Connie Mason & Mia Marlowe - [Royal Rakes 02]

by One NightWith a Rake

  Does sensual experience leave a mark for all to see?

  Her lips might be a bit kiss-swollen, she decided. And her color was a tad higher than normal. Otherwise, she thought she looked the same. It was only when she met her own gaze in the mirror that she realized she was wrong.

  Her eyes were different. A new Georgette peered back at her from behind them.

  This new Georgette knew things that the old Georgette had not. She’d felt things.

  Her heart had been broken.

  Now all she could do was try to salvage her spirit. After taking extra care with her toilette, she made her way downstairs, determined to face the day with her head held high. As soon as she entered the dining room, she wished she’d taken the tray instead.

  “Oh,” she said when she saw Nathaniel at the sideboard heaping buttered eggs, deviled kidneys, and a rack of toast onto his plate.

  “‘A’,” he replied. “I assume from your greeting that we are listing vowels this morning. A silly game and an unavoidably short one, but you do seem to have a talent for that sort of thing. Your turn.”

  She narrowed her eyes and frowned with what she hoped was a forbidding glare.

  “Don’t squinch your face so. It’ll stay that way if you aren’t careful. Let us begin afresh. Good morning, Georgette.” He swept a deep bow that only she would have recognized as mocking. “You’re looking particularly well…rested this fine day.”

  Swine. She refused to rise to the bait. “Where are my parents?”

  “You and I are the latecomers this morning. Imagine that. Lord and Lady Yorkingham have already broken their fast.” Nathaniel strode to the table with his heaping plate and sat, tucking a linen napkin at his neck. “I believe your illustrious parents have gone to the Piccadilly market to procure flowers for the upcoming ball.”

  “My father has gone out to buy flowers?” Georgette made her way to the chair opposite him and sat cautiously. Having the width of the table between them seemed safe enough. “That doesn’t sound like him.”

  “Does it not?” Nate took a sip of his tea, pulled a face, and added another lump of brown sugar. “One can only assume he is doing so in order to please Lady Yorkingham, then. I should think that would be a great comfort to you.”

  “To me? Why?”

  “Because if your father is doing something out of character solely in order to please your mother, it goes to prove that arranged marriages can be felicitous for the brides, after all.” His lips drew into a flat line across his face. “Isn’t that what you’re counting on?”

  She’d been counting on Nathaniel being less of an ass, but she refrained from saying so because Mr. Rigsby arrived just then with her pot of chocolate.

  “I’m terribly sorry for the delay, my lady. We seem to be shorthanded this morning,” the butler said. “Mr. Darling has gone missing. Shall I make up your plate for you?”

  “No, I’ll do it,” she said, rising to pick over the selection of stewed fruit and scones, though nothing truly tempted her palate. Seeing Nate again had driven other appetites from her completely. “Mr. Darling isn’t missing. He’s doing a favor for me. I trust he’ll be returning to his duties later today.” Her tone trended up, turning the statement into a question directed to Nathaniel.

  He nodded.

  Since the man was still stuffing his face with overlarge bites of toast he’d sopped in his eggs, it was best that his answer remained mute.

  “That’ll be all, Mr. Rigsby. Thank you.” Georgette settled back into her chair and waited until she and Nathaniel were alone before she dared speak again.

  Whatever else she did, she had to act as though last night had been nothing more than a vivid dream in which they both happened to have participated.

  With enthusiasm.

  Repeatedly.

  The inquiry into Vesta’s death seemed a topic sure to drive libidinous thoughts from her mind.

  “I assume you’ll do what you can to replace Mr. Bagley as quickly as possible. What are you intentions regarding Vesta’s death?” she asked, holding her cup of chocolate before her as if it were a shield. “Will you be hiring an inquiry agent?”

  “I would if I knew of one who could be trusted to be diligent about the death of a prostitute.” Nate wiped his mouth with his napkin and deposited the linen on his empty plate. “No, I plan to investigate this matter for myself.”

  Against her will, her opinion of him ticked up by the smallest of measures. “Very well. I shall assist you in this endeavor.”

