Forever Your Earl (32 page)

“You should wait in the carriage,” he murmured.

“Not a chance,” she answered lowly.

“Your reputation—­”

“Can withstand something like this. If anything happens, if you learn anything, then I want to be with you.”

She had the most effective means of disarming him. He could deny her nothing.

A second clerk, older than the first and sporting an exemplary pair of side-­whiskers, emerged from the back of the shop. Daniel recognized him as the proprietor, and the man seemed to recall him, as well. His eyes widened, and he glanced over to the other customers, as though concerned that they might overhear something.

“Good morning, Mr. Christchurch,” Daniel said smoothly. “I understand that the special blend I ordered finally arrived.”

“It . . . uh . . . yes, my lord,” the man answered.

“It's in the back of the shop, correct?” Daniel added.

“Oh, yes! Right this way, my lord, and, uh, madam.” Christchurch waved them through the door from which he'd just emerged. They ducked beneath a curtain into a storeroom, where the smell of roasted tobacco leaves swirled even thicker in the air, and a single lamp burned.

“Tell me everything,” Daniel said, closing the door and pulling the curtain.

The shopkeeper's uneasy gaze flicked between Eleanor and Daniel.

“You may speak candidly in front of my friend,” Daniel assured him. Eleanor gave the man an encouraging nod.

“A young ruffian came in yesterday,” the tobacconist said after a pause. “Just a boy in ragged clothes. But he wanted those cheroots, and had the blunt—­excuse me, the money—­to pay for them. I said I didn't have that blend in stock—­which I don't, it has to be ordered special—­and he told me that when they did come in, to have them delivered to this address.” From a pocket in his apron, he produced a crumpled scrap of paper, which he handed to Daniel.

Unfolding the paper, Daniel saw that the address was in Whitechapel. It was the first solid lead he'd had in a long while.

Eleanor, too, looked at the address. “There was no man with the boy?” she asked. “Waiting outside, perhaps?”

The shopkeeper shook his head. “Only the lad, and an impertinent one, at that. Wearing hardly anything but tatters, his accent disgraceful, and acting as if he was Prinny himself. Still,” he added, “I had a meat pie on the counter, and he eyed it as if it was more valuable than a fistful of diamonds, so I gave it to the boy. He grabbed it and ate it right on the doorstep. Two bites and it was gone. Then he disappeared.”

Was Jonathan also hungry? Yet he hoarded enough money to buy expensive cheroots.

“My thanks.” Daniel handed the tobacconist a pound note, and the man's eyes went round again.

“Can I be of any other ser­vice, my lord?”

“Have a case of your favorite cheroots delivered to me.”

“Yes, my lord!” The man bowed.

Moments later, Daniel and Eleanor were back in his carriage. “We'll take Miss Hawke back to her offices,” he called up to his driver.

“No, we are not,” she said, loud enough for the driver to hear.

“Eleanor.”

“Daniel.”

They stared at each other in the small space of the carriage. “By the look on your face,” he said, “you have no intention of going back to your nice,
safe
office and awaiting my findings.”

“I won't dignify that with a response.” She reached across and gripped his hand. With a wry smile, she said, “You were the one who brought me into this.”

“Me?” He frowned.

“When you stepped into my office and proposed I write about you.”

He expected no less from her. And as he gave his driver the address in Whitechapel, he could only feel damned grateful that she'd taken his life and completely torn it apart.

A
child of unknown gender sat upon the stoop of the tenement, watching the street with a cautious gaze. She—­for Daniel was able at last to see the frayed, faded ribbon around the collar of the girl's shift—­also held a sharpened stick, which she ground into the cracks between the stones. As if she were trying to shove some small demon back into the earth.

The girl didn't move as Daniel and Eleanor approached the entrance to the run-­down building, only stared with a look far older than a child her age ought to possess. There hadn't been time for Daniel and Eleanor to change clothing, so the child wasn't the only one watching the newcomers. Women peered out between shutters, and a few men slouched with interest against nearby walls. But no one came near, as though an invisible barrier encircled Daniel and Eleanor. Privilege had a way of holding the world at bay.

