Duchess For A Day

Now in the prison’s darkness, Claire swallowed hard and fought back the tears that clogged her tight throat. The terrible truth dawned that she might never get out of this dungeon.

Dawn was not far off when Green Tooth slowly turned her head, looked at the fair, blond young woman and saw that she was sleeping.

Finally.

Green Tooth glanced warily around at the rest of the prisoners to make sure all were asleep. Satisfied they were, she reached down and dug deep into her worn left shoe and pried from its sole a shiny gold coin. A coin she’d treasured for years.

She laid the coin in her lap and reached into the pocket of her filthy skirt. She withdrew a small pad of paper and a stubby lead pencil.

In minutes she was up and silently crossing the Common Cell. She waved a thin arm until she attracted the attention of the head turnkey who was back on his perch above. She motioned to him. He frowned, shook his head, but dropped the ladder over and came down it.

“Need a favor, gov,” Green Tooth whispered and handed the guard a folded note and the gold coin.

The turnkey glanced at the note, bit the coin to check its authenticity, and nodded in affirmation.

Three

Alas, it wasn’t weeks or months until Claire’s arraignment. It was later that very same morning.

Nine sharp.

Thursday, the twenty-seventh of June, 1895.

Claire’s case was first on the docket. If indicted—which seemed assured—she would be convicted and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison.

The honorable Percival Knowlton sat on the bench above in his colorful flowing judge’s robes and curly white powdered wig. The prosecutor, Cecil Twiggs, a slight man with thinning, sandy hair and sallow complexion, was there to represent the Queen.

Claire stood beside him as Twiggs stated the charges. “Your honor, the defendant, Mrs. Claire Orwell, betrayed the trust and kindness of her employer, Lord Wardley Nardees. Mrs. Orwell was employed…”

The arraignment, a predetermined farce, had begun.

Once the charges had been fully read, the elderly judge sat back in his chair, reached up under his white wig and rubbed a spot on his temple.

He looked at Claire. “Who speaks for the defendant?”

Rising to her feet, Claire looked around, searching in vain for the aging hack barrister the crown had appointed as her counsel. She turned back to address the judge.

“No one, I fear, milord.”

At that moment a large hand came to rest on her shoulder. She turned and looked up to see a giant of a man, resplendent in legal raiment bearing the Old Queen’s own colors. The powdered wig only added to his towering height.

“I kindly beg to differ.” The giant’s voice was low and surprisingly soft. “I speak for the accused, your worship.”

Cecil Twiggs paled and the slim prosecution brief slipped from his fingers. He bent and picked it up, his hand visibly shaking.

The judge sat upright, imperious in his tall-backed leather chair. He adjusted his spectacles, leaned forward and asked, “To what happy circumstance do we have the honor of the Queen’s own Counsel gracing our humble criminal court? Welcome, Lord Northway.”

Lord Northway thanked the judge and smiled at the awed Claire. He was an impressive man in both stature and manner and well known for his keen legal mind.

Lord Northway’s father, Henderson Northway, had been elevated by Queen Victoria forty-five years ago for the outstanding legal, diplomatic and political advice he had given as the Queen’s Counsel on affairs both domestic and foreign. Most notable was his opinion that the Queen’s highly opposed recognition of the Republic of Texas would, if done, be unchallenged.

The grateful Queen had rewarded him with a peerage.

Claire was as puzzled as the learned judge and the nervous prosecution that Lord Northway had come to her defense.

From his bench above, Judge Knowlton nodded toward Twiggs. “State the charge.”

“Grand theft, milord.” Twiggs opened the brief. “To be specific, jewelry belonging to Lord Nardees’s wife, valued by these appraisals in the amount of three thousand pounds.”

“Any witness besides the good baron?” asked the judge, a noticeable frown on his face.

Twiggs shook his head.

“What say you, Lord Northway? State your case.”

“No case, milord, but a few questions for the crown, perhaps.”

“We are honored to take questions of the Queen’s Counsel.” The judge waved a permissive hand.

“Thank you, milord.” The tall barrister turned to Cecil Twiggs. “These appraisals you have before you in the amount of three thousand pounds?”

“Yes,” Twiggs eagerly responded.

“How many separate appraisals and who made the appraisals?”

