The Duke and the Lass by Jessie Clever

Chapter 15

He did not know what he was doing there.

He stood outside of Grimsby and Sons on Shoreditch High Street and wondered if he’d completely lost his mind.

Shoreditch was not Whitechapel, but he looked around uneasily. This part of London was a working man’s place, and Andrew felt wholly inadequate to be here. He watched the tradesmen filter into the mill buildings surrounding him, their tools carried in bulky wooden crates or strapped to them in the pockets of their leather aprons.

Andrew didn’t deserve to be here. He wasn’t like these men who had spent years honing their craft.

But more, he shouldn’t have left Della.

He wasn’t sure why he had done it. Perhaps it was Ben’s news from Yorkshire that had quelled the urgency in him. If the MacKenzie were still in Yorkshire when Ben and Johanna had left, it wasn’t possible for him to be in London before the end of the week, and something Della had said had been bothering him like a sore tooth.

Why didn’t he make furniture? Why did he only repair it?

He had told her the truth. A true craftsman must dedicate himself to his art, and Andrew had never had such luxury. He had his sisters to protect and now his wife.

He shouldn’t be standing outside of one of the finest manufacturers of furniture in London.

But he couldn’t get his wife’s voice out of his head.

He wanted to make her proud.

The thought came out of the void, but he knew it had been lingering there for some time. Probably for as long as he had suspected he’d fallen in love with Della.

It was a terrible thing to fall in love with one’s wife, but he’d watched her grow and change over the past several weeks, and he had never admired anyone quite so damn much in all his life. She’d faced challenge after challenge head on, and not only survived, but flourished.

She made him laugh with her spirited ways and her childlike innocence. She made him burn with desire, and he hadn’t slept so well in the course of his lifetime than he did when she was safely tucked into his arms.

He rubbed the back of his neck now and scraped his booted foot impatiently against the pavement. This was absurd. He should have St. John drive him back to Mayfair at once. He was only an impostor here.

He peered up at the white letters painted across the dusky red bricks of the building, declaring it the home of the foremost makers of fine furniture, and Andrew thought his chest might twist until he could no longer breathe. It was a falsehood. He wasn’t a furniture maker. He merely tinkered with the stuff. He couldn’t think to…

But Della believed he could.

The thought had all others quieting, and now when he looked up at the building, he felt nothing. There were no voices in his head telling him he couldn’t do this. That he shouldn’t do this. There was only the solid assurance of his wife echoing in his head.

He climbed the stairs two at a time and entered the building before he could change his mind again.

* * *

Never in herlife had Della been so grateful for chamber pots.

A cart carrying a load of chamber pots had overturned on its way into London on the Great North Road. The cart had spilled its contents clean across the road. Crates had split open, spewing pottery everywhere. Traffic was being diverted as the men transporting the pots scrambled to clean up the mess.

As it was, it couldn’t have been less than an hour before they managed to free their carriage from the melee and get turned around to bypass the wreckage of pottery and wood.

The sun was beginning to set by the time they gained the Great North Road once more. Her father was well into his bottle of liquor by the time London began to fade away, its tall buildings and structures replaced with farmland and the occasional posting inn.

Della closed her eyes and leaned her head against the side of the carriage.

It was too late.

Either Eliza had not received her message, or she’d been unable to locate Andrew or anyone else who could stop her father.

It was hopeless now.

“Do ye know why I married yer mum?”

She opened her eyes and took in her father. His nose was pulsing red, and she knew it was not from the cold that had seeped into the carriage. She tightened her arms about herself, refusing to shiver if only to keep him from knowing how cold she was.

“I think I do not care why you married her,” she said flatly.

Her impudence startled him and his eyes widened, but then he let out a raucous laugh.

“I say, lassie. Yer more like yer ol’ da than ye realize.”

This thought had her closing her eyes again.

But they opened in seconds when the carriage suddenly careened toward the side of the road. Shouts came from outside, and her father lost his grip on his bottle. The thing dropped, shattering against the floor of the carriage as liquor erupted into the shaking conveyance. Della’s hands shot out as she tried to steady herself. The smell of alcohol was making her sick, and she strained to hear what was happening outside.

Had Andrew come to save her? Was it one of his brothers-in-law?

But then through the commotion, she heard a crisp, clear voice call out. A decidedly female voice.

“Stand and deliver!”

Della reached for the door the second the carriage jostled to a stop, but her father’s hand shot out, knocking her backward and away from the door. He stumbled out first, and she heard rather than saw him hit the gravel of the road.

