Virtuous Scoundrel (The Regency Romp Trilogy Book 2)

by Maggie Fenton

  She wouldn’t think of his ruined face, or mourn it. The bruises and lacerations would heal, and he was alive—pale, battered, but alive.

  At least for now.

  She allowed Dr. Lucas to steer her from the room into the hallway.

  “Shall he live?” she demanded when she’d recovered her voice.

  “I can’t say,” he said, giving her a sympathetic look.

  Well. Dr. Lucas was not one to coddle, and he certainly did not coddle now. She usually respected him for his forthrightness, but at the moment she couldn’t appreciate it. She would have preferred a thoughtful lie or two. She slumped against the wall and squeezed her eyes shut.

  “Several ribs are broken, and no telling the damage done to his internal organs. Whoever gave him the beating did not pull their punches. He will be incapacitated for some time, but I have some confidence these wounds will heal.”

  Her heart lurched with hopefulness.

  “They do not worry me so much as the lump on his head. Someone hit him very hard.” He paused and put a hand on her shoulder consolingly, a liberty he’d never take in normal circumstances. “Head injuries are capricious. I cannot say what it will do to him. If he does not wake up in a few days, I’d say his chances are very slim.”

  “Oh,” she said, very softly, something breaking inside of her.

  “And there’s infection to think about. The cuts are likely to go septic. If fever sets in—and it likely will before too long . . .” He trailed off, not bothering to finish what they both knew he would say.

  “Fevers pass,” she insisted.

  He hesitated far too long. “Sometimes.”

  She rubbed her hands over her face. She felt so weary she wanted to sit down on the floor of the hallway and cry for a day.

  Dr. Lucas sensed her weakness and put a hand under her elbow. “You need rest, my lady.”

  “I must help him.”

  “If you want to help him, rest now. When the fever comes, you shall need your strength.”

  “I know you must be right,” she said, as she suffered him to lead her down the hallway to a small parlor where Polly had set out a steaming tea service. She sat down in an armchair, surprised to find her whole body trembling.

  Dr. Lucas surveyed the tea service, took up a cup, and pulled a silver flask from inside his jacket. He tipped the contents into the cup and handed it to her.

  “What is this?”

  “Whiskey,” he said, his lips quirking wryly. “You seem to need it.”

  She choked the liquor down. It burned its way to her stomach, warming her as it went. “It’s terrible.”

  He just smiled gently and settled into the chair across from her. “I know you don’t wish to think about it, but we must discuss what to do,” he said.

  She looked questioningly at him.

  His face was grim. “Someone assaulted the marquess. The magistrate must be brought in, at the very least.”

  She thought about this for a moment, her brain struggling through the fog. “Not now. Perhaps . . . when he recovers.”

  “If.”

  She flinched.

  “I just don’t know what he would wish,” she tried to explain. But she did know what Sebastian would wish. Somehow, deep in her gut, she knew Sebastian would not want the authorities involved. How she could be so in tune with a man who was so much a stranger, she did not wish to discover.

  Dr. Lucas didn’t look pleased, but he relented. “Very well. For now we won’t think about it. But someone wanted him dead. Someone might still want him dead.”

  The import of his words was not lost on her. “You think they might try to come here and . . . finish the job?”

  “It is possible. You must tell your servants to be vigilant. Who knows what sort of villain he has entangled himself with.”

  She had to agree with him. Sebastian was not known for genteel pursuits, and he had a troublesome habit of getting under people’s skin. “He seems to have many enemies.”

  “Not you,” he murmured. Did she hear the slightest bit of jealousy in his tone? Surely not.

  “I am his aunt.”

  “Not really,” he returned.

  She clenched her hands. “I am all he has of family.”

  “He hated his uncle.”

  Dr. Lucas was not above listening to gossip, then. “Yes. But I do not hate him. I do not wish him to die. You think he is a scoundrel, but he’s not!” What was she saying? Why was she defending him when she knew very well he was the worst sort of rogue?

  “I do not have an opinion on the matter, but everything about this situation is highly suspicious.”

