Rakes and Roses (Proper Romance Regency)

by Josi S. Kilpack

  Harry nudged Joshua toward the door the second man guarded. Malcolm would be behind that door, sitting at a desk, most likely, and grinning like a king upon his rotten throne.

  When they reached the door, the guard put his arm out, blocking Joshua. “Only Mr. Stillman goes in.”

  “Mr. Stillman isn’t going in there without me,” Joshua said with impressive fortitude for a man who, though built like an ox, spent most of his time opening doors and hanging up coats.

  “It’s all right, Joshua. You know what to do if anything goes wrong. They’ll be here before these blokes know what’s hit them.”

  Malcolm’s man looked confused, and Harry smiled. “Did you really think Lord Damion would send me to this den of thieves without precautions?”

  Harry didn’t wait for an answer and simply stepped ahead of Joshua, leaning on his left crutch so he could open the door by himself. He’d practiced the move three times at Mr. Gordon’s office, wanting to make the right impression from the very start of this meeting.

  Malcolm sat glowering at a desk placed in the center of a tiny room just as Harry had expected. Half a dozen lamps lit the windowless room almost to daylight levels, which Harry hadn’t expected. He blinked quickly to help his eyes adjust to the brighter light and focused on keeping his breathing even so the cramping fear he felt in his gut would not show. The door snapped shut behind him, but Harry managed to hold back the flinching.

  Joshua can take care of himself, he told himself, then prayed, Oh, please, let Joshua be able to take care of himself.

  “You’re nearly an hour late,” Malcolm said, his eyes narrowed and his nostrils flaring.

  “Am I?” Harry said, lifting his eyebrows and drawing on all the arrogance that had once sustained him. “My apologies. Though if time were your concern, then you should have accepted Mr. Gordon’s payoff weeks ago. Having waited that long, one might think another half an hour would not be so difficult.” He lifted his right crutch. “And, thanks to you, I no longer move as quickly as I might otherwise.”

  There was the slightest twitch of Malcolm’s left eye, the one with the scar beneath it. Had the unsightly scar pushed Malcolm to do business in the underworld because he could not find more legitimate work? Or had the scar come after he’d sold his soul to the vipers who lived in the shadows and preyed upon the feeble and stupid?

  “Where’ve you been all these weeks, Stillman?”

  “In Wimbledon. It’s a lovely place—have you ever been?” Harry took two more swinging steps to the chair set across from Malcolm and awkwardly lowered himself into it, resting the crutches across his lap to keep them on hand. If necessary, they would make decent weapons, but mostly he wanted to avoid the indignity of having to bend over and retrieve them when he was ready to leave.

  Without wasting any more time, Harry reached into his jacket pocket and removed the thick stack of bank notes Mr. Gordon had given him. So much money! He tapped the stack on his knee to straighten them and then began counting them out into a fresh stack on the desk. He kept waiting for Malcolm to interrupt him with questions about Lord Damion, but he didn’t.

  When Harry had finished counting, he pushed the stack forward. In some ways, he considered it little more than blood money because it represented the price Harry had paid for those activities that had seemed like fun at the time but which had nearly killed him. He was determined to remember this feeling of handing over so much money to a slime of a man like Malcolm in case he was ever tempted to try his luck again.

  “That’s thirty-two hundred pounds; you saw me count it out. Lord Damion and I agreed that since you insisted on meeting with me in person, we were not responsible for the additional late fees, especially since my inability to come to London for the meeting was due to your incapacitation.”

  If Malcolm was surprised that Harry was the one to bring Lord Damion into the conversation, he did not show it.

  “Who is he?”

  Harry raised his eyebrows. “Who is who?”

  “Lord Damion. Who is he?”

  “Ah.” Harry sat back in the chair as casually as possible. “He is the lender with whom I have made arrangements in order to escape your tyranny.”

  “Who—is—he?” Malcolm repeated in a tone that sounded like spitting. “What is his real name?”

