“We call it ‘coming the dook,’” Robbie said. “It’s quite a sight. Something will annoy James and just like that,” Robbie snapped his fingers, “he’ll turn all stiff and cold.”
“His voice freezes you dead,” Lizzie added. “You feel like a noxious, ugly, slimy sort of bug and you just want to crawl back under a rock.”
“Lizzie!” James laughed. “I’m sure I have never behaved in such a way, and certainly not with you.”
“Remember when I was fourteen? It was just after you got back from the Peninsula. I went riding one morning without telling you or Aunt Gladys.”
“Hmm. I was a little angry.”
“A little? Brrr. I’d hate to see you really angry, then. I stayed out of your way for days, James, truly.”
“Well, you never went out without telling us again.” James started up the stairs to the Hammershams’ door.
“If you ask me, it’s bred into him,” Robbie said, following behind with Lizzie. “It’s a natural reaction. He doesn’t think about it.”
“I don’t believe I asked you, Robbie. And surely earls can be just as stiff-necked as dukes.”
“No, you’re wrong there, James. Got to be at least a duke. An earl can freeze some mushrooms, but it’s a frost compared to an ice storm.”
“Ridiculous!” James smiled down at Sarah as he stood aside for her to precede him into the house. “If I had such power, I’d turn Robbie into an ice sculpture.”
“A donkey?” Sarah asked.
“That’s the polite term.”
Sarah handed her wrap to a footman and followed James to the music room. The place was exceptionally crowded. The smells of candle wax, perfume, and unwashed bodies hit Sarah in the chest. That, and the hundreds of eyes that turned her way as she stepped over the threshold on James’s arm.
“My, my,” Robbie whispered over Sarah’s shoulder. “The Hammersham gals have gotten quite popular.”
“Alvord!” A short, elderly man dressed in the height of last century’s fashion yelled at James. “Good to see you.”
“Hartford,” James shouted back. “Let me make known to you my betrothed, Miss Sarah Hamilton from Philadelphia. Sarah, the Duke of Hartford.”
“Your grace.” Sarah curtseyed as best she could. The man had to be close to eighty years old and deaf as a post. Any conversation would be carried on loudly enough for the people in the far corners of the room to hear.
“Pretty, very pretty. Had to go to the New World to find a suitable female, hey, Alvord?”
“Sarah is also the cousin of the Earl of Westbrooke. She came to her family here in England when her father died.”
“Westbrooke, you say? Here, ain’t that young Westbrooke hiding behind you? Well, that’s good. Blood’s blue—not Red Indian. Can’t have the future Dukes of Alvord descended from savages, can we?”
There didn’t seem to be much to say to that. James inclined his head. Hartford didn’t take the hint.
“Lusty wench, too, I hear.”
Sarah stood stiffly as the old man examined every inch of her.
“Looks pretty cool, but those are the best, ain’t they, Alvord? Cool on the outside, hot-blooded on the inside. Had a mistress like that once. Looked like an ice queen till I got her between the sheets. Then she couldn’t get enough of me. Never slept when I visited that piece, I tell you.”
If Sarah’s blood hadn’t been hot before, it certainly was now. It roared in her ears and turned her face bright red. She wished the floor would open up and swallow her.
“Hartford, you forget yourself.” James’s tone did sound glacial.
“Don’t go prudish on me, young fella. I got the same thing buttoned up in my breeches as you do. Ain’t so old that I’ve forgotten what it’s for.” The old man chuckled. “Haven’t forgotten at all. Why just last night…”
“Yes, well, excuse us, Hartford. Need to take our seats.” James headed for the chairs set up at the other end of the room, tugging Sarah along behind him.
“Got long legs,” Sarah heard the Duke of Hartford say as she hurried after James. “I like long legs in a gal.”
“Sorry,” James muttered. “Hartford thinks that age forgives all sins. Let’s sit over here. It looks like the sisters are ready to begin.”
Sarah glanced back at the Duke of Hartford. He was looking down some young girl’s dress. “What do his children think of him?” she whispered.
