Duke of Pleasure

by Elizabeth Hoyt

  If she squinted, she thought she could see that… maybe.

  “And his other arm is above his head, holding the arrow.”

  Well, that she didn’t see at all.

  She smiled anyway, turning to look at him. “What ’ead?”

  His face was so close that they were almost kissing. She looked at his mouth—that mouth that had claimed hers—and then up into his eyes, black as the night.

  “There’s another star above the body,” he said without turning away. He slowly lowered their arms, though he kept her hand in his. “I suppose that might be considered his head.”

  Her lips curved as she whispered. “’E ’as a dagger, a bow and arrow, and a dog, but no bleeding ’ead?”

  “Perhaps the ancients considered a man’s head inconsequential,” he muttered against her lips, and then he was kissing her, there on the roof, beneath the wide night sky, his arms enclosing her in heat and security. It was very nearly like flying. Like jumping into the open air, not quite sure if she’d make the leap or not, her heart beating hard and fast in her throat, thrills in her veins, her muscles quivering hard in excitement.

  Alive. She felt alive when Kyle kissed her.

  She raised her hand to his cheek as she opened her mouth beneath his, feeling the cool skin of his jaw and the heat of his tongue, flying, falling, sailing into air.

  He drew back.

  She blinked.

  “I must go in,” he said, and his voice was clipped and even, as if they hadn’t just been kissing.

  As if she hadn’t just been soaring.

  He stood and the cold came rushing back. “Think on what I’ve asked you to do, Alf.”

  And he left her alone on the rooftop.

  For a moment she couldn’t think what he’d wanted her to do, and then she remembered: he wanted her to become a woman.

  She shivered.

  HUGH WOKE THE next morning to the slam of his bedroom door.

  “I can’t do it, guv,” Alf’s husky voice exclaimed. “Thought on it near all night and I just can’t and that’s all there is to it.”

  Hugh yawned and opened his eyes.

  Alf was dressed in her usual boys’ attire and standing beside his bed. He could see from the little light peeking through the part in the still-drawn curtains that it wasn’t much past dawn.

  The imp was pacing back and forth, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth, apparently oblivious both to the fact that she’d woken him and to the fact that he slept in the nude.

  Bloody hell.

  “What can’t you do?” he asked, keeping his voice calm. Even.

  “Be a lady!” She threw her hands straight up in the air. “Guv, I just ain’t right for it. I can’t wear a dress, can’t swan about in one. Can’t curtsy and do all those lady things. That Lady Jordan’ll ’ave to do it for you—she’s a real lady, after all.”

  “Which is precisely why she can’t do it.”

  Hugh braced his hands on the bed and levered himself up into a sitting position against the headboard. The maneuver made the sheets slip to his waist.

  She stopped in midstride, only inches from the bed, her gaze fixed on his bare chest.

  “Alf?” he prompted.

  “Hmm?” Her eyelashes lifted as her big brown eyes looked at him, a little dazed. Had she any idea what her gaze did to him? He was already hard beneath the thin sheets—she must see it—and he was holding on to his control by the barest thread.

  “Lady Jordan can’t search Dowling’s house,” he said. “She hasn’t the experience and the skills you have. She also wouldn’t know what to do if she ran into trouble.”

  Her pink mouth crimped mutinously. “But—”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Can you defend yourself, say against a footman?”

  She rolled those big brown eyes, snorting. “Of course.”

  “Lady Jordan can’t.” In truth he didn’t believe that it would come to that. A footman would have to be a fool to attack a lady at a ball. But he wanted to be prepared for all eventualities. “She doesn’t know how to handle a knife. She’s never been in a fight. You are our only choice.”

  She stared at him, and her fierce little face crumpled, and for the first time he saw an emotion he’d thought he’d never see there: fear. “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  She shook her head mutely.

  “I’ve seen you leap and run about the rooftops,” he said. “I’ve seen you fight multiple armed men with swords—men who are stronger and bigger than you. Why? Just tell me, why can you face them without fear while the thought of wearing a dress for one night renders you speechless?”

