Perilous Princess: A Sexy Historical Romance Read online

  “It was the truth,” she said flatly.

  He kissed her and she opened her lips, encouraging him to kiss her properly, but then the butler cleared his throat loudly, reminding them he was still there and waiting.

  Rhys cupped her jaw with his hand, his thumb stroking her cheek. “We can talk about this in private, later,” he promised her, his voice low.

  “But first, you must do your duty,” she added. “Go, Rhys. I will return home directly and wait for you there.”

  He glanced at the butler, then shook his head and kissed her once more. “We will talk, later.” There was a rich promise in his voice.

  She shivered, wondering what it was he would not say in front of anyone else.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Rhys hurried to Newgate Prison. He was quite familiar with the public areas of the prison, having interviewed at least a dozen unfortunate clients in the dank rooms in the past. Seth had been one of them. That was when Rhys had met his half-sister Natasha for the first time. Vaughn had been instrumental in arranging that meeting and for bringing Rhys to Seth’s aid.

  That had been several years ago. Word had passed among the gentry that Rhys had miraculous powers as an attorney, thanks to Seth’s recovery and Vaughn’s quiet championship over cigars and brandies in a dozen different libraries. Rhys’ clientele had increased dramatically and Wormwood had been delirious with joy.

  While Rhys could not take anything Earl De La Warr said as the literal truth, it was possible that Rhys’ reputation as an attorney as much as his new relationship to the royal family had caused them to tap him on the shoulder for this task.

  He did not believe for a minute that being asked to represent the duke was in any way a compliment to him. He didn’t have the particulars of the case yet, but he knew that there was a factor that would make it a nearly impossible task. As a commoner and the unwelcome husband of one of their own, Rhys was the perfect man to whom to give the job. If he failed, as it seemed Anna’s family believed he would, then they would at least be rid of him, for his reputation would be in tatters and his ability to earn a salary and keep a roof over Anna’s head would be lost.

  He simply must win this case. There was no other alternative.

  The warden, a tense man called Simon Creek, knew Rhys well enough to order a bobby to fetch the prisoner to the interview room.

  “You’re not holding him in the cells, are you?” Rhys asked. “The Queen’s cousin?”

  “There’s naught else to put him,” Creek replied. “We’re full up to the gullet with normal prisoners. It’s not like we have lords visiting every day to keep a pretty room for ‘em”

  “Would you consider letting him return to the custody of his own home, with a guard?” Rhys asked.

  Creek sighed. “I might, except that it’s cold blooded murder we’re looking at here and he’s a foreigner. If he slips out of England, there’d be a rum to do about it an’ all.”

  Rhys deliberately invoked the power and reputation of the Duke’s family. “I am quite sure the Queen herself would vouch for the Duke, if I were to ask her. But I would rather not disturb her over such a trivial matter as a warden’s conscience.”

  Creek’s eyes bulged. “‘er ‘ighness? Lordy!” He scratched his head. “I guess, if the Queen herself is involved, it’d be better if he was at home.”

  “Good man.” Rhys gave him a smile. “I’ll interview the Duke, while you draw up the release document. He can sign it when I’m done.”

  “Fair ‘nuff.” Creek pulled a clean sheet of paper over in front of him and knocked the ink off his pen and got to work.

  Rhys made his way to the interview room, nodding at familiar faces as he moved through the stone corridors. Newgate Prisoner was a depressing building and the swelling numbers of poor in London’s streets, looking for their next meal in any way they could find it meant the number of prisoners was growing daily.

  Shipping them off to the colonies couldn’t possibly be a good solution in the long term. Rhys had listened to Seth’s tales about New South Wales long into the night and understood how transportation would not solve England’s problems.

  But that was not his role right now. Today, he must find a way to have the Duke of Marienburg exonerated of all charges, his reputation restored and the royal family’s name untarnished.

  This was the first time Rhys had seen the Duke at close quarters. He had been stripped of his coat and wore shirt sleeves and his waistcoat. His thin face and the beak-like nose above it looked even sparser in the dull light of the interview room, but the eyes above were keen enough.

  “This is a jest, surely?” he asked. His voice was cultured but the accent was quite thick. “You are to help me with this matter?”

  Rhys couldn’t help smiling as he sat in the hard chair across the table from him. “It wasn’t my idea,” he told the Duke. “The Queen commanded it.”

  The man’s eyes widened. Then he regathered his composure. “I see,” he said slowly.

  “The prison warden is drawing up release papers for you as we speak,” Rhys told him. “You’ll be released upon your word as a lord and gentlemen that you will not try to escape London and will attend your trial when the date is set.”

  “I do not want to be released,” the Duke said stiffly.

  “You can’t stay here,” Rhys pointed out. “The Queen’s cousin? The newspapers will smear the family name. They will point out that if you are not released until trial then you most certainly are the murderer.”

  “I don’t care,” the Duke said flatly. “I will remain here until my trial, when I will tell the judge that I killed my brother in a fit of rage and should be hanged for my miseries.”

  Rhys stared at him, at a complete loss for words.

