“It seems you are accosting the boy’s arse,” Lucy said smoothly. “Unhand it at once.”
The man the child had called Pappy Blood slunk back a few steps, his pock-marked features shifting from cruelty and anger to an obsequiousness that made Lucy want to pull her pistol’s trigger.
“A thousand pardons, me fine sir. But the boy is rotten to the very heart of him.”
“The most insufferable child ever born?” Lucy inquired silkily.
Blood nodded eagerly, until her gaze chilled even further.
“People once said the same of me. I had a marked aversion to the sentiment. I think I will shoot you.”
Blood cowered back as the brash little boy scrambled down from his perch and straightened his stained jerkin.
“Ye don’t have to shoot him on my account.” The boy beamed. “Make a nasty mess to step over when you gentlemen are done flinging away a fortune at cards.” He turned to Blood. “Go home, old man. I be tired o’ looking at yer ugly mug.” Supreme satisfaction darted across the boy’s face as Blood skulked away.
Something about the cocky waif made Lucy warm to him. His pug nose thrust up at an engaging angle. There was a scrape on his chin and a gap in his grin where a tooth should be. He looked barely six years old, but there was an aura about him far older and much wiser.
“What is your name?” she asked the boy as she swung down from her mare.
“Natty. Natty Scratch. I hold horses for the gentlemen.” Natty hitched up the breeches that were sagging low on his skinny buttocks. “Pissin’ grand night for losin’ a fortune, eh?”
“I suppose so.”
“This ain’t no gentlemen’s club like Brook’s or White’s. Hazard table has weighted dice, an’ the dealer at the second Faro table has cards up his sleeve. I’m only tellin’ ye this for yer own edif-edification. It ain’t a service I usually provide to me customers.”
Lucy fingered the leather of her reins, glancing again at the guard, who was digging amongst rotted teeth with a metal toothpick.
“I’m grateful for the warning.” She fished a coin from her pocket, wishing she could stay longer and talk to this charming little rogue. Wishing she never had to enter those doors that seemed even more ominous.
“I don’t take charity,” said Natty, thrusting his skinny chest out. “I’m a workin’ man. Got me pride.”
With the utmost dignity, she gave him the reins of her horse. She started to walk toward the entrance, but Natty’s grubby fingers caught at the sleeve of her frockcoat. She all but jumped out of her skin.
“Most o’ all, beware o’ Lord Jasper, devil take him. Got a streak in ’im that makes Pappy Blood look sweet as a sugar cone.” Natty wriggled his brows. “Jasper’s a bit withered in the cucumber, if ye catch my meaning. Can’t service the ladies. Takes it out on everybody, he does. I heard tell he’s got a ’pointment to blow some poor bastard’s head off tomorrow morning in a duel.” He heaved a pensive sigh. “Wish’t I could see it. Never seen a duel before. Anyhow, about yer visit t’ the Gate. Long as you stay clear o’ everyone I warned ye about, I be certain you’ll win a king’s ransom. If ye have the luck, that is.”
Shrewd green eyes peered up at Lucy above a sprinkling of freckles all but lost in the grime. “Course, I could help ye along a little. I’m Irish, ye know.”
“I’m not interested in gaming.”
“Very wise, me lord. Very wise.” The boy nodded sagely.
She hesitated for a moment. “Natty, can you tell me what… entertainment is on the second floor?”
“Whores, sir. Bess be the prettiest, but what Josyphine lacks in the face she makes up for in her nether parts, they say.”
Lucy went scarlet. The boy’s eyes twinkled knowingly.
“First time, eh? Don’t worry. Got a girl up there that’s real good wi’ virgins. I’ll tell ’er to be gentle with ye.”
“Th-That’s not necessary,” Lucy stammered. “I… there must be a mistake. Another room. The third one down the hall.”
“That one’s got whores in it too. I should know. I sneak in sometimes an’ watch through the knothole.” He whistled through the gap in his teeth. “If ye didn’t come to gamble, an’ ye didn’t come for dipping in Josy’s tup, what did ye come for?”