  She blinked hard and he saw actual tears in her eyes, his fierce little warrior. “I’m not…”

  Perhaps he should let her go. Perhaps he should show some gentleness—compassion—and find some other way to search Dowling’s study.

  Except that he had a mission to accomplish: to bring down the Lords.

  To avenge his dead wife and orphaned sons.

  To stop the corruption in the heart of England.

  And if the most expedient way to do that was to force a small, fierce warrior urchin to face her own fears, then by God he’d do it.

  He held her fast with his gaze and demanded, “You’re not what, Alf?”

  Her pointed chin jerked up and she glared at him. “I’m not female. Not anymore. It’s been too long. I’ve been a boy too long.”

  “My cock would beg to differ.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “Wha—?”

  He grabbed her wrist and dragged her over the bed, and thrust her hand crudely against the sheet covering his crotch. “Do you feel me? I’m hard for you.” He ground his cock up into her captive palm. “And I assure you I’m not at all interested in boys or men. Only women.”

  Only you, a treacherous part of his mind whispered, but he ignored it. He was doing this for a mission, just that. It had nothing to do with the two of them. With the desire to see her bloom into the woman he wanted deep in his conflicted soul.

  She stared down at her hand over his cock and her fingers flexed once.

  He bit back a groan, and the thing within him, the thing locked away, rattled its chains.

  Her wide eyes slid to his, and she suddenly started struggling.

  He let her go before she could injure herself or him.

  She scrambled back, falling off the bed, and to the floor on her arse. “I can’t. I can’t.”

  “You can.”

  He flung aside the sheets and rose, stalking toward her, naked. He bent and picked her up by one arm, still walking, dragging her along with him, his anger out of control, his desire unleashed, and pushed her against the door.

  He leaned down, shoving his face into hers, and growled, “You can because I need a woman, Alf. Not a boy, not a girl disguised as a boy. Not a vigilante Ghost. Not an urchin informant. A woman. You. I need you. Become the woman you already are, Alf. Do it for me.”

  He opened the door and pushed her out of the room before he did something he would regret later.

  And then he leaned his sweating forehead against the door, his fists braced on either side.

  His cock was hard and his heart beat too fast with turbulent emotion—emotion she’d engendered.

  He slammed his fist into the door, making it shake.

  He could not—could not—go down this road again.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Black Prince tied a long cord to the Golden Falcon’s leg and let her go. She flew up into the air, but when she reached the end of the tether he whistled shrilly and she perforce had to return to his gauntleted arm. He fed her scraps of meat then and whispered words of praise in her ear. Again and again he did this, telling her how wonderful she was, how beautiful, until at last the sun began to set.

  Then he placed the bird back under his cloak and returned to the castle.…

  —From The Black Prince and the Golden Falcon

  Alf landed on her arse—again—in the
hall outside Kyle’s bedroom. She shuddered, feeling tears spurt from her eyes. She couldn’t.

  She couldn’t.

  But Kyle had said he needed her.

  He needed her to be a woman.

  Something slammed against Kyle’s door.

  She sat up, gasping, swiping at the tears on her face with the sleeves of her boy’s coat. She didn’t know how to be a woman. How to dress. How to move. How to be.

  She closed her eyes, wrapping her arms around her legs, remembering the jump of his big cock under her hand. Remembering his broad chest, naked and hairy, as he’d risen from his bed and stalked toward her. The angry gleam in those black, black eyes as he’d pinned her to the door and told her what he needed from her.

  Oh, she wanted him, this aristocrat, this duke, this rich cove built like a prizefighter. She wanted him with every breath she drew, a painful longing inside her lungs, until it felt as if she’d break apart and shatter into tiny pieces of glass if she could not touch him.

  Even for a little while.

  She knew—she wasn’t stupid, no, far from it, so she knew well enough that when he said he needed her it wasn’t the same need she had for him. But it was a sort of need. And if that was all she could give him—a stunted, half-formed, ill-gotten shadow of the thing she carried within herself… well, she’d do it and be glad.

