A Rogue Meets a Scandalous Lady
Mackenzies, Book 11
Jennifer Ashley
JA / AG Publishing
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
Excerpt: A Mackenzie Yuletide
Also by Jennifer Ashley
Mackenzie Family Tree
About the Author
Chapter 1
February, 1893
When the pistol flashed down Regent’s Park’s green, David Fleming realized his life truly needed to change.
He danced aside as the bullet whined past him, but his unsteady body took him down to the earth, coating his pristine black cashmere suit in mud and grass. David tasted dirt as gravel cut his cheek.
“What the devil are you doing?” Pickering, his second, shouted down at him. “Get up, man. Return the shot.”
David groaned as he rolled over, his finger well away from the trigger of his revolver. He felt little pain, because the whisky he’d drunk all night, neat, erased almost all sensation.
“Anyone hit?” he slurred.
Pickering glanced around at the small crowd of gentlemen gathered in the dawn light, his fair hair twitching in the breeze. “Don’t think so.”
David tried to get his legs under him, couldn’t, and stuck up his arm to Pickering. “Help me.”
It took Pickering a few moments to realize David was talking to him. Idiot. Finally Pickering hauled David to his feet. Their cronies, young and old, waited without much concern.
“You forfeit,” said an older gentleman with side-whiskers, who should have known better than to be in Regent’s Park at the crack of dawn, encouraging duels. “Griffin wins.”
David scrubbed at the mud on his silk waistcoat. “What the hell are we doing, gentlemen? A duel? In this day and age? You were expecting to watch us kill each other.”
“An honorable way to settle differences,” the older gentleman said calmly.
He was interrupted by a roar as David’s opponent, a hothead called Oliver Griffin, rushed at him.
“Coward!” Griffin bellowed. “Cheat! Stand still and let me shoot you.”
He waved his pistol in a shaky hand, which Pickering, in alarm, yanked from his grasp. Griffin swayed mightily, as drunk as the rest of them, but he managed to lock his hands around David’s neck.
“Settle it like gentlemen, you said,” he seethed, his spittle showering David. “I’ll settle you—”
Griffin held on like a leech. David scrabbled at Griffin’s impossibly tight grip then decided it was time to forget about being a gentleman.
He brought up his fist in a perfect pugilist move to crack Griffin’s chin. If David jerked that chin to the side he could snap Griffin’s neck, but he had no intention of being hauled in for murder this morning. He pushed Griffin off balance then followed up with a smart punch to the man’s eye.
Griffin howled. David slid from him and steadied himself on his feet, using Pickering’s shoulder for support.
“It is done,” he proclaimed to Griffin in a voice men had learned to obey. “We met, you shot. Honor is satisfied. Rules of the game.”
Griffin turned, his face bloody. “You have no honor, Fleming. I’ll kill you! How do I know my sons are even mine? Cuckoos in my nest …”
David slid his handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at the cuts on his cheek. Futile, because the handkerchief was just as grimy as his face.
“I never touched your wife, Griff. She’s an honorable lady and loyal to you, Lord knows why. Be kind to her.”
Griffin only snarled. He’d been so convinced that his wife was having an affaire de coeur with the notorious David Fleming that he hadn’t stopped to ascertain whether it was true. Griffin’s wife was the friend of the Duchess of Kilmorgan, and when the duchess had instructed David to look after Mrs. Griffin at a ball a week ago, David leapt to obey.
If he flirted with the woman, he wasn’t to be blamed. She was lonely, unhappy, and married to the boorish Griffin. She’d enjoyed being the center of attention for a few hours, but neither of them had had any intention of taking it further.
Griffin closed his mouth but a look of cunning came over his face. “I don’t believe you, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve had my revenge. Ask your darling countess where she’s been this past week.” Instead of leaving it cryptic, Griffin jabbed at his own chest. “With me. I’ve had her, Fleming. In every way possible.” He thrust out his pelvis and his friends laughed.
“Poor woman,” David said feelingly. He carefully folded his muddy handkerchief and tucked it into his breast pocket. If Griffin wanted his vengeance using David’s current mistress, a countess from Bavaria, he was welcome to it. She was an amorous lady, not bothered by which bed she slept in of nights. “No wonder she’s been looking peaky. Do give her my best when you see her again.”
Time to tip his hat and walk away. Except David couldn’t find his hat. Blast it all, he hated to lose it—it was a fine piece of headgear.
He heard another bellow, and damned if Griffin wasn’t coming at him again.
How the devil had he let himself be talked into this duel, of all things?
He’d been drunk, that was how. Drunk, weary, and bored, and decided shooting at Griffin would be good fun. But now he was aching and wanted to go home.
David sidestepped as Griffin lunged at him, got the man in a headlock and tidily flipped him onto his back. He’d learned that move from Hart Mackenzie—after Hart had done it to him.
Griffin cursed and howled. Griffin’s friends, cretins, the lot of them, decided David was being unfair, and as one, they threw themselves at him. David went down in a scrum, blows landing on his face, back, arms, his ribs creaking as boots connected with his side.
