Title Sinful Tales of Desirable Ladies

by Lucinda Nelson

  Solomon laughed. “Perhaps I should show up more often on these deals. Perhaps they will pay more just to escape me.”

  “Tsk.” Aldric replied. “Dishonorable. You rode, did you not? Give me a moment to fetch my horse.”

  The ride across London to the Whitechapel neighborhood was pleasant enough despite the heavy traffic, and Solomon enjoyed the journey. Only the spectre of who was stealing from him overlay his companionship with Aldric. We have been friends for so long, how could he be so disloyal? He eyed Aldric’s open expression under his tall black hat, his shaggy brown hair that fell to his collar, only half listening to his talk about his wife and young son.

  Solomon’s thoughts ranged to his other suspect, Edward. Dedicated, hardworking, also a good friend who Solomon had zero concerns about when Solomon first hired him those many years ago. Though he came from working class people, Edward’s brilliant mind and fluency in Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese helped build a small import empire for Solomon.

  “I say, are you listening to me?”

  Solomon’s thoughts broke and he glanced over at Aldric. “I am sorry. Woolgathering, I expect.”

  “I thought to mention that we are no longer in a respectable neighborhood,” Aldric told him with a gesture toward the seedy homes and small shops, the ragged children who stared from the gutters as they rode by. A few prostitutes strolled along the walks and eyed them with speculation as men in heavy dark work clothes and cloth caps worked loading wagons from warehouses. “Keep a sharp eye out for any criminal types who may want a couple of noble heads on their walls.”

  Solomon cursed under his breath. “I should have come armed.”

  “Fear not, my friend. I have a loaded pistol under my coat.”

  “At least one of us came prepared.”

  Riding deeper into the Whitechapel neighborhood, Solomon remained alert for any potential trouble, observing the men who lounged casually in door fronts and watched them ride past with suspicious gazes. “I fear we are not exactly welcome here,” he commented dryly.

  “Perhaps not,” Aldric replied, turning in his saddle to gaze behind them. His blue eyes met Solomon’s. “However, no one seems ready to take exception.”

  “Not yet.”

  As they rode, Aldric pointed out possible building sites they might consider purchasing, explaining and expanding on his ideas for building rows of flats. “The construction will create jobs in the area,” he said, “Skilled workers will have an opportunity to earn money.”

  “And the prostitutes will gain more clients,” Solomon replied dryly. “But this part of London will always be the sleazier and darker stain.”

  Aldric shrugged. “At least we can make money here as well as contribute something that might make it a better place.”

  Solomon eyed him sidelong. “Why this sense of nobility? You want to change the face of the neighborhood?”

  “I am not entirely money hungry, Sol,” Aldric replied, gesturing around him. “If I can do a little something to improve the lives of a few people, then it’s my duty to do so. Yours too.”

  More confused than ever, Solomon turned his stallion to ride back, wondering if he had both Aldric and Edward pegged wrong in his suspicions as to who was stealing from him. If Aldric had this altruistic notion to improve some lives in the Whitechapel area, how could he also steal while smiling into Solomon’s face?

  The shot came from behind them.

  Solomon heard the barking explosion at the same moment he felt a thud in his upper left arm. Burning pain spread across his arm and shoulder, but he spun his horse around to face his attacker. Aldric also wheeled his horse, yanking his pistol from under his coat. He lifted it, and fired at the fellow standing in the middle of the lane, a dragon in his hand.

  Recognizing the same man who shot at him at Hyde Park, Solomon growled low in his throat, and kicked his stallion into a gallop. “You bastard, you will not escape me again.”

  The fellow with the curly black hair, the dragon still in his hand, bolted for the nearest narrow alley between two shops. With only room enough for one horse to enter at a time, Aldric was forced to rein in and follow behind Solomon’s back. Up ahead of them, the man in the ragged coat ducked through a door, then slammed it shut behind him.

  Bleeding profusely and unable to use his left arm, Solomon nonetheless leaped from his saddle before the stallion came to a halt. Finding the door bolted from the inside, he tried to strike it with his healthy shoulder and only succeeded in sending waves of agony coursing through him. Cursing roundly, he tried to kick it in, but the solid oak resisted his attempts to break it down.

  Aldric trotted his horse further down the alley, but it proved to be a dead end. “I cannot see where he might come out,” he said, reining around and returning. “How badly are you hurt?”

  “I will live,” Solomon answered, examining his torn coat, sleeve and probing the wound with his fingers. “I fear I will need the attentions of a surgeon. Have you a kerchief?”

  Aldric dismounted and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. “You are bleeding badly.”

  Solomon grimaced in pain as Aldric tied the cloth tightly around his wound. “I want to take a look around,” he said, watching the white cloth turn red immediately. “See where that bastard might be hiding.”

  “You recognized him.” Aldric eyed him closely. “What is going on?”

  “He is the same one who shot at me before,” Solomon said, trying to flex his arm and found it too painful to keep trying. “In Hyde Park when I took Miss Wolcott for a drive.”

