by Eva Devon
“I admire you,” he said. “You are an independent woman.”
“Indeed,” she agreed. “And you an independent man now.”
He laughed, a low rumble. “We are both independent.”
She smiled slowly. “It seems that we have made ourselves anew. Both of us are Phoenixes in our way.”
“I’d like to kiss you,” he said softly before he could stop himself. “It is a mad thing to say, but it is the truth. And I would like us to always be truthful now.”
She stilled, a single blond brow arching. “Ah, but sir, I have just met you.”
He groaned. “How forward of me.”
Her lips curved in a tentative smile. “We cannot pretend the past did not happen. I will not lie. I still find you decidedly handsome. More so now, actually.”
More so? That flamed his hope in a way he’d never dared experience. But what hope was that? That they would fall in love? He shook the foolish thought away. She’d never love him.
“Thank you for your honesty, Edward. If I am ever in need of a lover, I know where to find you.” She cocked her head towards the window. “Just across the street.”
With that, she stood and walked to the door. She stopped then glanced back over her shoulder. “You really do shock me, Edward. I never imagined such words crossing your lips.”
He leaned back in his chair. He should be disappointed that she had not said yes to his comment. But how could he be? They were conversing again. “I do many things that the old Edward would not.”
She nodded. “Do let me know when we can meet again. . . To discuss the charities I wish to establish and how I might help yours.”
Then, Emmaline swept out of the room, head high.
He stared at the vacant doorway, stunned.
She wished to see him again.
Gone was the edict from the ball that they should not encounter each other. Today, he had earned a place in her life again and he did not know what to make of it.
A flicker of an emotion he could barely recollect fanned within him.
He wanted her. Damnation, he did. Neither of them were innocents anymore. Neither of them was dancing upon society’s whim.
Perhaps. . . Perhaps, he could still pursue her with the passion she’d always wished from him that in the past he’d kept from her.
Was it worth the risk? For, Emmaline? He stood and strode to the window.
He looked down onto the crowd and spotted her making her way easily to her theater. She moved with such grace, such confidence as if nothing could shake her now.
She had always been calm, unshakable even. She still was. God, how he admired her. How he wanted her. And that wanting her made him curse himself anew.
For though they had begun again, he still could not stop curing himself for losing her.
But had he? Entirely? She had come back into his life and he would be a fool now if he did nothing to keep her in it, to make her more than someone he saw in passing.
He considered again. Would it be worth it to risk pursuing her? To be close to her? For Emmaline, a voice inside him roared, anything was worth it. Anything at all.
Chapter 12
The Duke of Clyde was not a gambling man. He was, however, a fighting one. Over the last months, Edward had come to appreciate the scarred peer who had come down from his Scottish estates to be near his sister and make friends with Edward’s brothers.
It was rather remarkable, for Clyde liked few people, spent little time in company, and preferred the tavern to the salon.
So it was that Edward sat now in the Maiden’s Legs drinking gin waiting for a duke.
The cacophony of dockside workers and East End people whose very existence was a daily battle surrounded him. He, too, had come to prefer it in many ways to the gilded halls of his youth.
Everyone was so bloody bored in the ton. They all desperately sought something, anything to do. Any amusement, such as the gambling away of thousands and thousands of pounds. Amounts which could have supported the occupants of this entire room for all their lives in relative comfort. At least, none of them would have been cold or hungry.
But that was not the way of the world. Not now. He wondered if that would ever change.
Edward lifted his glass of gin and peered through the smoky room. Clyde had yet to turn up and he was already several ounces of gin in.
He hadn’t seen Emmaline for over two weeks. . . Except for when he’d occupied his box. And even that would end soon, for her show was coming to a close.
For all that she had claimed she wished to see him again, she had made no attempt and not given enthusiastic response to his suggestion that they take coffee together. In fact, she had written rather tersely that the details of moving to London and her theater were keeping her particularly preoccupied.