  Alf drew in a deep, shuddering breath. Wiped her face one more time. And got up off the bloody floor.

  She wasn’t a coward. She’d grown up in the dark woods of St Giles. Learned how to hide as a child. Learned how to fight and defend those weaker than she as an adult.

  Now maybe it was time to let herself be vulnerable once more. If that wasn’t courage, she didn’t know what was.

  She ran down the stairs, passing the stuck-up butler, who shouted something after her. She didn’t even bother giving him the finger, just kept going. No point in halting and thinking, because if she did, she might turn around and stop herself, and she couldn’t do that.

  She mustn’t do that.

  She ran out the front door and down the front steps. She hadn’t even bothered to use the servants’ entrance, that was how upset she was.

  It was early morning and the day was clear, but it was cold outside and the wind was blowing. She hadn’t time to go back for a hat, though. She merely bundled her hands under her arms and broke into a jog along the sidewalk, dodging the other passersby. It was a good thing she knew her job so well—she’d found the address of the place she was headed days before, just as a matter of curiosity. She never knew when a bit of information would come in handy.

  Ten minutes later she ran up the steps of an elegantly sedate town house and knocked.

  A maid answered the door. “Yes?”

  “’Ave a message for Lady Jordan,” Alf said. “From ’Is Grace, the Duke of Kyle.”

  The housemaid raised an eyebrow. “At this hour? My lady isn’t risen.”

  “Right important, ’e says ’tis. And I ’as to give it in person.”

  The maid sighed and let her in, then showed her to a receiving room.

  “Wait here while I fetch my lady,” the maid said, giving a suspicious glance at Alf’s outfit before closing the door behind her.

  Alf bit her lip and paced to the window overlooking the street. Outside, carriages were rumbling past. It was a nice room. Pink and blue fabric lined the walls. No gold, though. This wasn’t a duke’s house, after all. The Radcliffes were from an old aristocratic family, even though they weren’t titled, not particularly rich, as far as Alf could tell. Henry Radcliffe, Lady Jordan’s older brother, had married an heiress, which had improved the family’s fortunes. He was a good businessman, though—or at least he’d managed not to lose his wife’s dowry on bad investments, as so many aristocratic husbands seemed to do.

  A china clock chimed on the mantelpiece over the fireplace, and she drummed her fingers against the windowsill. Toffs took so bloody long to dress in the morning.

  The door opened and Lady Jordan floated in. She was wearing white again today—maybe it was a favorite color. This dress was striped—the barest contrast, white on white, running up and down the sleeves and the bodice and the skirts—and edged in white lace. It was lovely and elegant and ladylike.

  And reminded Alf why she was here.

  Alf almost hated her.

  “Yes?” Lady Jordan asked, her slender brows drawing together. “The maid said you had a message from Hugh.”

  “No, I don’t. I lied.” Alf lifted her chin, staring at the lady. Staring at the woman who was everything she wasn’t. “I needs your ’elp, see, ’cause I ain’t really a boy. I’m a woman. And I wants to know ’ow to become a lady.”

  “AH,” IRIS MURMURED.

  Alf was staring at her with the most belligerent expression Iris had ever seen on another woman’s face. As if the younger woman wanted to hit her. Or expected to be summarily thrown out.

  She was suddenly rather glad that both Henry and Harriet had already left for the country. If there was to be some sort of contretemps, then at least Harriet wouldn’t be here to hear it.

  Her sister-in-law was something of a stickler for the social niceties, even at the best of times, and a possible row with a female urchin posing as a boy in the sitting room?

  No, Harriet would not approve.

  Iris cleared her throat. “Would you like some tea?”

  Alf blinked and then said, sounding cautious, “Yes?”

  Iris smiled. “Lovely.”

  She went to the door and called for a maid, ordered tea and something to eat as well, then turned back to her unexpected guest.

  Alf was looking a bit cornered. It struck Iris how much courage it must have taken the girl to have come here, to a woman she hardly knew, and lay herself bare. She doubted that she had that sort of courage herself.

