My Inconvenient Duke (Difficult Dukes #3)

Chapter 8

Maggie let go of Jonesy. Before he could bolt, Alice grabbed him. She threw Blackwood one quick smile and hustled the boy

away.

She was aware of negotiations going on behind her, but she left business to the duke. Bribery was one of Their Dis-Graces’

specialties. If he couldn’t manage Maggie Proudie, nobody could.

Alice wished she could be a fly on the wall, but the boy’s safety came first.

“We need to get you out of harm’s way—and no arguments,” she said. She hurried the child along Inner Temple Lane, back to

Fleet Street. Bypassing Blackwood’s waiting carriage, she made for the nearest hackney stand.

Jonesy remained mute until they’d boarded the coach and she’d given the driver Madame Girard’s direction.

Once the vehicle started westward, he found his tongue.

“Vat were a whisker she tole you,” he said. “I weren’t never lost. I were in the High Street, and vey was comin’ from the Marshalsea. Five of ’em coves of hers and one of me. Vey brung me to her, and she said she’d take care of me. I didn’t like it, but when I took off, vey come after me and half-drownded me.”

More than once, Alice guessed, in order to break down rebellious inclinations.

“Vey watched me all the time,” he said. “The only chance I got to get away was when you seen me t’other day. But she come

after me today right when we was run off our legs in the yard. I had to go wif her ’n’ do like she said. I was scairt what

she’d do if I didn’t.” He scowled. “She made me have a baff! Vey rubbed the skin off of me!”

Maggie Proudie had not wasted a minute hunting down the boy and having him cleaned up for examination.

A good thing, too, that she’d taken the time to make him presentable, and that Alice had acted quickly and dragged Blackwood

from his bed.

A few minutes’ more delay and they would have faced extreme complications, not to mention greater danger.

But they’d succeeded, and in short order she’d put the boy in safe hands, she’d go home, and Society would be none the wiser.

Meanwhile Jonesy had no idea of the peril he’d narrowly missed. To him, the bath was the worst of his trials.

“You were right to be afraid,” she said. “Is Maggie a gang leader?”

He shrugged. “You wanner watch out for her. She’ll come for you.”

“Let her try.” True, the woman exuded menace. True, she might well be the most dangerous and frightening individual Alice had ever met. But Lady Alice Ancaster was not a small boy who had nobody to look after her. “Meanwhile you, my lad, are going on holiday, away from London.”

He tensed, and his brow furrowed. “Away where?”

He was suspicious, as any intelligent street child ought to be.

“Putney,” she said. “But first I’m taking you to a good friend of mine. You know her. Madame Girard.”

He thought. “The brown lady? The one talks foreign? Her?”

“That one,” Alice said. “She’s the one who let me know you were in trouble. The man whose handkerchief the other boy stole?

He’s a mean one. He wants to catch somebody for it, and he picked you because he got a good look at you, which is my fault.”

He rubbed his knuckles against his cheek. “I would’ve got nabbed if you didn’t do nuffin’. Vem other coves, vey run off to

let ’em nab me.”

He was the new boy, expendable, as Liliane had said. Maggie wouldn’t want a stolen child on her hands if she saw a risk of

the authorities tracking him to her lair. If she could make an easy ten pounds turning him in, so much the better.

Alice said, “We didn’t want you to swing for something you didn’t do.”

The child stared at his boots, not new, but not coated in mud and only slightly scuffed.

These days, children were rarely hanged, especially for a first offence. Still, influential persons could adjust the scales

of justice to suit themselves. And some judges were notorious for severity.

“Had you been the one who stole the handkerchief, I wouldn’t have bothered,” Alice went on. “I don’t help thieves. Do you

understand?”

His blue gaze rose to meet hers, and he grinned. “Yer learnin’ me a lesson, Yer Highness.”

“Ah, you did recognize me, in spite of this.” She indicated her disguise.

“Not straight off. But I fought I knew yer voice. Ven, when I seen the big gentry cove from t’other day, I smoked you.”

“I counted on your being a clever boy, Master Georgie Foster or Jonesy or Jos or Rocket or Oyster or whoever you are.”