Yet there was no way to avoid the fact that this place, Jonathan's last known address, was hardly fit for human habitation. The walls barely held together, and most of the windows were missing their glass. Years of grime and smoke coated the façade. Inside, a baby wailed. As Daniel and Eleanor came closer, faces appeared in the windows. He counted at least seven ­people crowded into one casement. God knew how many ­people called this shambles home.

Eleanor's expression was somber as she also took in these details. She shared a look with him—­despairing, angry. He understood. No one, from the scion of a genteel family to the humblest laborer, should live like this. In his searches for Jonathan, he'd seen the grimmer parts of the city. Yet it never failed to strike him, the disparity between those lucky enough to be born with a title, and those who were nameless.

He'd have to increase his charitable donations. It might be a futile gesture, but he needed to make it—­or else he could never meet his own gaze in the mirror.

“It might be time for
The
Hawk's Eye
to write more substantively,” Eleanor said lowly. “Devote less columns to Lady H—­d's scandal, and more to a different kind of scandal.”

“Will your readers object?”

“Everyone needs to escape,” she answered, “but sometimes we need to face the truth.” Her lips tightened. “We're attracting attention.”

More ­people had gathered to stare at the finely dressed strangers. So, after tucking a coin into the hand of the girl on the stoop, Daniel escorted Eleanor inside.

The dim interior proved no better than the outside. Paint peeled off the walls, and the stairs listed like a drunkard. A door edged open, but the person inside must have decided they were uninterested in making Daniel's acquaintance, because the door slammed shut. In an open doorway, a woman walked back and forth, a crying babe in her arms and two more children trailing after her.

A middle-­aged woman hovered at the top of the stairs. Her clothes had to be decades old, but they were clean and well mended.

“Can I help you, sir?” she asked cautiously, slowly coming down the creaking steps.

“I hope so,” he answered. “I'm looking for a friend of mine.”

“Not many with friends who live here,” she said. He noted that she remained on the steps, ensuring that she stood taller than Daniel.

“He would have spoken like an aristo,” Eleanor supplied. “Kept himself to himself.”

“I don't know if there's anybody like that here.” The woman narrowed her eyes.

Daniel held up a coin, but she didn't move to take it. Surprising. So she wasn't motivated by greed.

“We're here to help him,” he said. “Get him back to his family.”

“Are you now?” The landlady assessed him openly, from his boots to his hat, then looked to Eleanor.

“He's had others prey on him,” Eleanor said. “He's a veteran, and lost his way. But we're only here to make sure he's all right.”

Relief and concern took the place of wariness in the older woman's expression. She crossed herself. “Ah, thank God. I'd been so blessed worried about the lad.”

Daniel's gut clenched. Was it true? Had they finally found Jonathan?

“What did he call himself?” he asked, trying to keep the urgency from his voice.

“Connelly. Mr. Jonathan Connelly.”

Connelly was Jonathan's middle name, taken from his mother's Irish side. Daniel's gut knotted again. Close. He was so bloody close.

“Can you take us to him?” asked Eleanor. “Mrs. . . . ?”

“Irving. And I'd be most happy to take you to him, except . . .”

“Except?” Daniel prompted.

Mrs. Irving frowned. “He left this morning. Won't be coming back.”

Disappointment came like acid, burning through Daniel.
Damn and hell
.

“How can you be certain he's not returning?” Eleanor asked.

“Told me so.” The landlady twisted her hands. “I'd been trying to help him, too. Fair broke my heart to see him laid so low. Mind, we're all of us here trying to keep afloat. I help everyone where I can. And that lad was in a poor way. Sick and tormented. And him once a soldier, too.” She shook her head. “But he'd never let me help him. Wouldn't take the food I left. Wouldn't let me clean. Wouldn't listen when I told him to leave off with that bad company he'd keep.”

Daniel frowned. “Bad company?”

Mrs. Irving scowled. “Aye. The worst of 'em. Bad men, the lot. And their leader—­never got his name, but I've heard talk of a bloke that finds himself fallen lordlings and sucks 'em dry, like a leech.”

“Is that where Mr. Connelly is now?” Daniel demanded. “With that bloke?”

The landlady shrugged. “He never said. Just decided this morning that he'd had enough, and bolted.”

Daniel cursed under his breath. They'd been a hairsbreadth away from finding Jonathan, only to have him slip away again.

“Can we see his room?” Eleanor asked. To Daniel, she said quietly, “There might be some information about him and where he might go.”