  Harry laughed, then answered in the same emphasized cadence, but without the spittle. “His—name—is—Lord—Damion.”

  “Who is he really?”

  Harry sighed dramatically, then leaned forward and pushed the money closer to Malcolm. “I was told to obtain a receipt proving that my debt has been paid in full, so if you wouldn’t mind.” He motioned toward the pen in the stock on the side of Malcolm’s desk.

  Malcolm smiled an ugly grin, and Harry repressed a shudder. The man was worse to look at up close than from a distance. But he was also thin and his head hung forward like an old man. “You ain’t leaving this room until you tell me everything you know about Lord Damion.”

  Harry leaned back again. “All right, but what I know isn’t worth all this trouble. He is very rich and very powerful, and he helps stupid men like myself who get into tangles with repulsive men like yourself.” He bowed slightly in Malcolm’s direction.

  Malcolm’s eyes lit up. “You’ve met him, then?”

  “Of course, I have met him. Do you think he would lend thousands of pounds to a man he’s never met?” He laughed. “Now, my receipt, please?”

  “Who is the man behind the phantom?”

  “Like I said, I know him only as Lord Damion.”

  “What does he look like?”

  The image that came immediately to Harry’s mind was how Sabrina had looked last night, her hair braided over her shoulder, the ruffles of her dress almost hiding her curves, but increasing his curiosity at the same time. He quickly realized he could not risk the distraction of that image, so he changed it to the memory of the night she’d yelled at him for hiding brandy in his bed. Oh, but she’d been frightening.

  “Average height, dark hair, dark eyes. Handsome.”

  Malcolm pulled back. “Handsome?”

  Harry smiled. “Oh, yes, quite handsome. Rosy lips. Slim, elegant fingers.” He was pleased that so far he hadn’t needed to lie. Sabrina was average height for a woman, and she had dark hair and eyes. And she was, in his opinion, a very handsome woman.

  Malcolm made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat; Harry smiled wider.

  “Lord Damion has interfered with my business,” Malcolm said, his eyes fixed on Harry with a glare that no longer felt intimidating. This man lived in the shadows and worked in the dark, like rats and spiders. He was small and despicable, and he pulled men down to the depths of misery in order to feel better about himself.

  Harry had taken a similar course, but he was a different man now. He was going to use his advantages to be an influence for good, the way Sabrina did.

  Malcolm continued, a slight hiss in his voice that Harry felt was overdramatic. “I intend to put an end to his interference.”

  “See, that’s the part we couldn’t quite figure out,” Harry said in a light tone, cocking his head to one side. “Mr. Gordon and I suspect that you hoped I would continue believing I could earn back the principle, and therefore, you would make a mint in interest until I was out of funds. But I was out of funds when Lord Damion came in to pay my debt. Then you were so put out about the debt being paid, which was strange. I would think you’d be eager for the money since I couldn’t make the interest payments anymore. Why is that?” He waited two beats and then answered his own question. “Actually, I think we have it figured. Let me know if I’ve got it wrong.”

  He cleared his throat as Malcolm narrowed his eyes even more. It was a wonder he could even see out of the slits.

  “In reviewing the four clients that Lord Damion has helped by paying off their debts to you over the last few years, each one of them had a wealthy relative of some kind. I can’t remember all the names, but the most rece
nt one—before me, that is—was Mr. Bartholomew Hopkins. His father owns a successful plantation in America, though you know that, of course. Now, Hopkins does not get on with his father, but he has enough of an inheritance of his own to make him capable of gambling to excess, and, on at least a few occasions, his father has paid off substantial debt for his son, despite their strained relationship. Sad, really, how many of us dissolute young men run off the people who could help us most.”

  Harry didn’t have any way to keep track of the time, since he’d traded his grandfather’s watch in order to pay his back rent, but he thought he had a few more minutes to make his point before Jack would make his presence known.

