How a Lady Weds a Rogue
Contents
How a Lady Weds a Rogue
Katharine Ashe
Dedication
To Atlas and Idaho, my constant writing companions. You warm my toes. You lay softly contented in the sun that shines through my office window as though sunshine is all you need. You make me play when I foolishly imagine I must only work. And you remind me every day that love can be unconditional. Thank you for making me a better human.
Fellow Subjects of
Britain,
Scandal!
At night I lie abed,
heart pounding, breaths short, and mourn England’s ravagement. My soul cries
and my frail feminine form aches to know that the Elite of Society to whom
we all pay homage are stealing from our Kingdom to serve their profligate
ways.
Stealing!
For three years now I
have sought the identities of the members of the elusive Falcon Club, a
gentleman’s leisure establishment that regularly receives funds from the
Treasury without due process in Parliament. Today I announce my greatest
accomplishment in this quest: I have discovered the identity of one member.
I have hired an assistant to follow this man and learn of his activities.
When I possess reports that I can trust, I will convey them to
you.
Until then, if you are
reading this pamphlet, Mr. Peregrine, Secretary of the Falcon Club, know
that I look forward to the day you and I meet face-to-face and I will tell
you exactly what sort of man you truly are.
—Lady
Justice
Lady
Justice
In Care of Brittle
& Sons, Printers
London
My dearest
lady,
I am nearly breathless
(as I daresay three-quarters of the men in London are now) imagining you at
rest upon your cot, your breast filled with emotion, your lips trembling
with feeling. I am moved by your devotion. And, like a cock released into
the ring, I am roused by your eagerness to meet me in person.
But perhaps you have
discovered not one of my fellow club members, but me. Perhaps I shan’t be
obliged to wait long for us to finally become acquainted. Perhaps my own
nocturnal imaginings will soon rush from the realm of dreams into reality. I
can only hope.
Increasingly
yours,
Peregrine
Secretary, the Falcon
Club
Peregrine,
Send Raven after Lady
Priscilla.
—The
Director
Sir,
I shall mince no words:
You are making a mistake in this. England boasts no sharper intellect or
finer natural instinct. I will send Raven after the beast, and he will go
without quarrel. But with this insult you will have lost him.
Respectfully,
&c.
Peregrine
M
ust . . . get . . . to . . .
the . . . stable.
Somewhere in a chamber abovestairs a girl
screamed.
Not a girl. A woman. Throaty voice, inebriated, a
scream of pleasure. The girl’s scream was in his head only. As always.
Get to the stable.
Rescue the lady
.
Wyn pried his eyelids open. The parlor tilted. But
he was standing. In a corner, against the wall. Nevertheless, standing. Far
better situation than his host, who was lying unconscious over the threshold,
bottle clutched in one hand, a woman’s naked ankle clutched in the other. The
remainder of the woman lay in the corridor beyond, similarly indisposed.
Wyn cast his gaze about the chamber strewn with
glasses and smoke. A ruined neck cloth decorated a bookshelf, and a pair of
ladies’ stockings—
sans
lady—straddled the arms of a
chair with suggestively vigorous intent. A snapped billiards cue protruded from
a lamp top, and the butts of any number of cigars dug black holes in the
carpet.
He squeezed his eyes shut. “Are we having fun
yet?”
Then commenced the burning in his gut.
Ah. Awake a mere twenty seconds this time before
the torture began; his most reliable nemesis had grown insistent of late. He’d
no memory of eating since arriving at the country house three days earlier. Food
quieted the torture in his belly. No time for that now. He’d been here too long
already. If the others were in the same state as his host, he must take his
leave with haste.
“Off to the races, then.” Focusing on the doorway,
he pushed away from the wall.
“Wha’s that you say, Yale?”
Had he spoken aloud? Good God.
Carefully, so carefully, he shifted his gaze in the
direction of the voice. He never hurried. Hurrying led to mistakes. Wyn Yale,
agent of the Falcon Club and consummate gentleman from his sparkling boots to
his neatly tied cravat, never made mistakes. He never fell. Never tripped. Never
revealed a thing, not even when he could not make the sounds to pronounce his
own name. Then he simply remained silent.
Pride did not drive this perfection. His father and
elder brothers used to criticize him for his pride. They’d had no idea.
But apparently now he spoke aloud when he did not
intend it. He was, perhaps, finally slipping. A shame. Rational precision was
all he had left, after all, and of course the damned fireball that lived in his
midsection.
“Wha’ races?” The other guest sprawled on the
divan, this one without a woman at present, perhaps due to his waistcoat soaked
in wine.
Rule #3: Ladies expected a gentleman to maintain
his accoutrements
. Even demi-reps. Wyn’s great-aunt had insisted on
that.
“Who’s racing?” the slovenly gentleman slurred.
