Honour's Debt Read online

“Husband?” A prickle of resigned laughter escaped her. No one had courted her since she had taken on her mother’s duties.

  “That is true,” seconded Albert.

  Maddie stared from one to the other. Marriage. To whom?

  * * *

  That evening Maddie faced Uncle Albert across Mathew’s desk. Her arguments against her uncle’s plans had not gone well.

  “Be reasonable, Maddie, marriage is not impossible,” he snapped at her. “While your father lives there are funds for a London season.”

  “But I cannot leave him. What of the girls?” Maddie put a hand to her aching head.

  “You do realize what will happen if you are not married when your father dies?”

  “That despicable nipcheese, Sanford, will descend upon us,” Maddie snapped. “Malcolm’s inheritance will be laid to waste. Heaven knows if the girls’ dowries will escape whole and unharmed.”

  “I shall speak with Sanford about his responsibilities—his duties to them,” Albert said stiffly.

  Her familiarity with Sanford and the look in his eyes told Maddie her uncle had little hope of altering any course his greedy nephew set. “Hart Cottage has always been our home,” Maddie said with an undertone of steel. “Father means Malcolm to have it.”

  “Sanford would not go so far as to change that,” Albert told her.

  Maddie, experienced with her cousin’s cowardice, agreed. At least he would not do so openly and outright.

  “Perhaps he will do nothing,” her uncle offered.

  “Sanford will not permit us to go on as we have.”

  “No,” Albert agreed. “But something may yet prevent any change.”

  “Like Jamey introducing me to an eligible from the 15th?” asked Maddie with sharp flippancy. Albert’s son Jamey, a lieutenant in the 15th Light Dragoons was her closest friend. He would introduce her but she knew exactly how unsuitable any regimental officers would judge her. She rose to her feet.

  Maddie drew a large ledger from one side of the desk and opened it. “Father said you wished to see the household and estate accounts. I trust they will meet with your approval. “Please excuse me,” she clipped.

  Albert caught Maddie’s hand. “You have done well—for several years, Niece. I seek only to find some way to avoid the full impact of the trust.”

  With a nod of thanks Maddie hurried out.

  Upstairs she looked down at her father, asleep but restless. She pictured Sanford with his mother’s narrow pinched face and sloped shoulders. From her days in leading strings he had tormented and teased her. A cruel carping coward.

  “Father, I shall keep the children and their inheritance safe. On my honour,” Maddie whispered, “I shall. Somehow I shall.”

  Chapter One

  London June 20, 1808

  Quentin Bellaport waited until his friend and fellow officer settled on the phaeton’s seat before he sprang his horses.

  Major Lord Blake Danbury grabbed for a hold as Quentin swerved through the heavy evening traffic. “Why are we rushing to the rescue?” he asked in a languid drawl at sharp odds with the pace.

  His tone did not surprise Quentin. Despite the dangerous mien of the white scar that ran at a slight angle from below his right eye to his jaw, Danbury, the third son of the Duke of Devereaux, taller and leaner than himself, always wielded a protective hauteur. His appearance, with wiry dark hair sprinkled with premature grey and his long narrow face, placid with his habitual boredom, were but part of his armour.

  “Those damnably green lieutenants, Vincouer, Goodchurch—your Captain Merristorm are responsible,” Quentin gritted out as he guided his team around a heavily ladened wagon. “Deny it all you will, but you have taken to mad Merristorm.”

  “I never take to anything,” Danbury denied the charge. “Too strenuous by far.” He ignored Bellaport’s snort and remained silent.

  Several minutes later Bellaport pulled his team to a halt before the gambling den known as Goat and Lamb. “Let’s get to it,” he announced.

  Danbury nonchalantly stepped down. “By Hecate, doesn’t Merristorm know better than to drag green’uns to a hell any sane man would avoid?”

  Bellaport glared his response as he tossed a coin to a grubby urchin. “See the phaeton is here when we return and there shall be another.”

  The gambling den’s door flew open as Bellaport and Danbury approached it. Danbury stepped back as two men pitched a blue coated uniformed figure at his feet. “By God, Vincouer, not the thing.”

