Gallant Scoundrel

by Brenda Hiatt

  Harry frowned, trying to remember precisely what had happened. “Doubtful. I imagine the fellows who attacked me took all I had, so they’d have had little incentive.”

  “It was a simple case of robbery by footpads, then, and not an act of revenge by some jealous husband? You can no doubt understand why that might be my first assumption.” Peter grinned, though worry still lingered in his eyes.

  “Aye, wouldn’t be the first time, would it?” Harry agreed. “But no. I’d won rather a nice sum at the tables half an hour earlier and clearly failed to watch my back well enough on the way home. Someone must have tipped them off.” Recalling how he’d humiliated Phillips, a suspicion sprang to mind. Not that he’d ever be able to prove it.

  “Someone from the club?” Peter was clearly startled. “Or were you at one of your hells in Seven Dials?”

  “Guards. But you know as well as I there are a few members who’d sell their own mothers if they thought it might profit them.”

  Peter sighed. “You’re right, alas, much as I hate to think it of fellow officers. But enough of that. How are you feeling?”

  “Like the very devil,” Harry admitted. “Though likely better than I should, considering.” Carefully, he flexed each muscle in turn, testing every part of his body. “M’head’s the worst. Bastard bashed me with a horseshoe.”

  “Anyone you recognized?”

  Harry shook his head and immediately regretted it. “They looked like common ruffians—three of them. Held my own for a good bit, even so.”

  “I don’t doubt it. Never knew drink to impair you in a fight.”

  Except that it had last night—no, night before last. Not that he’d give Pete the satisfaction of saying so. He was in no mood for another homily on his dissipated lifestyle.

  After another searching look at Harry, Peter stood. “I’ll have a tray sent up, after which you should rest a bit more. The doctor said he’d call again in the morning. Then, depending on his verdict, I may have a proposition to put to you.”

  Lord Peter quitted the room, leaving Harry to wonder what fresh plot for his reformation his friend might be hatching now.

  Another night’s sleep reduced the pain in Harry’s head to a dull ache. The doctor, when he came, pronounced himself satisfied.

  “It’s a hard head you have, Mr. Thatcher,” he declared in a faint Irish brogue. “The cut over your ear should heal well enough and the skull beneath suffered no crack, as it might well have from such a blow as you describe. Another two days’ bed rest and you’ll be nigh fit as a fiddle, I dare say.”

  Peter, standing just behind the man, grinned ear to ear at the pronouncement. “I’ll see he stays put, never fear. And thank you.”

  As soon as the doctor left, Peter turned back to Harry, still grinning. “Excellent news, eh? Told him you had a skull of iron. Now, care to hear my idea?”

  “Not if it involves flinging yet another debutante at my head. It’s taken enough abuse already. Even so, I’ve no intention of lying idle for another forty-eight hours.”

  “Of course you will. I’ll do my best to make the time pass quickly for you.”

  Harry snorted. “Fine. You can begin by leaving a bottle or two within reach.”

  As he’d expected, that request drew a frown and a shake of the head from his friend. “It’s nine in the morning, Harry. Perhaps this evening I’ll join you for a glass of sherry. But now, about my proposal—and no, it doesn’t involve any debutantes. Perhaps you recall how I briefly became obsessed with discovering the identity of the Saint of Seven Dials, after we returned from the Congress of Vienna?”

  Though this was not at all what Harry had expected, he nodded. “Yes, you were determined to show up the Runners. I assumed you were missing all that Austrian intrigue—though I missed other delights a good bit more. I recall one wench in particular—”

  “Yes, well. Do you also remember that fellow working with the Runners poking about last summer, questioning various members of the ton?”

  “Aye, we both thought it hilarious when he went after your brother Marcus. As though he could be capable of exploits like that.” Harry chuckled at the memory. “Do you mean to say you’ve finally discovered who the Saint really is?”