Of course they were. It was completely understandable and, yet, he had thought something had changed in their last meeting. That there had been an agreement that they would, at the very least, be friends.
No doubt, she had just been being kind. She didn’t wish to have to spar with him in public or face the stares of society waiting to see if they would explode at each other over the past.
He slipped his forefinger over the rim of his glass, then tapped it lightly to the tune played by a ragged fiddler in the corner of the room.
He nodded to Jenny to take the musician a drink.
The barmaid glanced at him over the crowd and gave a quick smile, her rouged lips parting to reveal slightly yellow but good teeth.
Edward sighed, a feeling he generally tried to avoid drifting over him. He preferred to keep himself busy, occupied, so he would never have to be too still with the pain that stewed inside him over the man he was.
“Oi, Rob! Have you seen that actress over from old Paris?”
Edward stilled.
“The one what wears next to nuffing, Henry?” Rob said behind him.
“Oh, aye,” Henry slurred. “That’s the one.”
“Me cousin went in for one of the cheap seats and he said, she did have legs what would give a man a cock as hard as a stone.”
“She’d know what to do with such a hard cock, I warrant.” Henry laughed before he tossed the contents of his tankard back.
“You think I should offer her mine?” Rob asked, grinning like a fool. “I reckon she’s never seen one so big. You think she’d swoon?”
“She’d choke on mine, old lad,” Henry tsked. “But that’s what actresses are for.”
Edward’s fingers curled around his glass and he struggled to slow his breathing lest he murder the men who had never been raised to see the world above the gutter. It was then he realized that another group of men had slipped into the bar, men just like him. . . Well, not just like him, but lords. Lords who liked to slum.
The entire room stared at them for a moment.
But one of them, a dark-haired fellow stopped at the table discussing Emmaline.
Edward tensed.
He leaned over, braced both his hands on the table, and declared, “Lads, she loves a good cock. Of that, I can assure you. And I’m sure she could handle two at once.”
Edward turned a little more to see the lord clearly and he nearly cracked the glass in his hand. He knew that man. It was one of the men who’d helped to ruin his and Emmaline’s lives. His name was Lord Conrade.
The room, despite being a throng of men and women, drinking, laughing, and doing their best to forget the cares that made their lives a never-ending toil, quieted. His heartbeat slowed, his vision sharpened.
Rage filled him.
Emmaline might be an actress, a public figure, and the source of gossip. . . As was he. . . But he could not turn from this particular lord making such commentary. Not from such filth. Not from a man who thought nothing of destroying the lives of innocents with no remorse.
Slowly, Edward stood and faced Lord Conrade. “Would you care to repeat that sentiment?”
The dark-haired lord caught sight of him a
nd, for an instant, he flinched, but then he grinned, bearing a wolfish smile. From the top of his immaculately groomed hair to the tips of his polished Hessians, the man was a perfect dandy. . . And a devil to boot.
“Ah!” Lord Conrade said, his eyes narrowing. “Here’s a man who knows what a whore the actress is. Lord Edward, how good to see you.”
Edward curled his hands into fists. “Rescind your statement,” he gritted.
“How can I?” mocked Lord Conrade, winking at the drunken men. “I’ve known the wench myself.”
It was a lie. A refuted lie. Refuted by everyone involved except, apparently, this bastard that the Hart family had been certain had gone off to the Continent never to return.
“I believe my brother and I made it clear that your claims are not to be believed,” Edward warned. He clung to reason. Conrade might still go. He might quiet. But another part of Edward, a deeper part, longed to crack Conrade’s teeth in.
The lord forced a laugh. “Fools the both of you, taken in by a bit of silk skirt. She’s a comer, Lord Edward. Apparently, she still has you in her thrall.”
Edward sucked in a harsh breath and, before he could think another thought, he hauled back his fist and punched the bastard in the face.
Lord Conrade’s head shot backwards and blood splattered across the two rough men he’d been exchanging such filth with. Conrade stumbled against a table and crashed into a group of men.