  “As I’m sure you know, my uncle is the Viscount of Howardsford and returned from India a few years ago rich as Croesus. He’s also paid off my debts a time or two in the past, and I am guilty of having mentioned his name as a credential when seeking admission into some of the more elite clubs. Targeting young men with rich relatives is a rather brilliant—if not evil and debasing—business model on your part. By taking on clients who you know have family to pay off their debts means that when a man continually falls into debt, you continually make more money. More than you would off a man who learns his lesson the first time—am I right?”

  Malcolm’s face was turning red, which Harry took as confirmation that he was right. Thank goodness. Mr. Gordon had already worked that part out before Harry had shown up at his office demanding answers. That Mr. Gordon and Sabrina were going to let Harry go into this meeting without any of this information had been madness on their part. And sheer desperation. What if Harry had known more about Lord Damion than he had? What if Malcolm’s men had tortured from him information he hadn’t known he knew?

  There was no time to think on that right now.

  “Here’s what you did not know,” Harry continued quickly. “Lord Damion works only with men whose families have verified that they are cut off, hence they will no longer be rescued. As far as we can figure, the first time Lord Damion took on one of your clients, you wouldn’t have known that your former client would leave London as soon as the debt was paid. Lenders take on new debtors all the time to pay off the old crook, now don’t they? You expected that client to go back to the tables and start all over again, necessitating that he come back to you for additional lending. But he didn’t, which must have been rather vexing.

  “When Lord Damion brought an end to what should have been a long-term client for a second time, you must have been very frustrated. Then when Hopkins also changed his habits so completely, you’d have known that Lord Damion posed a threat to your plan for repeat customers. It was just unlucky—or lucky, depending on one’s view—that I was the next of your clients to make an arrangement with Lord Damion.” He shook his head. “The one point I can’t figure out is how you knew I was his client before Mr. Gordon contacted you about resolving the debt.”

  Malcolm looked fit to explode, and yet Harry felt sure he would take the bait—this was Malcolm’s first chance to show himself the superior in this exchange. He tightened his jaw as though trying not to give in to the temptation. Harry decided to press a little further. He had not lost all his skill as a gambler. What did he have to lose?

  “On the night you and your men confronted me in the alley, I wasn’t yet working with Lord Damion. My debts were extreme, and you must have wanted to make sure I didn’t disappear, but I got away that night. The next time I ran into your men, they were within a few blocks of the meeting place with Lord Damion, which means they had some idea of where I had been, but they did not know for sure. If they’d known, they wouldn’t have needed to ask me during the beating.” He paused when Malcolm pressed his lips together even tighter. Harry shrugged. “Not that it really matters.” He nodded toward the stack of money. “The receipt, please?”

  “You should choose your friends more carefully, Mr. Stillman.”

  Friends? What could his friends have to do with any of this?

  Harry frowned at the satisfaction evident on Malcolm’s face.

  And then like a sudden, hard slap, he understood.

  Ward was the only friend Harry had left—or so he’d thought.

  Malcolm grinned as the power dynamic in the room abruptly shifted.

  Harry had waited for nearly an hour at Cumberland Gate after he and Ward had run in opposite directions from Malcolm’s men in the alley that night. Ward had been winded and wide-eyed and claimed he’d had a devil of a time losing his pursuer when he finally arrived. Harry had commiserated; he, too, had heard footsteps dogging him all the way to George Street.

  If he hadn’t gotten completely smashed as soon as they arrived at Ward’s parents’ house, he might have spent more time wondering what had taken Ward so long to get there.

  And Ward had been the one who had sought out Hopkins and gathered the contact information for Lord Damion.

  Harry hadn’t spoken to Ward about the details of his correspondence with Mr. Gordon, and he hadn’t told Ward about where he was supposed to meet Jack on the morning of the meeting, but he’d left the letters in his room at Ward’s London house.