  Accepting Bellaport’s hand, the tall athletic lieutenant sprang to his feet. “Thank God you came,” Jamey gasped. “They have sworn to stick Merristorm’s spoon in the wall after he threw up dust over a rigged table,” the young man explained excitedly.

  “Where do they have him?”

  “In the back.”

  “Follow us,” Bellaport ordered.

  The men on watch at the door stood aside for the two officers and tolerated the passage of the third.

  Inside the hell Vincouer said lowly, “Merristorm exploded when they gulled Vicar—Lieutenant Goodchurch.”

  Finding the back room empty, Danbury and Bellaport exchanged glances then headed for the door to the alley on the far wall.

  Quentin jerked it open. Dank fetid air oozed over them. From the depths of the dark passage between the buildings came bone-hammering thuds and pain filled grunts.

  Bellaport hissed, “Wait.”

  Jamey halted.

  “Yes,” Danbury drawled. He drew his sabre silently from its scabbard. “It will not do to rescue the wrong man.”

  “To the right, Danbury. I’ll take the left. Vincouer, watch our backs,” Bellaport ordered and walked cautiously toward the scuffle.

  A man screamed. Another rushed at Danbury from the darkness with an upraised club. He ducked and slammed the flat of his sabre into the man’s stomach, then stepped back, poised to parry with his sabre.

  At the same instant, two men erupted from the gaming hell behind them and collided with Vincouer.

  Quentin rushed back and hauled one of the men off Jamey. With a solid right jab he felled the fellow. Leaving the other to the lieutenant, he headed back toward the original cluster of men but stumbled. Going down hard on one knee Quentin put out a hand and encountered a chest and what could only be military braid, then a thin shoulder. Goodchurch.

  “What’s goin’ on?” someone shouted.

  A deep dark voice growled in their midst. “Satan’s come for you,” it croaked. “He shall carry you to—umphh.”

  That can only be “Mad” Merristorm. Quentin squinted, made out the cluster of men. Four. One held Merristorm, one punched, two watched.

  As Vincouer flew past him, Bellaport rose and stepped over Goodchurch. He saw the lieutenant grab the holder and Quentin leaped for the puncher. He spun that man about and slammed his fist into the man’s chin. The fellow dropped with a satisfying thump.

  Before he could turn, a fist grazed Bellaport’s left cheek. With skills honed at Eton as a first form and refined at Jackson’s, he slammed a fist into his attacker’s abdomen and followed it with a flurry to his head. His opponent down, Quentin saw he stood alone. Taking a deep breath Quentin tugged his dolman down.

  A sudden splash of lantern light illuminated the alley. The figure behind the lantern was tall and slender, his uniform impeccable. Danbury.

  At a scrabbling sound Quentin swung around. A man ran past him pursued by Vincouer. Bellaport snagged the lieutenant and permitted the ruffians to escape.

  “Let ’im go,” Merristorm grunted from where he leaned against the wall. He held his side and slowly slid to a sitting position. “I got Vicar’s blunt back. Where’s that fool?”

  “Here,” Bellaport answered. “Vincouer, come and get Goodchurch on his feet.”

  “I shall tend Merristorm,” Danbury told him.

  “Timely arrival, Lord Blake,” the captain grunted when Danbury bent over him.

  Bellaport went to the end of the alley
and disappeared for a moment. Returning he announced, “This way to the street. My phaeton awaits and I’ve waved down a hackney.”

  “A hackney?” Danbury shuddered. “I have not trusted my person to one of those filthy equipages since my follies at Eton.”

  “Never fear,” Quentin chuckled. “You and Vincouer can take my phaeton. I will go with Goodchurch and Merristorm in the hired coach.” He motioned to their battered companions. “Procure what is needed to treat them, Danbury, and bring it to Margonaut House.”

  * * *

  Quentin draped a fresh cloth across the right side of Lieutenant Goodchurch’s rapidly swelling face. The young man lay on a couch in Margonaut House’s vast oval library. Knowing he was highly embarrassed, Quentin squeezed the thin young man’s shoulder before moving on to the glowering figure on a second couch.

  “You shall have more brandy after Danbury helps me wrap those ribs,” Bellaport told Merristorm.

  Hearing a noise outside the library, Quentin strode to the door. He jerked it open and a youngster tumbled to the floor in front of him.