He nodded. It was a good plan, when plans were in short supply.

“This way,” Mrs. Irving said, and started back up the stairs.

Daniel placed a protective hand at the small of Eleanor's back as she followed the landlady. Mrs. Irving was a good, kind soul, and there were many like her in Whitechapel. But the neighborhood's peril couldn't be discounted, either. The men who'd latched on to Jonathan were proof of that danger. He might have lost Jonathan, but like hell would he let anything happen to Eleanor. She was brave, though, able to extract information from seemingly impossible situations. And she moved without hesitation as she climbed the stairs. Upward.

Once Eleanor had come into his life, his quest had altered. Now he knew that his own redemption was something to pursue. Because it had value to her. And that's what mattered.

 

Chapter 24

We can never understand the heart's capacity for endurance until tested.

The Hawk's Eye
, May 28, 1816

K
nowing writers, artists, and actors, Eleanor thought herself prepared for an untidy set of rooms. Yet when Mrs. Irving unlocked and opened the door to Jonathan Lawson's flat, Eleanor was entirely unprepared for the squalor. Rubbish lay everywhere in thick drifts. Dirty clothing, greasy wrappers from food, moldy or dried bits of the food itself, and crumpled papers of unknown origin. Cheroot stubs also littered the ground. A few prints, torn from broadsheets, were tacked to the peeling walls. The only furniture consisted of a lone, broken-­backed chair and a bare mattress lying upon the floor. A smell of unwashed human body and stale alcohol hung morosely in the room.

She chanced a glance toward Daniel. His face was drawn tight, his jaw granite. She could only imagine what it must be like for him to witness the long, hard fall of his friend.

As she and Daniel drifted into the room, nudging aside debris with their feet, the landlady chattered nervously behind them.

“It's not Mayfair,” Mrs. Irving said, “but I run a clean establishment. But Mr. Connelly, he wouldn't let me in here. I said I'd do it for free, in truth, yet he still refused.”

“Very generous of you,” Eleanor noted. “To donate ser­vices most ­people in your profession charge for.”

Mrs. Irving shrugged. “I help all the families in my building. We're all scraping by—­working our fingers to blood and bone. I watch Mrs. Farquhar's babies when she has to stay up late to finish making hats, and I tidy up after Mr. Duggan, who's down at the shipyard and no wife to see after him.”

She shrugged. “He was a good lad, too, that Mr. Connelly. Dragged one of my boys home from a gin palace and made him promise never to go there again. He kept an eye out for all the local children—­making sure they stayed off the street, giving them some of his food when he had any to spare.”

A rueful smile curled in the corner of Daniel's mouth. “Sounds like Jonathan. He can't stop himself from helping others.” His smile fell away. “Except himself.”

“And you said he kept rough company?” Eleanor asked, avoiding a stain on the floorboards.

“Oh, aye. At all hours there were brutes coming and going, especially that one with the reputation. Dead-­eyed, he was. Like a wolf only thinking of his next meal.” Mrs. Irving wrung her hands in her apron. “I'm afraid that Mr. Connelly was his meal.”

A door down the hallway opened and shut. Mrs. Irving glanced after the sound. “That's my daughter-­in-­law. She'll be back with the mending she takes in. I'll have to leave you for a few moments.”

“Take your time,” Daniel murmured distractedly, his gaze moving intently over the disordered room.

With a curtsy, the landlady departed, leaving Eleanor and Daniel alone in Jonathan's flat. Though Mrs. Irving had said he'd been there only that morning, the room exuded a profound neglect. A leaden weight sat in Eleanor's chest as she contemplated it.

She placed a hand on Daniel's arm. “It doesn't give much comfort, but . . . I'm sorry.”

Daniel gave a clipped nod, yet he looked deeply angry. With himself. “Every turn I take I see more and more how I failed him.”

“But you're here now,” she pointed out.

“Too late. He's run off.”

She eyed the heaps of garbage. “Didn't take much with him.”

“He ran off before the cheroots could arrive. Likely he thought he'd come back for them.” Daniel stirred one of the piles with his walking stick. “He didn't leave any clues as to his current whereabouts.”

“We don't know that for certain.” Glad she was wearing gloves, she picked through a heap of rags and empty bottles. “There could be something here that might lead us to him.”