  Once, as a girl, Iris had tried to make friends with one of the cats that lived in the stables on the country estate where she’d grown up. Weeks of trips to the stables with chicken livers provided by a sympathetic cook had resulted only in scratched arms and hisses in the end.

  Now she thought she might do a little better.

  “Come, won’t you sit down?” She gestured to one of the dainty ice-blue chairs.

  The other woman eyed the chair distrustfully but sat down with a decided thump.

  Iris suppressed a wince. At least the chair hadn’t cracked under the rough treatment. She sat as well, and then the maids returned with the tea—thank goodness. The next several minutes were taken up with laying out the tea things, which was a relief. When the maids finally curtsied and left, Iris was gladly occupied with the familiar task of pouring tea.

  “Do you like milk?” she asked.

  “And sugar,” Alf said gruffly.

  “Of course,” Iris murmured. She handed the other woman the cup and sat back with her own tea, watching Alf from under her eyelashes.

  Alf held the dish of tea between her hands. They were delicate, those hands, even with ragged nails. “Will you ’elp me, then?”

  “Yes.” Iris took a sip of her own tea.

  It occurred to her that in doing this she might be arming her competitor for Hugh’s affections—she hadn’t missed how he watched Alf. Perhaps he meant to take her as his lover. Perhaps he didn’t even know himself what he wanted from Alf. She glanced down into the lovely red-brown swirl of her tea. But then Iris had never really had Hugh’s affection to begin with, had she? And if she hadn’t, then this woman really wasn’t her competitor.

  Perhaps it was past time to make that clear to herself… and to Hugh.

  Iris looked up and straightened her shoulders. “Yes, I will. I think we’ll have to make a list, don’t you? Oh, and you really must call me Iris.”

  She set down her dish of tea and rose to find a bit of paper and a pencil in Harriet’s writing table by the window.

  “Now then,” she said as she sat down again. “I’ll need to contact my dressmaker today if we’re to ha
ve any hope at all of having a gown made in time for the ball. In the meantime you’ll need to practice walking in a dress, panniers, and heels. A day dress to wear so that you become used to stays—I think one of my lady’s maids will have a dress you can borrow. Dancing lessons, of course, but I think I can show you those myself. Elementary dining lessons. Comportment. Oh, how to curtsy and be introduced to someone above and below you in rank.” She narrowed her eyes at Alf speculatively. “How are you at accents?”

  “Do you mean speaking like a gentlewoman, my lady?” Alf asked. “I confess I have been studying the accents of the upper crust since I was but a small wayward child. You would not credit how useful a nob accent can be in my line of business.”

  Iris was startled into laughter. “Yes, exactly.” The accent was overpronounced, a little too enunciated, especially on the h’s, but they could certainly work on it.

  Alf smiled, casting her eyes down demurely. “I think I can get by.”

  Iris returned her grin. “I do believe you’re correct, but we haven’t much time. Best we start right away.”

  BY EVENING HUGH was in a foul mood. Alf had fled the house directly after their confrontation, and he’d had no word since that she’d returned. He should’ve put a damned guard on the woman. Locked her in her room until she’d calmed down. At the very least ensured she was safe.

  Instead she was out God knew where, and it was entirely his own bloody fault.

  He swore under his breath, hunching his shoulders against the chilly night wind. He was in a darkened doorway, keeping an eye on Exley’s town house. The damned man didn’t look as if he was going to move tonight, which meant Hugh was wasting his time.

  A fact that hardly improved his mood.

  Perhaps he ought to have his men out searching for Alf, as useless an endeavor as that would be. At least it would give him the feeling he was doing something.

  Riley slipped into the doorway beside him, and only years of training kept Hugh from starting. The Irishman could move like a ghost when he wanted to.

  “What do you have for me?” Hugh asked.

  “Lord Chase is dead,” Riley said, and blew on his cupped hands. “Found late tonight with his brains blown out. Supposedly was cleaning his fowling piece, but…” The slight man shrugged to indicate what he thought of that conclusion.