Chapter Six
Red Oak Alehouse
London, England
Stephen considered himself to be a reasonable man.
While he maintained his own social and political viewpoints, he was willing to listen to anyone that had a differing opinion.
He did not expect his household to work to excess.
He forgave gambling debts under a hundred pounds.
But when it came to his runaway bride . .
. when it came to his runaway bride, he was feeling distinctly unreasonable.
“Another brandy, if you’d be so kind,” he told the barkeep, as he stood at the bar and slid his empty rummer glass across the polished oak bar top.
Behind him, the bell on the door jingled as another patron left the alehouse, indicating the hour had grown late.
With the exception of himself, the barkeep, a maid who had begun to clear the tables, and a trio of young bucks so far into their drink they were all but asleep, the establishment was empty.
Something that the barkeep, Sterner, took note of as he topped off Stephen’s glass with Armagnac, a French brandy courtesy of a small smuggling operation that brought in the illicit, albeit highly coveted, spirit under the cover of darkness with the glint of a few gold guineas to light their way and coat the palms of the port guards.
“You’re out later than usual, my lord.” As observant of his regular patrons as he was tall, Sterner towered above most grown men, including Stephen, and had a quiet, unassuming manner that lent itself well to divulging sorrows and secrets. Both of which Stephen harbored aplenty.
“I’ve had a long day,” he said, squinting hard into the amber depths of his drink before raising the glass to his mouth.
“I anticipate an even longer one tomorrow.” The brandy burned on his tongue before mellowing to a rich, warm trickle with notes of vanilla and cinnamon when it slid down his throat.
“I didn’t realize an earldom was so demanding,” said Sterner, the corners of his brown eyes crinkling as he dipped a towel in a bucket of sudsy water and began to wipe down the bar.
As it tended to do, the reminder of his inherited title gave Stephen an unpleasant start. Like biting into an orange and tasting a lemon instead.
He’d become the Earl of Lancaster three years ago when his father was found dead in a brothel, an unfortunate, but fitting final end for a nobleman who had never been particularly noble.
His mother had retired to a modest dowager estate in Surrey where she maintained a large wine cellar, and Stephen had been thrust into a role that he hadn’t ever truly coveted aside from it granting him full agency over Summerwind House .
. . along with the manor in Grosvenor Square, townhouse in Bath, and hunting lodge in Killin that leaked when it rained.
Properties that had all been under the stewardship of his meticulous land agent, Mr. Johnson, while he had been traveling abroad.
“It’s not the earldom that troubles me.” Scowling, Stephen finished his brandy and slid the glass back across the bar top. “It’s my wife.”
“The one you’ve been chasing for six months?” Sterner emptied the bottle of Armagnac into Stephen’s glass and ducked behind the bar to find another.
“Twelve,” he corrected. “For an entire year, I’ve traveled to every bloody city and town from Falmouth to Porters Neck. No small measure, given the war. A maritime blockade kept me trapped on a ship in Boston harbor for nearly two weeks.”
“There was a bet here that you’d died.”
Stephen snorted. “Did you make any money?”
“Indeed I did. Last week, when you miraculously rose from the grave unharmed, I earned myself almost ten pounds. So this one is on the house.” Reemerging with a brand-new bottle, Sterner grinned as he cut off the sealing wax and popped the cork before refreshing Stephen’s drink and then pouring himself a glass.
“The real bet is on whether or not you found her.”
“Would I be here with you if I had?”
“Maybe,” the barkeep shrugged. “Plenty of men come through that door to escape their wives. Very few leave it to go in search of them. Where is Falmouth? Never heard of it.”
“A small seaport in a state called Maine. She wasn’t there.
” As far as Stephen could tell, Abigail wasn’t anywhere.
He’d started at the last place he’d seen her, a small townhouse she’d been renting in the village of Mystic, Connecticut, with an office below and living quarters above.
But when he knocked on the door, a woman with five children peeking out from behind her skirts had opened it with absolutely no knowledge of a woman physician having ever been there.
With no discernable leads to follow, he’d gone back to Manhattan, and while he had found Dr. Bard—still as pompous as ever—the now President of Columbia College Medical School hadn’t known where his previous student was, either.