“He hasn’t any, though it sounds like he’s still trying.”
“At his age?” Sarah stared at James. She really was fuzzy on the details of procreation, but it certainly seemed that a man the age of the Duke of Hartford should be finished with such pursuits.
“He’s old, sweetheart, not dead.” James smiled in a way Sarah could only describe as wolfish. “I hope that I’m as, um, healthy when I face eighty.”
Thankfully, the Hammersham sisters began to sing at that point. After a few notes, Sarah realized that their voices were nothing to be thankful for. Not only could they not carry a tune, they couldn’t find one between them. The audience, welcoming a reprieve from the auditory torture, clapped enthusiastically whenever the girls paused.
“Not much longer before intermission,” James whispered. “We’ll drink a glass of punch and then we’ll go. I think we’ve accomplished tonight’s objective of silencing the gossips.”
Sarah smiled up at him as though he had promised her salvation. He had to admit as Miss Elvira Hammersham hit a particularly sour note that the quiet of his waiting coach did seem like heaven.
He was proud of Sarah. It had been a trial for her to come out after last night’s horror. She had shown true courage.
He was also proud she was his. Hartford was an idiot, but James had felt a jolt of satisfaction that the old man envied him his woman. God, how primitive! But he felt primitive when he thought of Sarah. The possessiveness and protectiveness that he had always felt for Alvord, he now felt for her. He needed her in his bed, yes, but he needed her in his life as well.
The people around him were clapping. The Hammershams must have finished. He took Sarah’s elbow and helped her to her feet.
“Shall we seek the refreshment room and then gather Robbie and Lizzie and escape?”
“Yes, please.”
Sarah’s eyes were green tonight, he noted, and her skin was cream-colored in the candlelight. He wanted to kiss her right in front of the entire ton. He leaned forward slightly, imagining the splendid scandal it would cause.
“James?” There was a slight note of alarm in Sarah’s voice.
He straightened and placed her hand on his arm. “Let’s go and see if the punch has been worth this punishment.”
Sarah sipped her drink. If she had to face one more fawning male or simpering female, she was going to be violently ill. It was a wonder the ton’s heads didn’t fly off their shoulders, they spun their faces so quickly. As Miss Hamilton she had been met with condescension, suspicion, or indifference. The duke’s whore was greeted with horror and disdain. Now, as James’s betrothed, she was receiving a heaping dose of toadying.
She didn’t know how she’d managed to be civil to Lady Palmerson. At least Lady Felicity and her friends had had the sense to stay away.
“Sarah!” Major Draysmith greeted her with a grin. “I was delighted when I read the announcement in the papers this morning. I’m so glad you and James worked out your differences.”
“Thank you, Charles.” This was definitely not the place to go into the details of her hasty engagement.
Charles moved on to congratulate James. Sarah felt a light touch on her shoulder and turned to face Lady Charlotte Wickford.
“Hello, Lady Charlotte.” Sarah thought her voice sounded pleasant enough, if a little cautious. The other girl smiled.
“I just wanted to congratulate you on your betrothal.”
“Thank you.”
“There was a time when the betting had Alvord offering for me.”
“Oh?” Sarah couldn’t
see any signs of heartbreak in the other girl, but perhaps Lady Charlotte just hid her feelings well. “I’m sorry if you’ve suffered a disappointment.”
Lady Charlotte laughed. “Oh, dear, don’t worry that I nurse a broken heart! I confess I would have loved to be a duchess, but I had already decided that the cost was too high.”
“The cost?”
Lady Charlotte stepped closer and lowered her voice. “Sharing the Monk’s bed. I decided I couldn’t do it.”
“Lady Charlotte!” Sarah looked around quickly. No one was close enough to hear.
“They say Alvord doesn’t keep a mistress, because no one woman can satisfy him. He picks his partners from the rougher brothels to find enough variety for his taste.” Lady Charlotte’s eyes had a hot glint in them. She moistened her lower lip. “Is it true? Is he insatiable?”
