The Bachelor's Bargain Read online

  “She is brazen, Your Grace.”

  “Yes, she is.” The duke was practically purring like a cat at a bowl of milk when he returned his focus to Anne. “Miss Webster, you are audacious, bold, and impudent. Moreover, you are arrogant.”

  “I beg your pardon, sir. I intended no offense.”

  “No, no, I am quite charmed. I should very much dislike to see you die. In fact, I shall have to send the physician to tend you when he comes from London.”

  “The physician has arrived,” the butler said. “He is in the drawing room awaiting your son’s return from Tiverton.”

  “Is he now?”

  “Your Grace, the marquess expressed the desire to have the physician examine the young lady. I thought it best to await your wishes in this matter.”

  “Errand, send for the man at once. In fact, go to him yourself. And you, Miss Watson, please excuse yourself. I will speak to Miss Webster alone.”

  As Anne’s sole supporter hurried out of the room just ahead of the butler, the duke leaned across the top of his cane and peered at Anne. “I am not going to give you any money, Miss Anne Webster,” he said in a low voice. “Your father is a Luddite, and I despise all forms of insurrection. For all I care, the authorities can execute your father and spike his head on the town gates.”

  Anne swallowed. The duke was more a devil than his son. At the thought of her father’s death, she blinked back the angry tears that filled her eyes. “You are cruel,” she declared.

  “I am rational,” he retorted. “Luddites seek power, and power in the hands of the masses is a deadly thing. You view the world through the tiny window of your own experience, Miss Webster. I should not mind except that—like my son— you clearly have the wit to see beyond such triviality. Look, please, at life beyond the servants’ hall at Slocombe House in Devon, England. Imagine the globe as a great game board spread out before you.”

  He plunged his cane into the rose-strewn wool carpet and raised himself to a standing position. Anne watched, almost mortified, as he walked toward her. “France, Italy, Spain,” he said, stabbing the tip of his cane onto a different bouquet of roses as he called out each nation. “America. India. Africa. China. The entire earth lies at your feet. You, Miss Webster, are England. You are monarchy.”

  “Yes, sir,” she mouthed.

  “Are you a great world empire, England? Do you rule all these small countries—enriching your coffers with their silk, wine, tea, cotton, sugar, precious gems, opium, and gold?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Not yet, but you could. In the strength of the king lies the strength of England. Look what happened to France when the people revolted. Do you wish that a renegade like Napoleon ruled England?”

  “No, Your Grace.”

  “Of course not! Look what happened when the American colonies revolted. Do you wish to live as those savage Americans with their barbarian manners and bizarre politics?”

  Anne shook her head. She knew hardly a thing about America, but it must be a dreadful place.

  “Look what happened to heaven itself when Lucifer took it upon himself to revolt. Evil was born! Hell was created! Rebellion is a sin, Miss Webster.” He hammered his cane on the floor. “The people must stay in their place! Peasants at the bottom. Tradesmen in the middle. The aristocracy at the top. The king to rule them all. And God alone to rule the king! Luddites and their like are a cancer within our nation. They must be eradicated!”

  Anne grabbed the arm of the settee. “A cancer, sir?” she said, clenching her jaw as she forced herself to her feet. “Let me tell you what will rot away the core of your precious monarchy and bring death to your dreams of a world empire for England. Machines! Luddites revolted not against the aristocracy but against industrialization. Machines give power to those who own them, Your Grace. Those who own them are the middle class, the merchants. Who suffers? The peasants, of course. But you will suffer, too.”

  The duke glared at her. “Shall I?”

  “The middle class has its hands on the source of money— manufacturing,” she said, repeating the Marquess of Blackthorne’s own words. To her surprise, they made sense. “Money is power. Power in the hands of the middle class spells doom to the aristocracy. And that aristocracy, Your Grace, is you. You would do well to listen to your elder son.”

  The duke took a step closer and cocked his head, scrutinizing Anne as though she were an insect under a microscope. Then his frown softened, and one corner of his mouth tilted up.

  “By heaven, Miss Anne Webster,” he said, “I like you.”

