by Lauren Smith
Charles faced him and cupped his palms on Linley’s shoulders. “I will hear no more arguments. I plan to bed several women tonight, and I will not be doing so alone.” He drew a perverse satisfaction from the flash of panic in the boy’s eyes. It reminded him of several of his friends back at college, especially Peter…
The thought threatened to darken his mood, so he rallied back with added enthusiasm. “You need a woman, lad. It’s time, especially if you wish to keep up with me. I give you full permission to chase skirts while we’re about town.”
Linley’s jaw gaped, but he didn’t utter another word of protest.
Charles strode to the door, eager for his night of revelry to begin. “Fetch your coat and let’s be off.”
The Dandy Club was a gambling hell well known for the army officers and soldiers who haunted its halls, seeking pleasures and thrills that eased the memories of the battlefield. Charles was at home among their tortured souls. He had his own horrors and nightmares to wrestle with. Oil lamps bathed the rooms in a rich gold, exposing the scenes of debauchery and gambling. Charles scanned the crowds, seeking familiar faces. At his side Linley was doing the same, brows knit in consternation.
What a green lad the boy was!
“My lord! What a pleasant surprise.” A lovely woman in a red satin gown sauntered over. Her wealth of dark hair tangled down her neck as though she’d been recently tumbled.
“Mrs. Hollingberry, how are you?” He brushed a lingering kiss on the inside of her wrist, causing Mrs. Hollingberry’s brown eyes to gleam.
“Are you here alone, my lord?” She claimed his arm before he could respond and did not spare a glance at Linley, who trailed behind.
“I cannot be alone if I am with you.” Charles chuckled, relishing the thought of bending the lusty widow over the nearest surface.
Her grip on his arm tightened. “And would you like to be with me?”
Charles freed his arm, then curled it around the widow’s waist, tugging her against his side so that he could lean down to whisper in her ear.
“It would be my dearest wish”—he paused, listening to the hitch in her breath—“to make you scream with pleasure.” He didn’t miss the sudden rise in her breasts as they strained against her tight bodice.
“I shall find us a room.” The eager widow tugged him away from the hazard tables and toward a hall that led to an empty billiard room.
“Tell your boy to wait outside, unless he wants to watch.” Mrs. Hollingberry cupped Charles’s erection, applying just the right amount of pressure.
Desire flooded through him. Base, pure instinct. Nothing more than the need to fuck and then be done, but it still called to him. He knew it didn’t feel this way for Godric or Lucien—they’d spoke often enough of the differences of bedding a woman they loved versus those they’d bedded in the past. But Charles feared that sort of emotion. Better to find satisfaction with women like Mrs. Hollingberry than to run the risk of falling in love.
“Here, lad, find a woman of your own.” Charles tossed a heavy coin purse at Linley, then dragged the giggling widow into the private room and slammed the door.
The second he was alone with Mrs. Hollingberry, he prowled toward her. She gave a delighted shriek as he caught her and lifted her up to set her on the bed. It was an easy thing to ruche up her skirts around her waist. The skin of her thighs was smooth as he spread his palms up her legs. The widow wriggled closer to him, curling her legs around his waist and reaching for the front of his trousers.
“How do you want it?” he asked. “Hard and fast?”
“Oh yes,” she agreed, palming his now freed erection with her slender hands. “You do that so well.”
He groaned at her firm, knowing touch and shifted closer. Soon he was tangled around her, shoving deep into her body. But it wasn’t the same. He found his satisfaction, just as she did hers, but it was…shallow. A flash of momentary lust, quickly extinguished.
He withdrew from her and fixed his clothes before helping the lady with hers. She gave him a wry smile, stroking his chest. She still sat on the edge of the bed leaning back a little on one hand.
“You were always a good bed partner, my lord.”
“I sense that there is more to your statement.” Charles clenched his teeth and stared down at her.