Henry and Rob darted up from their table, clearly furious that there bit of sport was being interfered with. “Want a fight toff?” one demanded.
Edward glared, his stance loose but ready.
He was about to get pounded into the floor, alone as he was, but he was going to make them pay for it.
He grinned, a wild, furious grin then lifted his hand and waved them forward.
Henry, a blond-haired man as broad as a bull, picked up his flagon and brandished it.
Edward twisted between the tightly-packed tables and managed to drive a fist into Rob’s soft gut before the tosser could even ready himself.
This wasn’t a fair fight. No rules here, and Edward found himself hungry for it.
Henry launched himself forward and brought the flagon down on Edward’s arm.
Pain lanced through his shoulder and down his back. He bit back a grunt then hammered his own fist into Henry’s jaw.
He stumbled back but even as he did, Rob recovered and vaulted forward, seizing Edward.
Edward twisted but not before a knee came up into his gut.
Instead of punching, Edward grabbed the leg in contact with his stomach and shoved it to the left and twisted.
The man screamed as a pop filled the room.
His victim collapsed on the straw-covered floor, screaming.
“Take it back now,” Edward demanded. “Every damned word.”
“Fighting for a whore? So noble,” Lord Conrade gritted as he forced himself up, whipping a knife from his coat.
Edward spotted the silver flashing.
Several women nearby screamed but the men pounded their cups against their tables.
The chant, “Fight! Fight!” filled the air.
Someone grabbed Edward from behind and as he attempted to break free, Lord Conrade whipped his knife forward.
The blade nearly sliced his face as Edward arced back.
Suddenly, Lord Conrade screamed as a polished piece of wood came down on his shoulder.
The Duke of Clyde stood behind him, a cane in hand.
Edward laughed, a stunned sound.
Half the room stilled. They all knew Clyde. They liked him. For he was a man with the face of a demon and fought as brutally as his visage suggested.
The man with the flagon backed up. “Clyde, we got no quarrel with you.”
“Just with my friend?” the duke asked as if querying the quality of the gin. His rough Scottish accent rumbled through the now quiet room.
The tough dropped his flagon and lifted his hand. “We want no trouble, Your Grace.”
Clyde turned his face so that the scarred side showed best. “Then get out of here, and take this scum with ye.”
Clyde kicked Lord Conrade in the back of his leg.
The lord squealed and stumbled. “Y-your Grace—”
Clyde grabbed him by the scruff of his coat. “Never come back, mon, or I’ll personally crush yer skill with my cane.”
The Scottish duke shoved the now whimpering lord away from them.
And the men who had so happily maligned Emmaline? They limped through the crowded tables and chairs, straight out of the establishment.
Every instinct screamed at Edward to follow them and do his best to slay them in an alley.
Clyde grabbed his shoulder. “Sit, Hart. Lest ye wish to have yer brains splattered on the floor. There’s too many of them tonight.”
Edward glanced about, realizing that Clyde was correct. Half the room might rise to protect the rough men he’d attacked. After all, he wasn’t one of them. He was permitted to be there but, in the end, he was one of their oppressors.
Clyde was different. He was Scottish. A duke. And he’d proven himself more times in this room than he could count.
Clyde loved the rough crowd and they loved him. Edward liked it for the way it kept him on edge, but the men here would never truly like him. Not the way they liked the duke.
Edward nodded and sat back at his table, wincing as he finally felt pain coursing through his body.
Clyde lowered himself in a mountain of limbs. He kept a hand on his cane as he surveyed the still tense crowd.
“Drinks all around for my friends!” Clyde called and the general tension evaporated under a cheer of goodwill.
Clyde doffed his hat and placed it on the rough-hewn table. “Now, would ye care to explain what madness you were at, ye daft Englishman? Or do ye simply wish to be disposed of in a back alley in yer prime?”
