Birdie and the Beastly Duke by Sofi Laporte

Chapter 18

Gabriel leaned with one arm against the fireplace as he stared into the fire.

He, too, had taken a bath, and his hair was still damp. He wore a dark-blue coat and breeches and looked every inch a duke. Pride swelled in her. Despite his protestations of not caring, when there was need, when there was an emergency, he’d stepped in like the leader he was, without hesitation. As she always knew he would.

“You won’t believe it, Gabriel,” she said as she rushed up to him, “but I do believe the villagers are plotting against us. Did you notice that there were no servants at all earlier in the morning? That is, aside from Eilidh, Ally, and the cook. I thought at first it was your terrible reputation as the castle beast, scaring everyone away.”

Gabriel looked at her, a serious expression in his eyes. He was not smiling.

“I was joking, of course.” She lifted his hand and kissed it. “It is a terrible joke, Gabriel. You know I love you dearly and wouldn’t want you looking any other way?” She smiled.

He recoiled as if she’d hit him.

“Gabriel?”

He took her face in his hands. She lifted her mouth for a kiss, but he merely looked down on her. “You are not hurt, are you?” he asked abruptly.

“No. Not a scratch.”

“When I saw the fire, I believed you were in the building.” His voice shook.

“I know. Poor man. But I was in the village when the fire started.”

“Why did you go down to the village?”

“To look for the children. As I said before, no one was here this morning. Didn’t you notice? It was so very odd. What is the matter, Gabe?” He was behaving in an odd, aloof manner.

He let go of her hands and paced. “Someone set fire to the school. It wasn’t an accident.”

“I can’t think why anyone would do such a cruel, senseless thing.”

“Sit down, Birdie.” He led her to the sofa. She sat down and looked up into his serious face. “The fire was an attack against the Duke of Dunross.”

Birdie looked at him sceptically. “Do you think so? But who would do such a terrible thing? And why?”

“The people here have little love for the Dukes of Dunross. The old duke wasn’t a good man. He chased people off their land so he could turn it into pastures for sheep. He burned down their houses. People are naturally wary of being connected with me, or you, or anyone up here. Even if you mean well.”

“Gabriel! That is positively awful. I’ve heard of the clearances, and it is terrible. But that was the old duke. You are the new duke. You can change things. It is in your power to do so. I would go as far as to say that it is your duty to do so.”

“The entire place is in more debt than you can possibly imagine. There is nothing I can do.” Gabriel dragged his hands through his thick hair. “There is not much point to it, either.”

“There is nothing you can do? Or is there nothing you want to do?”

“This entire discussion isn’t about me, but you. Birdie.” He was pacing in front of her, and Birdie had the impression that with each step he took, he was transforming more and more into a stranger. “You cannot eradicate century-old hostility by inviting their children to a new school. Especially if the teacher is the duchess herself. Has it ever occurred to you that this attack was specifically targeted against you? It was a warning. The next time, they will target you directly. You will get hurt.” He drew in a shaky breath.

Birdie shook her head. “I won’t believe it. I can’t. What offence can someone take to having someone teach their children? We have set up the school together. The women, themselves, asked me to do it. They helped me. Why burn it all down again?”

Gabriel pulled a hand over his neck. “I don’t know, Birdie.”

“I believe if one tries hard, one can build connections and eradicate hostility.”

He smiled tiredly. “You have wrought miracles in this place, do you know?” He looked around as if only now, for the first time, seeing the dining room. “You have turned a place of dust and stone into proper living quarters.” He shook his head with a small smile. “You even set up a bloody school.”

“With the help of some women,” Birdie said. “Not everyone rejects us.”

“Birdie. This can’t continue.”

“What?” She blinked at him.

“The villagers are no doubt right. The children have no place up here. The old school needs to be repaired and it will be seen to.” He sighed. “They should not come up here to learn.”

“But I had the impression you enjoyed it when they were here.”

Gabriel shook his head as if that wasn’t relevant. “What happened yesterday was a mistake. It should never have happened.”

“I am sorry that I did not ask you beforehand about teaching the children in the library.”

“I am not talking about the children. I am talking about,”––he lifted a helpless hand––“afterwards.” A dull red hue covered his cheeks.

He was not simply referring to the children. He was referring to them. She felt the blood drain from her face.

“No,” she whispered.

“Don’t you understand?” The words tore from his mouth. “Everything! This infernal responsibility. Now the fire. You. You deserve so much better. I am too bloody damaged for this. I am a broken man. I will drag you down into my personal hell. I’ve already done so. I have no right to do this. No right at all. I should never have told you all this. Now you are in danger—” He choked. Then he stood up with determination, a hard look in his eye. “I can’t be the person you expect me to be. I am sorry.”