“Lady Charlotte!” Sarah’s head was beginning to throb.
“What’s your secret? Did you learn it from the American savages? Is that how you got Alvord to offer for you?”
It was clear Lady Charlotte did not think Sarah’s magic lay in her looks or personality.
“Whatever it was, it must have been quite spectacular to capture the Monk’s jaded interest.”
“Lady Charlotte, I don’t know what you are talking about. I’m sure James has always behaved as a gentleman.” Sarah would not dwell on the episode in Lord Easthaven’s garden or the activities in James’s study. “I hope you are not spreading malicious lies about him.”
“Oh,” Lady Charlotte said, smirking, “it’s a love match, is it? On your part at least. I don’t believe dukes marry for love.” With that, she nodded and moved off into the crowd.
Sarah stared after her. She wanted to tell the little brat that dukes did too marry for love, but she knew that would sound extremely childish. And she was very much afraid that the other girl was right in this case.
“Sarah.”
James was smiling down at her. He frowned and studied her face.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m just a little tired.”
“We can leave now, if you like.”
“That would be wonderful.”
Lizzie and Robbie shared the carriage home with them, so there was no opportunity for private conversation. Sarah was relieved. She closed her eyes and rested her head against the squabs—and saw Charlotte Wickford’s cold little face again. She squeezed her eyes tighter and shook her head slightly, rubbing it against the smooth leather of the seat.
She could not imagine James in the same room with the whores she had seen on the Philadelphia docks or in her father’s infirmary—the thought of him in the same bed was inconceivable. But then, what did she know? Nothing. No, less than nothing. She could not imagine any man touching the painted, pox-marked women who sought help in her father’s office, yet obviously many men had touched them. She swallowed a hysterical giggle. They had done much more than touch, though what exactly they had done was still a mystery to her.
Sarah turned her head to gaze out the window. She twisted the Alvord engagement ring so that the emerald dug into her palm.
How could she marry a rake?
How could she not marry James?
James watched Sarah climb the stairs to bed. Something was bothering her, that was clear. However, he had no time tonight to discover the problem. Tonight he intended to locate Mr. William Dunlap.
When he and Robbie climbed into a hackney a short time later, they were no longer attired in eveningwear. They would still pass for gentlemen, but their boots, dark breeches, and dark cloaks blended into the shadows and enabled them to move at a considerably faster pace than that required to cross a dance floor or fetch a glass of lemonade.
They headed east, along the Strand and Fleet Street toward the City. Shortly before they reached Bridewell Prison, James directed the jarvey to turn into Red Lion Court. They clattered down the narrow street and stopped in front of a rundown building. The weatherworn sign proclaimed it the “Spotted Dog.”
“Ye want I should wait, yer lordships?” the jarvey asked as James and Robbie climbed down.
“Come back in an hour,” James said, throwing the man a coin.
“You think we’ll find Dunlap here?” Robbie sounded skeptical.
“No.” James surveyed the battered door. “But I’m hoping we’ll find the trail that leads us to him.” He shoved open the door and stepped inside.
The smell hit him first—the smell of ashes, spilled ale, and too many men crowded together. It could have been the Dancing Piper, and he could have been sixteen years old again.
But he wasn’t sixteen, and after the initial shock, he certainly felt the difference. The women surveyed him with speculative interest, even those who were already entertaining a customer. He could feel their eyes moving over his face, his shoulders, his chest, his hips, and his legs. At sixteen he had blushed like a maiden. Now he let his eyes return their looks.
“Here, yer lordships, come sit with Bess and Jen, and we’ll get ye a nice tankard of ale—or gin if ye like.”
“Ale is fine, thanks,” James said as he sat down at a table. The madam was a thin, tired-looking woman, not at all like the buxom Dolly.
The girls were not so different from Fanny, though. They looked a little more desperate—or perhaps it was just that now he could see their desperation. He guessed Bess, the girl who had attached herself to him, was a few years younger than he. She might have only a year or two left in the relative comfort of the Spotted Dog before she was forced to move into the streets to ply her trade in doorways.