  Suddenly, she resented Dr. Lucas’s interrogation. Since when had the doctor grown so judgmental? How could he be casting suspicion upon Sebastian when the man was dying a few doors down?

  “He was the one who gave us the money,” she blurted, though she didn’t know why she wanted so badly for Dr. Lucas to think well of Sebastian. She hadn’t thought well of him because of the money.

  Dr. Lucas’s eyes widened. “You mean . . .”

  “Yes. The fifteen thousand. All of his inheritance.”

  Dr. Lucas took in this information in silence. He steepled his hands in front of him, then shook his head slowly. “It makes sense.”

  That was the last thing she expected to hear. It certainly made no sense to her.

  “What do you mean?”

  Dr. Lucas’s granite-hewn face was suddenly solemn beneath his moustache. “If he knew he was going to die, it would make sense for him to give away his fortune.”

  “But he couldn’t know such a thing!” she cried out.

  “No, perhaps he did not know precisely what would befall him tonight. But it is well known he is reckless with his life.” He leaned forward in his seat, rather ominously, in her opinion. “I just want you to be prepared, my lady, in case he doesn’t pull through.”

  She straightened her spine and jutted her chin. “I am quite determined that he shall fully recover.”

  Dr. Lucas gave her a tight smile that did not reach his tired eyes and sat back in his seat, resignation in every line of his body. He’d given up on her, then. “Perhaps he shall.”

  It was the first platitude he’d spoken all evening.

  Meanwhile, in the Chic Part of Soho . . .

  GUILLAUME-HIPPOLYTE AGUILARD DE Robicheaux, Duc de St. Aignan, had survived the Revolution, Robespierre, Napoleon, and years and years of English weather. He’d even survived the death of his One True Love. He was quite certain, however, he would not survive the loss of his beloved pug, Belle du Jour.

  He threw a vase at Agador’s head after Agador delivered yet more bad news. Unfortunately, the vase missed its intended target and shattered against the mantel instead. The duc fell back against the chaise longue in a pout, snatched the cold compress from Agador’s trembling hand, lifted up the edge of his periwig, and pressed it against his throbbing temple.

  Agador scrambled to clean up the shards of the vase from the antique Savonnerie carpet as the duc continued to rant.

  “If you have made me stain my carpet, Agador, you’re sacked! It was from my apartments at Versailles and irreplaceable. Vous êtes viré! I’ll send you back to your mère in Lyon! You’re so hopeless, though, she would send you straight back, no?”

  Though he had lived in London for nearly three decades, Agador had still only learned a handful of English words, so the duc was hardly worried about hurting the imbecile’s feelings. But his tone was obvious enough, and he supposed his nephew had not enjoyed dodging the vase, or the mention of his mère. The woman was a battle-ax even in her dotage, and Agador had been lucky to escape her, never mind madame la guillotine.

  Agador looked up at him with his best puppy dog eyes. They might have worked on the duc had Agador not been approaching the half-century m
ark.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he cried, reverting back to French, waving his compress in surrender. “I would not throw things at your head if you had not lost my precious Belle.”

  At the mention of the pug, Agador turned back to his task with alacrity, no doubt hoping to escape further imprecations. He had heard nothing else since he’d come home from Belle’s walk sans Belle a week ago. A lot more than the vase had been thrown at his head in the wake of that revelation. But by now the duc was beginning to run short on breakables to hurl.

  The duc sighed and covered his eyes with the compress. He’d always been a man of peace, but Agador had turned him into an ogre with his negligence. Belle was worth more to him than the Savonnerie, definitely more than Agador. The last of a royal pedigree—one that had nearly been lost along with the heads of its owners—and possessed of as elegant a disposition as her bloodline, Belle had been more family to him for the past eight years than poor, useless Agador. And infinitely more diverting.

  Not to mention the fact that he had at long last found a stud of appropriate lineage to give Belle a litter. He had wrangled with himself long and hard over the decision to use his precious, virtuous Belle in so mercenary a manner, but the bloodline must continue. For Bourbon France. He owed it to Her Majesty, may she rest in peace. If he didn’t find Belle soon, however, he’d miss her heat.