“I’ll lay ten guineas on you over any of’em. Clever son of a—”
“No race.” With deliberate steps Wyn moved to the
sideboard and sloshed wine into a glass. Blinking hard to steady himself, he
pivoted, carried the glass over, and curled the fellow’s hand around it. Warm.
Human sinew and flesh. Strange that he should notice this. But it had been an
age since he’d felt another human’s skin, touched another person. “Merely seeing
to my horse.”
The sot quaffed, dribbling wine from the corner of
his mouth. “He’s a pretty goer. Sell him?”
“No.” Wyn had one loyal companion in addition to
the burn in his gut: the sleek black thoroughbred in the stable that deserved a
great deal better than him.
The man waved his hand, brushing away the refusal
in that happy haze of alcohol saturation that Wyn himself had not experienced in
years. Not happiness, no.
“S’just as well. Wife’d skin me alive if I spent
that sort of blunt.”
“Far better to spend it on drink and whores, of
course,” Wyn murmured, focusing on the door again. It tilted to one side, then
the other.
“Din’ know you had that sort of blunt either.”
“Not lately, old chap.” But he’d bought Galahad
five years ago, before his funds ran dry.
The man slurped from the glass then again slumped
into a snore. Wyn made his way over the prone bodies at the door and along the
corridor. In the butler’s closet he sought his coat. Had he brought a coat? The
month?
September
.
He pulled his topcoat from a hook. Best to make
certain it was his. He fished in the pocket for the one item he suspected only
he would carry to a country bacchanalia. His fingers slipped around the knife’s
sheath. His pistol, of course, was still in the saddlebag. No need for a firearm
at this sort of friendly gathering of wastrels. He’d brought it for the road,
and because to be without it was to be a great fool.
For all his sins, he was not a great fool. Not even
a minor one.
He left the house and the men and women inside
locked in a revelry they all enjoyed because they knew nothing more satisfying,
and made his way across the muddy drive. Within the stable all was damp straw
and the musky warmth of horses. Galahad had his own stall because he deserved
it, not because his temper did not allow for company; the thoroughbred was
gelded, much like his master at this gathering—
temporarily
. No women while working. No drink usually either. But
this assignment had called for it. Thus the horse’s four eyes now. And four
nostrils, and four ears.
Wyn reached for both of Galahad’s muzzles, each
satin black marked with a blaze. He grasped either side of the animal’s face and
the two heads became one. A quiet-natured fellow, Galahad did not protest.
“Can you bear her company, my friend?” Against the
horse’s coat, his breath was heavy with brandy. “She is very pretty, after
all.”
Galahad stared at him with eyes the color of earth
and bumped his nose into his chest.
“You will do whatever is asked of you. We are a
fine pair.” He closed his eyes. “But I will soon do what I have not been asked
to do. Then they will take you from me. They will take everything, but”—he
dipped his voice to a whisper—“you will be all I regret losing.” For a moment he
stood still, the straw-littered floor bobbing beneath him. Then he set to
saddling and bridling his horse.
Traveling bag slung across his haunches, Galahad
followed him through the stable at his heels like a spaniel. They halted before
another stall. The animal within shone like a jewel, from her tapered nose and
intelligent eyes to powerful withers and silken brown coat.
Wyn bowed. “My lady, your escort has arrived.” He
opened the stall door.
Lady Priscilla, as prime a piece of horseflesh as
could be bred, came without protest, young and light of hoof but biddable. Thus,
no doubt, she had gone with Wyn’s host after he won her at cards from Marquess
McFee—unjustly, for she belonged to McFee’s uncle, the Duke of Yarmouth.
Now the duke wanted his prized young hunter back.
Who better for the job than Wyn? The crown knew that when it lifted its little
finger to demand a service of Mr. Wyn Yale, penniless third son of a Welsh
squire of little land and less wit, he would leap to it. And, of course, he did
it because he enjoyed it. Rather, had enjoyed it. More lately he did it to keep
himself in waistcoats and brandy.
But this job was different. He had not agreed to
this humiliating task to please the anonymous director of the Falcon Club or the
king. Not even for the sack of gold coins they would pay him. This assignment he
had accepted to avenge a death.
A death for a death. One sin to cancel out
another.
This time, however, he could not hide the truth of
his deed from his friends—Leam Blackwood, Jin Seton, Constance Read, Colin
Gray—all once fellow agents in the Falcon Club, the greatest friends a man could
have. This time they would all know. This time the world would know.
The rain fell mizzling, sending mist up from the
warm earth. But the sky was heavy and it would soon pour down. The filly’s
blanket would keep her dry. He took another blanket from the tack room and
affixed it over Galahad’s back.
“Now we are off to the races. As it were.”