“There are six separate appraisals all made by Lloyd’s of London, of course.”

The quality and power of his voice demanding total attention, Lord Northway promptly pointed out that Claire Orwell’s accuser had not filed any claims with Lloyd’s of London.

“Your honor, Joseph Phillips, Esquire, of Lloyd’s of London waits just outside. He will testify to the fact that no claims have been made by Lord Nardees. May I add that Lloyd’s of London has insured the lord’s belongings for thirty-five years.” Lord Northway turned to Cecil Twiggs. “Over the last ten years, how many charges has Lord Nardees brought against his servants?”

Twiggs blanched, looking to the bench for help and direction.

“Answer,” said the judge with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Twiggs spread the brief before him on the prosecution table. “Perhaps four accusations.”

“Perhaps six,” Lord Northway softly corrected.

“Possible,” said Twiggs. “I have only—”

“Lord Northway, are you calling Lord Nardees a liar?” asked the judge. “That’s your defense?”

“Not at all, your honor. I’m simply pointing out that perhaps a mistake has been made. Honorable people can disagree and—”

“Approach the bench,” the judge interrupted.

Lord Northway again stated, “Nardees has filed no claims on past charges. Perhaps the items Lord Nardees thought were stolen have only been misplaced. And subsequently found.” Lord Northway paused and drew himself up to his full, imposing height. “Are we to send this poor young woman—” he nodded to Claire “—who has no history of committing any crimes, to twenty-five years and ruin her life—or more accurately, end her life? She may not survive…” Again he paused, then said, “I respectably ask for all charges to be dismissed.”

The judge looked intently at Lord Northway. “I will rule later today.”

At 6:00 p.m. the judge told the prosecutor that he had dismissed the charges. He also considered the failure on the part of Lord Nardees to file insurance claims. He told the barristers he was going to deny a true bill and that Claire Orwell was to be set free. Claire and the barristers rose to their feet. The judge asked Lord Northway to stay. Claire turned to thank her gallant defender.

Lord Northway smiled warmly and said, “If you’ll wait just outside, I must speak with you before you go. I won’t be long.”

Claire nodded and walked out with the prosecutor.

“Tell me, old man,” the judge beseeched when the two were alone, “what in the name of God brings you to defend this poor woman?”

Lord Northway smiled, reached into his weskit pocket and extracted a large gold hunter-case watch. He gave the stem a slight twist and the case opened, revealing a yellowing enameled miniature.

The judge gasped audibly.

“Yes,” acknowledged Lord Northway, “an exact likeness of Claire Orwell.”

“Painted years before Claire was born,” the judge said.

Lord Northway nodded. “My father handed me this watch on his deathbed.” He looked at the faded miniature. “She was the love of his life.”

“I see,” the judge sat back in his chair.

“Father instructed me to help her daughter, Claire, if ever she needed me.”

“How did you hear about her being in trouble?”

“A timely missive from a miscreant in Newgate known as Green Tooth,” said Lord Northway.

Claire looked up, smiled and rose from the bench in the corridor as Lord Northway approached. Still puzzled that he had come to her defense, she was even more puzzled when the stately lord handed her an envelope.

“My dear,” he said in that rich baritone voice, “I’ve a bit of good news for you.”

Claire listened and learned that she was being offered the opportunity to sail to America to open up the Saratoga Springs, New York, summer house of Britain’s flamboyant Duchess of Beaumont. The young, blond widow was one of Britain’s more colorful royals, a woman who cared not one whit what the gossips said about her.

Claire had read of the duchess’s exploits and her photograph had often appeared in the London Times.

“Your duties,” said Lord Northway, “if you choose to accept the position, will be to hire a small staff and have the Saratoga residence made ready for the arrival of the duchess herself. She’ll be coming to the Springs in mid-August for the summer racing season.

“It is,” said Northway, “entirely up to you. If you wish to accept this offer, all the necessary arrangements will be made for you.”

“Yes, of course, I accept!” said Claire, excited. “I can think of nothing I’d like better than to…to…” She stopped speaking and frowned suddenly. She couldn’t go. She couldn’t leave the poor old woman known as Green Tooth behind. She owed the woman her life. She couldn’t be ungrateful and turn her back on the poor creature.

Claire looked up at the tall, imposing man and said, “On one condition, milord.”

