My Inconvenient Duke (Difficult Dukes #3)

Chapter 7

They had only about three miles to travel. Three miles in London, however, was not the same as three miles of a rural stretch

of the King’s highway.

Blackwood House stood on Piccadilly, two streets from Hatchett’s White Horse Cellar, one of London’s busiest coaching inns,

as the scene outside attested.

Vehicles and riders crammed the road, vying for space. Harassed-looking passengers contended with pedestrians, street sellers,

pickpockets, crossing sweeps, chimney sweeps, ticket porters. Dogs ran about, tripping the unwary and fighting with other

dogs. Hereabouts even hackney cabmen, notorious for reckless driving, plodded along.

Normally, Blackwood would expect those clogging the road to remove themselves, and usually they had the wit to do so. When

friends drove with him, they took their chances. He couldn’t take chances with Alice.

Still, some human obstacles either recognized him or took stock of his powerful horse and dashing vehicle and got out of the

way. As he passed Burlington House, the congestion eased, and he increased the pace.

His mind was clearing somewhat, though he retained a sense of unreality, likely due to having been roused so rudely at an impossible hour. Or maybe it was her mad disguise that unbalanced him.

The fact was, nearly every word she spoke unbalanced him. He told himself he’d plunged blindly into numerous escapades, and

nothing she devised could possibly match Ashmont, although His Grace with the Angel Face had grown rather predictable of late.

Blackwood made himself concentrate on the matter at hand: the plan, such as it was, though it was by no means the only half-baked

scheme he’d ever engaged in. Didn’t matter. He’d nearly got her brother killed. He owed her amends.

“The Temple’s on the way,” he said. “We could stop there first.”

“I’m counting on thieves keeping later hours than even you do,” she said.

“Good point. They can steal at any time. Why spoil their rest?”

“More important, I’d rather not alert the solicitor to our interest in the boy.”

He shot her a glance, and his mind reeled again at the hodgepodge she wore.

“You’re remarkably well-informed about the criminal classes,” he said. “Well-trained, too, it appears. The disguise, for instance.”

“I’ve learnt to observe,” she said. “And I’m a fair mimic. Madame Girard helped me with my ensemble.”

“And Keeffe has intriguing stories to tell. He’s lived a colorful life.”

“He has wisdom,” she said. “And I want to be useful. I want a purpose that isn’t... Oh, I don’t know how to explain, and

you wouldn’t understand if I did.”

Her tone made him glance at her again, but the bonnet and ruffled cap hid her expression. Not that her face was ever easy to read.

“Then tell me about this precious boy,” he said. “Among other mysteries, I’m curious how you came to pick him out among the

denizens of the Borough High Street. Not the most fashionable neighborhood. A long parade of coaching inns of varying degrees

of squalor, amid hospitals, madhouses, and prisons.”

She told him about the Minerva Society’s visits to the Marshalsea Prison at Christmas and Easter and the dinners they provided

for the debtors at the George Inn. “On Easter Sunday last, we were able to free more debtors than usual, thanks to Doveridge,”

she said. “They’re left to rot there for the smallest sums. It’s disgraceful.”

“ Rot , indeed. You’ve been spending your time in breeding grounds for typhus, cholera, and every other deadly disease. You can’t

help from afar but must distribute alms in person?”

“I’ve found it salutary to see for myself,” she said. “The sixth Baron Digby went to the Marshalsea at Christmas and Easter,

paid some of the prisoners’ debts, then took them to the George Inn for a meal.”

“He was a man,” Blackwood said. “And those were different times. Some eighty years ago.”

“True,” she said. “These days we blame the poor for being poor.”

Yet Doveridge had helped. Blackwood told himself this was simply to make a good impression on a fascinating young lady.

His conscience twinged all the same. It had a nerve, rising from the dead after all this time. But it would never die properly

because the accurst tome, Correct Behavior , wouldn’t let it rest in peace. In this case, it called his attention to several chapters on the topic of generosity to the

less fortunate.

“But I won’t bore you with my radical politics,” she said.

“Very wise. A rude visitor interrupted my rest, and I might easily be lulled to sleep. Not advisable when driving in Piccadilly.

Stray pedestrians could end up under the wheels, and they leave the deuce of a stain.”

She turned slightly in the seat to look at him.

Between the revived conscience and her physical presence, he was not comfortable.

He wished she would keep still. The cabriolet’s seat accommodated two people but without room to spare. He needn’t look directly

at her to be too keenly aware of her: the way she held her head and her hands, the rise and fall of the insane bodice, the

maddeningly elusive scent of Alice. The side of his body barely touching hers had heated the instant he sat beside her. He

felt her hips moving against his with the motion of the carriage.