With that, he walked out of the room.

Birdie remained sitting in her chair, frozen, feeling like she had entered her very own Waterloo.

After what feltlike hours of endless crying, Birdie got up, dried her eyes, and concluded that Gabriel simply didn’t love her. He didn’t want her. There was nothing to be done. No amount of crying was going to change that fact.

Why should that be such a surprise? It was a discovery that fit neatly into everything else that life had taught her so far. She’d tried, throughout her entire life, to earn other people’s affection. Starting from her family, her parents, her siblings, her teachers, yes, even her friends. She’d attempted to do so by being the perfect daughter, the perfect pupil, the perfect friend. Even now—the perfect wife. One who cleaned, cooked, and managed everything. If she tried hard enough, she reasoned, people would like and accept her. She’d sacrificed everything, her own dreams, her own self. For what? For love? For one kind word?

What had she received in return? She’d been taken for granted by all and sundry.

And Gabriel?

She knew in her heart that the man was capable of great loyalty and love. There was a tenderness, kindness, and decency in him that made her heart hammer. The way his eyes lit up unexpectedly when he smiled one of his rare smiles. Or when he looked at her with a wry smile, like he really saw and understood her. With Gabriel, she felt she could be herself. Ironic, given that he believed her to be someone else entirely.

She’d grasped the opportunity to marry Gabriel with both hands. Yet the entire situation was based on deception. The biggest deception, however, had been towards herself. She’d begun the same game she’d played before: if she tried hard enough, he would see value in her and love her.

Well, things didn’t work like that. Love didn’t work like that. She wasn’t about to beg or grovel for his love. She could not fix whatever was broken in him.

It was not her responsibility to do that.

With sudden clarity she realised that, maybe, it had never been her responsibility to fix anyone in her life: her mother after her father died, her sisters, her brother. Maybe, deep down, she’d believed she was responsible for her father’s death. She stared blindly at the dark blue bed curtains.

“I am not,” she said out loud. “I was never responsible for any of it.”

The hard knot inside her she’d carried around for years loosened. Tears washed it away, and she felt a release.

For the sake of her conscience, she needed to come clean about her deception. She’d tell Gabriel about the real Cecily Banks. Then she’d pack her things and leave.

Resigned,Birdie went down to the library. She collected her things with tired movements, placing the books that she’d used to teach the children on a shelf. She picked up a piece of chalk from the floor.

And froze.

Once more, she bent down to the floor.

There it was again. The cold stream of draughty air did not come from the window, for the window was shut and the curtains were drawn. The door was on the left. This cold stream of air came from the other side.

She followed it to the bookshelf. She remembered how, on the first day after her arrival here, she’d felt that there was something odd about this library. She’d found it strange that half of the bookshelf was dusty, almost white with dust, whereas the other half wasn’t. When she followed that cold stream of air, it led straight to that ever-clean bookshelf.

Her fingers touched the shelves, tracing the wooden board, the bookends, and found that they felt strange. They weren’t leather. She knocked on a book spine. It was wood. An entire row of books consisted of a hard wooden façade of bookends that blended in perfectly with the rest. She pulled on it and heard a mechanism rumble.

The bookshelf slid open without a sound.

Birdie held her breath as she looked down a dark passage. She quickly fetched her candle. The musty, cold, wet smell that wafted up told her that this must be the entrance to the dungeons. Common sense told her it would be a better idea to wait until the morning. But Birdie was in a peckish mood and decided that common sense, or her interpretation thereof, had led her exactly nowhere in her life. Neither had her desire for adventure, but she would not philosophise about this. When a girl was in a medieval castle and had the opportunity to explore a dungeon at midnight, alone in a nightgown, with naught but a candle, naturally she had to precisely do that.

She followed the cold stone steps that wound themselves deeper and deeper underground. Where were they leading? What daredevilry egged her on? She followed a path that seemed endless. Soon, she was in a cellar; to the left and right were vaults with further corridors leading into what seemed a labyrinth of dungeons, but the main stairs twisted further down. Perhaps they led to a torture chamber or oubliette. There would be a dead-end eventually, with maybe a skeleton. Or two.

Her hands reached out to touch the wet stone walls for support as she stepped down. There was a familiar smell in the air. How can it be, Birdie wondered, that I smell the sea? She imagined that she even heard water lapping, but how was that possible? She was inside a building.