“Which is?”

“I’ve a friend who must accompany me to America.”

His eyebrows raised. “A male?”

“No, female.”

“I see no difficulty. Your friend can serve in some capacity as part of the staff.”

“Actually, it’s not quite that simple,” Claire said. She took a deep breath and informed him, “She’s presently a prisoner in Newgate. But she’s good-hearted. She saved me from a terrible physical attack and I will take responsibility for her.”

“What’s her crime?”

“I honestly don’t know, but I would guess petty theft or some such minor charge. I beg you, Lord Northway, find a way to free the poor woman and allow me to take her with me.”

Lord Northway reluctantly agreed to look into the charges and see what he could do. The astonished Green Tooth was freed that same afternoon.

The next morning Claire went directly to the bank and withdrew what meager funds she’d managed to save over the years. Then she requested entrance to her safe-deposit box. She took the box into a small private room, opened it and lifted from it a small velvet drawstring bag.

Claire loosened the tasseled drawstrings and looked inside. She smiled, as she always did, when admiring the sparkling treasures inside. After only a few seconds, she reluctantly drew the strings tight once more.

Then she lifted her full skirts and pinned the velvet pouch in among the folds of her full petticoats. She dropped her skirts, patted the concealed treasure, and left the bank with a spring to her step.

With the money she’d withdrawn, Claire promptly sent the woman who had saved her life to the dentist and to have her hair cut and buy some new clothes. And Claire bought her frail friend a fine-looking hickory walking cane with a gleaming silver head.

Days later Claire Orwell and Olivia Sutton—Olivia Sutton looking nothing like the unkempt woman dubbed Green Tooth and Claire vowing she’d have Olivia speaking like a proper lady by the time they reached New York—happily set sail for America on a bright, clear June morning.

Four

Virginia City, Nevada

Friday, July 5, 1895

Strong alpine sunlight streamed in through the open bedroom windows of an imposing three-story mansion perched on the cliffs high above the little mining city.

The sunshine had slowly marched across the spacious upstairs room until finally, at midmorning, it reached the bed. And the bed’s occupants.

A man and a woman.

The man groaned when the penetrating light shone through his closed eyelids, disturbing him, annoying him. Without opening his eyes, he grabbed a feather pillow, stuck his dark head under it, muttered a curse and promptly fell back to sleep.

The woman slowly awakened, stretched and raised up onto an elbow. Shoving her tousled dark hair out of her eyes, she yawned sleepily, then began to smile like the cat that got the cream. She gazed at the ruggedly handsome man stretched out naked on his belly beside her.

The darkness of his lean, bare body was in striking contrast to the whiteness of the silky sheets. Admiring him, she let her lazy gaze travel downward from his wide, sculpted shoulders and over the long, deeply clefted back to his trim waist. Her eyes brightened when they reached his firm buttocks, the smooth flesh of the rounded cheeks as deeply tanned as his leanly muscled arms. The sight of those strong arms and powerful thighs made her heart flutter pleasantly.

Recalling last’s night tempestuous loving, she sighed with pleasure, laid back down, and was soon asleep again.

Another hour passed before the man began to stir. Slowly he pulled his head out from under the pillow, lifted it and looked warily around. He saw the sleeping brunette beauty and made a face. He had forgotten she was here. He wished that she weren’t. Wished now that he hadn’t insisted she come home with him last night. Then again, he wasn’t sure he had. It might have been her idea.

Hank Cassidy made a face.

He tried to remember exactly what had happened at last night’s rowdy Fourth of July celebration. He vividly recalled the earlier part of the evening. The food and fireworks and the six-shooters discharging in the air. The music and the street dance and pretty little Patricia Ann Vance, the young woman he had escorted to the festivities.

Hank turned his head, looked again at the naked woman beside him. She wasn’t Patricia Ann. Patricia Ann was petite and had auburn hair and fair skin. This woman was tall and voluptuous and her hair and skin were almost as dark as his own.

Hank felt his head began to mildly throb. Then it dawned on him. He had, at the good-natured dares of his boisterous buddies and over Patricia Ann’s strong objections, made several visits to the makeshift outdoor bar for shots of rotgut whiskey. It was coming back to him now. He’d had one too many bourbons and Patricia Ann got huffy and warned as they danced, “Henry Columbus Cassidy, so help me if you have one more drink, I am leaving!”