In silent agreement, they both searched the flat. Yet after several minutes with nothing worthwhile, aside from the fact that the gin bottles proved Jonathan's drinking habits, it seemed their efforts were in vain.

Until Daniel said, “Look here.” He held up a stack of newspapers. She recognized them as issues of
The
Hawk's Eye
. “We know he's an admirer of your work.”

She approached and studied the papers. “These are recent issues. I wonder that he can afford them.”

“Maybe he nicks them from a coffee house.”

“He seems particularly interested in the
Rake
articles.” She pointed to one of the papers. “Look here. It's been folded so that only the article shows. And the ink is smudged.”

“From reading many times,” Daniel deduced.

“Perhaps he's not as lost as you might think,” she said. “He might know that you're the subject of the articles, and it still draws him—­his old life.”

Daniel frowned in thought. “We might be able to plant a message to him in one of the pieces. Telling him to come back.”

The idea had merit, yet . . . “There's a powerful sense of despair here,” she noted. “The kind of hopelessness that logic and reason can't reach.” An idea began forming in her mind, coalescing into shape. “What if . . . we put something in
The
Hawk's Eye
, something that might draw him out of hiding, yet he won't know that we're luring him out.”

She strode to the narrow window, but it only looked out onto a wall. As if he'd chosen the room with the grimmest view. “We know about the cheroots, but that wouldn't be enough. Did he have anything he loved? Something particular that he enjoyed above all else?”

Daniel walked over to the mattress and looked at the pictures tacked to the wall. “This.” He tapped one of the images, and she saw that it was of a man and a woman atop a phaeton, driving at what appeared to be a rapid pace. “High-­flyers. Racing them. In everything else, he was the mildest of men, but get him in a phaeton, and he became wild. Giddy.” Daniel's expression turned contemplative. “Thought about him when we had our race. He would have loved it. I even looked for him in the crowd. But to no profit. If he was there, he'd changed too much for me to recognize him. Ah, damn. Maybe he had been there.”

He pulled something off the wall and held it out for her inspection. Coming closer, she realized it was the piece about their race. A slight chill ran along her neck. Had Jonathan been at the scene? But she hadn't known about him then.

The idea that had been fomenting continued to gather shape. “What if . . . we placed an item in
The
Hawk's Eye
? Something about a phaeton race. One that's going to happen, rather than one that's already transpired.”

Daniel rubbed at his chin as he considered her idea. “We give it a few days' lead time. Make sure that he gets a chance to see it.”

“If he's as mad for phaeton racing as you say he is . . .”

“Then he'll be there,” Daniel said.

“And so will we,” she concluded.

They stared at each other for a moment, mulling over this plan.

“A wild gamble,” he finally said.

She spread her hands. “At this point, what's left?”

“Nothing.” He stared down at the well-­read clipping in his hand, and it seemed he saw what she did. Jonathan was a man who'd given up hope, yet still clung to some small piece of what he'd once been, as if unable to completely let go and sink into the abyss of desolation. “There's nothing left.”

T
ogether in her office after hours, they wrote the article. It was a blind item, hinting at the race that was to take place at Hyde Park in two days' time. Rumors were spreading, according to the article, and bets were already being placed. When it was finished, she proofed it and gave it to her typesetters to add to the next issue.

By the time the piece was completed, full night had fallen, and they returned to Daniel's house.

They climbed the stairs to his chamber. Inside, he sank wearily onto the bed. “Damn it, I promised Marwood I'd go to the theater with him tonight.” He rubbed the heel of his hand against his eyes. “I'll cancel.”

“Don't,” she said, sitting beside him. “Marwood plays the libertine, but he's sharp. A cancelation might arouse his suspicion, and we've come too far to let him guess what's going on.”

Daniel exhaled. He gave a tired nod. “Marwood or no, I'd give a king's ransom to spend the whole night with you.”

Her smile was small, tinged with melancholy. How she longed for that, too, and how distant it all seemed. Perhaps if they did manage to find Jonathan—­and she prayed that their gambit would work—­perhaps she and Daniel might be able to continue their affair for a little while longer. Perhaps . . . Perhaps many things. But she dared not wish for them.

Future heartbreak already neared. She could hear its slow, dragging steps approaching, inevitable. Unstoppable.