  If he found her at all.

  And who knew what sort of unpedigreed cur might take advantage of the poor creature’s virtue before she could be rescued. The thought of that was enough to give him fresh palpitations.

  After demanding Agador return to the search after he’d cleaned the carpet, the duc fell asleep. Heartache was exhausting.

  AGADOR RATHER THOUGHT his uncle was exhausting. And a bit terrifying, even at his advanced age. As Agador tiptoed out of the drawing room and made his way toward the kitchens, he cursed the foul luck that had led him to his present predicament.

  It was to have been a simple enough scheme. He was to “lose” Belle on their afternoon stroll, and Soames was to “find” the bitch and claim the hefty reward his uncle was sure to bestow. But Peter Soames, Bow Street runner by day, petty thief by night, had proven as incompetent as his wardrobe choices had suggested. The bungling ne’er-do-well had actually lost Belle to the streets of London only minutes after Agador had handed her over.

  Which left Agador well and truly buggered.

  Soames was waiting for him in the kitchens, where he was making short shrift of one of Jean-Luc’s raspberry tarts with all the élan of a caveman. Jean-Luc, a chef nearly as temperamental as his employer, stood muttering to himself by the stove, sending Soames murderous looks while fondling his cleaver.

  Agador knew the feeling when it came to his associate.

  Completely unconcerned about Jean-Luc’s threat, and crumbs falling from his gawping mouth onto his protruding belly, Soames grinned when he caught sight of Agador.

  Agador winced. It was hard to decide what was worse: the man’s table manners or the cheap red silk of his waistcoat.

  “Bone joor, Aggie!” Soames boomed, patting his gut and belching.

  Agador winced again, grabbed the man by his sleeve, and pulled him out the back door, away from Jean-Luc’s malevolent curiosity. It would not do at all for Jean-Luc to discover his schemes.

  “I told you not to come here,” he hissed in perfect English that would have no doubt shocked his uncle to an early grave, had his uncle stopped long enough in his constant ranting to let Agador get a word in edgewise.

  Soames rolled his eyes and jerked out of his grasp, full of righteous indignation. “Doan get yer knickers in a twist, gov.”

  “If my uncle were to see you, there would be questions.”

  Soames waved one of his oversize paws unconcernedly. “Pshaw. That old relic? Can ’e even see wif them antiquified eyeballs?”

  “Like a hawk,” he said unequivocally, barely suppressing a shudder.

  Soames looked impressed by that old relic’s alleged vigor.

  “Tell me you found her,” Agador pressed.

  Soames rocked back on his heels and scratched underneath his hat, grimacing. “Well,” he said, drawing out the word, “there’s good news and there’s bad news.”

  Agador ground his teeth. Soames prefaced all of his speeches with this line. It was always an accurate predictor of the information to come, if nothing else, but it was also bloody annoying.

  “Good news is, I spotted ’Er Majesty in an alley in the dodgy part of the neighborhood last night.”

  Agador let out a sigh of relief. “Are you sure it was her?”

  Soames brandished the small Cosway miniature of Belle that Agador had smuggled to him at their last meeting. Agador was rather shocked the man hadn’t hocked it. The damned portrait had cost a fortune to commission. Thank hell Soames was too stupid to appreciate its worth. If his uncle realized the miniature was also missing alongside Belle du Jour, he, not a vase, was liable to explode all over the Savonnerie. And the last thing Agador wanted was his uncle’s demise.

  Before he’d changed his will, anyway.

  Agador snatched back the Cosway and tucked it away in his own elegant, non-red waistcoat. Soames had held on to it long enough, and his uncle was liable to demand to see it any day now.

  “It were her all right. Know them eyeballs anywheres,” Soames said confidently.

  “Well, where is she, then?” he demanded.