“Well don’t let us keep you,” said a seductive long-legged beauty with dark hair, deftly stepping between him and the furious Patricia Ann to offer him a drink.

And herself.

Hank couldn’t remember seeing Patricia Ann after that. He did remember drinking and dancing and laughing with this brazen beauty. And, he vaguely recalled, much later in the evening, the two of them moving their little party on up the hill to the privacy of his home. Articles of discarded clothing had left a telltale trail from the room’s closed door to the bed.

He glanced again at the woman. In last night’s haste to get undressed and into bed, she had missed one sheer stocking. It still enclosed her long left leg enticingly. A saucy black lace garter rested just above her knee.

Hank eased over onto his back and scratched his stubbled jaw in puzzlement. What the hell was her name? As he recalled she was visiting from California; he’d never seen her before last night. They had not been formally introduced, but surely she’d told him her name at some point in the evening. Nonetheless, he couldn’t bring it to mind. Whoever she was, it was time she left.

He had a train to catch.

Hank drew a deep breath, reached out, touched the woman’s shoulder and gave her a firm shake. “Darlin’, time for us to wake up.”

Her dark eyes slowly opened. She saw him and began to smile. “Good morning, Hank, my love.”

“Mornin’…ah…honey.” He turned away, sat up and threw his long legs over the edge of the mattress. “Get dressed and I’ll have Brady drive you home.”

“I don’t want to go home,” she said, hastily sitting up and stripping off her lone stocking and black garter. Before Hank could rise to his feet, she scrambled across the mattress and looped the stocking around his waist from behind. Playfully biting his left ear, she murmured, “Have you forgotten what you promised last night, Hank?”

Hank screwed up his face. What could he have possibly promised this woman whose name he did not know? Had he mentioned Saratoga to her? Surely not. “No, of course I haven’t forgotten.”

“Then you’ll take me with you to Saratoga Springs?” she shrieked happily, releasing the sheer stocking. It whispered down to Hank’s lap and fell to the floor. She wrapped her arms around him and, lowering her face to press butterfly kisses to his tanned shoulder, said, “I can be ready in no time and—”

“Hold it, baby,” Hank interrupted, freeing himself from her arms. He stood up, lowered his hands to modestly cup himself, then turned to face her. “Now we both had a little too much to drink last night and we had us some fun together and I like you a whole lot, really I do. But we’ll have to continue this party when I return.”

“No!” she firmly protested. “I want to go with you,” she whined, desperate to make him want her so much he’d give in and take her to Saratoga.

He was everything she’d ever wanted—handsome and charming and fun and virile and the thrilling lover of her wildest dreams. And he was, she had heard the minute she arrived in Virginia City, one of the richest men in America.

“Now listen…ah…I…” Hank shook his head. “All right, I admit it. I can’t recall your name, you’ll have to remind me.”

“Paula. Paula Gentry,” she said with a hurt look. “How could you possibly forget?”

“I humbly apologize, Miss Gentry. I’m not very good at names.” He smiled disarmingly at her. “Now, please, get dressed and when I get back to Virginia City in a couple of months, you and I will—”

“A couple of months? No! I will not get dressed!” she declared. She sat back on her bare heels and crossed her arms over her chest. “Not if you won’t take me with you.”

“Be reasonable, Miss Gentry. We’ve only just met. And as I apparently mentioned last night, I leave for Saratoga Springs today, but it is strictly a business trip. I wouldn’t have time to entertain you.”

“I could entertain myself and in the evenings we could—”

“You are not going anywhere but home,” Hank said. He dropped his hands to his sides and turned away.

Paula was up off the bed in a flash. She grabbed his arm and anxiously stepped in front of him. “Very well. If you must go, you must, but I’ll see to it that you won’t forget me while you’re away.” She spread hands on the steely muscles of his chest, then smiled devilishly as she rubbed warming circles around the flat brown nipples. At the same time she pressed her pelvis against his and began slowly gyrating her hips. “You want to make your train? Then you’d better take what I’m offering because I’m not letting you leave until you carry me back to the bed and make love to me.”