He laughed. “Look who’s talkin’, Ma .”

She swallowed a smile. It wasn’t easy to tell where one stood with a street child, but he seemed to trust her.

“Then will you listen to your ma, and go away to Putney like a good boy?”

His eyes narrowed. “How far?”

“A few miles upriver,” she said. “Several good coaching inns are there. Madame Girard will arrange for you to work at one

of them.”

She and Liliane had agreed that the prospect of another coaching inn, with all the horses coming and going and a bustle he

was familiar with, would appeal.

All the same, he looked dubious, and Alice couldn’t blame him. He probably thought Putney was in a foreign country. She’d

met adult Londoners who’d never ventured beyond their immediate neighborhoods.

She remembered the stories Keeffe had told her and Cassandra about his London childhood and the methods he’d used to survive.

You don’t trust nobody. If it looks like a favor, look again and then again. Everybody’s watchin’ out for hisself. When your

gut tells you to get yourself lost, you do it, quick time.

“Or I can turn you loose wherever you say, Master Georgie Foster, et cetera, et cetera, and you can take your chances,” Alice

said.

“Lemme fink,” he said.

The Duke of Blackwood retired with Maggie Proudie to the Cock, a tavern near Temple Bar. At this hour, the place was nearly empty. It was also dark, which was why Maggie preferred it. For Blackwood the attraction was what the Epicure’s Almanack had once proclaimed “the best porter in London.”

He and the gang leader had come to an agreement over the porter and a substantial breakfast. This was not the Cock’s usual

fare in the forenoon. But the Duke of Blackwood got what he wanted when he wanted it, and easily enough. All the world knew

Their Dis-Graces were free with their money.

He wanted sustenance to restore his nerves to working order. He’d made himself stand by and watch, braced to intervene, while

Alice confronted this woman, who wouldn’t have thought twice about slashing her face to ribbons.

The encounter was like a duel, he’d told himself, and he was not the principal but her second. The smallest word or movement

could distract her. His job was to let her concentrate on what she was doing.

Knowing this was the intelligent thing to do had not made it a fraction less hellish. A part of him still reeled.

“We’ve a bargain, then,” he said now.

Maggie nodded. “We do. Only we’d best make sure we’re plain about some things.” She lowered her voice. “Like, you oughter

know, any o’ them beak’s men come botherin’ me ’bout this, I’ll know why.”

“When the law comes after you, I don’t doubt you will know why,” he said. “But that will be none of my doing. Unless, that

is, you break the terms of our bargain. In which case the beak’s men will be the least of your problems.”

He spoke softly, easily, but she sat back.

“Only making sure we’re plain about some things,” he said.

She gave a short laugh. “Oh, you’re a one, ain’t you?”

She bent toward him once more, and keeping her voice very low, added, “You bein’ so generous, I’ll tell you something you

oughter know. The mort you come with: I can’t say what she is, but she ain’t no washerwoman. She don’t smell like one. And

her hands.” She held out her own. “Too soft.” Hers were clean but not soft.

“I see.” What he saw was how easily Alice might have been maimed. Murdered. He swallowed the last of his porter.

“As to the boy,” Maggie said. “Good luck with him. More trouble than he’s worth.”

“On that we agree,” he said.

Among other matters they’d settled, he’d paid her handsomely to leave the young vagrant alone henceforth and to spread the

word among her confederates. With any luck, the brat would stay in Putney, or decide to make an ocean cruise to New South

Wales.

She emptied her tankard and set it down. “I thank you kindly for the vittles and drink. I’d like to stay and palaver, because

you’re a funny sort of nob, but I got work to do, and best get doing it.”

She rose and he did, too, because a gentleman is unfailingly polite. He watched her go out.

Then he summoned the waiter and took his time about paying the shot. When he estimated she’d put sufficient distance between

them, he left.

Alice leant closer to the window of Madame Girard’s drawing room, watching Jonesy and the groom in charge of him drive away.

“He is out of danger,” Liliane said. “He will be away from the bad influences. He will have clean air and better food.”