  “No, my lady. You will not.”

  “Of course I will,” she said. “After all, I’m the one who convinced Vesta to leave her former life and come to the House of Sirens.”

  “We both had a hand in that.”

  “And we should both have a hand in this as well.”

  “Georgette, this inquiry is likely—”

  “I think, under the circumstances, you should refrain from using my Christian name.”

  He stared at her as if she’d suddenly sprouted a second head. Then his complexion darkened. It didn’t take much whimsy to imagine that little wisps of steam were escaping from his ears. He stood and leaned toward her with his knuckles pressed against the pristine tablecloth.

  “Under the circumstances?” The softer he spoke, the more menacing he sounded. “You mean the fact that we rutted each other’s brains out last night? Those circumstances?”

  Whatever this was between them crackled in the air like heat lightning. It devastated her, hollowed her out like a rotten oak, still green on the outside, but weak and dying within. Since she didn’t trust her voice to make a reply, Georgette twisted the napkin on her lap and wished the floor would open and swallow her whole. She willed herself to feel nothing.

  “Very well, my lady.” His tone managed to turn the title into a curse. “This inquiry is likely to involve persons of exceedingly low caliber, lower even than your estimation of me, so if you think I’m going to allow you to lark along endangering yourself and—”

  He was treating her like a child. Anger flared in her belly. Yes. That she could let herself feel.

  She rose and leaned across the table, glaring right back at him. “If you think you have anything to say about where I go or what I do, you are deluding yourself, Lord Nathaniel.”

  He straightened to his full height, then reached into his pocket for a pair of dove gray gloves and tugged them on. An unpleasant grin stretched across his handsome face. “Regardless, you won’t be accompanying me this morning.”

  “Why ever not?”

  “Because first I’m off to O’Roary’s gymnasium to find a replacement for Bagley. Then I’ll nip down to White’s to question Lord Gobberd. He’s the gentleman from whom I won that misbegotten house of ill repute in the first place. And thank God, both O’Roary’s and White’s still do not allow members of the fair sex entrance to their fine establishments.”

  He nodded curtly and strode from the dining room without a backward glance.

  ***

  “Mr. Humphrey, a word in your ear.” Mrs. Thistle, the housekeeper, cornered the steward at the door to the below-stairs dining hall. Before the sun rose, members of the household snatched pieces of toasted bread or a bit of leftover tart to tide them over till the Family was dressed, fed, and set to embark on whatever sort of doings quality folk filled their idle days with. The staff was beginning to assemble for their late breakfast now during the lull between launching their employers’ day and serving the midday meal.

  “What is it?” Humphrey asked the housekeeper with brusqueness. No one could be served till he took his place at the head of the table.

  Mercy lingered near the pantry where he and the housekeeper were, tucking stray locks of her hair up under her frilly mob cap.

  “Well, I’m not rightly certain, but I thought as you ought to know about this. When Hildie went to make up Lord Nathaniel’s bed this morning, she found she had to change the sheets.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “There was a blo
odstain on them.”

  “Has the gentleman been injured in some way?”

  The housekeeper shook her head. “I’m afraid the blood likely wasn’t his.”

  Mr. Humphrey’s brows rose. “Do you think the gentleman has meddled with some of the help?”

  “I don’t know,” Mrs. Thistle said, tapping her front teeth with a neatly trimmed fingernail. “I shouldn’t like to think so, but Dora, that new scullery maid, seems a bit flighty and she was heard to remark over and over what a fine figure of a man that Lord Nathaniel is.”

  Humphrey glanced over at the girl, who’d taken her place near the foot of the table across from the bootblack boy. “That’s not enough to accuse her. I’ll speak to the staff during breakfast on the importance of maintaining professional distance from the family we serve. And its guests. And—I say, Miss Atwood, where are you off to?”

  The lady’s maid had snatched up a scone and headed for the back stairs.

  “I thought I heard my lady ring,” Miss Atwood said, one foot on the lowest step.

  “No bell has sounded.”