Half annoyed, half aroused, Hank lifted a hand, slid long fingers into her lustrous dark hair, clasped a generous handful, tightened his grip and urged her head back. He was both irritated and intrigued as he lowered his head until his lips were an inch from hers.

He said, “I’m not carrying you back to bed, Miss Gentry. You want me, you’ll take me standing right here or not at all.”

“Oh, Hank,” she sighed, breathlessly, “yes, yes, kiss me, darling.”

“No time for kisses,” he said, “ten minutes is all we have.”

Paula shrieked with excitement when he put his hands around the backs of her thighs and easily lifted her from the floor. He locked long arms around her thighs and raised her higher. Her bare toes dug into his knees. She giggled with delight and braced her hands on his shoulders. With her pelvis now pressed against his hair-covered chest, she already appeared dizzy with desire.

She anxiously clasped his handsome head in her hands, pushed it back, looked into his sky-blue eyes, and began to wiggle and hunch her back, bending and sliding lower so that her breasts were at his face. She held her breath as she eagerly brushed her heavy left breast against his lips.

“Kiss it, Hank,” she begged. “Please. Lick it a little and then—”

She ahhhed with pleasure when his mouth captured the nipple and he raked his teeth over it, then sucked greedily.

On fire, so aroused she could hardly keep from crying out, Paula Gentry learned that making love while standing in the middle of a room with the summer sunlight spilling in and the sounds of people talking and laughing on the street below was pleasurable beyond belief.

She wasn’t sure if she was a contortionist or if he was or if they both were; all she knew was that this incredibly sexual man managed to get her legs wrapped around his waist and a hand between their pressing bodies to coax and tease her burning flesh until she was dripping wet while his heated mouth continued to dazzle her by feasting hungrily on her breasts.

Doubting he could penetrate her without his mouth releasing her aching nipple, she gave a shout of joy when, as if he’d read her mind, he did just that.

While he expertly lowered her down onto the surging tip of his hard, thrusting flesh, he bowed his back so that his lips continued to cling to her stiffened nipple, giving her what she desired.

It was rapture.

His pulsing erection was only just barely inside her, making her yearn for more, making her look eagerly forward to the incredible instant when he would force her down onto it and fill her completely. It was a splendid kind of torturous teasing, a preview of the pleasure to come. For a thrilling moment they stayed just like that until finally, unable to wait one more second, Paula at last urged his head up, put her lips to his ear and whispered, “You won’t ever forget this moment, Hank, nor will I.” And she slithered down onto him, until she was fully impaled upon him.

Hank moved his bare feet wider apart to brace himself, then stood there in the bright Nevada sunlight, hands filled with the twin cheeks of her bottom, controlling her, while he rhythmically thrust into her. Paula gave as good as she got, opening fully to him, sucking him in, squeezing him tightly, gripping his ribs with her knees.

Locked in lust as they were, they began to reel around the spacious room. She moaning, he groaning, they did a dance of desire that found them first tangled in the heavy drapery blowing in the open windows while deep masculine laughter rose from the street below. Seconds later they were half leaning against a heavy drum table. Then they found themselves balanced against the high back of an easy chair. Finally, they landed roughly up against the wall, Paula’s bare backside pressed into the lush flocked wallpaper, Hank hammering her hard.

Ten minutes after he’d first lifted her from the floor, both exploded in wrenching orgasm.

Five

At straight-up noon the handsome, thirty-two-year-old Hank Cassidy stepped onto his private rail car—alone—for the journey across the country. The muscular, rough-around-the-edges, hardworking Westerner who had made tens of millions in the mines was better known as Nevada’s young Silver King.

Hank looked the part of royalty on this sunny summer day. With his smoothly shaven face bronzed by the Nevada sun and wind and glowing with good health, his midnight hair slightly damp from his bath, Hank was impeccably dressed in buff-colored custom-tailored trousers and sky-blue linen shirt. He had the self-assured manner and sleek, self-satisfied appearance of a man who had been born to the purple.

Nothing could have been further from the truth.

Hank Cassidy came from modest means. He never knew his mother. She died giving birth to him. When he was seventeen his quiet, frugal father, a lifelong miner who rarely talked or smiled, was killed in an explosion deep underground. To Hank’s surprise, his undemonstrative father had managed to save a small sum of money and left it to his only son.