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Chapter 1
Madrid 1809
The smell of mud and blood, of sweat and bodies packed together like sardines, had become quite the norm for Anthony Grafton. Back home in London, he was little more than a gentleman, but out here, he mattered; out here, he was a high officer of the Royal British Army, and his life mattered.
And so the smells no longer bothered him. Nor did the sounds of squeaking rats and carrions flying high overhead whenever they believed there was fresh meat ripe for the picking. Even the screams of injured and dying men affected him far less than they once had done.
Standing over the table in his room, marking out strategies on his map and getting stuck into his work was his favourite place. And that was exactly where the messenger found him. He was working by candlelight because the sun had gone down hours earlier, not that even the sun could penetrate the thick canvas that covered his quarters.
He rarely slept in the hard wooden framed, straw mattress cot at the far end of the tent. Most of the time, he would be found with his head dropped onto the map, ink smudged on his forehead, and drool running down from the corner of his lip due to his sheer desire to make sure he had thought out every possible strategy for defeating the Spanish. Napoleon Bonaparte would rue the day he ever began this war, especially if Anthony had anything to say about it.
But it seemed that the missive the messenger carried had a different fate in mind for him.
“What is it?” Anthony snapped grouchily. He instantly regretted it the moment he saw the startled look on the young boy’s face. He couldn’t have been more than fifteen. Far too young to be on the frontlines and yet here he was, offering a piece of crinkled paper to the officer. “Sorry. Ignore me. I’ve had little sleep. What do you have for me?”
“An important note, milord,” the boy insisted, bowing with the letter held prostrate in front of him. Anthony flinched at the title the young boy called him by, but he had long since given up trying to tell the younger soldiers that he was no lord; he was merely a higher officer who had worked hard to get to where he was now.
It would do him no good to waste his breath explaining it to this soldier. The two would likely never meet again, and Anthony would rather not think of the poor lad’s fate in the war. So many good young men had already perished.
“Thank you, soldier,” he said simply and took the letter from the boy.
He wasn’t sure what made him feel shivers down his spine and a clawing in his gut, but the moment he held that piece of paper, something in the air changed. A silence utterly unnerving seemed to fall upon the tent. Even though the noise of the army remained all around him, Anthony’s ears were suddenly deaf to it. Holding his breath, he unfolded the letter and began to read.
Confusion turned to surprise, and surprise turned to sheer astonishment the further he read.
“I don’t believe it,” he gasped, not entirely meaning to have spoken the words out loud.
“Milord?” the common boy who remained at his side, waiting like a loyal dog to take any further message required of him, raised an eyebrow, though he quickly dipped his head again with his hands clasped behind his back as though he realised he had spoken out of turn.
“This letter says … it says I am to be a duke,” Anthony gulped, feeling as though he needed to say the words out loud to truly understand them.
“Milord!” The boy before him clipped his heels together and saluted as if in congratulations.
“A distant uncle, a Neil Grafton, has passed away,” Anthony explained, though he was still talking to himself more than the soldier, trying to make sense of all the letter contained. “He was the Duke of Chatham and has no living sons or brothers, no other relatives to take the title. I am to be a duke.”
Others might have rejoiced at the news but not Anthony. All he could feel was dismay the moment he saw the words, ‘you must return to England immediately.’
Though he was loathed to do so, Anthony Grafton did as instructed. He took the necessary leave, offering his post to another officer before hopping onto a ship back to London.
After the sweltering and heavy Spanish climate, the sun beating down on them almost every day, London was a cold and dreary place, a place that Anthony would rather have not seen. Yet he was there, and he had business to attend to, and so without bothering to find a place to stay, he headed directly for the solicitor’s office that had been addressed on the letter he had received on the frontlines.
He had been in the bald-headed, spectacled solicitor’s office little more than a minute before he said, “Mr Patterson, we are both very busy men, so I shall not trouble you any more than I need to. If you would be so kind as to give me any paperwork to sign and any other information I shall need so that I might return to Spain post haste.”
The solicitor’s mouth practically fell open, the elder man looking almost as if his heart might give out at Anthony’s sheer lack of excitement towards the fact he had practically been handed life upon a silver platter.
“My Lord, I am afraid that you shall not be able to return to the frontlines,” Mr Patterson said firmly, though he was shaking and blinking as if he were scared to tell his client the truth. His lips quivered, and he stammered, “There are very serious matters to attend to regarding your new estates, and the dukedom requires your presence here in England.”
“Then perhaps it ought to go to someone else,” Anthony replied bluntly. He stood in the office, having refused a seat due to his rising irritation at having been pulled away from his post, and he could feel the terror pulsing through the solicitor, the same reaction he got from many men that he met.
Having been an officer for a long time and having hardened himself to become the bravest, most reputable soldier possible, Anthony could not allow himself to soften, even for a moment. He could not blame the solicitor for his fear.
Anthony Grafton was a large and imposing man at the best of times, but at that current moment, he had been dragged far from what he loved. He had travelled day and night by ship, fighting sea sickness and arrived in London on what might have been the rainiest of all rainy days. He was in no mood for the back and forth of this conversation.
“Sir, I do not believe you understand the seriousness of your situation,” the solicitor insisted, and Anthony saw how the man swallowed past a lump in his throat before continuing, “I am well aware of your situation, Your Grace.”
Anthony stiffened immediately.
“Call me Anthony,” he ordered. The solicitor looked quite befuddled, raising an eyebrow.