He foresaw Satan’s own headache, and not only on account of the alcohol he’d consumed the previous night.

“How I’ve missed our conversations,” she was saying. “No, on second thought, I haven’t.”

“The feeling is mutual,” he said. “Can we get to the part about the brat, whatever his name is?”

“He’s had a few different ones in the time I’ve known him,” she said.

“Aliases.”

“I doubt he knows his name. I strongly doubt he was ever baptized. But let’s call him Georgie, since that’s the one we’ll

need to use today.”

He caught the evasive note and wondered why. Then he wondered, Why not? Why should she trust him? She’d said she’d never forgive him, and if he were Alice, he wouldn’t forgive him, especially for that morning at Camberley Place. She wouldn’t have come to him if she’d seen any alternative. Had Ripley been about, she’d have gone to him.

“Georgie, then,” he said.

“We helped him find work at the George. He wanted to look after horses, and he seems to have a gift. He wouldn’t have been

with those thieves if he hadn’t been coerced. I’m sure of that. He’s... different.” She let out a sigh. “I should not let

myself become attached to one child. I know what the odds are against them. But I think of Keeffe.”

Tom Keeffe had somehow clawed his way out of the rookeries and onto the turf, becoming one of England’s finest jockeys, until

a racing accident nearly killed him.

But Keeffe was the rarest of rare exceptions. Blackwood hoped Alice wasn’t building dream castles for the sewer rat.

He recalled what she’d said about the boy earlier.

He’s lost.

He remembered the nearly undetectable break in her voice when she spoke of the child’s ignorance and how easily he might be

led into danger.

He remembered the way she’d leant over her brother, the tender way she’d brushed his hair from his powder-blackened face.

He remembered the kitten she’d rescued all those years ago.

If they failed today...

They’d better not, because she’d murder Worbury. That could be awkward.

Among other things, it could spoil her marriage plans.

With Doveridge.

Blackwood shoved her antiquated beau into the mental cavern and turned the vehicle into Haymarket.

“Can’t you go any faster?” she said.

“I can’t risk breaking your neck,” he said.

“Risk it,” she said.

George Inn, Southwark

“Oh, he were here, missus,” the stableman McClary said. “Some woman come and took him away.”

“When?”

He shrugged. “Some while ago. Can’t say, ezackly.”

On the inside Alice screamed.

On the outside she was splendidly calm. “This woman: What did she look like?”

He took off his hat and scratched his head. “Well, we been busy all morning, coaches coming and going, and it happened quick,

you know.”

And the woman was not the sort to hold his attention, apparently.

Alice glanced at Blackwood, who loitered by the stable door. She’d once watched him lift another boy straight up off the ground

and hold him there, his feet dangling, while he quietly and calmly suggested the boy apologize to the youngster he’d bullied.

Alice was strongly tempted to summon Blackwood to lift this fellow off the ground and shake him until he remembered what she

needed him to remember.

She summoned her patience instead. “Fair or dark?” she said.

“Couldn’t say,” McClary said. “Mebbe somethin’ smaller ’n you and stoutish. She weren’t no fine lady, but not shabby, neither.” He considered. “Might’ve seen her before. Couldn’t say for certain. Still, the lad, he went easy enough, like he knowed her. I reckoned she were one of them women come at Eastertime.”

“Had she a servant with her?”

He shook his head. “None I could see. But like I said, we had our hands full then.”

The Minerva Society’s wealthy tradeswomen, like their aristocratic sisters, did not travel about London unaccompanied, and

none of them would visit the Marshalsea alone. They went as a group.

Alice asked a few more questions, which elicited nothing useful. She gave the stableman a coin and returned to Blackwood.

She started to report the conversation as they walked out into the stable yard.

“I heard,” he said.

Yes, of course. His hearing was sharper than most. The day at Camberley Place when he’d taught her to shoot a pistol, he’d

heard the shouting and dogs before she did. Ripley always said that Blackwood had a dog’s hearing.

“I can’t believe we’re too late,” she said. “She wasted not a minute.”

“Had I come naked and unwashed, as you wished, we should have arrived sooner,” he said. “But Springate would not allow it.

He’s strict about these matters, I’m afraid.”

Her face and other parts warmed, which they had no business doing. This was not the time or place or man, and she was not

a na?ve girl who blushed at the first hint of masculine attention. Yet her mind flitted back in time to a moment when she’d

had every iota of his attention.