Lucy cringed at the clatter of an approaching coach. She swallowed hard, looking at the door. “I came here to meet someone.” Of their own volition, her fingers reached out to brush over Natty’s hair, an imitation of her affectionate greetings to her own sisters for so long.
The boy drew back, his eyes widening, wary. “Say, ye don’t fancy boys, do ye? ’Cause I ain’t interested, no matter how fat yer purse is.”
With these words, Lucy understood the full impact of the life Natty had lived. One beyond most people’s comprehension. “Of course you’re not interested. You’re a man of business.”
She turned and walked to the door. Her fingers trembled as she opened it and stepped inside. She froze just inside the entryway, her vision blurring at the blaze of light inside the gaming hell. Slowly it pulled into focus, and she couldn’t stop her jaw from dropping in astonishment.
If Lucifer provided the accouterments of this establishment, she was certain most men would trip merrily down to the devil.
Garish red velvet-draped portraits of ladies seductively displaying their charms. Wreaths of smoke circled tables crowded with players, while women, the rouged tips of their breasts displayed above edgings of lace, draped themselves over patrons who were obviously the most debauched rakehells of the aristocracy.
Lucy fumbled with the fastening of her cloak and tried to stop the blush that spilled onto her cheeks as across the room a youth who looked barely out of the schoolroom popped one of some trollop’s nipples into his mouth as if it were a sweetmeat.
Gads, Lucy thought wildly, as a footman took her cloak from numb fingers. This was insane. What would a gentle musician be doing in such a place? In spite of her masculine disguise, Lucy felt as if her own breasts were visible to the lascivious men here. For the first time Lucy feared she would not be able to carry off her deception.
A shiver scuttled down her spine as a sudden hush fell over the room, as if a hundred throats had been slit. Hands holding cards stilled, dice rattled against the table and lay there, unretrieved by the players. Women licked their lips, their eyes afire, while their men… they stared as if they were confronting Mephistopheles himself.
What were they gaping at? Her? The entire room seemed charged with a menace that made Lucy’s blood run cold, and her gaze clashed with that of a man at the table nearest her. A girl who looked incredibly young and frightened was perched on his knee, one of her breasts streaked with reddening fingermarks where she had been squeezed too tightly. Tears clung to her lashes, but her lips were curved into a most desperate smile. Lucy could tell that the man who held her enjoyed subjecting the girl to his abuse.
She remembered Natty’s warning about the cruel Lord Jasper, and in that instant she was certain she was staring into that man’s face.
Once Lucy had watched her father put down a rabid dog at the edge of Blackheath land. She’d seen the wild glimmer in those eyes, the savage curl of foam-flecked lips over its fangs. She had known that it wasn’t the animal’s fault that it was ill. But as she looked into Lord Jasper’s face, she sensed that he had embraced his sickness and would have loved nothing better than to infest others with his poison.
“I should have known that you would come,” the man purred, gazing straight at her.
Alarm tightened around Lucy’s chest. Thunder in heaven, was this who had sent the parcel? What kind of twisted trap had she walked into? This man could murder her where she stood, and no one would ever know what had become of her. She’d taken so much care to conceal her destination that the only one who’d ever know she’d come here would be Natty Scratch. And despite the fact that she’d saved his “arse,” she wasn’t deluded that he’d trouble himself very long over her disappearance.
She groped for her pistol beneath the shield of her coat, bracing herself with the feel of its smooth warm grip against her palm. With the weight of those staring eyes pushing her as if they were a tangible force, Lucy backed one step toward the door.
And slammed hard against a surface as unyielding as a castle wall.
She stifled a scream and wheeled, almost losing her balance, but powerful hands caught her arms, the man who had doubtless been the real target of those awed stares reaching out to steady her. Lucy struggled to breathe as she gaped at a froth of white lace neckcloth bare inches from her face, a diamond glinting in its snowy folds.
