The Duke: The Knight Miscellany Series: Book 1

by Gaelen Foley

  Life as she had known it was over.

  She—prim, respectable Miss Hamilton—knew better than anyone that there was a clear-cut line separating decency from disgrace.

  Centuries had passed since she had been a refined country gentlewoman of Kelmscot, visiting with her neighbors, teaching Sunday school to the peasant children after services, attending the occasional Assembly ball. She was another sort of creature now, as lost and degraded as the prostitutes who came to this place seeking food and shelter from the cold, and mercury treatments for their horrid diseases.

  She had nowhere to turn. Going to see Papa was out of the question. She couldn’t even inform against her attacker because, as keeper of a major London prison, the warden would doubtless have friends inside the justice offices at Bow Street. There was nothing even to stop him from trying it again.

  On the third day one of the streetwalkers who had taken shelter there tried to talk to her while she lay curled up, staring at the wall. Bel didn’t recall much of the conversation until the brash, aging harlot had leaned toward her and offered in a shrewd tone: “If I ‘ad yer looks and yer fine lady airs, I’d take me to Harriette Wilson’s house and find me a rich lord protector, I would. Then I’d live in style!”

  At that, Bel had looked up with her changed gaze.

  She had heard that name before, spoken only in whispers. The divine Harriette Wilson was the greatest demirep in London.

  She and her sisters were courtesans, Cyprians par excellence. They held infamous parties at their house on Saturday nights after the opera, which were said to be second only to White’s Club in the hearts of London’s richest and most powerful males. Rumor had it the Regent, the rebel poet Lord Byron, and even the great Wellington could be found in the company of these most sought-after diamonds of the Fashionable Impure.

  Dolph moved in such circles. Why, she could become the mistress of his worst enemy, she thought as a faint, cold smile lit her face. How humiliated he would be, as she was now, how powerless and enraged, if he saw that she would rather become another man’s harlot instead of his wife. For this, ultimately, was Dolph’s fault.

  Protector. Delicious word.

  Someone to help her, take all her fears away. Someone who was kind and would not harm her. The idea, wild, destructive, burned like a fever in her brain. And why not? She was already irrevocably ruined. Not even Mick Braden, wherever he was, would marry her in her state of shame.

  The thought of her childhood sweetheart filled her with disgust. How he had failed her. She could admit it now— he was probably right here in London somewhere, dallying with a tavern wench, getting his leisurely fill of bachelorhood before sallying forth to Kelmscot, where he no doubt thought that she was still waiting patiently for him.

  What a fool she was. If not for her fanciful hopes in him, she might have become another man’s wife and none of this need have happened, she thought bitterly. Harriette Wilson could teach her how to fend for herself.

  Her simmering anger grew potent, acrid, dangerous.

  She had too much pride to throw herself on the notorious Cyprian’s charity, but she could approach her as one businesswoman to another. If she promised Harriette Wilson a percentage of the proceeds from her future protector, she mused, the woman would surely agree to teach her the courtesan’s arts. What else did she have to lose?

  Moments later Bel was gathering up her few possessions, her hands shaking slightly with the brashness of her decision. She knew she wasn’t thinking clearly but was too coldly, deeply enraged to care. She thanked the good people who had looked after her for the past three days and asked the streetwise jade where Harriette Wilson lived.

  With her cloak wrapped tightly around her, she set out to find her fate on a day of mottled cloud and sun. It would be a long walk from the City to the clean, luxurious environs of Marylebone, north of Mayfair, where they were building roads and lavish terraces in the new Regent’s Park. Anger was balled up tightly within her, keeping her warm. She hadn’t eaten for a couple of days, but her physical hunger did not match her sharper one for revenge.

  Protector. Sweet word.

  He didn’t have to be handsome. He didn’t have to be young, she thought as she strode swiftly through the streets, not looking back, her arms folded tightly around her. He didn’t have to shower her with finery and jewels.

  He only had to be gentle and not make it too unpleasant for her, and he had to help her get Papa out of the Fleet and stand by when she faced that unspeakable brute.