Above the shouting and swearing came the shrill, piercing whistles of Peelers with arrests on their minds.
The men jerked upright and then dispersed, bolting into the mists. Even Pickering and the older gentleman deserted David, leaving him to the mad rush of dark-suited, helmeted men who pounded toward him.
A muscular arm hauled David to his feet. “You’re under arrest, sir,” the bobby told him cheerfully. “Causing a disturbance and discharging a firearm.”
“If you’ll note, constable, my firearm wasn’t discharged,” David began, but the words slurred into nothing as the constable closed a metal cuff around his wrist.
* * *
As jails went, it was not too bad, David decided. The lockup on Marylebone Road consisted of one small room where the arrests of the night waited for the magistrate’s decisions in the morning. David had commandeered a place by the wall, bribing the inhabitants to not steal every piece of clothing on his body by parting with all the coins in his purse. His watch would be next. A man with only one eye kept that eye on it.
The place stank and was filthy, the bodies of sleeping men heaped on the floor. Vermin scratched in dark corners. But at least there was a window, high above, that let them know the sun had fully risen.
Any request that word be taken to David’s solicitor, his valet, his very good friend the Duke of Kilmorgan—or even a random person in the street—had been ignored. The constables who’d dr
agged him from the park had pushed David in with the other arrests of the night and left him. Now here he lay.
Did the bottom of the slope feel like this?
David’s head pounded, his throat was on fire, and his stomach roiled. All he wanted was more whisky to soothe the pain. That and a soft bed, a beautiful woman, and perhaps a cigar.
No, the thought of smoke brought on more nausea. He’d leave the cigar until he felt better.
The door creaked. “Mr. Fleming!” The turnkey bellowed the name without interest.
David climbed painfully to his feet. “Here I am, my good fellow. Have you brought my breakfast?”
A few of the inmates guffawed. “Aye, fetch me a mess of bangers and a bucket of coffee,” one croaked.
The turnkey ignored them, his balefulness all for David. “Come on, you.”
A bit early to see the magistrate, David mused, though perhaps the man wanted to make a start on his cases for the day. Thieves of apples, handkerchiefs, and children’s clothes; ladies selling favors; and David.
He followed the turnkey through a dank passage to a larger room that was empty but for a table and chair. A burly constable joined them and pushed David into the seat.
“Thank you, sir,” David said to the turnkey. “Kind of you to show me to my parlor.”
“Shut it,” the constable said as the turnkey growled and left them. “When the Super comes, you be respectful.”
“Superintendent, is he?” David said. “My, I am moving in high circles now.”
The constable hit him. A blow across the mouth, not hard enough to draw blood, but enough to make David’s head rock back. “I said, shut it.”
David heaved an aggrieved sigh. He held up his hands as the constable bunched his fist again, and made the motion of turning a key over his lips.
The door opened once more to admit a tall man. David’s first instinct was to rise, because the gentleman who entered was one of distinction, but the constable’s warning glare kept him to his seat.
Hazel eyes in a hard face met David’s, hair that was just touched with red glinted in the bad light. He had the height, the build, and the manner of Hart Mackenzie, the Duke of Kilmorgan, but he wasn’t Hart. It was his half-brother, Detective Superintendent Lloyd Fellows.
David relaxed in relief until he saw the frost in Fellows’s gaze.
“Oh, come now,” David said, giving him his most charming smile. “You don’t truly believe I was trying to shoot a man in Regent’s Park, no matter how much he goaded me. If you examine my pistol, you’ll find it fully loaded and un-fired.”
Fellows’s face remained granite hard. “Griffin has brought charges of assault and attempted murder on you, and his earl uncle is calling for your blood.”
“For pity’s sake.” David pointed to the bruises on his face. He was plastered with mud, still a bit drunk, and spattered with dried blood. “Does this look like I assaulted myself? A solicitor would be a fine thing, Detective Super.”
“I have recommended that the magistrate let you return home until this is sorted. He does not like the idea, but he bows to the might of the Duke of Kilmorgan.”
David heaved a sigh of gratitude. God himself would bow to the might of Hart Mackenzie.
He rose. “Good old Hart. Thank you, Fellows.”
“Sit down.” Fellows pointed at the hard chair. David obediently sat, wincing from his bruises.
“It’s a serious accusation, Fleming. One that could get you hanged, or at the very least, sent to Dartmoor. Doesn’t matter who your connections are—you’re not a peer, so you’ll be tried at the Old Bailey with everyone else.”
“Griff has to prove it,” David said. “I do know that much about the laws of jolly England. Innocent until a jury says I’m guilty.” He spread his hands on the unclean table. “I did not discharge my pistol, I promise you. I ducked when Griffin discharged his at me. I don’t know why I bothered—he’s a rotten shot.”
