a wooden crutch.

"What the devil has happened to you?" Gabriel eyed the wide swath of white bandage on his man's left leg, just below the knee.

Meade grinned and sat down, reaching for the ever-handy "speaking book," as the special doctors of the ear had informed him it was called. After an interminable wait while he scratched away with the quill, Meade spun the page around for Gabriel to see.

I was shot, Your Grace.
He grinned again as if imparting happy news.

"Shot?" Gabriel knew his voice was thunderingly loud. The doctors had warned him about the habit of shouting that many deaf people developed, but he couldn't seem to help it. "Who would dare shoot you?"

The grin grew wider and Gabriel wondered if he was dreaming.

After some more scratching he leaned over to read the identity of the scoundrel who had the audacity to shoot the best man in his employ.

Alexandria Featherstone, sir. She has quite an arm, if I may say so.

The image of his golden-haired angel-child popped with a mental bang. "Alexandria Featherstone
shot
you?" Gabriel gestured toward the book. "Tell me everything."

Mr. Meade nodded, seeming eager to comply as he dipped the quill. After a short amount of time, he turned the paper around and pushed it in front of Gabriel.
I have something for you to read while I'm writing down the tale.

He reached into a satchel and pulled out a cream-colored paper, handing it over the desk. Gabriel grasped hold of it and flipped it over. A seal. An unfamiliar seal pressed into the wax with a lion's head opposite an eagle's head, roaring and screeching, two crosses on either side with a banner overhead that read something he couldn't quite make out from the faded Latin text. The Featherstone seal? In all of England's heraldry, he'd never seen anything like it. They were an odd, old family indeed. He pulled out the paper and opened the note. The handwriting flowed with long, elegant slashes of black ink. Feminine. Dainty, yet resolute somehow. Pointed then rounded, dotted and crossed at just the right angle.

He exhaled as the beauty of the script hit his gut and then he flushed, his face filling with heat. A sweat broke out on his temples and he pressed the bridge of his nose with his fingers.
Stop being foolish.
But he couldn't deny that something within him loosened at the sight of it, the same kind of response he had to . . . music.

He took a steadying breath and began to read:

Dear Mr. Duke,

Had she really just called him
Mr.
Duke? Gabriel shook his head and continued on.

First of all, I do apologize for shooting your secretary. We have visitors so rarely here, you see, and well, I'm a bit discomfited to admit it, but I thought he might be a pirate out to "rape and pillage"—that sort of thing. Yes, I know, very addle brained of me. After getting to know him, a more kind and considerate man does not exist, I am sure (and it was an accident!), so please accept my heartfelt apology. He has assured me he is already on the mend and holds no ill will against me, for which I am eternally grateful.

Second, as to the news. I do not for an instant believe my parents are dead. I daresay HRH shall feel the veriest fool when they show up here on Holy Island, good as new and having solved their latest puzzle. They are socialites who travel the world with a flair for mysteries and are rarely to be found at home. Years (and I mean years) would have to go by before I believed them so ill fated.

Gabriel had to pause here and wipe the shock from his face before Meade saw it. Hoping he hadn't made a sound to give away his astonishment, and from the looks of Meade's scribbling quill he hadn't, Gabriel continued reading.

Thirdly, I beg you, most esteemed Duke, to leave me be! I will not be ripped away from my home like chattel by the likes of you! That is, I have been perfectly fine here for my entire life