  Soames scrunched his nose. “Well, that’s the bad news I were tellin’ you about. Afore I could reach ’er, this toff comes by and the little tart starts to flirt wif ’im. Next fing I knows, the toff’s being assorted by a pair of rough types. I fought it best to ’ang back and let them conduce their business.”

  Once he’d translated Soames’s information into English, he groaned. “You’re a Bow Street runner,” Agador muttered. “Isn’t it your job?”

  Soames looked as if Agador’s words had been an affront to his dignity. “I were off duty. Asides, coming between two pair of fists an’ a cove’s pretty face? Not my area of exposition.”

  “Expertise,” Agador bit out, pained. He was wrong. Soames’s butchery of his native tongue was even worse than the waistcoat.

  “Exactly,” Soames said with a nod of finality.

  Agador pinched the bridge of his nose. Between his uncle’s histrionics and Soames’s incompetence, he was going to murder someone before this travesty was concluded. Or drop dead of an apoplexy. “Well, what happened to the bitch?” he prompted.

  “Right,” Soames said, clearing his throat. “After the cove were done over and the suspects had deprecated the premise, a carriage comes ’round the corner, and a fine lady an’ ’er driver scoops up the toff and the bitch.”

  “Merde,” Agador hissed.

  Soames nodded his agreement. “What you said. Merdy indeed.”

  “Did you see who took her? Do you know where the carriage went?” he asked, though he wondered why he bothered.

  Soames gripped the edges of his waistcoat and rocked back on his heels again. “Weeelllll . . . There’s good news, and there’s bad news.”

  “Shocking,” Agador muttered.

  “Good news is, I found who abscessed with ’er,” he said, extracting a carefully folded bit of newsprint from his waistcoat pocket. It was pink from the cheap dye.

  Agador snatched the scrap, unfolded it, and was assaulted by the morning post’s most lurid headline:

  MARQUESS OF M— ON DEATH BED! SIR B—

  DENIES DODGY SOHO ASSAULT! LADY M—

  MINISTERING ANGEL TO PRODIGAL NEPHEW!

  Soames had underlined and circled the headline in red ink, just in case Agador missed all of the capitals and exclamation marks. Agador couldn’t believe he’d thought for even a moment that it was a good idea to hire this man. His life had become a farce.

&nbs
p; He’d always hated that genre.

  “Our Belle is landed on ’er feet, gov. Lady Mandarin’s up on Bruton Street, a plum address, if I do say so.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Weeeelllll . . .”

  Agador rolled his eyes. Really, what was his life?

  “That’s the bad news,” Soames finally got out.

  “’Er ladyship’s ’ouse is locked up tighter than a Vesty Virgin’s crotch.”

  Agador couldn’t help the small moan that escaped him at the man’s crudity. He missed France more than ever. Vulgarities sounded so much more poetic in his native tongue.

  “It’ll be a big job to get inside and reprieve ’Er Majesty.”

  “Retrieve,” Agador corrected wearily.

  “Exactly.”

  Agador waited for the man to continue, but apparently that was an end to the verbal torture.

  “Well, why don’t you get on with it, then?” Agador prompted impatiently. “I need that blighted pug back, Soames! It was supposed to be a day, not a week! My uncle will die from the strain before we get our money. And he’s willed everything to the damned dog. I’ll have nothing! Which means you’ll have nothing!”

  “Wot!” Soames exclaimed, incredulous, but with a sudden, avaricious glint to his eyes that Agador didn’t trust for a moment. Perhaps revealing Belle du Jour’s long-term financial prospects hadn’t been his most prudent move.

  “Just bring me the pug, Soames.”

  “Weeeeelllll . . .”

  “If you say that one more time . . .”

  “. . . there’s good news and there’s bad news.”

  Soames had to sidestep Agador’s hands, which sought out the man’s throat for a good throttling. “Good news is I have a plan. Bad news is it’s gonna cost you.”

  And with that Soames extended one greedy, slightly greasy paw and waited until Agador had calmed down enough to fill it.

  Chapter Eight

  In Which the Bad French Melodrama Proceeds Apace on Bruton Street