No Earls Allowed

by Shana Galen

  Also by Shana Galen

  SONS OF THE REVOLUTION

  The Making of a Duchess

  The Making of a Gentleman

  The Rogue Pirate’s Bride

  LORD AND LADY SPY

  Lord and Lady Spy

  True Spies

  The Spy Wore Blue (novella)

  Love and Let Spy

  JEWELS OF THE TON

  When You Give a Duke a Diamond

  If You Give a Rake a Ruby

  Sapphires Are an Earl’s Best Friend

  COVENT GARDEN CUBS

  Earls Just Want to Have Fun

  The Rogue You Know

  I Kissed a Rogue

  Viscount of Vice (novella)

  THE SURVIVORS

  Third Son’s a Charm

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  Copyright © 2018 by Shana Galen

  Cover and internal design © 2018 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover by Alan Ayers

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

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  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  An Excerpt from An Affair with a Spare

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  One

  London, 1816

  Neil woke and gulped in air. The acrid smell of cannon smoke burned his lungs, and the stench of burning flesh assaulted his nostrils. His hands fisted in the sheets on the bed, their softness reminding him he was not lying on a battlefield beside his dead brother but in his bed in his flat in London.

  Without looking, he reached for the glass of gin on the bedside table. There was always a glass of gin on the bedside table. It wasn’t a gentleman’s drink, but here, in the dark, alone with his demons, Neil didn’t want to be a gentleman. And so he bought gin for the nights when the dreams of battle haunted him. And when he drank the bitter brew, he tried to forget he was the son of a marquess.

  He sipped the gin and lit a lamp, taking solace in the fact that his hands didn’t shake. If he’d dreamed on, he likely would have woken with trembling hands and a scream echoing in his ears. For, as he’d lain beside his dead brother on that hill in Portugal, the smoke of the battlefield had coalesced around him, settling inside him. Instead of stifling him, the smoke caught the breeze and the flame of rage ignited within him. The fire built until it seared and burned, and he’d not been able to quench the heat until he rose and, with a roar, stumbled after the French soldiers the dragoons hadn’t routed. Like a berserker, he’d cut every one of them down, even as they raised hands in surrender, even as they’d begged for quarter.

  Neil had expected to be reprimanded for his behavior that day—behavior unbecoming an officer and a gentleman—but Draven had pulled him aside and given him a promotion of sorts.

  If one could call leading a suicide troop a promotion.

  The flame of rage had long been extinguished, and in its place lay a weight like a sodden mantle, bowing his shoulders. Neil could not shed it, no matter how hard he tried. Now he rose and pulled on trousers and a linen shirt. He didn’t bother to tuck in the shirt or button it at the throat or sleeves. Instead, he padded to the window and pushed the heavy curtains open. He had a view of St. James’s Street. He liked the sight of carriages and men coming and going from gambling hells or brothels. He liked the noise and the lights spilling from the establishments. It drowned out the sounds of battle that too easily plagued him in silence.

  Neil stood and stared out the window for a long time before shoving his feet into boots and shrugging on a coat. His manservant would not arrive until later in the morning, so Neil managed the cravat on his own. As for his wild hair, he combed his fingers through it, pushing the sides out of his eyes.

  He had no one to inform of his departure. He lived alone, a necessity when one woke screaming five out of seven nights of the week. He took his walking stick as a precaution against drunkards, who might be stupid enough to accost him, and left for his club.

  Twenty minutes later, Porter greeted him. “Mr. Wraxall,” the older, distinguished man said as he opened the door. “A pleasure to see you, sir.”

  Neil handed the Master of the House his walking stick. “Don’t you ever sleep, Porter?”

  Porter raised his brows, silver to match his hair. “Don’t you, sir?”

  “Not unless I have to. I know it’s half past three. Is anyone here?”

  “Mr. Beaumont is asleep in the card room.”

  No doubt Rafe had retreated to the Draven Club to escape some woman. Neil might have laughed if he hadn’t come to escape his own demons. Not that the club didn’t have its ghosts. His gaze strayed to the shield hanging directly opposite the door where no one entering could miss it. It was a silver shield bisected by a thick, medieval sword with a pommel shaped like a fleur-de-lis. Under the grip, the cross-guard was ornamented with a skull. It would not have been particularly macabre except for the eighteen marks on the flanks and base. Each fleur-de-lis, nine on the dexter side and nine on the sinister side, stood for a member of the troop of Draven’s men Neil had lost during the war. Neil often felt he carried the weight of the enormous shield on his back.

  “Anyone else here?” he asked the Master of the House.

  “No, sir.” Porter placed the walking stick in a stand, his wooden leg thumping on the carpet. “Would you care for a drink or something to eat, sir?”