  She clutched the settee arm to keep from wilting into it. “Thank you, Your Grace.”

  “You speak this brazenly to my son, do you?”

  “I say what is in my heart.”

  “Yes, well, you have a very good heart and a very upright character, both of which attributes my elder son sorely lacks. You are also articulate, bold, and headstrong, three characteristics absent in most women of this day. Your manners are coarse, but manners can be taught. You are the daughter of a minister, and, in short, I believe we can make you do.”

  “Make me do what?”

  With a wink, the duke turned to the door and called to his butler, who had returned to his post just outside it. “Errand, where is my physician?”

  “In the corridor. He awaits your bidding, Your Grace.”

  “Send him in, send him in.” The duke tapped his cane on the settee. “Sit down, Miss Webster. It will never do for you to perish on your wedding day.”

  Six

  The two-thousand-degree heat of the forge radiated through the door of the small smithy on the outskirts of Tiverton. Smoke tinged with the sulfurous smell of burning coal drifted out the open windows. Carriage wheels, horseshoes, and plowshares littered the dusty, grassless yard. Wrought-iron pokers, cooking pots, knives, chains, and swords hung from nails driven into the stone wall beneath the overhanging eave.

  Just as he had in childhood, Ruel leaned against the smithy’s doorframe, lost in rapt fascination. Inside, a tall, muscled man slammed his hammer against a shaft of incandescent orange steel. Each ringing blow against the anvil launched an arcing shower of sparks that lit up the dim, sooty interior.

  The blacksmith inspired the same awe he always had, though in the passing years Ruel had grown to nearly equal his size. A large and powerful figure, the smith himself seemed no less forged in a furnace than the implements of war and toil he produced. His straight hair, as black as midnight, hung to the middle of his back in a tight braid. Ruel knew that the rhythm the man hammered out sang of more than a common laborer in a long leather apron, more than a small stone smithy, more than a bleak existence in the south of England.

  The beat echoed of drums, battle cries, and prayers chanted in the setting sun. Did the blacksmith still remember the stories he had told the wide-eyed little English boy so long ago? Ruel had hung on his idol’s every word—tales of the days when the smith had been known as Walks-in-the-Night, son of an Osage chieftain. He had lived on the banks of a river far away in America, a place he called the Middle Waters.

  A warmth filled Ruel’s chest as the blacksmith inspected the steel he was shaping into a carriage-wheel spoke. How many times had the young boy watched the dark man scrutinize a piece of his work, eyebrows drawn together, mouth turned down? With a slight nod of satisfaction, the smith buried the metal in the firepot of his hooked forge. His young assistant leapt to pump the bellows, and the mound of coals began to glow.

  “Too much heat and the metal burns, Tommy,” the man reminded his striker. “Too little heat—”

  “Too little, and the metal stock is hard enough to ruin your tools,” Ruel finished.

  The smith turned at the unexpected voice, and his taut face softened into a smile. “Blackthorne.”

  “I have come home.”

  “It was said you had died in America.”

  “No.” Ruel swallowed at the knot that formed in his throat. “It has been a long time, Walker.�
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  “Three years.” The blacksmith gazed impassively at the nobleman for a moment longer, then he held out his arms. “Welcome home, my friend.”

  Ruel stepped into the warm embrace of the older man and clasped him tightly. The familiar smell of the huge man’s sweaty shirt, the heated dampness of his red-brown skin, the fierce strength of his powerful arms transported him to his boyhood. Ruel buried his cheek against the side of his mentor’s neck and reveled in the grip of solid hands on his back and the gentle rocking of the smith’s body.

  “Oh, my boy,” Walker whispered, “you have returned.”

  “Did you doubt I would?”

  “They said you were killed by Indians.”

  Ruel stepped back and took the smith’s powerful shoulders. “Your people are good men, Walker, though the settlers they have raided might argue otherwise.”

  “You saw them? The Little Ones?”

  Ruel nodded. “I lived in the home of Auguste Chouteau.”

  “You stayed in Sho’to To-Wo’n? Chouteau’s Town?”