“I convinced the magistrate there was no immediate evidence to suggest you tried to kill Mr. Griffin. However, many witnessed the ensuing fight. You can bring counter charges against him, of course.”
“Bugger that.” David once again surged to his feet. “If I’m not being charged, I believe I am free to leave.”
Fellows gave him a nod, but a grim one. “Don’t flee to the Continent. I have a friend in the Sûreté, and he’d find you, but you’d rather he didn’t. I hear you have an estate in Hertfordshire. Perhaps lying low there for a time is a good idea.”
David shuddered. His ancestral home—Moreland Park—held too many foul memories. “I will retreat to my London house, pour coffee down my throat, soak in a bath, and sleep for a week. With that satisfy the magistrate?”
“I doubt it.” The dry tone in Fellows’s voice was something he shared with Hart—that edge that told its recipient he was a damned fool. “Before you withdraw from the world, the duchess requests that you call upon her.”
David sank to the chair again, his strength gone. “She does, does she?”
Fellows, David could spar with. Hart Mackenzie, he could face. Hart’s wife, Eleanor … that was another matter entirely.
“Please tell her I am suddenly stricken with a dire disease and must quarantine myself in my house with a cask of whisky.”
Fellows regarded him in some pity. “Tell her yourself.” He tapped the table once, turned, and walked out.
“Heaven help me,” David muttered. It was some time before he made himself rise and follow the impatient constable out.
* * *
David kept a stash of Mackenzie malt in his carriage for emergencies. He imbibed a little now to clear his head as his coachman took him to Grosvenor Square.
The Duke of Kilmorgan owned a tall house on one side of the square, which dominated all others around it. The house had been in the family since the late eighteenth century, when the Mackenzie family had begun to prosper once more. The Battle of Culloden, in which they’d fought on the side of the Jacobites, had nearly wiped them out. But the canny Mackenzies had managed to regain their title taken from them as traitors to the crown and recover their fortune. They’d bought the house that had been owned by the Marquess of Ellesmere, and swarmed in.
David was distantly related to the family through his ancestor aunt who had married Angus Mackenzie, the son of the glorious Malcolm Mackenzie and his English wife, Mary.
The distance was everything, David thought as he stared up at the house. Hart was a duke, and his brothers had courtesy titles, large houses, and plenty of money. David, the shirttail relative, was still in his evening dress from the night before, thoroughly coated with mud, and coming tamely to the house when sent for.
Eleanor would be waiting in her parlor, rustling in some silken gown Hart would have bought her. Her red hair would glisten, and she’d have a secret smile on her face that betrayed she was a woman in love—with Hart, of course. There had never been anyone else for Eleanor.
She’d gaze at David with her cornflower blue eyes and ask bluntly what sort of scrape he’d gotten himself into now.
David wouldn’t mind, except that once upon a time, he’d been madly in love with the dratted woman. He’d asked her to marry him, and she’d turned him down with a speed that had made his head spin.
He still cared for her, but the burning passion had subsided. Eleanor and Hart belonged together, and no one could tear them asunder. So be it.
David took another gulp of whisky, which burned to his empty stomach.
He held up the flask in salute. “Apologies, dear El, but you are the one thing I cannot face today.” He rapped his stick on the roof. “Hinch!”
A tiny trap door opened, and the eye of his large coachman blinked at him. “Yes, guv?”
“Change of plans. Take me …” Home? No. His valet, Fortescue, would fuss, and his housekeeper would try to bring him soup, like an invalid. Someone would send word to Hart, and Eleanor would corner him. Or his solicitor would pop by to discuss the gra
ve charges, or Griffin would send his solicitors to threaten David.
London wouldn’t do, and neither would Hertfordshire. Scotland? No, too many Mackenzies in Scotland.
There was only one place in the world David could think to go, and he wasn’t certain of his welcome even there.
“To Shropshire,” he finished.
Hinch’s eye widened. “Guv? Ye want me to drive you all the way to Shropshire?”
“Yes. If we make a start, we’ll arrive early tomorrow morning.”
“But it’s me wife’s birthday.” The red-rimmed eye held pleading.
David heaved a sigh. “You’re right, Hinchie. I’m being selfish. Take me to a station and get me on a train heading west. Then do as you please.”
“Thank ye, guv.” Hinch vanished. The carriage jerked forward, nearly dislodging David from the seat, and made at a swift pace for Euston Station.
* * *
David had little recollection of the journey. He swayed in the first class carriage alone, finishing off his flask before a waiter helpfully brought him champagne. He had little to eat, as he doubted his ability to keep anything down.
The Shropshire hamlet he aimed for lay well south of Shrewsbury. David had to change trains several times, assisted onto the last, small chugging train by a stationmaster who more or less hoisted him aboard and dropped him into a seat.
By the time they reached the village three miles from David’s destination, he was well inebriated and mostly asleep. He vaguely remembered being escorted from the train and pushed onto a dogcart as he mumbled the direction.
A Rogue Meets a Scandalous Lady: Mackenzies, Book 11 Page 1