  Peter merely lifted a shoulder and glanced out the window. “In a manner of speaking. As it turns out, there was no one Saint. Not this past year, at any rate. It’s been a shared role—or, I should say, a sequential one, as there was only ever one at a time. Now, however, the role of Saint stands empty and the poor of London are feeling the lack. Might you consider stepping into it?” he concluded in a rush.

  Harry stared at his friend in astonishment. Belatedly realizing his jaw had dropped, he closed his mouth and swallowed. Twice. “You’re mad, Pete,” he finally said. “I may have more than my fair share of vices, but thievery has never been among them. Why the devil would you think me, of all people, a likely successor to the Saint of Seven Dials? I’ve no aptitude for that sort of thing.”

  “What about those missives you stole for Wellington in Vienna? Or the dispatches you intercepted, read and sent on with no one the wiser?” Peter shrugged with exaggerated nonchalance. “I merely thought the job might amuse you. Give you something interesting to do while your closest acquaintances are busy setting up their households, as you’re dead set against ever doing the same yourself.”

  “Won’t deny playing the Saint of Seven Dials appeals far more than parson’s mousetrap, but my life’s interesting enough without either. Besides, there must be a dozen better candidates out there. Men with an actual bent for philanthropy—and two good arms.” He couldn’t quite keep the bitterness out of his tone.

  “So I should simply leave you alone to drink and wench yourself to death?”

  “Aye, just as I’ve been saying these three years past,” Harry snapped, more bothered by the sadness in his friend’s eyes than he cared to admit.

  With a terse nod, Peter turned to the door. “Very well. Should you change your mind before leaving here, let me know.”

  “Hold on, you never said who all those Saints have been. Was Marcus actually one of them? Who else? Anyone I know?”

  Peter glanced back over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised. “If you agree to take on the role I can arrange for you to meet them. Otherwise, I’m bound by my pledge to keep their secrets. Give you good morning, Harry.”

  * * *

  “You cannot be serious.” Xena gestured at the half-dozen small items spread across the polished wooden counter. “Any one of these is worth three or four times what you’re offering for all six.”

  The antiquities dealer merely shrugged. “It might be a different thing, madam, if I had specific buyers in mind for any of these items. As it is, I have no way of knowing how long it may take me to sell them, so cannot justify an upfront outlay of the sort you suggest.”

  With a huff of disgust, Xena began transferring the ancient coins and statuettes she’d brought as samples of her late father’s extensive collection back into their velvet-lined box.

  “Then I’ll find a dealer with better business sense and a finer appreciation of rare artifacts.” Head held high, she strode from the shop, kicking impatiently at the constricting skirts convention dictated she wear while in London.

  Back out on the pavement, however, a modicum of her bravado deserted her. This was the second antiquities dealer she’d approached, and he’d offered her an even smaller sum than the last. Would they all prove so ignorant—or greedy? How was she to raise the money to repair the roof of Moorside Grange or the broken mill wheel in the village?

  Still walking as briskly as her outmoded dress would allow, she consulted her all-too-short list of possibilities. Unfortunately, even a city the size of London boasted few shops dealing in the sort of artifacts her father had collected over his lifetime.

  “Beg pardon, ma’am,” a gruff voice exclaimed as she inadvertently jostled a tall gentleman as she passed him from behind.

  She glanced up to
make an apology—for, tall as Xena was, the gentleman was much taller—and froze, startled.

  Not nearly as startled as the man she’d bumped, however, for he stared as if seeing a ghost. “By Jupiter! Is it really Miss Maxwell, and in the flesh? But we all heard you’d gone down on that frigate the Frenchies sank off the coast of Corunna, back in ’09. How the devil…?”

  Compelled by long-ago habit, Xena very nearly saluted before gathering her wits enough to instead sink into a clumsy curtsey before her former General Wellesley, now the celebrated Duke of Wellington. “It is good to see you again, your grace. I, ah, assumed my father would have informed you of the mistake, though he himself did not discover the truth for more than two years.”

  “Two years! But surely you sent him word you were alive?”