“Practicing medicine somewhere, I’ve no doubt,” he’d said, shuffling a stack of papers. “Despite being a woman, Miss Pratt was one of the brightest minds in her class.”
“Lady Lancaster,” Stephen had corrected, his jaw ticking in annoyance. “And did it ever occur to you that because she is a woman, my wife is exceptionally bright?”
Dr. Bard had chuckled. “Exceptions to the rule, my lord. Exceptions to the rule. As for her name, I don’t know what to tell you, other than she always went by Miss Pratt, and while I was aware of your marriage, she never brought it to anyone else’s attention.”
It was in that moment Stephen’s concern for Abigail had begun to turn to anger.
Anger that had slowly simmered into a boiling hot fury as he’d spent countless weeks and a small fortune traveling up and down the East Coast, searching in vain for a doctor named Dr. Pratt or Miss Highborn or Lady Lancaster or whatever the hell moniker she was going by in an effort to shield herself from him.
Because that was what she had done. That was what she was doing.
Hiding.
She had gone back on their seven-year bargain and she was hiding. Tucked away somewhere beyond his reach, no doubt laughing at his gullibility.
So he’d left.
After packing up what meager possessions he had brought with him, he’d traveled to the closest open port and paid a small fortune to ensure safe travel through treacherous waters.
Now he was home, in the middle of winter, with nothing to show for his exhaustive efforts but a streak of gray hair at his temple that hadn’t been there twelve months ago and a kindled ire that flared whenever he thought of his wayward bride.
“You could have her declared dead and remarry,” Sterner suggested, leaning his forearms on the bar as he took a sip of brandy.
His gaze flicked to the far corner where his other three customers were slumped over their table before returning to Stephen.
“You’re the Earl of Lancaster. Ladies would be throwing themselves at you left and right. ”
“I don’t think a second wife would absolve me of the problems caused by the first,” he said darkly. “One is enough, thank you very much.”
“Do you know why she ran?”
“No.” An ominous storm cloud unraveled across Stephen’s countenance as he leaned back on his heels. “No, I don’t. But if I ever have the distinct displeasure of seeing her again, that’s the first goddamned question I’ll ask.”
*
“I have to pack my cats.”
For most people, the utterance of such a sentence would be cause for concern. Or perhaps the beginning of a jest. But for Abigail, it was a declaration of utmost importance.
To her relief, the Duke of Southwick had agreed to his wife’s request to travel to their country estate so long as Dr. Chadwick accompanied them.
This had sent their London household into a frenzy of packing as a move that generally was allotted a timeframe of three weeks was tasked to take place in three days.
While Mara oversaw the industrious effort from the confines of an armchair (per her husband’s request), Abigail slipped away to her own home, a significantly smaller townhouse on the outskirts of the West End where the streets were far more crowded and the population was somewhat . . . questionable.
While she ran a greater chance of having her pockets picked here than in Mayfair, the location afforded her peace of mind.
First, because the odds of accidentally bumping into Stephen were minimal.
And second, because it was also where her services were most needed, as the majority of her patients were employed by the massive factories clinging to the shore of the Thames like barnacles on the hull of a ship as they churned out coal smoke and deplorable working conditions.
Just last week, she’d treated a ten-year-old child for a broken leg after he was nearly crushed to death while retrieving fallen cotton underneath a textile machine.
The day after, a young mother with a crying baby on her hip and a terrible burn on her face from a steam boiler had come knocking in the middle of the night seeking a salve she could put on her damaged skin before she had to return to work the very next morning.
Since coming to London and setting up her small doctor’s office under the pseudonym of Dr. Chadwick, Abigail had stitched wounds, treated infections, debrided cuts, and had even performed an amputation on a horribly mangled arm that had gotten trapped in a flywheel.
It was grueling, often gruesome work, but it gave her a grim sense of satisfaction to know she was helping those who would have otherwise gone unaided and likely died from their workplace injuries.
It was also by no means a way to make money, as the vast majority of her clients didn’t have two farthings to rub together.
In lieu of traditional payment, she had accepted fresh loaves of bread, gently worn articles of clothing, a delicious onion stew, a pair of boots that were a size too small, sticks of candy, and—most notably—a small snake that she had promptly set loose in the nearest park.