  Neil wanted more gin, if only to settle his nerves, but he could have drunk himself into a stupor at his flat. He’d come here to affect civility. He’d come here because it was the closest thing to home he’d ever known. “Brandy would suit me, Porter.”

  Though Neil could have found it blindfolded, Porter led him up the winding staircase and into the dining room. The fi
ve round tables in the paneled wood room were empty, their white linen tablecloths bright and clean and anticipating the next diner.

  Neil chose a chair near the big hearth and settled back. The silence here didn’t bother him. He could all but hear the echoes of his friends’ voices—those who had survived—raised in song or laughter. He half expected to look to the side and see Ewan Mostyn—the brawny, muscled protector of the group—bent over a meal or spot Rafe Beaumont leaning negligently against one of the walls, under a sconce.

  Neil never felt alone here.

  Porter returned with the brandy on a silver salver. Neil had told the man a hundred times such gestures were unnecessary, but Porter believed in standards. Neil lifted the brandy, then frowned at the folded white paper that had been beneath it.

  “I almost forgot, sir. This note came for you a few hours ago.”

  Neil lifted it and nodded to the silver-haired Master of the House, who departed quite gracefully, considering he had but one leg. It didn’t surprise Neil that correspondence meant for him had been sent here. He was here more than anywhere else, and anyone who knew him knew that. He broke the seal and opened the paper, recognizing the hand immediately. It was from the Marquess of Kensington. It said simply:

  Call on me at the town house at your earliest convenience. I have need of you.

  —Kensington

  Neil folded the letter and put it in his pocket. It was not unusual for his father to request Neil’s assistance with various tasks, from inspecting an investment opportunity to traveling to one of the marquess’s many estates and assisting the steward with a duty or question. As a bastard, Neil had no social commitments and no obligations to the Kensington title as his elder brothers did. In Neil’s opinion, acting in his father’s stead was the least he could do, considering his father had claimed him, seen that he had been educated, and now granted him an allowance of sorts. The marquess would never have called it payment for Neil’s services, but that was what it amounted to.

  Neil bore his legitimate brothers no ill will, and they had always been civil to him. Especially Christopher. Neil and Christopher had been friends as well as brothers. The marquess’s wife had always been coolly polite to him, though it must have chafed every time she encountered him. No doubt she wished Neil, not Christopher, had died in Portugal.

  Neil was the product of Kensington’s liaison with a beautiful Italian woman he’d been introduced to in London shortly after the birth of his second son. He’d been instantly smitten, and what ensued was a brief and passionate affair. The marchioness had looked the other way, suffering in silence as other women of her class had before her. The relationship might have gone on indefinitely if Neil’s mother had not conceived a child and, after a difficult pregnancy, died of complications.

  Neil had never known his mother. Instead, he’d been raised by a farmer and his wife who lived on Kensington’s Lancashire estate. He’d been a small, dark child with startlingly blue eyes and a fondness for woodcarving, like his foster father, and horses, like his real father. Neil had always known the marquess was his real father. The giant of a man had come to visit him without fail once a month unless he was in Town for the Season.

  At eight, Neil had gone to school—not Eton like his brothers, but a good school for middle-class children—and he’d learned reading and writing and arithmetic. He’d left school and his father had bought him a commission in the cavalry. On his own merits, he’d earned a position in the Sixteenth Light Dragoons, also known as the Queen’s Lancers. He’d always been proud of his service as a member of the Sixteenth.

  He was not so proud of the service he’d done afterward.

  But his father did not want to speak to him about the war or how Neil had sold his soul to Lieutenant Colonel Draven on the same day Christopher had been killed. The marquess didn’t blame Neil for Christopher’s death.

  Neil still blamed himself—for that death and those that followed—and he would spend the rest of his days in atonement.

  He looked down at the note once again. Cold seeped along his limbs as he reread it. Neil had a feeling he wouldn’t like what his father requested this time and not simply because he’d be expected to be sober when hearing it. With a sigh, Neil rose, threw the brandy in the fire, and prepared for the worst.

  Two

  Lady Juliana, only remaining daughter of the Earl St. Maur, could have screamed. She’d had a more abominable morning than usual, and that was saying something.

  First, she’d been called away from the Duke of Devonshire’s ball by the appearance of Robbie, one of the orphans from the Sunnybrooke Home for Boys. He’d told her she must come immediately. There was an emergency at the orphanage, and she’d made her excuses and run out, much to her father’s annoyance. It probably hadn’t helped matters that she’d taken the family coach.

  Then she’d arrived at the orphanage just as the sun was rising to find that her cook was packing her bags to leave. Julia had known it would happen sooner or later; she’d simply hoped it would be later. Mrs. Nesbit had been complaining for months about the state of the kitchen, claiming she could hardly be expected to work in such conditions. Julia had agreed. The ovens smoked, the roof leaked, and the boys had stolen all the decent knives. Lately, Mrs. Nesbit had also complained the staples she stocked had been steadily disappearing as well—flour, cornmeal, potatoes, and garlic. Julia wondered if perhaps Mrs. Nesbit was cheating her and selling the stock on the sides, but she had no proof and couldn’t afford to lose the cook. She’d begged Mrs. Nesbit to give her more time to ask the orphanage’s board for money and make the repairs.