He set off along the foggy drive on foot, a lead
line in either hand and hundreds of guineas worth of horseflesh following
docilely behind. The gray day was still young, the walk to the village where a
bottle and the Mail Coach could be found only a few miles distant. By the time
he reached Yarmouth’s castle two days hence, he would again be dry and suitably
clad. In the meantime, to be sodden both without as well as within seemed
suitable enough. Here in the middle of nowhere, in the company of none but
beasts, for once he needn’t even mimic perfection. And, after all, a man on his
way to murder a duke ought to be allowed to enjoy the journey in whatever manner
he liked.
I
n
theory, her plan worked splendidly well.
In
theory
.
Diantha had not, of course, counted on the handsome
farm boy. Thus she had not foreseen Annie’s desertion. Neither had she
anticipated the rain that soaked the hem of her traveling dress, or the man with
the sausagelike fingers sitting in the opposite corner seat of the Mail Coach.
The squalling infant in its mother’s spindly arms was not an especial boon
either. But at least the little bundle hadn’t caused Diantha any real trouble,
only a megrim the size of Devonshire, which actually had its start at the
posting house when Annie gave abrupt notice with a “Best of luck to you, Miss
Lucas!” thrown over her shoulder. So in truth the babe could not be blamed.
Naturally, from the comfort of Brennon Manor,
Diantha could not have anticipated any of this, especially Annie’s defection.
Her best friend, Teresa Finch-Freeworth, adored her maid, and quite frankly
Diantha had liked her too. Annie had seemed the ideal companion with whom to
make her premature departure from Teresa’s home under cover of propriety. Until
Annie abandoned her.
Diantha pressed fingertips to temples. The megrim
was worsening, but babies would cry, and she liked them quite a lot under normal
circumstances. She had always dreamed of having children of her own, and Mr. H
liked them. But she didn’t have time to ponder that. Now she must find her
mother and wrest her from the den of iniquity in which she was living.
Around the edge of her bonnet she darted a glance
at Mr. Sausage Fingers. He scowled at the babe, jowls wiggling with the rough
sway of the carriage.
“She is cutting her teeth, isn’t she?” Diantha
whispered to the mother. “My sister, Faith, cried buckets when her teeth were
coming through.”
“She won’t stop, miss.” The woman groaned softly,
rocking the babe against a breast far too narrow to serve as a pillow.
“Poor dear. My mother used to rub our gums with
brandy. Sometimes whiskey if Papa had already drunk up all the brandy. It is
very soothing.”
The woman looked skeptical and perhaps a bit
scandalized. “Is it?”
“Oh, yes. Smugglers were so common on the coast,
we’d no trouble finding brandy during the war.” She tucked a gloved finger into
the baby’s hand. It latched on and the cries hiccupped. “At the next posting
house, dip your finger into a cup of spirits and rub away. She will be asleep in
no time.” The infant’s mouth opened again and out of it flew a banshee’s howl.
“Then drink the remainder of the cup yourself,” Diantha said louder, to be heard
over the din. She smiled and patted the woman’s arm.
The mother’s eyes softened. The babe wailed.
Beneath the brim of his cap, Mr. Sausage Fingers was leering again. He had the
look of a highwayman about him, if highwaymen had dirty fingernails and shifty
eyes.
It was clear to Diantha now that Annie’s elopement
was incidental to her troubles. Men like this would populate the road all the
way to Bristol and then probably the boat to Calais. The world was made of men,
and some were villainous.
She knew this only vaguely, having been introduced
at a young age to a nasty man named Mr. Baker to whom her mother had intended to
wed her beautiful sister, Charity. Or some such thing. No one had ever told her
anything in those days because she was too young
and
susceptible
, they said, which meant that she was
likely to get into scrapes if given rein. Now everybody was gone, so there was
no one to tell her anything even though she had turned nineteen, with one
exception: Teresa, whose stories were scandalously titillating and who had
devised the plan for her current mission, which mustn’t be thwarted even by a
minor mishap like losing her traveling companion to a farm lad with large
muscles in his arms. Annie had especially liked those muscles. She’d mentioned
them before abandoning her, by way of justification it seemed.
Diantha hadn’t any opinion of men’s arms or
muscles, but now she saw her plan’s fatal flaw. She required a man. But not just
any man. She needed a man of courage and honor who would assist her without
question.
She needed a hero.
Diantha’s stepsister, Serena, had often read to her
stories of knights saving damsels in distress, and the Baron of Carlyle, her
stepfather and a scholar, had assured her that these stories were not entirely
fictional, rather based in historical fact. Heroes did exist. Now her mission
was simply too perilous to undertake with only female assistance. A hero must be
found.
In retrospect it all seemed quite obvious.
Of course
the plan Teresa devised had not included
securing the assistance of a man. Teresa had never met a real hero. Her father
barely ever looked at his women, and her brothers were most certainly not
heroic; a fortnight ago all three of them had taken one look at Diantha and
their eyes had gone positively feral. Since none of them had ever noticed her
during her visits to Brennon Manor before, they could not be considered
heroic.