She snatched her mind back and reminded herself who Lady Alice Ancaster was. The bonnet shadowed her face, the stable area was dim, and like so many other ladies, she was adept at schooling her expression. If her face betrayed her in spite of this, it mattered not at all. It was nothing to her what he saw or believed he saw. She had more pressing concerns.

“Your valet’s reputation depends on turning you out properly,” she said. “It must have upset him very much not to complete

the job.” She drew her finger along her jaw, referring to the dark overnight growth adorning his.

Blackwood ran a gloved hand over his cheek. “I didn’t want to keep you waiting. No telling what you’d do.”

She could feel that long, capable hand again, on her shoulder.

It was a ghost of a feeling, and not remotely helpful at present. She needed her wits about her. She did not need to be reminded

of her youthful errors and disappointments.

“You appear even more intimidating than usual,” she said. “To say you look like the devil is no exaggeration. Unshaven. Bloodshot

eyes. A general appearance of resentment at being roused against your will. Yes, that ought to help—if we can get to the solicitor

in time.”

“At least we know where to go next,” he said. “We’ll get the brat, never fear, one way or another.”

She gazed up at him, into the hooded eyes, as dark as midnight and as unfathomable as the night sky—not that she needed to

read his thoughts.

He was a man and a duke, used to getting what he wanted. That alone was sufficient. He was one of Their Dis-Graces. That was

even better.

“Then I recommend you risk my neck again,” she said.

Inner Temple

A short time later

The carriage had scarcely stopped in Fleet Street when Alice leapt from it and darted through the Inner Temple gateway, leaving

Blackwood to follow.

This was not precisely the plan they’d agreed upon, but she was too anxious to wait while he gave his tiger charge of the

vehicle.

Still, the duke wasn’t far behind her. She was tall, but his legs were longer, and he caught up with her halfway along Inner

Temple Lane.

“You agreed to let me go first,” he said. “I’m the diversion, remember?”

“Yes, yes. But what if we’re too late?”

“Worbury will not be there at this ridiculous hour,” he said. “He’ll leave it to Maycock to detect obvious imposters, and

the lawyer will leave it to his clerks. Odds are he’s in court or dawdling over his breakfast, like a civilized person. Everybody

else has to wait, because nothing of any importance can be done without his approval.”

There it was, the logic and precision and strict rules for doing this or that and the contradiction that was Blackwood: faultless

manners and reckless behavior, sharp mind and childish pranks.

Yet she knew she could count on him in a crisis... once she woke him up—violently, if need be. She knew he’d stand by her

the way he stood by his two friends, and the knowing eased her agitation somewhat on the way.

It was short enough. A minute’s walk took them to the area southeast of the Temple Church where the Fisk Building stood. In the court, about two dozen people waited on or near the entrance steps. The gathering comprised adults and a handful of older youths, all towing boys—and a few girls—of wildly varying ages and degrees of cleanliness.

Blackwood left her and moved to one side, a short distance from the group, drawing their notice. Easy enough for him to do.

He was big, dark, and dangerous-looking even when clean-shaven and rested. Furthermore, he was a duke, accustomed to commanding

the world about him.

Alice, meanwhile, concentrated on appearing ordinary. This was easier with him in the vicinity. Still, she had to maintain

her role. She had to make herself fade several degrees, and look and think and speak as a respectable working woman would

do.

While he claimed onlookers’ attention, she moved purposefully among them, searching for her target. The crowd, whether by

instinct or distracted by Blackwood, didn’t try to hinder her. She kept herself intently focused in the way a mother would

do, trying to find her missing child.

At first she saw only a sea of faces, some clean and some dirty, and an array of clothing in various styles and conditions.

She scanned them once, twice, thrice. No Jonesy in sight.

“How many have gone upstairs ahead of you?” she asked one of those close to the door, an older girl who had a very small boy

in hand.

“Nobody,” she said. “They said they wasn’t ready, and tole us to wait outside, and somebody would come.”

Good news and not surprising. Maycock and his minions wouldn’t want the lower species of humanity stinking up the stairs and

infesting his chambers. Out of doors, the smell of poverty abated somewhat.

Very well. Jonesy and his keeper either hadn’t yet arrived or stood somewhere in this crowd.

She recalled McClary’s vague report: a stoutish woman, somewhat smaller than Alice. Otherwise nondescript.

Only one woman here seemed to fit. She stood in the building’s shadows near the entrance steps. Alice would not have described

her as stout. She wasn’t large or plump, but she looked strong, with no softness about her.