“Wha’s the meaning of this?” He was slurring now and coupled with his thick accent, his words were likely meaningless to someone who wasn’t used to his speech.

Finally Della made her way to the door only to freeze at the sight that greeted her.

Johanna Carver, the Duchess of Raeford, wore trousers.

This was the first thing Della registered. She rode on horseback, her hair loose around her shoulders, a hat forgotten at her back. Something primal soared inside of Della at the sight of another woman so brazenly defying customs that restricted the female sex, but she hadn’t time to linger on the thought.

A carriage had rolled to a stop opposite them, and before the horses had thrown back their heads in a settling shake, the door flew open, and Louisa Fielding, the Duchess of Waverly alighted.

“Give us back our sister,” she cried even as her feet hit the gravel of the road.

Della watched her father sway on his feet.

“See ’ere!” He held up a finger, and the assembled women waited for surely there must have been more to Della’s father’s speech than that. But there wasn’t. Her father dropped his hand and stared at it as if he’d forgotten he had such an appendage.

Della shook her head and stepped down from the carriage.

“Louisa,” she said, catching her sister-in-law’s attention.

Louisa’s face relaxed the moment she caught sight of Della. Picking up her skirts, Della picked her way across the gravel, the hard stones biting through her thin slippers.

Her father’s hand shot out and grabbed hold of her upper arm. He had been swaying on his feet so much, she hadn’t expected the sudden movement, and it startled her. She tripped, knocking into her father so she ended up in his arms. They wrapped around her like steel bands, and the air shot from her lungs. She coughed, black dots filling her vision.

How careless.

He might have been drunk, but he was still bigger and stronger than she was. And now he held her captive. While her sisters had been smart to run the carriage from the road, they were no match for the sheer brutal strength of an irate Scotsman.

Unless…

Della let go. She released all the tension from her muscles, sagging against her father. He hadn’t been expecting it, and he fell backward, struggling to hold up her weight.

“Bloody feckin’ Christ, ye son of a—”

Della smiled. Right there on the road to Scotland, captured in her father’s embrace as he tried to haul her away, she smiled. For once in her life, her size had been a boon in her favor.

He scrambled, both to regain his grip on her and to maintain his footing. But something else happened then. Just as Della was sure he would find his grip once more before she had a chance to break free, he let out a gut-wrenching scream of agony. His arms disappeared from around her, and she fell to the ground hard. She heard a ripping and knew the gravel of the road had pierced her new gown. She felt a moment’s pity for the darling dress, but then her instincts screamed at her to run.

She tried to gain her feet, but the gravel tore through the paltry fabric of her slippers, and she fell again.

But then hands were on her. Gentle ones. Strong ones. Lifting her to her feet at the same time they tossed a warm, thick blanket about her shoulders.

Eliza.

She must have been in the carriage too. She pulled Della away from her father as he continued to scream and splutter in the middle of the road, his arms flaying in Louisa’s direction even as the woman had deftly sprinted out of his reach.

Della tried to make sense of what was happening. Her father clutched the meaty part of his upper arm, and even from where she stood, she could see red oozing between his fingers.

“Ye bitch!” he cried. “Ye would stab a man with a knife like that.”

Louisa’s smile was nearly feral as she held up the long, slender implement in her right hand, its shape unmistakable. “It’s a hatpin actually. Quite handy, isn’t it?”

The MacKenzie spluttered and gaped. “Does yer husband know what yer about with that thing? He’d ’ave a mind ta—”

“Who do you think gave it to me?” she interrupted, one eyebrow raised in challenge.

The MacKenzie’s mouth opened without sound emerging, spit raining from his pudgy lips to catch in the matted hair at his chin.

“Come,” Eliza spoke softly behind her, easing Della into the waiting carriage.

Louisa wasn’t far behind, and just before she shut the carriage door behind her, Della caught sight of Johanna. She moved her horse as if the animal were a part of her, neatly side stepping the beast into the Scotsman’s path, forcing him to jump out of the way. He threw himself against the carriage in his haste and crumpled to the ground, curses flying from his lips until the last moment.

The carriage the Darby sisters had arrived in had already sprung into motion, and Della heard Johanna’s cry as she spurred her horse into a gallop to lead the carriage away from the MacKenzie.

Louisa shook her head as she cleaned her hatpin with a handkerchief. “Four husbands among us, and we can’t find a single one when they’re needed.”

Eliza smiled, her hands cupping her rounded belly where her cloak failed to meet across it. “Who needs a husband when you have sisters?”

Della couldn’t agree more. She pulled the blanket Eliza had given her more tightly about her and returned her sister’s smile.