  If fate sent her such a person, she swore bitterly to the heavens, now that she was fallen, she would make it very worth his while.

  “O ‘ Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!

  Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?

  And whence such fair garments, such pros-per-ity?

  “O ‘ didn’t you know I’d been ruined?” said she.

  —Thomas Hardy

  Bait the hook well! This fish will bite.

  —Shakespeare

  CHAPTER TWO

  In the bracing sea breezes of Brighton Hawk found that he could breathe. Whether it was the distance from the crowds of London and all the places that reminded him of her, or the influence of the calm majestic sea, grief began to loosen its stranglehold over his heart.

  The nights were relegated to his quest, but during the balmy April days he found solitude whenever he wished it, walking barefoot on the sand with his trousers rolled up around his calves. Far from the Promenade and the bathing machines, there was only the sough of the sea and the cries of the gulls. He felt himself healing, growing stronger.

  Most mornings he liked to row straight out from the shore until England was hardly in sight. He fished. One day, warmed by the high spring sun, enticed by the placid, pale jade water, he took off his boots, pulled off his coat and waistcoat and dove off the side of his little dinghy.

  The water was frigid and it stole his breath as he plummeted straight down through the tossing waves, shot like an arrow from a bow. The water was painfully cold, but it cleared his head to the point of an almost visionary lucidity. He swam deep, savoring the dull silence, the blue-green light below the surface. He thought of Lucy drowning in the pond and tried to imagine what that had been like.

  Holding his breath until his lungs ached, he felt alone as always, yet free, floating, felt himself slowly coming untangled from her thrall, until at last he burst up to the surface, gasping, with no pearl in his clutches but the vague, strangely comforting notion that perhaps he had been more in love with his idea of Lucy than with the woman herself. It was both a virtue and a fault in him that he lived too much in his head, he knew.

  Feeling more himself than he had in months, at length, he rowed back to shore with long, vigorous strokes, shivering in the brisk wind. He was staying at the Castle Inn on the west side of the Steine. Reaching his lodgings, he bathed, changed clothes, ate, then set out for the night’s usual party. His new chum, Dolph Breckinridge, would be attending a concert in the Regent’s garden, and so would Hawk.

  Cultivating the baronet’s rakish set had been easier than he could have hoped, though it was still too soon to broach the subject of Lucy without raising suspicions. Among the wastrels he had to put up with a good deal of ribbing about his superior morals, but they accepted his casual association as an enhancement to their own reputations. He bided his time, sensing that his goal was ever nearer.

  The parties the Regent threw at Brighton were so vast that Hawk felt almost anonymous, strolling idly from room to room and out onto the greensward where the German orchestra was playing. To his satisfaction, he happened across Dolph standing alone at the corner of the terrace, staring out to sea in a pensive mood.

  Maybe after ten days of cultivating the baronet, tonight at last he might unearth the key he sought. Hawk sauntered over to him at the balustrade, disguising seething hostility behind his impeccable facade of cordial reserve. “Breckinridge.”

  “Hawkscliffe,” D
olph slurred, then sighed heavily and took a swig from his bottle.

  Drunk, thought Hawk. Perfect. “Something wrong, old boy?”

  Dolph sent him a sideward glance, his heavy-lidded eyes looking duller than usual. “Have you ever been in love, Hawkscliffe?”

  Hands in pockets, Hawk looked judiciously out to sea. “No.”

  “No, I don’t suppose you have, cold fish like you,” he said, too drunk to heed his own insolence. “I’ll bet you were born under Saturn.”

  Hawk lifted a brow. “Pray, are you in love, Breckinridge?”

  “Hawkscliffe,” he said, “I have found a diamond.”

  “Ahh, that brunette you had sitting on your lap last night after the theater?”

  Dolph shook his head, gestured idly with his bottle. “That was just to pass the time. No, I have found the most beautiful, adorable, desirable, cleverest, sweetest girl. I know . .. such love,” he said, pressing the bottle to his heart, “as you cannot imagine.”