As Alice’s gaze settled on her, the woman casually drew a boy behind her. Or tried to. He was not cooperating, and his attendant

became less casual and a degree more forceful.

“Georgie?” Alice called. “Is that my son, my dear Georgie?”

No response. She debated what to try next.

Then, “Ma!” came a familiar voice. A neatly capped head angled out from behind the woman’s skirts.

“Hush!” the woman said.

“Ma! Ow!”

“Stow it, you little bas— you naughty boy!” But he managed to pull away enough so that Alice had a better view. Her heart

sank. Not Jonesy.

But yes, the blue eyes—the scars—the bruise. In a shockingly clean face. Wearing shockingly neat, clean clothes, not a hole

or ragged edge in sight.

“Ma!” he called, and winced.

The woman was squeezing his toothpick of an arm, trying to push him behind her.

“Georgie!” Alice cried. “My dear lad!”

He strained to get free, but his captor held firm.

Alice marched closer.

“Ma!” Jonesy struggled, but he was no match for his watchdog.

“My poor Georgie!” Alice cried. She summoned her hours of studying and practicing lower-class accents. “I hardly know’d you, child, all skin and bones. What’s happened to you?”

The woman was possibly Alice’s age but possibly years older or younger. Whatever her age, she wasn’t to be taken in so easily.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” she said. “I found him, and I recommend you don’t mistake Maggie Proudie for no greenhorn. You don’t

steal him so easy as you think, Missus Whoever-You-Are.”

Gazing into the hard, knowing eyes, Alice wondered if this was a gang leader, one who’d sent Jonesy with the other boys on

the pickpocket expedition. In any case, Alice had better keep her wits about her.

She reminded herself that she was supposed to be a mother, a lioness protecting her cub. Drawing upon generations of patrician

arrogance and the wisdom of Keeffe, she made herself big, and she was not a small woman to begin with.

She stalked nearer and met the woman’s gaze. Others nearby gave way.

She was dimly aware of Blackwood looming nearby, but she kept her attention on the boy’s captor.

“You didn’t find that child under no cabbage leaf,” Alice said. “That’s my boy. You heard him. He knows me, don’t you, Georgie?

It’d be a funny thing if you didn’t know your own ma.”

“Ma!” he said. “Tell her to let me go!”

He was a quick-witted lad, no question. He’d recognized her, even dressed as she was. Or else he’d recognized Blackwood. In

any case, Jonesy had put two and two together almost instantly, and calculated the better outcome.

His captor’s eyes narrowed to slits. Like a viper about to strike, Alice thought.

“Nobody’s goin’ nowhere ’til we see that lawyer,” Maggie said. She put her free hand to her bosom.

Heart pounding, hands icy cold but not visibly trembling, Alice managed to copy the gesture, pretending she, too, kept a knife

concealed there. “I’d give him back now if I was you, Missus Proudie, because no lawyer’s going to hold with child-stealing,

and you could find yourself in a pot of trouble.”

“So you say.” The woman’s gaze never faltered. “He was lost in the streets with nowhere to go when I found him and took care

of him. The notice said to bring him to the lawyers, and I won’t give him to nobody else. I’ll have the reward, and you won’t

cheat me out of it. Then you can go up there”—she jerked her chin upward at the building—“and tell ’em he’s yours, and swear

your All-for-David to it, if you can.”

This woman was no fool. She knew what an affidavit was, even if she hadn’t the right word for it.

Her shrewd gaze took in Alice’s costume, from bonnet to shoes. “Which I don’t believe you can. You ain’t his ma, any more

than him .” The sharp chin jutted toward Blackwood, who’d drawn nearer.

He was there, a large shadow in Alice’s peripheral vision. She didn’t need to see him. She could feel his presence, the back

of her neck tickling as though his finger slid over it.

She heard coins jingle.

“Why don’t we save the lawyer and ourselves time and bother,” Blackwood said. “We’ll take the brat off your hands for ten

pounds, and add another pound for your trouble.”

“Twenty,” Maggie said instantly.

“I’ll count to five,” he said. “Then the offer disappears, and you get to explain, in detail, before witnesses, exactly where and how you found Mrs. Foster’s son. Maybe you’ll be paid the ten pounds. Maybe instead you’ll find yourself explaining to a magistrate.”

The other would-be George Fosters and their caretakers had crept closer at signs of an altercation. As Blackwood spoke, they

crept a few paces back. Only a few paces. Nobody wanted to miss the show.

Maggie’s jaw set.

“One,” he said. “Two.”

She held out her hand, palm up.

“Release the boy first,” Alice said.

“Three,” Blackwood said.