  “Certainly, once the news reached me about the frigate, but my message never reached him. When he returned home in ’12, he was exceedingly astonished to discover me there, and alive.”

  “But how did you survive that sinking? It was reported that all aboard were lost.”

  “Alas, I believe the report was correct. The heavy rains in Spain that summer caused me to miss my intended sailing, forcing me to take a different ship to England. The delay proved fortunate for me, if not for the men aboard that frigate.”

  The Duke continued to stare at her in bemusement. “Fortunate? I call it a miracle! You were greatly mourned in the Peninsula when news of the sinking filtered back to us, not least by the many men whose lives were saved by your exceptional nursing skills. I’d never seen your father so thoroughly cut up. How does Colonel Maxwell, by the bye? Still gadding about the globe unearthing moldering bits of parchment and pottery?”

  She shook her head. “I’m terribly sorry to be the one to tell you, your grace, but a year ago last summer my father succumbed to a fever during yet another Eastern excursion.”

  “Ah, a sad loss, that. Your father had a remarkable mind. I daresay he knew the details of every major military campaign conducted over the past two millennia. It made him a crack advisor on the battlefield, I can tell you.”

  She smiled wistfully, remembering those relatively carefree days—before her life had become the veritable cage it was now. “He had planned to write up an exhaustive account of your own campaigns, your grace, upon his return to Yorkshire. It is a great pity he was never able to do so.”

  “A pity indeed. Old Max would have put all those other would-be chroniclers to shame, no question about it. My condolences, Miss Maxwell. Or is it still Miss? I forget you are no longer the little girl I knew in India, nor even the young firebrand who once bullied her father into letting her wear a soldier’s uniform. Surely by now you are married?”

  Xena hesitated for a heartbeat before replying. “I…no. I am not married, your grace.” A truthful answer, if not the entire truth. “I, ah, have instead endeavored to carry on my father’s cataloguing of artifacts and hope to write a book of my own one day.”

  The Duke’s eyebrows rose above his distinctive hooked nose, then he smiled. “I shouldn’t be surprised, as you were ever an Original, Miss Maxwell. You have remained in Yorkshire since returning to England, then? What brings you to Town?”

  “Some of those same artifacts.” Suddenly conscious of how shabbily she was dressed, Xena glanced down at the wooden box in her hands. “I find myself obliged to sell a few of them, as my father left rather less in the way of funds than he perhaps intended.”

  “I see.” Her former commander regarded her sympathetically. “Tell me, how long do you remain in London? Tomorrow I’m off to Paris again for a week or two, but on my return I’ll be hosting a reunion of sorts for officers who served under me on the Peninsula. I would be exceedingly honored if you would attend in your father’s stead.”

  “Oh! Er, thank you, your grace. I hadn’t necessarily intended to be in London many more days, but—”

  “But now you will stay, as a favor to me.” It was a statement, not a question. “I daresay you’ll see quite a few familiar faces there, and they’ll all be as delighted as I to discover the news of your drowning was false. Indeed, I predict you will be the talk of the evening, something to lend an otherwise dull gathering a deal more interest. If you’ll give me your direction, I’ll have an invitation sent round.”

  Not daring to contradict so great a man, she told him the address of the house where she was staying—though unless she could sell at least a piece or two from her father’s collection, she would not be able to afford her rooms there beyond the week she’d already paid.

  “Splendid, splendid. I give you good day then, and trust you will enjoy your sojourn in Town.” With a deep bow, the Duke departed.

  For a long moment, Xena continued to stare after one of the few men she’d ever held in esteem, a thousand recollections crowding her brain. Then she turned on her heel to head back to her temporary abode on Rundel Street, walking faster and faster in her effort to outstrip the ghosts from her past that suddenly threatened to overwhelm her.

  Not until she’d mounted the four flights of stairs to her apartments did she pause to catch her breath and, more importantly, to compose herself. It would never do to allow her mental disquiet to show. That would invite questions she felt in no way prepared to answer. After several deep, calming breaths, she finally opened the door.