  “Hold fast,” a second youth commanded, but the pistol in his fist wavered as he pointed it at Bellaport.

  “Hold fire,” shouted the lad on the floor. “’Tis my brother—the one in the 15th,” Phillip Bellaport hurriedly added.

  Colour poured back into the youth’s face as he lowered the pistol. “Like my brother Jamey,” his friend said with what sounded like profound relief.

  Quentin pulled Phillip to his feet and ushered both into the library.

  “What are you doing here, Quentin? Oh, this is a friend from school, Barnabas Vincouer,” Phillip made the introduction as an afterthought. His eyes lit on the library’s battered occupants. When he looked back at his brother he saw the torn lace on Quentin’s dolman.

  Patently ignoring this inspection, Bellaport shook Barnaby’s hand. “Brother to Lieutenant James Vincouer?”

  “Jamey? Yes, do you—”

  The clank of glass announced another arrival. Danbury sauntered in followed by Vincouer carrying a wooden box.

  “Barnabas,” Jamey exclaimed, “what are you doing in London?” He set the box on the closest table and strode to the quaking lad.

  “I—I—Phillip—invited—”

  “I tease, bantling,” Jamey laughed. He drew him into a crushing hug.

  “Enough of family,” snarled the shirtless Merristorm. “Tie up my bloody ribs.”

  “Not much for ‘family,’” Vincouer told Barnabas then strode to Goodchurch’s side. “How fare you?”

  Vicar opened his left eye, his right being swollen shut. He wet his lips. “Therefore will I give thanks unto thee, O Lord ... and sing praises unto thy name. Great deliverance giveth he.”

  “He shall be fine. No bones broken,” Bellaport told the lieutenant. “You,” he pointed to his brother and Barnabas, “sit down. No questions. Everything you hear remains in this room.”

  * * *

  “Why so glum?” Jamey asked his brother Barnabas in an aside as Bellaport poured brandy for everyone after the captain’s ribs had been tended.

  Barnabas hesitated and then said, “Maddie.” He tilted his head toward the others to warn him off the topic. “Later.”

  “Quite right,” drawled Danbury. “Family details can be so very tiresome.”

  “Maddie is not tiresome,” Jamey objected.

  “Who is Maddie?” Merristorm demanded.

  “Our cousin,” Jamey said tersely. “What has happened?” he asked his brother.

  Barnabas stared at his hands. “Father told me of the terms of that dammed will.”

  “It’s not her father’s will—it’s Grandfather Vincouer’s,” Jamey corrected.

  Barnabas frowned. “I don’t see what Grandfather has to do with it? He’s dead after all. If only Uncle Matthew weren’t so sick.”

  “Out with it,” Jamey prompted. “What’s the bad news?”

  “Upon Uncle Matthew’s death—and Father said that will be soon—Sanford will stand guardian to Maddie’s brother and sisters and their funds until Malcolm’s majority.”

  “Sanford!” Jamey snorted with distaste. “Is Father quite certain?”

  “What is so wrong with this Sanford?” Phillip asked, then clapped a hand to his mouth at his brother’s warning grimace.

  Jamey’s lips curled in disdain. “Sanford is a tongue-valiant lying jack-a-warts. A conniving bully-boy.”

  Quentin watched him look at each man in turn. This was deadly serious to the lieutenant.

  “Our Mother brought Maddie and her brother and sisters to Vincouer Court after their mother’s death,” he began his explanation. “Maddie made short work of convincing Mother she was up to looking after them, and her father, and Hart Cottage.”

  Jamey’s hands fisted. “I was four and ten then. Sanford four and twenty. He and two louts he called friends arrived the day after Uncle Matthew’s family. He was bent on sponging off Father.”

  “Always out of blunt,” Barnabas quipped.

  “Father took you to the horse fair that morning,” Jamey said with a nod at his brother. “Sanford trailed his hand across Maddie’s shoulders as he walked past her chair in the breakfast room. I told him to mind his manners,” Vincouer said.

  “I escaped and went to the stables intent upon riding out when Sanford’s friends grabbed me. They dragged me into a stall and threw me down into the muck on the floor.