Mrs. Hollingberry met him with a level stare. Her fine features, usually so attractive, seemed more calculating tonight, but not in a way that concerned him. Rather he was puzzled. Usually when he bedded a woman like her, they wouldn’t be able to think, let alone look at him like that.
“You seemed distant tonight.”
“I suppose I am,” he admitted. His mind had wandered quite far from the moment of pleasure.
“And what could consume the mind of the Earl of Lonsdale and make him melancholy?” Mrs. Hollingberry’s eyes glittered as she continued to study him in open curiosity. Her sudden scrutiny made Charles’s skin itch. Why did this feel familiar?
“I’m sure I have no idea,” he replied with a wry chuckle. It wasn’t the truth though. For the past few months he’d been coasting along, like a skiff adrift at sea, carried by full winds, but now rudderless. Helpless and at the mercy of the winds of change. If only he could find some sense of control or direction, he might not feel so damned weak.
“Well, this was fun, my dear, but I have the strangest urge to drink myself under the nearest table.” He flung the door open and found Linley staring at him.
“Have we finished, my lord?” Linley’s disposition was cold and professional, and altogether unlike himself.
“Well, yes.”
“Very well, I’ll be outside with the coach when you’re ready.” He stalked down the hall and vanished in the crowds in an instant.
“What the devil has gotten into him?” Linley had never shown any sign of a temper before now.
“Perhaps the woman he approached spurned him?” Mrs. Hollingberry said, joining Charles at the door, watching the crowd. “Shame. If he had waited, I might have given him a turn. Handsome boy, that.”
“I think I really do need that drink. Goodnight, Mrs. Hollingberry.”
Charles kissed her hand and headed straight for the nearest hazard table, where he hailed a servant for drinks.
Perhaps the widow was right. Charles made seduction look easy, and even with a purse full of coins at his disposal, some charm and care was needed to woo a woman here. He imagined such a rejection would not have been handled tactfully, either.
Poor lad. Charles hadn’t even thought to advise him beforehand. No wonder he was in such a rush to get out.
Chapter Twenty-One
Two hours had passed by the time Charles had drunk himself beneath a card table.
“Looks like you need a hand, Lonsdale.” James Fordyce, the Earl of Pembroke reached under the table and offered a hand to him. Charles gripped the hand and allowed himself to be hauled up on his feet. His vision cart-wheeled and he blinked rapidly, trying to get a steady fix on the man’s face.
“Ready to go home, Lonsdale?” Pembroke asked.
“Suppose I ought to. Bloody hell, what a night.”
Pembroke slid one arm around Charles’s waist, supporting him outside to hail a hackney to get him home. Linley emerged from the shadows of a nearby mew and joined Pembroke in supporting Charles by ducking under Charles’s left arm.
“There you are, lad,” Charles greeted the boy.
Linley’s disapproving scowl cut across him as the boy spoke to Pembroke. “How deep into his cups did he get tonight?”
Charles’s friend laughed. “Enough to swim to France, I imagine, but he’ll be fine on the morrow.”
“You know, Pembroke, you’re a good sort…good fellow,” Charles mumbled.
Pembroke laughed. “Thank you, Lonsdale. You’re not too bad yourself.”
“No, I’m not, I
’m a damned fool and a coward.” Charles’s words slurred as he stumbled over an uneven cobblestone. Pembroke lifted him up a little, and Charles’s stomach roiled violently, but Linley helped catch him before he fell face down on the street.
Pembroke hailed a waiting hackney and assisted Linley with getting Charles inside, gave the driver his address and slipped the driver a handful of coins. As the hackney jerked forward, Charles slumped back against the seat, fighting off a wave of nausea.
“Won’t be long before we’re home, my lord. Then you can sleep it off.”
It didn’t surprise Charles that Linley knew exactly how unwell he felt. The boy had a talent for knowing what his master was feeling. He hoped the lad hadn’t been too embarrassed by whatever had transpired at the club. He hadn’t meant to upset the boy.