“Ye want to go upstairs, yer lordship?” she asked. She leaned close, putting her hand on his crotch. The combined smell of her breath, her body, and her last customer’s semen made James’s stomach roil.
He gently removed her hand. “No, thank you.”
Bess pouted, but James saw the relief in her eyes. Relief warring with worry. If he didn’t buy what she was selling, she would be that much closer to the streets.
“Some talk is all I need tonight,” he said. “I will pay your going rate and then some. It will be the easiest money you’ve ever earned. Same for Jen, right, Robbie?”
Robbie nodded.
“Yer sure ye don’t want to go upstairs?” Bess tugged her already low bodice lower. “I can make yer cock crow, see if I can’t.”
“I’m sure you can, Bess, but I really do only want to talk. I need some information.”
Bess pulled back. “Information? What kind of information?”
“Information about an American named William Dunlap.”
“Gawd!” Jen choked on her ale.
“We don’t know nuttin’ about no Dunlap,” Bess said quickly, her face suddenly pale.
“Are you certain?” James dug into his pocket, pulling out a handful of coins. He put them on the table—bright, gold sovereigns—and slowly, almost idly, began to separate them into two piles.
“Aye.” Jen’s eyes followed the track of James’s index finger as it slid a coin across the old, gouged table.
“Nothing?” Another coin clinked against its fellow.
Bess moistened her lips. “What do ye want to know?”
“Where I might find him.”
“Why?”
“I don’t like him.”
Bess and Jen exchanged looks. Then Bess glanced over her shoulder and lowered her voice. “Ye might try the Broken Dove,” she said. “Or the Red Lady.”
“Or the Rutting Stallion by the river,” Jen added.
“Aye, that’s another of his houses,” Bess said. “He’s gots lots of places to hide in Lunnon. Best take yer friend and watch yer back when ye go looking for him. He don’t fight fair.”
“I didn’t think he did.”
James and Robbie finished their ale.
“Thank you for your time, ladies,” James said as he and Robbie got up to leave.
The girls’ hands flashed out to collect their piles of coins.
“Tha
nkee, yer lordship,” Bess said, her eyes growing wide when she saw how much money was in her hand. “Come again, do.”
“Aye, and ask fer us,” Jen shouted after them.
“Gads, the girl—Jen—was crawling with livestock,” Robbie said as they stepped outside. “I doubt she’d bathed in the last week.”
“Last month, more like. Bathing is a luxury for the rich, my friend. And rich we are, especially for this neighborhood. I think you are going to get a chance for some exercise, but of the pugilistic rather than amorous variety.”
“What?”
“I may be wrong, but I believe two—no, three—large fellows are following us. I don’t suppose you see any sign of that hackney, do you?”
“No, blast it. Are you sure we’re being followed?”
“Don’t look! And yes, I’m sure. You don’t by chance know how to use a knife, do you?”
“No, I don’t by chance.”
“Pity.” James slowed his steps. “I think we’ll do better facing them now, before we reach that dark alley up ahead where they might have reinforcements. Help me over to the gutter and we’ll see if they are really following us or just out for a stroll on their own.”
James staggered and leaned into Robbie. He stumbled to the gutter and bent over as if to empty his stomach. He glanced back as he lowered his head to his knees. If the men behind them weren’t a threat, they should give the sick man and his companion a wide berth. Instead, they hurried towards them.
“Be ready,” James muttered to Robbie. “I don’t see any clubs or sticks, but they’re sure to have a knife or two.”
The one in the lead made a grab for James. Robbie stepped back instinctively, clearing James to swing out of his crouch and connect his right fist to the fellow’s jaw before the other man knew he’d been noticed. The man’s head snapped back, slamming into the second fellow’s nose. The first man crumpled to the pavement.
Ordinary street thugs would have fled at that point—one man down, another injured, the odds now even. Unfortunately, these were not ordinary street thugs. They had obviously been hired to do a job that they hesitated to leave undone.
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