  “’He’s all yours,’” one crowed as the other pulled the stall’s gate shut,” Jamey continued. “I got up and there stood my cousin in shirtsleeves, fists clenched and raised. He said I was going to pay for making him look a fool.”

  “But Jamey had seen the black Molineaux spar,” Barnabas broke in excitedly. “Sanford couldn’t touch him.”

  Jamey grinned. “But I managed a few hits on him. He turned redder than berries and started shouting at his friends. They grabbed me and held me while he hit me.

  “That’s when the stall gate crashed open behind them. I pulled free and slammed a fist into Sanford’s stomach. The next thing I knew Maddie was hitting him in the back of the head with a pitchfork handle.

  “Sanford ordered his bully friends to grab me again but Maddie threatened them with the tines. When she shouted that they should leave one did so at once. It took a jab in the chest with the tines to set the other on his way,” he chuckled. “Sanford tried to follow him but Maddie shoved the stall’s gate shut before he could reach it. Then she pointed the fork’s tines at him. He whined that he’d tell his mother if she didn’t let him go.” Disgust roiled in the words.

  “Maddie made him stay and fight Jamey fair,” Barnabas crowed. “It wasn’t any sort of even match with our cousin’s friends gone.”

  “But for Maddie,” Jamey said, “I would have been badly beaten.”

  “Won’t your Cousin Sanford be bound by terms of the will?” asked Phillip.

  Jamey threw him an impatient glance. “Sanford is a craven limpet but awake on every suit. And greedy. Once he cozens onto the fact that the guardianship would fall to her husband if she weds, he may try to force Maddie into marriage.”

  Danbury rose. “The solution is simple, my boy. Find someone to marry the gel.” He gave a negligent wave of his hand that included all of them. “In all the excitement I almost forgot my news about new cavalry post assignments. My father says it is rumoured the 20th,” he paused and smiled. “and the 15th are to go to Portugal.”

  Vincouer gave a hoot. Goodchurch managed a weak cheer. A round of drinks was drunk.

  After Danbury left Jamey got up and made to help Goodchurch stand.

  “Leave him where he is,” Bellaport commanded in a tone brooking no objection. “You all shall stay the night, Lieutenant,” he added emphatically. He picked up a brace of candles and motioned Vincouer to follow him.

  Jamey hesitated outside a bedchamber’s door. “Could we—could we talk, Major? I would like your opinion on what to do about my cousin.”
/>   Quentin couldn’t refuse the pleading in the earnest young man’s eyes. “Danbury is right,” he told him. “It should prove easy enough to find your cousin a husband. A neighbour perhaps? After all she has remarkable spirit,” he added with admiration.

  “But her spirit is the trouble,” Jamey told him. “She has a mind of her own—a better one than some officers and is as stubborn as the day is long. The tales I could tell.” Jamey sighed. “Men want biddable brainless chits.”

  “Does your cousin visit London?” Quentin asked and could have kicked himself for doing so. This was none of his affair.

  “Maddie won’t leave her father while he is so ill.”

  Such love between parent and child pricked Quentin. “Then you must improvise, Lieutenant. Good night.”

  Chapter Two

  London June 22, 1808 Late Morning

  The party of four halted outside the Pantheon. After a few parting words, Bellaport strolled down the street. The others entered the emporium.

  Jamey Vincouer, tallest of the three, drew every woman’s eye. Handsome with velvet brown curls cropped short and close, coffee brown eyes, broad shoulders and well-muscled legs covered by gleaming Hessians, the lieutenant excited wishes for an introduction in the breasts of females, young and old.

  Jamey was oblivious to the ogling by the women in the shop. He good-naturedly accompanied his and Bellaport’s younger brother while they browsed through the various stalls.

  “This pair of combs might be perfect for my sister Lynnette,” Phillip Bellaport said with a glance at Jamey. “Do you think them suitable for a young miss?”

  “Don’t have a sister. But my cousin Ruth would like them,” Jamey allowed with an encouraging smile.

  “Then I shall get them.”

  Jamey laid an arm across his younger brother’s shoulders while Phillip completed the purchase. He was surprised to find that Barnabas had grown since they last met. Though only seven and ten, he almost matched Jamey’s six-foot frame.

  “What do you think of Major Bellaport? Isn’t he a jolly good sort?” Jamey asked.