  * * * * *

  Anna sat at the table, staring at Rhys, her big blue eyes wide with consternation, as he described for her the true extent of the problem he was facing. She had been waiting for him as she had promised. She had even prepared a small meal for him and a large pot of tea. The tea was most welcome, especially with a shot of brandy in it.

  “That is the factor that I did not anticipate,” he finished for her. “The duke himself will destroy any chance of having this trial aborted.”

  Anna considered him for a moment, a frown between her brows. “But if he did kill my father, then shouldn’t the law be allowed to proceed as it must? It should not matter that he is my uncle and the Queen’s cousin. He killed a man. Shouldn’t he stand trial, just like anyone else?”

  Rhys sighed. “Yes, you are absolutely right, Anna. You see this exactly as I do. It’s just that…I don’t think he did it.”

  She sat back, surprise making her eyes widen even more. “How could you know that?” she asked. “He was not at…at the whorehouse yesterday. We cannot account for his movements. He might very well have done it.”

  “But why?” Rhys said. “I asked him that over and over and all he would say is that he had been in a grip of one of his mad fits. When he came to, your father was dead.”

  She swallowed. “It…might have happened like that,” she said quietly. “Rupert was given to rages, just like my father, only never as often or nearly as severe. He controlled it better.”

  “Exactly,’ Rhys said. “He controlled it. Which doesn’t agree with the idea of a man completely beyond all reason that he would kill another. I saw the house shortly after your father died, Anna. There was wreckage that your father created, but your father himself was lying in the hallway with….” He hesitated, wondering if he should speak of the manner of the Prince’s death to Anna.

  “Tell me,” she pressed quietly. Her voice was quite controlled, but there was a pulsing spot at her neck, telling him she was stressed by this talk.

  “There was a knife in his back, Anna. That was all. He had been stabbed from behind, just the once. There was only the single wound. That isn’t the way I would imagine a man in a rage would kill another, no matter what the reason.”

&nb
sp; Anna swallowed. “No, I would not think so. But if you are right and he did not kill my father, why would he insist that he did?”

  Rhys sighed. “That is the question I must answer. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Anna rose to her feet and held out her hand. “Come with me.” Her voice was mellow.

  He looked up at her. In the dancing light from the fireplace, her face was warm and oddly familiar. Of everyone who he had spoken to today, Anna was the one he knew best, whose presence was comforting. He had been glad she had been with him at the palace. He was uncomfortable sharing his world of lies, deceit and crime with other women. He was always careful about what he spoke of in front of Seth’s and Vaughn’s wives, for fear of shocking them, even though both Natasha and Elisa were forward-thinking women little given to vapors or faints.

  With Anna, though, it was different. He did not have to censor what he was thinking. Indeed, he spoke more freely with her than with anyone else he knew. There was a sense of relief at not having to choose his words.

  He took the hand she was offering. “Where are we going?”

  “I am taking you to bed,” she said, with the firm tone that said her mind was made up. “You need sleep, Rhys. You have been working too hard and you cannot think properly.”

  It was possible she was right. There was a tightness in his chest and an ache behind his eyes. But he had often worked day and night to complete a case, in the past. “This is a most critical matter, for both of us personally as well as for my career. I can’t stop for something as mundane as sleep.”

  “Even for a few hours,” she insisted. “You will feel much better afterward, I promise you. You will work far more efficiently and that will make up for the time you have taken to sleep.”

  It was a novel idea. He had always considered sleep to be an unnecessary waste of time. Anna tugged on his hand. For a woman, she was strong and he risked being pulled off the chair, so he stood. “Perhaps just for an hour or two,” he said, compromising.

  He let Anna lead him upstairs, amused at her take-charge attitude and at the same time, silently grateful for it. If she was making decisions—and he knew she was more than capable of making very good decisions—then he did not have to. He really was tired, he realized. His body was aching with it.

  Anna had known that before he had. How strange.

  But before she let him sleep, Anna undressed both him and herself, then pressed herself against him. She drove their lovemaking. She directed it, orchestrating a sweet, gradually rising medley that ended with his release, his body lifting from the bed to drive into her over and over as she strained for her own release above him.

  It was exactly the sleeping potion he needed. He was already drifting into sleep as she drew the covers over him.

  * * * * *

  Anna was painfully aware of the risks she was taking, dressing in her male clothing once more. Experience and the scenarios that Rhys had painted of her helplessness if she was caught dressed that way had impressed upon her just how dangerous it could be for a woman of her background and name. But the circumstances dictated that she must take this risk.

  As Rhys slept the sleep of the truly exhausted, she left the house, locking the door firmly behind her.

  She hurried to find a cab, her coat collar raised high and her chin down, the wide-brimmed hat disguising her hair.

  Even as Rhys had been outlining the impasse he had reached with her uncle’s case, this idea had occurred to her. She had settled the details in her mind as she dressed. When she reached the cab, she gave the address to the cabby and climbed in, impatient to begin, to finish what she must and return to Rhys’ warm arms.

  The tiny house in Fishbone Street where the cab took her was even smaller than the modest house she lived in, but it had a swatch of lace at the window and the cheerful light of candles glowing from the windows.

