WHEN THE PINKERTON detective finally located her, Josephine Wentworth had been a maid-of-all-work at the Duke of Blackthorne’s estate in the northernmost county in England—and separated from her family in America—for two years.
“They’re all alive? Miranda and Nick and Harry? And well?” she asked, when the Pinkerton informed her that he’d been employed by her eldest sister, Miranda, to find her, after she’d disappeared two years ago. “What about Hannah and Hetty? Have they been located? Are they…” Her throat had swollen closed with terror at the thought of what she might hear had happened to her twin sisters, who’d been left all alone on the prairie after the Sioux attack, without oxen to pull the wagon.
“All five of your siblings are alive and well,” the Pinkerton confirmed. “And prosperous. In fact, Miss Wentworth, you’re quite a wealthy young woman yourself.”
Josie felt faint with relief that her entire family had survived, despite the calamities that had beset them. And then almost giddy at the thought of having enough money to liberate both herself and the two orphaned boys, wards of the Duke of Blackthorne, for whom she’d so often had to intervene to prevent unfair punishment over the past two years. Spencer and Clay had become the unfortunate victims of the trip wires and booby traps launched in the war between their London-born governess, Miss Adeline Sharpe, and the Scottish-born housekeeper at Tearlach Castle, Mrs. Edna Pettibone.
Mrs. Pettibone had ruled the roost for twenty-three years before Miss Sharpe had shown up with the two boys in tow and insisted that she must be accorded a spot one rung higher in the pecking order at the duke’s northernmost estate. Mrs. Pettibone had naturally taken umbrage at such a suggestion. By the time Josie arrived on the scene, the battle of wills was in full swing, and she had her hands full keeping the boys out of the line of fire.
Although only a small part of the ancient castle was livable, Mrs. Pettibone governed her domain with an iron fist. If the boys were underfoot—or naughty, as growing boys were wont to be—she accused Miss Sharpe of failing to control her charges. On the other hand, if the boys’ clothes weren’t washed and ironed to Miss Sharpe’s high standards, she accused Mrs. Pettibone of failing to instruct the maids in their duties.
And that was the mere tip of the iceberg. Miss Sharpe complained endlessly about the condition of the castle, which Mrs. Pettibone was responsible for keeping in good working order. The charge of neglect was clearly unfair, since Mrs. Pettibone could hardly be held responsible for the fact that the stone structure was a broken-down ruin.
The property had been deeded to a medieval Duke of Blackthorne by King John, for the duke’s assistance in taking Berwick-upon-Tweed from the Scots. As far as Josie could tell, nothing had been done since to improve it, and Tearlach had deteriorated to its current sad condition. Sheep dotted the green rolling hills that surrounded the castle and provided the income for those who lived and worked on the estate.
The Pinkerton’s pronouncement that she was rich enough to escape the castle that had been her prison for the past two years seemed too good to be true. Her brow furrowed in disbelief. “I’m wealthy? How is that possible?”
“It seems your father’s fortune wasn’t burned up in the Great Fire after all,” the Pinkerton replied. “Your uncle Stephen absconded with it. He has since been found, and most of your father’s fortune recovered.”
“I’m rich?” she asked again, not quite sure if she was making up the words coming out of the Pinkerton’s mouth because she wanted so badly for them to be true.
“Yes, Miss Wentworth.” He handed her a piece of paper and explained, “This bank draft should serve to get you back to your family in America. There’s more money waiting in the bank for you there. Along with your family, of course.”
“Where are they?” she asked. “Where should I go?”
“That’s up to you. Your sister Miranda is married to Mr. Jacob Creed and lives on a ranch near San Antonio, Texas, with your brothers, Nicholas and Harrison. Your sister Hannah is married to Mr. Flint Creed and lives on a ranch near Fort Laramie in the Wyoming Territory.”
Josie couldn’t believe Hannah had married again. Hannah’s first husband, Mr. McMurtry, had died of cholera during their journey from the Chicago orphanage, where they’d been living, to Cheyenne, in the Wyoming Territory, where Mr. McMurtry had planned to open a store. Josie had already opened her mouth to ask whether the two Creeds—Jacob and Flint—were related, when the Pinkerton said, “The Creed men are brothers.”
Josie wondered how two of her sisters could have met and married brothers living so far apart, but that could wait until she saw them again and could hear their stories in person. “And Hetty?” she asked anxiously. Hetty had been struck in the shoulder by a Sioux arrow during the attack on their wagon. All this time, Josie had worried and wondered whether Hetty had survived her wound.
“Your sister Henrietta is married to Mr. Karl Norwood and lives in the Bitterroot Valley in the Montana Territory.”
“No one lives near anyone else,” she cried in consternation. “How can they bear it?” They’d been a caring, close-knit family. Now, not only were all her sisters married to men who were strangers to her, but they resided at such vast distances from each other that visiting must be next to impossible.
“Do you know if they’ve been able to get back together anytime in the past two years?”
The Pinkerton doffed his black derby and ran a hand through his hair before replacing the hat and tugging it down low on his brow. He cleared his throat and said, “I believe they’ve been waiting until you could be located, before they attempted to reunite the family in one place. I have orders to escort you to London and make sure you have no trouble making arrangements to return home.”