“And horses,” Alice said, forcing a smile. She’d miss him, the naughty little urchin.

“And then, who knows?” Madame said. “With his skill, he could rise to become a groom, even a coachman. We offer an opportunity.

We cannot control what he makes of it.”

“That is more than true.” All was well, yet Alice was not.

Liliane gently laid her hand on Alice’s arm. “You were brave to do what you did,” she said.

“Mad is more like it.” Alice looked down at her hands. They trembled now, though they hadn’t before. The aftereffects. “I

couldn’t let fear control me then. I had to pay strict attention. That woman. To find Jonesy in her hands.” She shook her

head. “You’d never notice her in the street. But up close, face-to-face, one feels it. She’s formidable, Liliane.”

“You had the Duke of Blackwood as chevalier,” Liliane said. “You thought in the way an urgent situation demands. One throws

aside ordinary considerations and seeks the most expedient means.”

Chevalier. A knight. Alice smiled and shook her head. “Is that how I shall explain to the gossipmongers?”

“Who’ll know what you did? Nobody could possibly recognize you. Who would be out and about at that hour? No member of Society,

I promise you.”

“It was well before Blackwood wanted to be up and about, certainly.” The image came sharply into focus of the dressing gown

lapping about his naked ankles... the few inches of muscled, hairy leg.

She smoothed her skirts and tried to smooth her mind. She’d reverted to proper attire while Madame bribed Jonesy with sweets and sent him to the stables with a manservant. Alice had suggested adding a visit to the coach house, where several fine vehicles might act as lures. The strategy worked.

All was in order, she told herself, and her life would continue as planned. Tonight she’d attend Almack’s first assembly of

the Season. Doveridge would be there, along with other beaux. She had a few wallflowers to look after. This was more than

enough to think about. She had no time for inconvenient feelings.

Sussex Place

Midafternoon

Blackwood sent up his card, then wondered what he was about. The servant would only return to tell him the ladies weren’t

at home.

He was supposed to keep his distance. He didn’t need to see for himself whether Alice had arrived safely. He didn’t need to

come in person to assure her that the sewer rat was safe from Maggie Proudie henceforth. There were other ways. He wasn’t

thinking clearly.

He was about to do the intelligent thing and show himself out of the house when the butler appeared. To Blackwood’s surprise,

he was escorted not only into a drawing room but into one containing guests. A glance took in Lynforde, Lady Drakeley, Tom

Drakeley, another matron, and a girl who must be her daughter.

They all faded to a stage setting when his gaze settled upon Alice.

Though he’d seen her mere hours earlier, he found it impossible to believe she’d ever been a washerwoman.

She sat back upon the cushions of the drawing room’s L-shaped divan, the perfect lady. She wore a dress striped alternately with a color Blackwood’s last mistress had called Nile water green and a sort of peach color whose fashionable name he didn’t know. The dress’s V-neck, which had extremely wide lapels, plunged

nearly to her belt. A clear cambric chemisette filled in the V but only thinly veiled the creamy flesh beneath it.

Blackwood did not object to the scanty covering. What he objected to was the other gentlemen in the room having the same view.

He crushed the feeling and said what he was supposed to say, precisely according to instructions in The Correct Behavior of a Gentleman .

To his bewilderment, he found himself being made acquainted with the matron and her daughter: Lady Felpham and Miss Emily

Felpham, an extremely shy girl whose color went from red to white and back again several times during the introduction, and

who seemed in imminent danger of fainting. However, her mother bore her off shortly thereafter. Then, as so often happened

when Blackwood appeared, others discovered reasons to depart. Lynforde dawdled, the last to leave. Flee. Whatever.

The leave-takings included promises to see Lady Alice and Lady Kempton this evening at Almack’s.

Blackwood wouldn’t see Alice there. He was banned.

Other men would dance with her. Other men would hold her hand. Other men would feel her skirts brushing against their legs...