  “The settlers call it St. Louis now, and it is no longer a small town, Walker. Auguste has seen his dream grow.”

  “Your cousin is respected and honored among the Little People. He tries to understand us, and he accepts our religion even though he cannot approve of it. I remember many years ago he spoke on our behalf with the Spaniards.”

  “And later with the British and the Americans. Did you know that after the war in 1812, he concluded a treaty of peace between the leaders of the Osage and the commissioners of the United States of America? All injuries and hostilities have been mutually forgiven, and there is now a promise of perpetual peace between the United States and the Osage.”

  “Perpetual peace?” Walker shook his head. “Auguste Chouteau is a good man, but he is a dreamer. So long as settlers keep moving onto our land, building houses, fencing farms, and plowing fields, there can never be peace between us, Blackthorne.”

  “Perhaps the Osage need a leader who can speak for them. A man like you, Walker.”

  “Now you dream, Blackthorne. Before you went away, I told you I can never go back. Look at me.” He held out his calloused hands. His dark eyes hardened. “Remember? I am no longer a warrior. I am a metal-maker, like the traders and half-breeds. I have not held a bow since I was sent to France. Did you know I have lived in England more than a quarter of a century, Blackthorne? I have forty-five years . . . an old man.”

  “Nonsense. You are still young and fit. You are the picture of health.”

  “How little you understand. Why would my people want me to return? Why would they seek my advice? To hear stories of a blacksmith in England? I can hardly remember how to speak their tongue. I have no tribal wisdom to lend the council of Little Old Men who lead the Osage. I have no wife, no daughters to pass along my bloodlines.” His mouth grim, he turned back to his forge. “I can do nothing but bend steel.”

  Ruel studied Walker as the Indian lifted the glowing rod from the furnace with his tongs. He laid the metal on his anvil and began to hammer. How many times had Ruel witnessed this man pouring his rage, his desolation, his agony into the steel? As a child, he had not seen the helpless impotence that bound the blacksmith as securely as the chains he forged. Now he understood it.

  “I came to you because you can do more than bend steel, Walker,” Ruel said when the pounding ceased. “I need your help.”

  The blacksmith swung around, his face stony. “You are a grown man now, Blackthorne. Traveling for years at a time, living your own life. What can an old Indian do for you? I cannot make you a wheel to roll, or carry you on my shoulders. I cannot tell you my legends, or take you swimming in the pond, or teach you how to catch a fish as I did when you were a boy. You are a marquess now, and one day people will call you ‘duke’ and bow to you as though you were a god.”

  He swung his hammer again, and a cascade of orange sparks lit the room. “Do not come here to tell me of your travels in America or your visits with Auguste Chouteau and the Osage. Do not make me wish for things that can never be. Go away from this place, Blackthorne.”

  Ruel stood in silence as the blows rained on metal. The small room filled with the deafening sound of the ringing hammer. Walker picked up the carriage-wheel spoke and shoved it back into the furnace.

  “Hotter, Tommy,” he told his assistant. “Pump the bellows, boy.”

  “A woman is dying, Walker,” Ruel said, his voice almost too low to be heard. “Unless you come, the surgeon will amputate her leg or let her die of gangrene.”

  “A woman?”

  “We are to be married.”

  Walker fell silent. “Your father will not want me in his house.”

  “My father will not want a woman to die in his house.”

  The Indian stared at the glowing coals. “A woman . . . to be your wife and bear your children,” he whispered. For a moment he stood unmoving, lost in the fire. Then he lifted his head and tossed the carriage spoke into a trough of cold water. Hot metal hissed. Steam billowed into the room.

  “Tommy,” he said, “run to the tailor and tell him his carriage wheel will be ready tomorrow.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Lifting his leather apron over his head, Walker nodded at Ruel. “I shall get my bag.”

  “Amputation might save the young lady’s life.” The physician regarded Anne through his monocle as he spoke to the Duke of Marston. “First we must transport her to London, bleed her, dose her liberally with opiates, and then remove the limb. I trust she can have no objection.”