Josie felt ashamed that she hadn’t tried harder to get back to her family in America. But she couldn’t figure out a way to take Spencer and Clay with her, and she wasn’t willing to leave the two persecuted boys behind. They’d needed her as much—or maybe more—than her siblings. Besides, she’d had no idea how to locate her sisters and brothers, or even whether any of them were still alive. Now it seemed the Wentworths would all be together again someday.
But that day was going to have to wait awhile longer. First, she had to rescue Spencer and Clay from the clutches of the dastardly Duke of Blackthorne, whose neglect had allowed two unhappy women to make the lives of their charges miserable.
Josie had been the one to suggest that Miranda leave the rest of them behind at the Chicago Institute for Orphaned Children, so she could become a mail-order bride in Texas. She’d hoped Miranda might marry a man who had a large enough home that they could all go there to escape the cruel headmistress, Miss Iris Birch.
But after Miranda left the orphanage in the dead of night—sneaking Nick and Harry out the door along with her—she’d never been heard from again. Josie and her older twin sisters hadn’t known for sure whether Miranda and the boys were alive or dead.
During the three months after Miranda left, the beatings from Miss Birch had gotten worse, and Josie had pressured Hannah to become a mail-order bride as well, in order to escape Miss Birch’s wrath at Miranda’s middle-of-the-night escape with their two brothers. Hannah had married Mr. McMurtry, and the three remaining sisters had ended up on a wagon train headed to the Wyoming Territory.
That journey had ended in utter disaster. They’d been lost on the prairie when Mr. McMurtry died of cholera, and shortly thereafter, the three girls had been attacked by a marauding band of Sioux.
Mercifully, most of what came after her capture was a painful blur. Josie had no memory of being rescued from the Sioux village. She wasn’t sure at what moment she’d realized she was safe, that she’d been saved from the savage who’d taken her captive. She’d felt the sway of the bunk in which she lay and smelled the salt air and heard the men above deck singing sea chanties as they worked and realized she was on a ship. Her whole existence had narrowed down to the rough timbre of a soothing male voice, the touch of gentle hands, and the excruciating pain of having her wounds treated.
She had only one vivid memory: the spoken promise of her rescuer that she would be sent home and given the means to find her sisters. It was a promise he hadn’t kept. All the kind treatment in the world by the Duke of Blackthorne—the man she’d discovered was her supposed savior—couldn’t make up for that bitter betrayal.
Instead of being shipped home to America when she was well, she’d been sent off to Tearlach Castle, a few miles from the Scottish border, and had become a virtual slave. She intended to have an answer from the duke’s own lips someday, as to why he’d broken his promise.
Meanwhile, the housekeeper had made Josie’s options clear: either wash dishes, sweep floors, cook, empty the grates, keep the lamps clean, haul coal, polish silver, do needlework, make beds, wash and iron laundry, weed the garden, and help keep “those pesky boys” out of the way, or be kicked out to starve without a roof over her head.
Josie had written numerous letters to the Duke of Blackthorne, but she’d gotten no response. Which made her wonder whether they might have been intercepted by Mrs. Pettibone. So she’d sent a letter through one of the shepherds and got no response. And finally, through a traveling peddler, with the same result.
At that point, she’d concluded that the duke had gotten all the letters she’d sent and simply ignored them. It was a case of out of sight, out of mind. She’d been an interesting diversion, nothing more.
When she’d felt strong enough, Josie had tried to run away, only to discover just how far Tearlach Castle was from Berwick-upon-Tweed. She’d walked for two days and hadn’t seen another living soul. No stagecoach traveled the closest road, and even assuming she could find a port where she could take ship for America, she had no way to pay for her passage.
Her hate and resentment of the Duke of Blackthorne had grown, as she’d realized the true extent of her captivity. He’d rescued her from the Indians, only to make her a prisoner in one of his poorer estates, which he never visited.
Her circumstances had been bearable, but her heart ached for the duke’s nephews. When she’d arrived, Clay and Spencer were only four and six. Their situation reminded her most of what her two younger brothers, Nick and Harry, had suffered at the hands of Miss Birch at the orphanage. Mrs. Pettibone found her two charges a nuisance and a burden and made sure they knew it. And Miss Sharpe was as strict as she was quick to punish for a fault.
It would have been bad enough if the two mistreated boys had been the children of poor relations. But Josie had discovered they were Lord Spencer and Lord Clay, the orphaned sons of the Duke of Blackthorne’s younger brother, Lord Montgomery Wharton.
Josie found the boys’ abandonment as outrageous as her own, and she made it her business to make their lives easier. She spent as much time with them as she could, taking them for nature walks that gave Miss Sharpe a break and keeping them out of the way of Mrs. Pettibone as best she could. In short, she’d done everything in her power to make their childhoods more fun. She couldn’t have loved them more if they’d been her very own brothers.
Josie was jerked from her reverie by a tug on her skirt and an eight-year-old voice saying, “Josie, come quick! It’s Clay!”
“What’s happened?”
“Mrs. Pettibone caught him stealing an apple tart in the kitchen. She’s running up the stairs after him, and Miss Sharpe is in the schoolroom, where Clay likes to hide. You know what that means.”
A shiver of foreboding skittered down Josie’s spine. “Excuse me, please,” she said to the Pinkerton. “Don’t leave! I’ll be back.”
Then she turned and followed Spencer, as he scampered away toward the stairway in the hall.