  The first time Ward had visited Harry at Rose Haven, he’d asked who Lord Damion was, and though it had seemed natural at the time, was it? Hadn’t Sabrina accused Ward of being no friend at all? And once Sabrina had put Ward on notice of his behavior in her house, Ward had disappeared. Perhaps because he had never wanted to visit Harry in the first place and had only come on Malcolm’s errand. Perhaps he’d been convinced that Harry hadn’t known anything significant about Lord Damion. Just as Harry couldn’t believe he hadn’t put Lady Sabrina and Lord Damion together before today, he wondered how he hadn’t seen this possibility.

  Harry felt a lump in his throat, and yet he could not be certain that if the places had been reversed, he wouldn’t have done the same thing to Ward if the price had been high enough or the threat severe enough.

  “You can give Lord Damion a message for me,” Malcolm said, leaning forward across the desk, still looking triumphant. “I will discover who he is and—”

  “What?” Harry interrupted, pushing aside his hurt and responding sharply. “Blackmail him to keep the nobles from knowing that he’s saving their sons from rubbish like you?” Harry flung one hand in the air for dramatic gesture. “Storm his castle with the half-wits you keep on hand?” Harry laughed, but without humor, letting his eyes bore into the other man. “He knows he can’t stop you from your despicable work, Malcolm, but he can make good men out of the few of us who are finally, truly, ready to rise out of the gutter.”

  Malcolm jolted forward, causing Harry to startle. His thin lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl. “You’ll be back. Every one of you will be back, and Lord Damion won’t be helping you again. Once I discover who he really is—”

  “I will not be back,” Harry said resolutely, savoring the truth of those words, the freedom they promised him, and the depth of his commitment. “You forget that the men he is saving are the sons of his friends. It would not ruin him to have it known. He hides his identity so that when we have finally become the men we are supposed to be, we don’t walk into a room with him and feel beholden. He hides his identity so that men don’t seek him out in the drawing rooms or try to use their connection to him as leverage for his helping a young man not yet broken enough to comply with his terms. He is attempting to preserve their dignity by allowing their past to truly be their past. So do your worst. He shall continue his legacy of mercy and redemption.”

  He leaned forward until he and Malcolm were mere inches from one another. He could smell the smoke and the drink on his breath—had he ever smelled like that?

  “My receipt. Please.”

  “I ain’t done with you yet, Mr. Stillman. You know more than you’re saying, and I’ll be the one who decides when—”

  Yelling and thumping from the other side of the door cut him off.

  Malcolm stood in the same moment Harry swung his crutches t
o the floor. He pushed himself up with the left, while swinging the other toward Malcolm like a sword. The shaft of wood caught Malcolm’s shoulder and sent him crashing into the bookshelf against the east wall.

  Malcolm didn’t fall to the ground as Harry had expected, so Harry hopped toward him on his good leg, swatting at him with the crutch as though he were a cook batting a cat out of the kitchen with a broom.

  Malcolm ducked and tried to block the hits, but he couldn’t help retreating from Harry’s attack until he was literally backed into the corner with Harry’s right crutch pushed against his throat.

  Harry was breathing as though he’d just run across London, and he had to lean on his left foot and crutch to keep himself upright. “Give me the receipt”—he took a breath—“and we can bring this to an end.”

  Malcolm scrunched his face up like a rat, but Harry didn’t realize why until a glob of spittle hit his cheek.

  Harry yelped in disgust, yet he couldn’t let go of the crutch at Malcolm’s throat or the one holding him up. The ruckus in the other room continued as he glared at Malcolm and tried to ignore the slime sliding down his cheek. “That is absolutely disgusting, and if I were not trying to be a gentleman, I would spit right back.”

  “Smith!” Malcolm suddenly roared. “Now.”

  There was a grunt and a thump on the other side of the door, but no one answered Malcolm’s call.

  “I only needed that receipt, Malcolm. You have made this so much more difficult than it needed to be. I hope when you have time to reflect upon your actions, you will learn from your mistakes.”