  Anne bit her lip as she tried to reason past the pain swirling through her body. In spite of the heavy dose of laudanum she had been forced to take, her leg felt like a flaming log jerked from a fire. She could hardly move it. Bright red tentacles of infection crept slowly from the seeping wound toward her heart. If the doctor did not take her leg, she would surely die.

  She held out her hand. “Miss Watson?”

  “I am here, Anne. Rest yourself now.” The young woman’s gaze lifted to the physician in his fine coat and white cravat. “She is my lady’s maid, sir, and my dear friend. Do not cut off her leg, I beg you. The pain would be too great to endure.”

  “Your friend will certainly die if I do not remove the infected limb.” He turned to the duke. “Your Grace, which do you prefer? Shall I perform the amputation, or shall we permit the young lady to perish?”

  “Perish?” Ruel strode across the room and pushed past the physician. “Miss Webster, you do not have my permission to die.”

  Anne studied the face that peered down at her. Gray eyes, curly black hair. Ruel. Or was it? The laudanum made her head swim. She could no longer think clearly at all. Nothing made sense. Permission to die? Did a person need permission to die?

  “Walker, please come here at once.” Ruel beckoned the man waiting in the shadows near the door. “Have a look at Miss Webster’s leg and see what you can do.”

  Waving Miss Watson to one side, Ruel took her place and bent over the pillow. “Miss Webster,” he said in a low voice, “I have brought my friend. I expect you to do exactly as he tells you, and do not—”

  “Ruel.” The duke’s voice was stiff. “This man is not permitted in my home.”

  Walker’s eyes moved between the two men as the marquess straightened. “Your Grace, this is the blacksmith from Tiverton.”

  “I know who he is. What can you mean by bringing a savage into my house?”

  “Mr. Walker knows more about healing than any physician in the area. The townspeople visit him with their ailments. I insist—”

  “I shall not have him here.” He turned to his butler. “Errand, remove this man.”

  “Your Grace,” Ruel cut in, taking his father’s arm. “Be reasonable. Miss Webster will do us little good without her leg, and no good at all dead. I need her whole and healthy. The physician confesses his lack of skill in this matter, and I am convinced Mr. Walker can heal her.”

  “Convince
d, are you? The Indian is a man of low breeding. A heathen.”

  “He is the son of an Osage chieftain whose home I visited while staying in St. Louis. Auguste Chouteau hopes to see Mr. Walker returned to America whence he was so ruthlessly exported at the mercy of French officials who—you will recall—held him hostage and used him for the pleasure of their Society until he was able to escape. He fled to us here in England because of his regard for our name.”

  “The Chouteau family deserves everyone’s respect. But why we should reciprocate for an uneducated savage is beyond me.”

  “Mr. Walker is the most upright gentleman I have the pleasure to know. In honor of Auguste Chouteau, he would be happy to assist us in resolving this medical calamity.”

  The duke grunted. “You bring a wounded maid into my household and place her in my bed. You make an engagement of marriage with a woman who is so far beneath you as to bring ridicule upon your name. Now you inflict this uncivilized brute upon me. Ruel Chouteau, you wear my name, you claim privileges as my heir, and one day you will own my titles and possess my lands. Have I misplaced my trust?”

  Ruel tried to read the message in the duke’s eyes. He saw in them a hurt he could not understand. Had he been a disappointment to his father? Was it so wrong to associate with such a man as the blacksmith, simply because Walker had no status in Society?

  “Your Grace,” Ruel said in a low voice, “I give you my word that I will bring nothing but respect to your name. My primary objective in this life has always been to honor you. With that aim I traveled to America and began to develop a plan to enrich the duchy. I seek nothing more from my existence than security for your properties and your lineage.”

  “Your associations with commoners do not please me.”

  “I beg your pardon, Your Grace,” Ruel said, his voice flinty, “but I consider neither this woman nor the blacksmith to be common.”

  He let his focus drift to Anne. Her brown eyes, wide and deeply shadowed, stared out at him from her ashen face. He suppressed the panic that gripped his stomach at the thought of her death. If the duke knew the truth about his son’s fascination with a servant . . . about his heir’s deep affection for an Indian from the wilderness of America . . .