She brought her head back until her neck ached, tracing past the glittering stickpin, to where a flowing roquelaure was flung back over impressive shoulders, the cloak revealing a severe black frock coat with touches of silver trimming.
In the frozen instant that she raised her eyes to the man’s face, his features branded themselves in her mind.
He had the face of a Celtic warrior. Intense. Unrelenting. His hair, unpowdered in defiance of fashion, flowed like liquid midnight to skim his shoulders, as if torn from the customary neat queue by the fingers of the wind.
The silken strands tangled about the angular planes of a narrow face that seemed burnished not by the sun and wind, but rather by the harsh edges of life itself. A thin white scar slashed from one high cheekbone to the bottom of his jaw, only adding to the erotic potency of those features.
But it was the man’s eyes Lucy knew she would never forget. Flaming ebony, with a ruthless power that terrified and seduced, transfixed and repelled. Piercing as a dagger’s blade, they were the sort of eyes to make courageous men turn coward and chaste women fantasize about stirring them to passion.
That hawk-like gaze seared Lucy’s face, and for a moment those dark eyes filled with another emotion Lucy couldn’t name. “Don’t tell me this is a children’s gaming hell,” he drawled, unfastening the roquelaure with one careless hand and throwing it, without a glance, to where a servant scrambled to catch it.
“What are you here for, boy?” he demanded of Lucy. “Are you all impatience to gamble away your inheritance, or are you looking for a pretty harlot to give you the French pox?”
The tension that had been building inside Lucy for the past hours burst free. “Actually, I came here looking for someone to gun down in a duel. You look as if you might do.”
“Is that so?” The corner of that hard mouth tightened, his eyes glittering ebony slits. “I’m afraid you shall have to wait your turn.” There was something about the face that made Lucy wonder for the first time in her life if her acid tongue had gotten her into something her wits would not be able to get her out of.
She was painfully aware of every eye in the room trained on them. At that moment the man’s hard gaze swept the tables with such menace that even the most curious returned to their card playing and dice casting with such intensity that a bullet could have whizzed past their noses and they’d not have dared look up.
Evidently satisfied, the black-garbed man turned those unsettling eyes back to Lucy’s face. “What is your name, boy?” he inquired. “It’s a peculiar trait of mine. I like to know the name of someone before I kill him.”
“Lucien Dubbonet,” she answered.
“And where are you from, Mr. Dubbonet? By your accent, I’d say the colonies.”
“The United States of America.”
“Mr. Dubbonet, I give you a word of advice your father should have given long ago: Never make a threat you don’t intend to carry out. And never ride alone at night in London. Tell me, have you ever wondered what it would feel like to have your throat slit?”
“Excuse me?” Lucy choked out.
“An unpleasant sensation, I would imagine. There are plenty of brigands just outside this door who would be more than happy to demonstrate it to you. And you would be far safer at their mercy than in the hands of most of the patrons inside these walls.”
Lucy thrust out her chest with indignation, until for a moment she was afraid the binding about her breasts would snap free. “What I choose to do with my own neck isn’t your affair.”
“You’re right. You came looking for trouble. Perhaps I should help you find it.”
She wanted to pull away, find some way to retreat, but before she could answer a sinister laughter rose from behind her. A laughter that made her skin crawl. She knew it belonged to the man she had identified as Lord Jasper.
“Minding the nursery again, my lord Valcour? It must get excessively tiring.”
Lucy’s sparring partner’s face darkened with a controlled fury more terrifying than any raging temper she’d ever encountered.
Lucy knew she should skitter up the stairs at the back of the establishment. But before she could move, Valcour had grasped her arm so tightly she was certain the marks would remain on the morrow.
“Of course,” Lord Jasper continued, “after tomorrow morning you’ll have one less rebellious cub to trouble yourself with. I wonder what your hotheaded brother will choose as his weapons. Pistols or swords? No matter. The boy is hopelessly clumsy with either weapon.”
“D’Autrecourt. You have no objection to my young friend and I joining your table, I presume?”
The name struck Lucy like a mace to the chest. “I thought—I mean, I heard him called Lord Jasper….”