  “She’s back!” A well-grown lad of some six-and-a-half years, clad in knee-breeches and a simple shirt, came running to greet her. “Mother, London is a wonderful place! Why, just this morning I have seen from the window fifteen liveried carriages, twelve drays and ten high-perch phaetons. And so many horses! Horses of every color and breed you can imagine. Can we please not stay here always? It is ever so much more interesting than Yorkshire.”

  Xena allowed herself to be led to the aforementioned window to witness these wonders for herself, exchanging an amused glance with Yamini, her onetime ayah and now Theo’s nurse. Still smiling, she glanced fondly down at the still-chattering boy by her side—the only thing that had made seven years of veritable exile bearable.

  * * *

  Well before his forty-eight hours were up, Harry was heartily bored. He’d have escaped back to his lodgings the first day if Peter hadn’t taken the simple precaution of spiriting away his clothes. Little as Harry cared for convention, he didn’t much fancy wandering about Mayfair in nothing but his nightshirt.

  Worse than boredom, though, were the memories. Memories, released by his recent dreams, and without sufficient distractions to keep them at bay, of a time when he’d been a whole man and a damned good soldier, with all his life to look forward to.

  Worst of all, those recollections threw into unpleasant relief the relative pointlessness of his current existence.

  Those excesses he’d adopted to put Xena Maxwell from his mind gradually became ingrained habits, increasing after he was invalided out of the army. At first he’d enjoyed scandalizing polite Society but by now even Peter expected him to act the wastrel. Where was the fun in being so predictable?

  In truth, his nightly drinking, gambling and wenching had already begun to pall before this enforced inactivity provided so much unwelcome time for reflection. Not so long ago, while deep in his cups, he’d briefly considered putting a period to his existence, as his chosen method of self-destruction was taking far longer than expected. That moment of madness passed quickly, but remembering it still had the power to unsettle him.

  Perhaps what he needed was a completely new path to Perdition, one that hadn’t already been trodden by thousands of men before him. Becoming the next Saint of Seven Dials might be exactly that—and likely amusing, besides.

  That evening, when Lord Peter again came to join him in a single glass of sherry after dinner, Harry picked up his glass—which wasn’t nearly full enough—and raised it.

  “Very well, Pete, you’ve beaten me down with this damned captivity. I’ll do it.”

  “Try your hand as the Saint, you mean?” Eyebrow raised, Peter regarded h
im piercingly.

  “Aye. I’ve flouted convention by all the accepted methods long enough. Time to try a new way to outrage Society—though I suppose I won’t be able to take credit for it, more’s the pity.” He shrugged and forced a grin.

  Peter wasn’t fooled. “I felt sure you’d eventually grow bored with night after night of dissipation, though I confess it took longer than I expected. It’s why I was very much hoping you would agree to take up this gauntlet—not only for the sakes of the poor denizens of Seven Dials, but even more for your own.”

  Harry’s grin faded. “Already trying to take the fun out of it, are you? Surely you can’t claim that becoming the Saint will be for my own good when a slip up would lead to the hangman’s noose. I’ve seen the rewards posted for his capture.”

  “True enough,” Peter admitted. “But wouldn’t that be a better way to go out than by drinking yourself into an early grave—or otherwise by your own hand?”

  So Peter had suspected, even without Harry telling him. As usual. Harry shrugged.

  “It’d be a tolerably heroic death, at least. Thought I’d managed one at Salamanca before that Spanish family pulled me through.”

  “And a hell of a scare you gave us all, too.” Peter’s eyes were shadowed with remembered worry. “For more than three months everyone believed you dead, you know. Jack swore there was no way you could have survived after the French overran that diversionary maneuver you led.”

  “Wouldn’t have if the Corsican’s boys had noticed me. Playing dead is what kept me alive, though it cost me an arm. But enough of that. Now I’ve agreed, exactly how do I go about becoming the Saint of Seven Dials? Will you finally tell me who else has played the part? Burning curiosity is half the reason I’m agreeing to this, you know.”