  “No? I was certain I’d heard a little jingle. Well, I should check in any case, shouldn’t I? Just to make sure.” Without waiting for his answer, she bounded up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

  ***

  Lady Georgette’s nose was red when Mercy slipped into her chamber.

  She’s been blubberin’ and no mistake.

  But the lady wasn’t the sort to let anyone see her tears. Instead, when she noticed Mercy, she covered her nose with her hanky and blew it like a trumpet.

  “Are ye quite well, milady?”

  “I’m fine, though I suspect I may be catching a cold.”

  Cold, my eye. Mercy studied her more closely. Could it have been Lady Georgette in Lord Nathaniel’s bed last night?

  That might be cause for tears, especially if the gentleman was acting like most men did after a night of swiving. Of course, there were other reasons a gently bred lady might be weeping. They were a sensitive bunch. Mercy had even caught her mistress in gushing torrents of tears over one of her silly novels.

  And last night had been a trying one for her mistress. After all, she’d seen a dead girl in Covent Garden.

  The high and mighty didn’t generally get a taste of death what wasn’t done up with a bow and wrapped in a pretty service in a chapel somewheres. Seeing a dead body for what it was—a slab of cooling meat that used to be a laughing, breathing person—was enough to undo sterner folk than her mistress.

  But then, Mercy had all but dared her to step out and act on the way she felt about Lord Nathaniel. Of course, she never dreamed Lady Georgette would actually do something so outlandish as to join the fellow in his bed.

  Mercy itched to ask, but for once, she decided she’d ought to stick a gag in her curiosity. If milady wanted to tell her, she would.

  But wouldn’t it be delicious if Lady Georgette kicked off her prim ways and had a good old game of hide-the-sausage like the rest of us?

  It’d prove she and her mistress were more alike than either of them had suspected.

  “I didn’t ring for you,” the lady said. “What are you doing here, Mercy?”

  Mercy twined her fingers before her. “I was just wondering if you knew when Reuben would be coming home.”

  One corner of Lady Georgette’s mouth turned up in a sly smile. “I’m sure Mr. Darling will be pleased to know that you missed him.”

  “That great ox? I don’t miss him a bit,” she protested. “But with him gone, it only makes for more work for the rest of us here. Let me tell you, when Mr. Rigsby is on a tear because he’s missing a footman, it don’t make for pleasant scenes below stairs.”

  “Mr. Darling will be home as soon as Lord Nathaniel sends a replacement for Mr. Bagley.” Then her mistress’s smile faded and she cocked her head as a new idea obviously took root in her mind. “But I think we might arrange for you to see him sooner.”

  “Oh?”

  “Fetch my pelisse, if you please.” Lady Georgette rose, tucking a fresh handkerchief into her sleeve. “You and I are going to pay a call on Madam Bouchard this morning.”

  Mercy’s mouth gaped for a moment. “Beggin’ yer pardon, miss, but I don’t think that’s such a good idea. You see, today ain’t the bully’s half day off and—”

  “That’s why we’ll go to the House of Sirens and borrow Mr. Darling for a bit. He can surely be spared long enough to accompany us across the lane while I speak with Madam.”

  “Well, I suppose Reuben could do that, but why would ye be wanting to?”

  “I’m sure Madam Bouchard knows everything that goes on in Lackaday Lane. I need to discover what she knows about Vesta’s death.”

  Mercy swallowed hard. “What if she’s the one who had it done?”

  A steely resolve stole over her mistress’s features. “Then she needs to know that we won’t look the other way and are determined to see justice done. And if she threatens us, well, that’s why we’ll have Mr. Darling with us.”

  Without waiting for any more argument, Lady Georgette strode from the room. Mercy stood there a moment shaking her head.

  No, she and her mistress were not a bit alike.

  Mercy had enough sense not to be poking her nose into places where it had no business being.

  Places where it was like to get chopped off.

  Twenty-four

  Hiring a replacement for Mr. Bagley was more difficult and more costly than Nate expected. Once he reached O’Roary’s gymnasium, where he’d hired Bagley in the first place, he was informed that the former pugilist’s body had been dragged from the Thames only that morning.