Charles was barely coherent by the time the hackney stopped in front of his townhouse. The driver hauled him to the door, muttering all the while about drunken louts.
“My lord, are you able to walk?” Linley’s voice cut through the heavy fog of Charles’s inebriation.
“Ah.” He winced as the world spun around him when he attempted to put his feet one in front of the other. “Linley, be a good lad, make the floor stop moving, will you?”
He thought he heard a little chortle from his servant before a polite reply came out. “Of course, my lord, shouldn’t be too hard to accomplish that.”
Charles’s legs gave out at the bottom step of the stairs and he sank to the ground, chuckling a little.
“My lord, how much have you had to drink?”
“Only a moderad…motorate… More than enough, I suppose. Take me to the servants’ quarters. There is a spare room. I’ll sleep there.”
Linley hesitated but finally helped him to his feet again, taking him to the servants’ quarters. Charles’s sight kept blurring until he was gently shoved toward a narrow bed.
“I’m sorry about tonight, Tom. I’ll teach you everything you need to know next time to woo a lady. On my honor.” He slapped one hand over his heart, but Linley huffed.
“Wool-headed fool,” Linley muttered. “Get yourself killed being that deep in your cups without me to watch your back.”
“Right you are.” Charles laughed as he collapsed onto the bed. “Can’t be too careful. Danger around every corner, lad. Promise to teach you to box first thing on the morrow.”
“Don’t need lessons, my lord. I know how to fight better than you, I’d wager.”
That almost woke Charles up with laughter. “Ha! I was taught by the best pugill…puggle…boxers in London.”
“Aye. And you’re a right terror to witness inside the ring. But there’s a difference between fighting for sport and fighting to survive, my lord. Now, get some rest.”
The boy was still muttering about Charles’s foolishness as darkness and sleep closed in on him.
* * * * *
Jonathan St. Laurent fingered the two folded sheets of a letter and the blob of melted wax he’d broken. Ashton’s instructions had been written in a code the League had invented years ago, one he’d only become privy to when Godric had asked him to join their ranks last September.
It was an honor he would never forget. So many years he’d watched his half brother and the other lords from a distance. Now he was one of them, no longer a valet, not from below stairs or the wrong side of the blankets, but a true legitimate son of a duke, even if his mother had been a lady’s maid to the duchess. His father had married Jonathan’s mother legally, albeit secretly, after Godric’s mother had died in childbirth, along with a sibling Godric would never have the chance to know.
Learning of his birthright had changed Jonathan. Many young men at his age would have been demanding their inheritance and spending all of their time gambling and wenching, living life to excess. Not so for him. The temptation had been there at first…but those desires had quickly faded. There had been too much at stake. Emily Parr, Godric’s wife, had been in grave danger. The League had rallied together to save her. Jonathan had joined them, and the foolish need to act out with his new money and power had nearly vanished overnight. In its place, a desire to protect those he cared about had become his priority.
That was how he’d ended up outside a dockside pub called the Devil’s Eye, running a secret mission for Ashton. The baron had his fingertips in nearly every major bit of business in London, but his primary ones involved shipping. The Lennox lines were a sturdy fleet of merchant ships that Ashton had recently expanded by acquiring a competitor’s business. Ashton’s letter had mentioned possible activity connected to Hugo Waverly on a docked ship called the Maiden Fair. Jonathan was to track any sailors who came ashore and eavesdrop on their conversations.
Ashton’s letter had mentioned that Waverly was seen visiting this vessel, rumored to be connected to the underground slave trade. Given what the League had told him about this man, it seemed the kind of disreputable affair he’d be involved in.
The door to the tavern crashed open and three drunken louts in sailor togs stumbled in, laughing and shoving one another. Jonathan stepped into the shadows and stole a mug from a passing barmaid’s tray. Rather than scold him, she halted, her lips forming a kissable moue shape. An invitation. One he would have gladly accepted before last Christmas. But no, he still had the taste of a certain little young lady on his lips. A lady who had made her interest in him abundantly clear.