  She’d thought she’d succeeded at persuading the woman, until, of course, the boys had thought it amusing to loose three tame rats in the kitchen as Mrs. Nesbit prepared breakfast. When Charlie had shown her the rats again, just to prove they were harmless, the poor cook had shrieked loud enough to wake the dead—or at least the dead tired, as Juliana thought of herself—and resigned effective immediately.

  Which meant Julia had to cook the boys breakfast. One could not simply allow a dozen boys to go hungry, and she did not have the funds to buy them all pies from the hawkers’ carts. Not when each boy ate as much as a horse.

  And so, Julia had calmly collected the rats, placed them back in their straw-lined box with a bit of bread for their breakfast, and, in her jewels and dancing slippers, heated oats in a large pot she could barely move. She tried not to feel sorry for herself. Even as she rolled and kneaded bread until her arms ached, she pushed memories of walks in the promenade and ices at Gunter’s Tea Shop aside. And when her once-lovely copper-colored ball gown was covered in flour and sticky pieces of dough, Juliana did not allow her thoughts to stray to all the lovely balls where she had worn the gown and danced with countless handsome and charming gentlemen.

  Or at least she didn’t allow her thoughts to stray much.

  But no sooner had she placed the bread in the oven than Mr. Goring, her manservant, had knocked on the open door and informed her Mr. Slag was waiting for her in the parlor.

  Julia had stared at the servant as though the man had gone mad. Sticky, white hands on her hips, she’d glowered at Mr. Goring until he’d lowered his eyes. “Why on earth did you seat Mr. Slag in the parlor?” She also wanted to ask where he had been when the boys he was supposed to be watching in her absence were foisting rats on the cook, but she couldn’t afford to lose Mr. Goring too.

  “There ain’t nowhere else except the dining room, and the lads is in there making a racket about wantin’ their vittles.”

  Julia had heard and ignored the noise. If the boys had wanted to be fed in good time, they shouldn’t have taunted the cook with the rats. “What I meant, Mr. Goring,” she clarified, though she knew he’d understood her perfectly, “is why did you admit Mr. Slag? I told you never to admit him. Not under any circumstances.”

  Goring scratched the sparse hair at the crow
n of his forehead. “Did you want me to close the door on him?”

  “No.” She spoke slowly and deliberately, as she often spoke to Charlie, who was four. “I wanted you to say what I told you to say.”

  “But, my lady, you are home.”

  “Not to him!” Defeated, she removed the apron that was supposed to protect her ball gown and tossed it on the worktable. She’d deal with Mr. Slag, then serve breakfast. Before leaving the kitchen, she closed the box with Matthew, Mark, and Luke and perched it under one arm. She did not want to risk the rodents escaping into the kitchen and causing more mayhem.

  With a last look of annoyance at Goring, she marched toward the parlor, passing the dining room as she did so. She studiously avoided turning her head to look in. The boys were stomping their feet on the floor and banging their plates on the table. They needed a lecture, and she had no time at present to give it.

  She wanted to be angry at Mr. Goring for admitting Slag, but she supposed Goring was as frightened of Mr. Slag as everyone else in Spitalfields. The crime lord ran the rookery, and his methods for dealing with those who displeased him were rather…harsh.

  Julia was frightened of him as well, but she was able to mask her fear better than most. After all, she’d met other imposing figures—the King, the Queen, Wellington, and Brummell, to name a few. If she hadn’t flinched when Brummell had scrutinized her dress with his quizzing glass, she would not flinch when confronted by Mr. Slag. And truth be told, until recently, he’d been no more than a minor irritation. But as she’d been forced to spend more time at the orphanage and less at her father’s home in Mayfair, Mr. Slag had been harder to push to the back of her mind.

  She opened the door to the parlor, and Slag rose immediately. He was a robust man and not very tall, only a few inches taller than she. He had mentioned on several occasions that he had been reared in a foundling house. She knew how cruel and heartless such institutions could be, which was one reason she was here and trying to improve the lives of the orphans under her care. But Joseph Slag had obviously found no such protector. He might have been a handsome man if not for the ravages of his brutal youth. His crooked nose, the deep lines around his eyes and mouth, and his cold, hard eyes were testament to the harsh life he’d led. Even dressed in fine linen and well-tailored clothing, he wore his low station like a permanent mantle. Joseph Slag was known to always carry an ebony walking stick with a golden handle in the image of a flame. The rumor was that he’d beaten more than one man to death with the stick.