  “Poor devil was garroted afore he was fed to the fishes. Saw the gash across his neck myself. Seems guarding a bunch of reformed whores is a more dangerous enterprise than ye might expect,” O’Roary observed wryly. Then he called for those interested in filling the empty position to come forward.

  Nate had to sweeten the guard’s salary considerably, but finally Manfred Hock, a great hulking fellow with a cauliflower ear, one eye, and a game leg, agreed to take the post on Lackaday Lane.

  If nothing else, Mr. Hock’s face alone will scare away potential ne’er-do-wells, Nate decided as he counted out the fellow’s pay a month in advance. Hock was ordered to report to Mrs. Throckmorten at once.

  At White’s, Nathaniel wasn’t a bit surprised to find Lord Gobberd at the same poque table where Nate had left him a few weeks earlier. The gentleman had assembled a new gaggle of willing victims, all of them emptying their pockets into the pot.

  “Do you want in, Colton?” he asked with a calculated lift of a wiry brow.

  “No, but I’d like a private word if you can spare it, my lord.”

  Even if Gobberd couldn’t, Nate would have his word in any case, but it never hurt to act the gentleman. At least while in the hearing of others.

  Gobberd squinted at his cards and tossed them down. “Deal me out for the next couple hands, but don’t give away my seat. I’ll be back.”

  He waddled to a distant corner and settled his bulk into a booth with his broad back to the wall. Dissolute and just shy of disreputable, the earl was known for shady business dealings and, it was whispered, occasional cheating at cards, though no one had ever called him out on it. But Lord Gobberd still didn’t seem the type to stoop to murder.

  Any man is capable of it, Nate reminded himself. Beneath the lace and superfine, man was still an animal, with a barely suppressed predator’s instinct for both self-preservation and aggression.

  “Bring us a pot of that Jamaican stuff that just came off the boat,” Gobberd ordered the waiting servant. “Good beans, those.”

  While they waited for the coffee to arrive, Nate studied his companion. Lord Gobberd was an accomplished poque player. Whether he held a winning hand or nothing at all, his heavily jowled face never revealed a thing.

  It stood to reason the earl could just as easily cloak murderous intent beh
ind his pale, vacant-seeming eyes.

  “I know what this is about,” Gobberd finally said, obviously tired of the silence.

  Nate didn’t answer. He just continued to meet his opponent’s steady gaze.

  “I don’t care what you say.” Lord Gobberd leaned forward and cast Nate a gimlet stare. “You won it fair and square. I won’t take it back.”

  Nathaniel frowned in confusion.

  “Now look. Right now, over at that table, I’ve got a viscount, a newly elevated baron, and his American friend who seems to be the heir to a shipping magnate or some such thing on the string. I’ve been letting them win all night, but I know their tells and the tide is set to turn,” Gobberd confided. “If you want, you can use it to buy into the game now. Toss it into the pot and be done with it. Easy enough to lose a hand when a body means to, isn’t it? Between the pair of us, we’ll pick the others clean.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The deed to that whorehouse, of course,” Gobberd said. “Don’t tell them what it is, or even where it is, for God’s sake, and I’ll let you bluff your way into the game without a single pence from your pocket.”

  Nate exhaled noisily. If Gobberd didn’t want the deed to the House of Sirens back, he was evaporating from the short list of suspects rather rapidly. “Did you lose the property to me on purpose?”

  Gobberd shot him a frown of derision. “No, there was too much else in that pot for that, but I suspected I was about to take a tumble. I had an inkling you’d come out on top and, to be perfectly frank, I couldn’t bear not to give you a little grief for it.”

  He smiled unpleasantly.

  “Abominable place, isn’t it? Roof leaks like a sieve. Rotten to the rafters. And don’t get me started on the madam who’s the tenant,” Gobberd said. “Never met such a whiny, demanding bitch in all my life and I’ve been married three times!”

  “I bought out her lease and sent her packing.”