“I finish my shift in an hour,” the maid said, looking hopeful.
“Alas, I cannot. But it flatters me, for you are quite lovely.” He captured her free hand and pressed a kiss to her skin, slipping her a coin for the drink he’d taken.
Damn! He wanted so badly to bed a woman, but after Audrey Sheridan’s reckless abandon toward him, he could imagine no other. If he wished to have a lady like Audrey be his wife, he could no longer chase skirts in taverns. The one thing he’d learned from his brother and Lucien in the last few months was that loyalty to one’s wife was not only expected, but desired.
Charles kept insisting he was too young to crave what Godric and Emily had, but Jonathan craved it all the same. Audrey, the feisty little chit, was a warm wind on a cold day and just as wild. Like taming the winds, no sooner could he do that than tame the young lady. But he wanted to be with her for the wild ride she’d no doubt give him.
Jonathan turned his attention back to the sailors. The Maiden Fair was the last ship to come into port, and these three men looked ready to fall deep into their cups. The briny odor of the sea clung to their clothes. He crept closer, tracking them as they settled down on the stools by the bar counter.
“So then I says, ‘Whatcha gonna do in Brighton? Ain’t nuffin there but stodgy tight-breeches, and no wenches to visit,’” the old sailor boomed out in a voice natural for storytelling. The men on either side of him hooted in laughter.
“And what did he say to that?” one of the other men asked as he removed his gray woolen cap and mopped his sweaty face.
The man banged his mug down on the counter, sloshing its murky contents over the sides and onto the scuffed wood. “He says, ‘Ain’t no business of yours, but I’ve been hired to get an English gent and his new wife and that’s where they’ll be.’”
“Wot?” The man on the right blinked. “Ee ain’t serious, is he? You don’ mean…”
“More…cargo?” the third man finished.
“Aye.”
The one with the gray cap shook his head. “That’s more trouble than we’re paid for.”
The old one sucked his teeth. “Is he daft? We’re short on crew as it is, and half the ones showin’ up tonight are green.”
“Ee says we’re all getting paid double for the trouble.”
The three men shared significant looks before they lowered their heads together, voices dropping low. There was no mention of Waverly, but something about the three men bothered him.
This was going to be a long night. He splashed a bit of ale on his clothes and ruffled up his cravat and coat, then stumbled over and took a seat next to the sailors, calling for more ale. Having caught their attention, he gave them a friendly grin.
“Evening.” He nodded and pointed at the barmaid. “Lovely little chit, eh?”
“That she is,” the storyteller agreed.
“A lovely round of pints for my lovely new friends.” Jonathan winked at the maid and then leaned in toward the trio conspiratorially. “Let’s toast to lovely ladies, eh? I couldn’t help but overhear you are bound for the Maiden Fair. I’ve just paid for passage on the ship. I’m happy to buy rounds for you gents who will be sharing the trip with me.”
That seemed to warm the men up. After several rounds the sailors were spilling more than their ale, and what they had to say was both very interesting and not good at all.
He caught the maid’s attention. “Sweetheart, I need to leave a note for you to deliver.” Pressing a few coins into the girl’s hand, he waited for her to return with a slip of parchment and a quill. As the sailors burst into a lewd song, Jonathan scratched a message. Then he handed the letter to the maid and whispered the address to her. After that he followed the sailors, who were now making their way back to the docks.
Jonathan sighed. So much for going back to my home to my own bed tonight.
* * * * *
Godric cradled Emily in his arms, kissing her always delectable lips.
“What about dinner?” she managed to ask.
“To hell with dinner, I have what I want, darling.” He pinned her against the settee in their drawing room, one hand coasting up her leg as he slid her skirts up to her waist. In the low candlelight she was lovely, so lovely.