He rose and rang for Strathmore. In a moment, the valet appeared.

“I'm dressing for the theater tonight,” Daniel said.

“Yes, my lord.” Strathmore didn't even glance in her direction as he prepared a ewer for washing and laid out a change of clothing.

Wrapping her arms around the post supporting the bed's canopy, Eleanor watched him get ready for the evening. The entire process might fascinate her from a journalistic viewpoint another time, but now she just enjoyed simply looking at him. How his athletic body moved in the gleam of the lamps as he peeled off his clothing. How she knew exactly those divots at the base of his spine. Hunger burned to see him in just his thin smallclothes as he leaned over the washstand, cleaning himself. More than desire, she loved the domesticity of the moment. Almost as if . . . they were more to each other than temporary lovers.

The valet tidied as Daniel donned his clothing.

“Unique, this,” she murmured as he shrugged into his waistcoat and fastened its silk-­covered buttons. “I'm more familiar with getting you
out
of your clothes.”

He shot her a hot look. “We'll get to that later.”

“I'll mark my dance card,” she said.

“A very private waltz.” God, how his smile tugged at the very core of her.

“Not suitable for any public assembly,” she agreed.

But too soon, he was dressed, and the carriage waited for him. Before he left, they stood in the middle of his bedroom and kissed, hard and deep. There was a particular fire in them both, and they clung to each other. As if some disaster awaited.

No—­they would find Jonathan, and everything would work itself out some way. She had to believe that. She wasn't like Maggie, with one eye toward calamity.

Eleanor finally stepped back, breaking the kiss. “Enjoy your debauchery. But not too much.”

“Not without you.”

Together, they walked out, and down the stairs. In the foyer, a footman handed him his coat, hat, and walking stick. Again, that sense of looming catastrophe swam close, making her eyes hot. She swallowed back words begging him to stay. It was just one night. He was a grown man. He'd be back in a few hours.

Yet as she watched him go, she couldn't seem to stop the chill that relentlessly scraped over her. And she knew she wouldn't feel warm again until they were in bed, safe, together.

T
o distract herself, she ensconced herself in the study and pulled out a sheaf of articles to edit. Work could always serve to block out the outside world.

Sitting at her desk, a single lamp burning, she reviewed a story about two lordlings fighting over an Italian opera singer. The sound of the front door opening and closing resonated through the house. Her heart jumped. Daniel was home!

A glance at the clock revealed that it was only ten o'clock.

She frowned. Was he ill? Or perhaps he'd found a convincing way to get out of his engagement with Lord Marwood.

Eleanor was halfway out of her chair when the door to the study opened. But Daniel did not come striding in. No, she knew who the striking, silver-­haired gentleman was. He'd been touted in the pages of
The
Hawk's Eye
as a model of honor and decorum—­even if his son was one of the Town's most notorious scandal-­makers.

The Marquess of Allam. Daniel's godfather.

Barely encumbered by his cane, the nobleman stalked into the chamber and stared at her. Almost insolently. If an aristocrat could ever allow themselves to be insolent. Well, she didn't have to return his rudeness. Courtesy often disarmed disrespect.

“My lord,” she said, curtsying.

“Miss . . . Hawke, is it?” he demanded.

“How do you know my name?”

“There isn't much in this city that I don't know about.” He leaned slightly on his cane but made no motion toward sitting down. Was this a sign of strength? An attempt at intimidation? “Including the fact that you and my godson have become lovers.”

Heat crept into her cheeks. “My lord, it's really—­”

“It certainly
is
my business.” Lord Allam's eyes, so like his son's, bore into her. “His head is completely turned by you. So much so that he's neglecting his duty. The continuance of Ashford's line is my responsibility.”

“I thought it was Daniel's responsibility.”

Lord Allam's eyebrows rose at her impertinence. “I made a solemn vow to his parents that I would see their son married to a
suitable
woman, and that he would bear them
suitable
heirs. You are not that woman, and whatever children he gets by you will never be admitted into respectable Society.”

Though his words pierced her, speaking to her deepest fears, she continued to stand her ground. “Again, my lord, all of this is Daniel's decision. And mine. We'll do what we feel is best.”

The marquess gave a hint of a cold smile. “Fancy yourself in love, do you?”