She slipped on the stairs, fell, grappled herself upwards, and clung to the slippery wall as she edged her way down. She saw a vague glimmer of light on the bottom.

Her curiosity grew.

She heard voices. Thumping and scraping. Footsteps. The same sounds she’d heard the first two nights in the castle, and then never again.

Birdie gasped when she realised she found herself not in the dungeons, but in a cave of some sort, filled with crates, boxes, and barrels. The ocean water lapped against the shallow shore, and boats were docked on what appeared to be a tiny indoor harbour. Was this still in the castle? Or were they outside?

Birdie suppressed another gasp when saw figures moving; she recognised them as the men from the village. They lugged barrels and crates, which they stacked up along the cave wall. One group of men unloaded goods, another took them and carried them out of the cave along a narrow path that led up to the cliffs.

“It was much easier when we could just carry ‘em up through the passage, through the hall, and store ‘em in the outhouses like we used to,” grumbled one man. “Then the lassie arrived and ruined all our plans. Now we have to unload them, upload them on another boat, row to another harbour, unload again. The work is threefold.”

“Aye. But after she nearly caught us, it ain’t safe.”

“The old man kens anyway and ne’er said a peep.”

The man dropped the barrel and wiped his forehead. “Aye he knows, and he don’t care, specially not with the whisky we give him. But the duke doesnae know.”

“The duke’s harmless. He doesnae give a tuppence ‘bout any of us.” The man set down a barrel with a groan and wiped his forehead. “I say, as long as he lets us in peace, we let him in peace.”

“Aye but e’s no fool, the duke. Logan shouldn’t have set the fire. Made the duke suspicious. Stupid thing to do anyhow. Near burnt his own bairn.”

Birdie gasped. Logan set the fire! Tommy’s father? Why on earth? She took an involuntary step back and stumbled against one crate.

The men froze immediately.

“Weel, weel, weel. What do we have ‘ere?” She whirled around, just in time for her to hear a clank. And then everything went dark.

Gabriel felt physicallyill when he saw the broken look in Birdie’s eyes. It was for the best; he told himself. It was better this way. But then, why did his heart ache when he’d heard her moan as he left the room?

“She’s better off this way,” he muttered as he paced. He tried to convince himself he was even doing her a favour.

The truth was, he’d felt a rush of icy terror when he’d seen the flames licking into the sky. When he’d realised she was inside the burning building, he had been certain he’d lost her. He hadn’t thought twice before charging after her and pulling her out of the inferno. Sudden realisation slammed into his gut. He’d go to hell and back to save her. He couldn’t bear it if something ever happened to her, if but one hair on her body got hurt. Earlier, she’d looked up at him with that gentle light in her eyes; she’d said she loved him and wouldn’t have him any other way, scars and all. The mere memory of her words caused sweat to break out on his forehead. He hadn’t felt nearly as terrified when he faced Napoleon’s entire artillery battery in all his wars combined. He’d felt an iron mantle of responsibility close over his shoulders, followed by the sick feeling of certainty that he’d doomed her. Because she loved him, he would end up hurting her. The irony, of course, was that to avoid causing her pain, he’d already done so. He wiped his brow with a shaky hand.

He left the room, not even knowing where his feet were leading him. He needed to make sure she was well.

She was not in the drawing room, and her room was empty. Her things were only half packed. He felt relief. Had she gone down to the village again?

He went to the library and stopped short. Birdie was not there, but the bookshelf was open. He stared at it, surprised. He’d heard about secret corridors in castles, so maybe it shouldn’t surprise him that there were some in Dunross castle as well. He peeked down the narrow stone stairs.

Birdie, of course, would’ve gone down all on her own. He swore under his breath.

As he descended the stairs, a sense of foreboding overcame him, of the kind he always felt shortly before the enemy attacked. Odd voices and sounds emerged from below. Blast it. He didn’t have his pistol. He crept between a stack of crates and the rock wall.

It looked like all the men from the village were here, lugging crates and barrels. Gabriel was shocked when he saw the reverend, McAloy, heave a sack from a skiff.

Fury rushed through him. If he’d only paid closer attention, he’d have seen the signs. How long had the old duke been dead? Five years. He hadn’t arrived here until last year. He’d been too walled up in his tower room to even notice what was going on right beneath this nose. Then Birdie had come prowling around the castle at night. Poking her nose everywhere. Refurnishing rooms—including the outer building.

The fire. Of course. It all came together.

The fire was meant to warn her away.

The entire village was complicit in smuggling, and Dunross castle was their smuggler’s den.