“Jasper d’Autrecourt.” The man gave a curt bow. “Your obedient servant.”
Lucy felt sick to her stomach. Was this the man who had brought her here? This beast with madness lurking in his eyes? Her knees were so weak she was almost glad of Valcour’s hand shoring her up, until she realized he was dragging her with him to the table.
She made a half-frantic attempt to free herself, but Valcour slammed her buttocks down onto the seat of a vacant chair with a force that all but drove her spine through the top of her head. Lucy could hardly breathe as she realized Valcour had positioned her directly between Lord Jasper and himself.
Any other time Lucy might have been amused, watching the rest of the players at the table scatter like a flock of terrified children. Yet at this moment she would have been glad to join them, except for two facts.
First, this d’Autrecourt might well be the person she was here to meet. Second, she had the distinct impression that if she tried to bolt, Lord Valcour would haul her back into the chair in the same ignominious manner Pappy Blood had used with Natty.
Valcour signaled for wine for both of them and a fresh packet of cards. “D’Autrecourt, this is Mr. Dubbonet.”
“Delighted. Delighted.” Lord Jasper fingered the cards as if they were razor blades and he was selecting one with which to draw blood.
“It is a pity your brother has turned out to be such a disappointment, Valcour,” Lord Jasper said. “That a family with such a delightfully long and scandalous history as yours could spawn a thin-blooded whelp like him is hard to imagine. I do hope you are fitting up a space for him amongst the rest of the wastrels in the family plot.”
“A tedious business, but I suppose I’ll have no choice but to deal with it when the time comes.” Valcour gave a careless brush of his hand. “It must be a relief that you don’t have to make any such preparations, Lord Jasper.”
Lucy stiffened against her chair back, disliking this discussion of grave sites. She already had one headstone with her name carved on it. She wasn’t eager to make it a pair.
“Mr. Dubbonet, you might be interested to know that Lord Jasper is to fight a duel with my brother at Chalk Fields tomorrow.”
“No. I’m not particularly interested at all.”
“Nonsense, boy. Did you not come here specifically searching for a bit of excitement? Lord Jasper is just the sort to entertain a young rakehell like
you with stories of his prowess. Lord Jasper, do tell my young friend how many duels you have fought. A dozen?”
“Fifteen. And not once have I tasted another man’s steel.”
Lucy swallowed hard, as both men stared at her expectantly. “You must be an estimable swordsman.”
“It’s a respectable sum,” Valcour allowed, “though it doesn’t near my record. Of course, it must be difficult for you to enjoy your notorious reputation, Lord Jasper, considering the humiliating things people say about your battles.”
Jasper’s hand knotted around his glass. “Humiliating?”
“Just so. In fact, Mr. Dubbonet, just last night while I was dining at White’s, we came to the consensus that it’s not because Lord Jasper has any skill with sword or pistol that he’s accomplished this feat. It’s because of the poor fools he challenges.”
“What the devil are you implying?” Jasper growled.
Valcour emitted such a cold laugh that Lucy’s fingers burned with the chill. “My ninety-year-old grandmama could look like an accomplished duelist if she only fought children or doddering old men.”
Lord Jasper’s face stilled, the wild look deepening in his eyes. “I think that when I meet your brother in the morning I shall insist on fighting with swords, Valcour. That way I can slash away his life by painful inches instead of blasting him into eternity with one quick pistol ball.”
“As you wish.” Valcour shrugged, his long tapered fingers curled negligently about his wineglass. “I doubt you could make much of an impression on the boy no matter what weapon you used. I would avoid aiming for his head, in particular, if I were you. It’s so bloody hard it would probably damage your sword.”
Lucy couldn’t help gaping at the man next to her so coolly discussing the impending death of his brother. No wonder her mother had fled England. These people were insane!
All of a sudden Jasper’s eyes grew canny. “I know what you’re doing, Valcour. You are trying to goad me into a temper to protect your brother. It won’t work.”
Lords of the Isles Page 154