Edward stared at Clyde, uncertain what to say. “That man, Lord Conrade, isn’t worthy of the title ‘man’. He betrayed my family’s trust and that of Emmaline Trent.”
Clyde twirled his cane’s handle. “Och. I see. The young lady ye left at the altar.”
Edward gave a tight nod.
Clyde cocked his head to the side, his dark locks brushing his smooth temple. “That’s the mon who claimed to roger her?”
Edward grabbed his glass and drank deeply. “The very one.”
Clyde gave a contemplative look. “I should have killed him.”
“My sentiments exactly,” Edward agreed, willing the aggression still pumping through him to ease.
“Och,” Clyde winked. “Mayhap, we still will. But no’ in a tavern. We’ll get him on his own. He can die in the mud. It’ll be a suitable end for the tosser.”
Edward gaped at Clyde, uncertain if the man was in jest or serious. “He doesn’t deserve to live.”
“Did it feel good then?” Clyde asked, leaning back against the chair. “Beating his face in?”
“No,” Edward admitted through gritted teeth. “It wasn’t enough.”
“Ye’ll never be able to heal yer own wounds inflicting them on others, dinna ye ken?”
Edward groaned at the wisdom of the words. “I can’t bear the memories being invoked these last weeks. With her return, it seems everywhere I turn is a reminder—”
Clyde waggled his brows, a feat given his scars. “Of what a complete tosser ye are yerself?”
“Yes,” Edward admitted, suddenly tired.
“I’m no’ judging ye, Hart.” Clyde shrugged and peeled off his black gloves. “Ye’re no’ a bad mon. If ye were, I’d have let the crowd strip ye of yer skin. I certainly wouldna drink with ye.”
At that, Jenny sauntered across the room, a tray held high. “Your Grace,” she said with a bright smile. She placed a fresh bottle of gin upon the table and a cup. “Shall I see you later?”
“It’s the only thing which will make my night bearable, darling Jenny,” Clyde replied with surprising si
ncerity.
She grinned then sashayed off.
“Do ye think she smiles at me thus because she likes me?” Clyde asked, his voice low.
“She seems to,” Edward said, not sure what to say. It was always a bit hard to know with barmaids.
Clyde laughed. “What woman could bear a man like me without the inducement of coin, Hart? That’s why she smiles. I’ll pay her well and, I’ll please her. But if I was a poor man. . .”
Edward winced inwardly. Every man had his sorrows. The duke had more than most. “Clyde—”
“Dinna deny the truth,” Clyde suddenly snarled. “Ye’ve got a good face. Ye should try to keep it.”
Edward did not flinch at Clyde’s turn. He could not blame the man. “I’ll endeavor to do just that, but bastards like that—”
“Make ye act a fool,” Clyde said icily but with a good deal more calm. “Ye dinna stop men like that in tavern brawls.”
Edward sighed. “No.”
“Ye need to get away from London.” Clyde lifted the gin bottle and drank straight from it. “As do I. I find the city to be wearing on me in a way I didna anticipate.”
Edward kept silent, wondering if it was the way people stared at Clyde wherever he went. The way people recoiled from him. It couldn’t be easy. . . In fact, it was likely exhausting. It was rumored he’d not left his estate in Scotland for years after it had first happened.
The invitation to escape the city was tempting. Still, it might be impossible. “The club requires a dedicated master—”
“What kind of master are ye then if ye canna leave it to someone for a few weeks?” Clyde pointed out just before he drank again.
It was a valid point and he did have a good man of business. Could he go? Should he? He envisioned the feel of cool northern air on his skin, air free of coal dust. “Is this mere musing or have you something to suggest?”
“I have, indeed,” Clyde replied as he leaned forward and placed an elbow on the table. “Come to Scotland. I long for the Highlands, and I think the wilds would do ye well.”
Edward took a good swallow, no longer bothered by the acidic nature of the gin. “I’m loath to leave London. I’m expecting an important appointment.”