  “Someone is trying to kill you?” Aldric’s eyes stared hard into his. “Who? Why?”

  “My first suspicion is the Baron Beaulieu,” Solomon answered, turning toward his horse.

  Mounting with painful difficulty, Solomon walked his horse back down the alley to the cobbled lane, seeing few people, and those he did see cowered in doorways. Riding past the shops, he peered in and witnessed the owners slamming home doors and closing shutters, heard bars drop into place. “It would appear no one wants anything to do with aristocrats being shot at,” he commented dryly.

  “Do you blame them?” Aldric asked. “If we called in the Bow Street Runners, they will tear this place apart and arrest half the citizens of Whitechapel.”

  “And still not find the man who was evidently hired to kill me.”

  “You think that is what is going on?” Aldric watched his face closely as they rode on at a walk. “You do not think this fellow may have a grudge against you personally?”

  “If he does, I do not know him.” Solomon looked for any sign that the shooter remained inside or had run out another door and then possibly hid nearby. “I cannot imagine what I may have done to warrant this grudge from this fellow.”

  “Could you have recently given him the sack?”

  Solomon shook his head. “I know all my employees and he has never worked for me.”

  “Perhaps his slight is imagined, yet bitter. Come, we must get you looked at, but not in this neighborhood.”

  Though trotting pained him terribly, Solomon was just as determined to leave the area as Aldric. Upon their return to the more prosperous neighborhoods, Aldric led him to a small building with a wooden sign hanging over it that indicated it belongs to a physician. “This surgeon has a good reputation,” Aldric explained as he reined toward it. “I know people who have used him before.”

  Gritting his teeth against the fierce pain, Solomon dismounted and let Aldric tie his horse for him. Following him inside, they found the physician and his assistant tending to a youth with a broken arm. The boy lay on a steel table, asleep under the effects of laudanum. Glancing up, the surgeon’s eyes widened in surprise. He straightened, then he and the assistant bowed low.

  “My Lords.”

  Solomon did not bother correcting him in that the man should address him as “Your Grace”, as he hoped to remain anonymous. When he would have left the boy to attend to Solomon, Solomon waved him back. “Finish
with the boy first, my good man.”

  “Then please have a seat over there, My Lord,” the physician answered. “The lad’s mother will return shortly with my fee and take the lad home.”

  Solomon and Aldric glanced at one another. “Is she poor?” Aldric asked.

  “A widow, My Lord.”

  Solomon watched as the surgeon securely wrapped the boy’s arm, immobilizing it, then settled it into a sling around his neck. The assistant picked him up, and laid him on a sofa nearby. “I can take a look at you now, My Lord,” the physician told him. “May I inquire as to the nature of your injury?”

  “I was shot.”

  Solomon sat on the table as Aldric and the doctor removed his coat and cut his sleeve away from his upper arm. Blood oozed slowly from the round hole in his arm as the surgeon washed some of it away in order to examine the wound more closely.

  “The ball went straight through, My Lord,” he told Solomon. “You will need sutures on either side of your arm.”

  “Do what must be done.”

  The door opened and the boy’s mother arrived, her mouth dropping as she saw two obvious members of the gentry inside. She immediately curtsied. Solomon, his teeth clenched against the pain, observed her ragged and stained clothes, and recognized her evident poverty. No doubt, the surgeon’s fee would take all she had.

  He glanced at Aldric, who nodded. Pulling coins and bank notes from his pocket, Aldric set the money down on the table. “This should be more than enough for your services in helping the boy and his mother. You,” he pointed to the assistant, “carry the lad home for her.”

  The mother pressed her trembling lips together. “Thank you, My Lords,” she whispered. “You are most kind.”

  With his right hand, Solomon dug into his trouser pocket for more bank notes, and held them out to her. “Buy a good meal for you and your youngster,” he said.

  Tears filled the woman’s eyes as she accepted it, then curtsied again. The assistant picked the boy up in his arms, then as the woman held the door open for him, all three left the small shop. “Do you wish for laudanum for the pain, My Lord?” the surgeon asked, reaching for his needles and silk.

  “No.”

  Solomon grit his teeth again as the physician stitched his wounds closed under the sympathetic gaze of Aldric. At last it was done, and the physician bound his arm in clean cloth. “Return in ten days, My Lord, and I will remove the sutures.”

  Silent, Solomon put his torn and bloody coat back on, then set more bank notes on the table for the man’s fee. His arm still on fire, he and Aldric left the shop. “He charges the poor people the same amount as the wealthy,” Solomon grumbled, awkwardly mounting his stallion. “That is not right.”

  “I agree,” Aldric replied. “But there is not much either of us can do about it.”

  “Perhaps there is,” Solomon gritted, reining the black around. “I plan to try.”

