The Dangers of Deceiving a Duke

Excerpt

Oxfordshire, June 1809.

‘Wake up, Miss. This is as far as you can go.’

The voice was rough but kindly and Caitlin, roused from her uneasy sleep, wondered vaguely who the young lady he was addressing was.

‘Come on, Miss, you’ll put us all behind.’ Something touched her gloved hand and she blinked into consciousness.

She was in a stage coach. Yes, of course she was. In a stage coach with a thin man who looked like a clerk and had been sucking peppermint drops the entire time, a plump woman who apparently disapproved of everything, and was quite prepared to complain about it, and a lad who announced when he’d boarded that he was being sent home from school because of an outbreak of measles, but they were not to worry because he’d had it already.

And she, of course, was the “Miss”. Not “my lady”. Not the daughter of an earl any longer.

‘Oh. I am sorry. Where are we?’ She straightened her bonnet and tried to look alert and intelligent, not half out of her wits with worry and misery. If she was going to survive this, she reminded herself, she was going to have to be in control, to be strong and most definitely not look like a helpless victim.

She was never going to be a victim again. Never.

‘Duke’s Forde, Miss.’ The guard was already lifting her valise, her only remaining piece of luggage, down from the coach. ‘By rights, with what you paid, we should have put you down at Bishop’s Forde, two miles back, but I wouldn’t want any decent female having to put up at the Dog and Ferret. Just an ale house that is, and rough with it. You’ll be all right here. These days the Harland Arms isn’t what it was, but it’s a decent enough place.’

He held out his hand to help her down and Caitlin dug in her reticule for a sixpenny piece she could ill afford. ‘Thank you. I appreciate your consideration. What time is it?’

As if in answer a church clock began to strike. One, two, three, four, five. There was a pause and then clunk.

‘Is that five or six?’

‘Five,’ the guard said over his shoulder as he climbed up onto his perch at the back of the coach. The ostlers had already changed the team. ‘It’s been doing for as long as I’ve been on this route and that’s nigh on eight years. Stand clear now, Miss.’

The stage picked up speed and was away in a swirl of dust, leaving Caitlin with her bag at her feet and her reticule with its few precious crowns clutched in her hand. She made herself survey her surroundings calmly. She was on the edge of what seemed to be a market square – or, more accurately, a rectangle with the main road, where she stood, forming one long edge.

At her back was a somewhat down-at-heel inn – The Harland Arms, she supposed. To her left the bottom boundary of the rectangle was formed by the churchyard wall with the church looming up beyond it. The opposite side held a range of alms houses nearest to the churchyard, then the opening of a lane, then some shops. The end opposite the church was a rather dilapidated range of buildings.

The stump of a market cross stood in the centre and some jackdaws were squabbling over what seemed to be the remains of the market produce – some cabbage leaves or perhaps squashed fruit.

The village – or was it a very small town if it had a market? – was not exactly bustling with activity, she thought. It seemed unlikely to have an employment agency, for example.

As if prompted by the thought of employment, and therefore wages and therefore food, her stomach rumbled. She should go into the inn, ask for a room and a meal and then make a plan.

Caitlin smiled ruefully. That made it sound as though she had any options to choose between when she really had only one. She had made her choice and that was to accept  ruin as an exile. But she had to find work. Paid work. Respectable work, which meant she was going to have to forge references.

Great Uncle Alexander was her best option. He had a title, a good – and conveniently very remote – Scottish address and was said to be increasingly vague. If someone enquired whether a Miss Jones, or whatever name she found for herself, had been employed as his late wife’s companion, he would hopefully conclude he had forgotten the woman and reply that certainly she had and she had been most satisfactory.

A companion was surely the occupation to try for. It was the most respectable, the least dangerous. Once she set her feet on the slippery slope of domestic service she would never climb back out of it and besides, an unprotected female was always at risk from amorous employers or their sons.

Although she doubted one could be ruined twice. As she turned towards the inn’s entrance Caitlin winced with discomfort. It seemed that losing one’s virginity was another thing that women must be punished for with pain, as though the daughters of Eve did not already have enough to put up with. At least Baine Wykeham had abandoned her before marriage – if he had ever intended that in the first place. She was alone but, mercifully, not tied to him. Society and her parents would say she was ruined, but she was not going to go back and have them make that judgement. She would not allow this to ruin her life.

As she moved, the light breeze shifted direction, bringing with it the scent of fresh bread, of warm sugar and a hint of coffee. Instinctively she turned towards it, crossed the road and set foot on the cobbled surface of the market place. The inn held only the prospect of its “ordinary” which was doubtless a greasy mutton stew. That delicious odour sent the promise of some comfort, something badly needed, even if it meant that it would be her only meal for the day.

Caitlin picked her way across the uneven stones and saw that she was approaching a group of three shops that were distinctly better than the rest of those surrounding the market. To the left was some kind of superior leather worker’s – Dangerfield Cordwainer read the name board in gold on a bottle green. Brandon’s Fine Fabrics & Haberdashery came next, in white on deep crimson and then the source of the tempting aromas, Duke’s Forde Bakery in brown and white.

To reach it she had to swerve left to avoid a large puddle and Caitlin gained the pavement just in front of the haberdashery. A shrill yapping made her glance inside as she passed the open door, just as a fluffy white lap dog darted across the shop floor, right in front of a man who must be the proprietor, two rolls of cloth balanced in his arms.

‘Pippin! Bad dog!’

‘Oh, do look out!’

Pippin dived between the man’s feet and he went down with a crash in a tangle of fabric. Caitlin heard the sound of his head hitting the wooden chair at the counter even over the noise the dog was making and the cries of its owner.

The next thing she knew, she was on her knees by his side holding her entirely inadequate handkerchief against the blood welling from the gash across his forehead. Pressing hard, she looked up. Two middle aged matrons stood aghast, one of them clutching Pippin to her bosom. A lanky youth in a vast baize apron had frozen in place behind the counter, cutting shears in hand. The only person who appeared to still have their wits about them was a girl of perhaps fifteen, mob cap on head, a white apron around her waist.

‘Fetch me clean cold water and soft cotton cloth,’ Caitlin ordered her and, as she turned to obey, snapped at the lad, ‘And you, don’t stand there like a looby. Run and fetch the doctor!’

He dropped the shears and sprinted out of the door.

Caitlin smiled at the two customers. ‘Might I suggest that you go next door and take some refreshment for the sake of your nerves, ladies?’

The poor man had suffered a painful injury and the least she could do was make sure he didn’t lose any customers in the process, even if it had been all their fault.

And so, quite by chance, and thanks to a puddle and a lap dog, Lady Caitlin Montgomery changed her name, her very identity and her life for ever. Miss Catherine Ransome was going to learn to be a haberdasher