  She dismissed the cabby, slapping coins in to his hand quickly so he would not notice her hands, then knocked on the door of the little house. There were no gas lamps along this street, which made it darker than she was used to. Only the guttering candlelight and lamps shining from the windows of the houses along the street gave any illumination, but that was just as well.

  When the door opened, she stepped back before the light from inside could spill on her face, giving herself a moment to identify who had answered the door.

  The small, bent shape of Sawby was illuminated by the candlelight and she moved back toward the light just enough to let him see her. “Sawby, I would call upon your assistance tonight.”

  “Princess Annalies?” he queried. “Is that really you?”

  “Yes. But time is moving on, Sawby. My task must be discreet.”

  He stood blinking for a moment and Anna heard a woman cough inside. She bit her lip. The fewer people who knew of her midnight adventure the better.

  Sawby caught her glance over his shoulder and stepped out and brought the door nearly closed, so that there was just a chink of light coming through. “You look right strange, Your ‘ighness, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

  “It is the only way I can move about London and not be remarked upon. You are more than aware, I am sure, of the scandal that has touched the family lately.”

  “Aye.” He sighed. “I thought meself out of a position after the tragedy with your father, miss. I mean…ma’am.”

  “That may not necessarily be true,” Anna told him. “It is about my father that I come to you tonight. You have driven his carriage for the year since we arrived here in England. You have been privy to much that would have embarrassed him, but you remained discreet. I would ask you to help me one last time, Sawby, for I have need of your expertise as a driver and your discretion, both. Would you do that for me? Would you help me find my father’s murderer?”

  “But…the Duke….” He was doubtful. Her clothing would not have reassured him. “It wasn’t he, ma’am?”

  “We don’t believe so. But I want to do something tonight that will help confirm that, one way or the other. If I am wrong, then justice will prevail over my uncle’s future. If I am right, then the Queen will be saved deep embarrassment.”

  Sawby nodded. “Let me just get my coat, ma’am. I’ll let the missus know I’ll be gone for a bit.” He shut the door on her and Anna listened to his slow deep voice murmuring to his wife.

  Then he stepped out, shrugging into the same greatcoat she had seen almost every day since her arrival in England. “Now, miss—ma’am, begging yer pardon. What can I help with?”

  “I’ll need the carriage, Sawby. I’m sorry, I know it is very late.”

  “Never yer mind, ma’am. The horses haven’t had a good run in a day or two. They’ll be positively delighted.”

  * * * * *

  Sawby very nearly mutinied when she told him her first destination. He drew himself up to his full height, which was less than hers. His bushy moustache wriggled indignantly. “I ain’t never been to such the place and neither ought you, ma’am.”

  “Believe me, Sawby, this is not of my choosing. I must go there tonight, to speak to the madam, Esmeralda—”

  “How you even be knowing such a woman?”

  Anna sighed. The only way she would get Sawby’s needed cooperation would be the truth…as much of it as he could withstand, at any rate. So she explained carefully and simply how she had begun this venture trying to clear any potential suspicion from her new husband, who would have been the most likely suspect, if the Duke had not confessed to the murder.

  “But if he confessed….” Sawby said doubtfully.

  “My husband doesn’t believe he is the real murderer,” Anna replied, “and he is a very good judge of such matters after working so long with criminal cases at the Old Bailey. But if the Duke is not the real murderer and my husband proves that he is not, then suspicion will fall all the more easily upon my husband. So I must find the real murderer now, because my husband is very good at his job, Sawby. He will exonerate the Duke as the royal
family have commanded and that will put Rhys in danger.”

  “It’s a right pickle, ain’t it?” Sawby said, scrubbing at his thinning hair. Then he donned his hat once more. “Right, then. We’d better be going. It’s a fair run out to the east end.”

  “Thank you, Sawby,” she told him gratefully and climbed into the carriage. The top was up, hiding her features and protecting her from the mild chill of the evening as they passed through quiet streets and avenues.

  The building they had visited that morning did look slightly better in the failing light of the night. There was a dim light over the deeply recessed door that had a rosy glow about it and Anna coupled that up with some of her more obscure reading. The light was red, a signal to those who understood what the color meant.

  Sawby climbed down from his perch at the back of the carriage and looked through the door, just his eyes visible under the hat. “Esmerelda, you said?”

  “Yes. It might take some insistence to bring her to the door, but you can try bribery. As much as you feel will do the job.” She dug coins out of her pocket, including two big silver crowns.

  “Never thought I’d find meself knocking on the door of a brothel, ever,” Sawby muttered as he stalked over to the door. He looked around to see who might by paying him any attention, but it was late and the homeless had found shelter for the night already.

  He didn’t knock. He hammered the door with the side of his fist.

  Almost immediately, the door opened and Anna saw the tall, thin shadow of the guard from that morning standing there.

  “Yer madam, wot yer call Esmeralda. My employer wants to speak to ‘er, out ‘ere in the carriage.”

  “Naff off,” the guard growled. He started to shut the door.

  “I’ll make it worth ‘er while,” Sawby said, pushing back on the door.