  Chapter 12

  Miss Teresa Wolcott

  Teresa dressed carefully in a gown of pale lavender with slashes of darker purple on the sleeves and skirts. With Amelia’s help, she bound her hair up into an attractive coif with ringlets falling to her slender neck. “You look ravishing, my dear,” Amelia told her, pinning a small lavender veil to the back of her dark hair. “The Duke will be pleased.”

  “I wish you were going,” Teresa said, gazing at her reflection in the looking glass.

  “Oh, no,” Amelia told her, her hands on Teresa’s shoulders to begin massaging them. “I am not up for a ball. Thomas will be your chaperone while I can get some extra rest.”

  Closing her eyes, Teresa relaxed under her ministrations, feeling the tension she felt all afternoon from her fears of going to the ball dissolving. “That feels so good,” she murmured.

  “I hope it helps you get through the party without an episode of anxiety.”

  “His Grace will help me. As will Thomas. If I start feeling panicky, I will exit before it gets bad, then return when I am more in control.”

  “That sounds like a good idea.”

  At last feeling prepared for the ball, Teresa strolled down the stairs with Amelia behind her, and discovered Thornehill in deep conversation with Thomas. She hesitated, seeing the taut expressions on both men’s faces, and at first she thought they quarreled. Then first the Duke and then Thomas saw them, and their miens smoothed over.

  Teresa and Amelia curtsied as the Duke offered Teresa a small smile and a bow. “You stun me with your beauty, Miss Wolcott,” he said, taking her fingers to kiss.

  Teresa flushed, smiling under his praise. “Thank you, Your Grace. And I must return the compliment, for you are dashingly handsome.”

  He was, to her eyes. Tall and broad shouldered with his brilliant green eyes in his rugged face, his black hair rakishly curling over his brow. Even his all dark clothing added to the sheer aura of power that still transfixed her. His smile widened into something resembling the one he gave Miss Calhoun, and Teresa’s heart thudded in her chest at the sight of it directed at her.

  “My coach is out front,” he said, gesturing toward the door. “If you are ready?”

  “I am.”

  With Thomas in the rear, His Grace assisted Teresa up and into the open landau drawn by the team of four perfectly matched grey horses. Two liveried footmen stood on the rear steps and the coachman sat on the high seat above them, ready to set the horses into motion.

  “I am very pleased you accepted my invitation,” the Duke said as the horses started off at a trot. “The parties the Eau Claire’s host are some of the best of the Season.”

  “May I inquire if there is some difficulty, Your Grace?” Teresa asked. “You and Thomas appeared – worried.”

  The Duke sighed. “The man who shot at us in Hyde’s Park actually managed a blow two days ago.”

  “You were hurt? Where?”

  His Grace ginned faintly and waggled his fingers toward his left arm. “Fortunately, I do not need my left arm much while dancing.”

  “Did you catch him?”

  “Not yet. But your brother is making inquiries on my behalf.”

  “If anyone can find who is trying to kill you, Thomas can.”

  “That is why I hired him.”

  The well lit and beautifully decorated ball room at the Eau Claire estate was nearly full with the elite of London society as they entered. Footmen bowed them in while others served them wine and champagne. As they began to circulate the room, Thomas suddenly leaned toward the Duke’s ear.

  “Baron Beaulieu is here,” he muttered but Teresa heard him clearly. “Standing over there by the buffet.”

  His Grace lifted his glass of wine to his lips. “I see him.”

  Teresa followed the direction of their gazes. Beaulieu, the husband of the deceased Baroness and the cuckold of many men was a tall emaciated man with a nearly bald head and an aquiline nose. He stared down it, his lips tight in a thin, mean line, at the Countess of Saxonbury. “He does not look like a nice man at all,” she commented.

  “He is not,” the Duke replied. “Outside of most likely the murder of his wife, he is guilty of embezzling funds from a charitable foundation he is part of as well as beating his Baroness to a pulp several times.”

  Teresa gasped, horrified. “And no one stopped it?”

  His Grace gazed down at her. “It is not against the law to beat one’s wife.”

  Growing angry, Teresa snapped, “It bloody well ought to be.”

  Hearing Thomas click his tongue in displeasure at her choice of words, Teresa lifted her chin. “Women should be permitted to use curse words.”

  “Well,” the Duke said, his green eyes glinting. “I will personally introduce a law in Parliament to permit thus.”

  “Like that will pass,” Thomas muttered from behind them. “I am going to keep an eye on you both from a distance. Your Grace. Teresa, watch your language.”

  From the corner of her eye, Teresa watched as Thomas ambled away from them, but also circled arou
nd the crowd to draw closer to the Baron. “Even as he is chaperoning me, he is still working for you.”

  His Grace winked. “Let us see what he finds out. Come. Are you hungry? That roast suckling looks delicious.”

  Pretending the turned backs and whispers did not exist, Teresa permitted the Duke to lead her to the huge table where servants filled plates of food for them. Taking them to one of the tables that stood against the walls, the Duke assisted her into her chair, then sat down opposite her. Perhaps because of Amelia’s massage or the intrigue occupying the ball, Teresa felt no panic whatsoever.