  Hawk stared at him, taken aback. He had never till this moment heard the man speak of anything with much passion except the hunt, horses, and hounds. “Do tell.”

  “You should see her,” Dolph went on. “No—no—on the other hand, no one is allowed to meet her until I have married her. I am keeping her hidden away from you all. God knows, you’ll swoop down with your dukedom and your great name and try to steal her,” he said, laughing drunkenly. “And if not you, then one of your intolerable brothers.”

  “Such a prize, is she?”

  “More than you will ever know,” he declared arrogantly, and took a drink.

  “Has your angel got a name?”

  “Belinda.”

  “When’s the wedding?”

  Dolph sighed again. “Won’t have me. Yet.”

  “You’re joking,” he said mildly.

  “She will, in due time,” he assured him. “I’m thinking she will miss me so much while I’m away that she’ll have reconsidered my offer by the time I get back to town.”

  “Well, I wish you great success with her,” he said lightly, and turned away with a calculating gleam in his eyes.

  Bull’s-eye, he thought.

  Having given his quarry plenty of time to ponder the misery of existence without him, Dolph Breckinridge returned to town with the buoyant eagerness of a hunter at the climax of the chase. The vixen was cornered. There was nowhere she had left to flee.

  What a fine trophy she would make! he thought as he whipped his horses down the Strand. Belinda had led him a merry chase, but the enforced separation he had imposed on her had surely driven the defiance out of her. He intended to find her meek and willing to come to him at last. If not, then he would just have to devise some new way to block her foolish attempts to live without him.

  Streaking down the street in his phaeton, he was heedless of the wrecks he almost caused and the pedestrians he nearly crushed under his whirring wheels. Impatient to find her, he scanned the faces of the vendors as his phaeton careened through the next intersection. He barked a curse at a delivery wagon going too slow in the road and curved past it, nearly colliding head on with a mail coach.

  He shouted at the post driver and would have liked to stop and brawl, only he had more important things to do. Sulking angrily, he brought the whip down on his horses’ backs and plunged on.

  Where the devil was the chit? He couldn’t wait to spar with her, for Belinda had been one of the few real challenges he had ever known.

  Life had been easy for Dolph Breckinridge. Things always seemed to fall out in his favor, like his inheritance of his uncle’s earldom. His parents had never been any match for his strong will, even as a child. Eton and Oxford had been effortless because he had coerced the underclass bookworms into fagging for him. Thanks to the excellent physique and looks God had given him, women also fell in line—all but his dainty, indomitable Miss Hamilton.

  Never had any woman so made him burn for conquest. What a feather she would be in his cap! With such a refined, obedient, beautiful wife, he would be the envy of his friends—among whom he now numbered the extremely powerful duke of Hawkscliffe, he thought in self-congratulation.

  “Hang it all, girl, where are you?” he muttered to himself. His horses’ ears swivelled nervously at the sound of his voice.

  Failing to spy her in any of the usual locations, he took a break from his hunt and tore off in the direction of his club, knowing that a good repast and a drink would cure his bedevilment. Then he would resume his search and no doubt find the quarry in the open.

  It was not long before he was drawing off his thick leather driving gloves and swaggering into Watier’s. As one of the livelier clubs, the sight of a boisterous confab abuzz in the main saloon was not unusual.

  About a dozen men were arguing good-naturedly on the subject of some new wager. Dolph strode into his club mates’ midst, exchanging greetings with some while the discussion went on. He barely listened, more interested in ordering a good beef pie.

  “Prime article. No one will get near her for anything less than carte blanche, you realize.”

  “That rules me out—at least until my venerated parent expires.”

  Snickers, idle laughter.

  “Who do you think she’ll choose?”

  “Ten pounds says it’ll be Argyll.”

  “No, Argyll belongs to Harriette.”

  “What about Worcester?”

  “She doesn’t fancy him.”

  “She fancies me!”

  “Oh, please.”

  “She said I was witty!”

  “She doesn’t fancy anyone. That’s what makes her so appealing. Ah, but to be the one to melt her ice ... now, that would be something.”

  “Well, she’s never given you a second look, nor any of us.”

  “What does she want? A demigod? Perfection? A saint?”

  “I’ve got twenty guineas that says she’s waiting for Czar Alexander to arrive. The women are half in love with him already. The Times says he’ll be here any day—”

  “No, no, she’s a good English girl. She’ll have nothing to do with a foreigner!” scoffed another. “I say it’ll be Wellington, mark my words. Give me ten pounds on Wellington! And I daresay he deserves her more than any of us.”

  “With all due respect, Wellington could be her father,” someone muttered.

  “I think I shall hang myself if she won’t have me,” another said with easy cheer.

  “All right, all right,” Dolph declared, turning around, hands on hips. “I’ll bite. Who are you talking about?”

  They stopped abruptly, glanced at each other, and smiled slyly.

  “Pardon?” Luttrell asked innocently.

  “Where’ve you been?” asked another.

  “Brighton, with the Regent,” said Dolph haughtily. “What news?”

  “There is a new Cyprian who has brought us all to our knees,” said Colonel Hanger. “We are placing bets on whom she will accept as her protector.”

  Dolph gave a short laugh, unimpressed. These fools thought they knew what beauty was.

  “You doubt us?” one of the exquisites asked indignantly.

  “What does she look like?” Dolph skeptically replied.

  A collective sigh rose from their midst.

  “Hair like spun sunlight—”

  “Oh, spare us your poesy, for God’s sake, Alvanley,” drawled Brummell. “She’s a blue-eyed blonde. In a word, stunning.”

  “Humph,” Dolph snorted. “Those are easy enough to come by.”

  A trifle uneasy suddenly for reasons he could not name, he turned his back on them as the waiter came out and set his beef pie down before him.

  “Has anybody heard where Miss Hamilton will be appearing tonight?” one of them asked behind him.

  Dolph promptly choked on his bite of beef.

  “I should think she’ll be at Harriette’s soiree.”

  Dolph washed down his cough with a swallow of ale, shot up out of his chair and whirled around, wipi
ng off his mouth with his forearm. “What did you say her name is?”

  “Who?”

  “The Cyprian,” he rumbled, lowering his head like a bull ready to charge.

  Colonel Hanger smiled at him and lifted his glass in a toast. “Miss Belinda Hamilton.”

  He recoiled in horror.

  “To Miss Hamilton!” they toasted cheerfully, but Dolph was already out the door.

  He roared for his phaeton and in another moment was hurtling down St. James’s toward Marylebone. He knew where Harriette Wilson lived, having attended many of the harlot’s Saturday night parties at her house in York Place.

  It was impossible. It was a mistake or a joke or a coincidence. She would not— she would not! She was a prude, a virgin, a lady. Damn it, she was his claimed property.

  Almost too angry to concentrate on driving, he left a wake of chaos in the streets behind him as he thundered down on the reigning Cyprian’s elegant, modest townhouse.

  If it was true—if his Belinda really was in there, by God, he would break down the door and drag her out of that house by her hair. Drag her all the way to Gretna Green.

  In front of Harriette Wilson’s house, he leaped out of his barely halted phaeton and strode to the front door and began banging on it with his fist.

  “Open up! Open up, Harriette, you slut! Damn it, Bel, I know you’re in there! You will see me!”

  The door abruptly opened under his beating fist. Dolph found himself eye to eye with one of the whores’ bullies— a tall, bulky footman who looked like an ex-prizefighter. Treachery in livery. Harriette kept a couple of them around the premises as bodyguards, he recalled.

  “May I ‘elp you?” the menacing footman growled.

  “I’m here to see—” He strove to calm himself. A bead of sweat ran down his cheek. “Is there a girl here by the name of Belinda Hamilton?”

  “Miss Hamilton is entertaining guests right now,” the brawny footman grunted. “You can leave your card.”