Nobody’s fault but his. She’d never dance with him again. After the goat incident at Almack’s, she’d told him so. Furthermore, she hated him and would never forgive him or her brother or Ashmont for spoiling Cassandra’s first Almack’s assembly. She’d failed to mention the fact that they’d spoilt hers at the same time. It was all about Cassandra, whose feelings they’d hurt because not one of them had asked for a dance or even spared her a few minutes’ conversation. They were boors. They were immature and selfish. They didn’t deserve to breathe the same air. Etc. Etc.

She wasn’t wrong, and Blackwood couldn’t go back and make it right. He dragged the memory to the mental cavern and reminded

himself why he’d come. All he needed to do was say what he had to say and get out. He told himself this while her guests busily

pretended they weren’t running away.

He told himself he wasn’t tired of people running away from him.

“It seems we owe you thanks,” Lady Kempton said once the room had cleared. “We were in a considerable quandary last night

after we’d seen the handbills. But here is Alice, who did not, as I truly feared, get herself murdered. And the boy is in

good hands.” She let out a sigh. “For the moment.”

“You did a good deed,” Alice said. “Aunt nearly fainted when I told her.”

“As though I had a choice.” He walked to a window and looked out at the lake.

“You might have had her thrown out of the house,” Lady Kempton said. “You’d no idea who it was.”

“In fact, I planned to throw her out bodily myself. Why should the porter have all the fun? But then the sleep destroyer turned

out to be Alice, about to do something deranged, and I was obliged to save her from herself and tidy up afterward. Not for

the first time.”

“Choice or not, you did us a great service,” Lady Kempton said.

He turned away from the window, and his surprise must have shown—he wasn’t himself, after all, having enjoyed almost no sleep—because Alice said, “You needn’t be anxious, Giles. It isn’t as though we’re going to tell anybody.”

“In short, the brat’s been taken care of,” he said.

Her expression softened. “He’s probably in Putney by now.”

“He’ll be safe from Maggie Proudie as well as Worbury,” he said. “She and I reached an agreement. That’s what I came to tell

you. There will be no further trouble from that quarter. In fact, she’s undertaken to declare the boy out of bounds to the

rest of the vermin who form her acquaintance.”

“Good grief.” Lady Kempton shook her head.

“She wields a great deal of power, then,” Alice said. “I guessed as much. She seems the type nobody would notice. But at close

quarters...” She looked away, as though seeking words. “It’s like facing a viper. A crocodile. One does not feel safe,

to say the least.”

“You needn’t give her another thought,” he said. “As to Worbury—”

“He’s only grown worse. Cringing and smirking to our faces, then going after a child. I should like to take a horsewhip to

him.”

She would do it, too.

“You needn’t exert yourself,” he said. “By tomorrow, he’s likely to decide London no longer agrees with him. In any case,

you may leave him to me.” He started to turn away, then paused. “On second thought, I insist you leave him to me. You’re too reckless. Ladies.” He bowed and made his escape.

Aunt Florentia turned to Alice. “He isn’t wrong. Had I known precisely what you planned—”

“I didn’t know what I planned,” Alice said. She didn’t add, Not that you could have stopped me . “I only knew I had to do something. When I reached Liliane’s, it simply became obvious that somebody had to find Jonesy before any criminals did, and who else but me? It was so early in the morning, I never supposed that a gang leader would be up and about.”

“But the children go out in the daytime to pick pockets,” her aunt said.

“Rarely in the forenoon.” Alice glanced down to make sure her chemisette was properly in place. She’d felt Blackwood’s gaze

there... and sliding away, the lightest touch. It was as though his hand had brushed the chemisette and it dissolved under

the touch. She’d felt it on her skin, and within she’d felt a tug, low in her belly.

She recognized the sensation too well. She wanted to feel that powerful pull to somebody else, somebody who was the right

choice. She told herself to be patient. Uncle Charles had not made Aunt Julia’s heart flutter at first. She’d wanted another

gentleman. She’d never gone into detail, merely mentioned this as an example of youthful infatuation versus mature affection.

She’d married a worthy man, and her tepid feelings had warmed and deepened into powerful love.

Aunt Florentia brought her attention back. “I do wish you were not quite so well-versed in these matters, my dear.”

“I can’t shut my eyes,” Alice said. “At any rate, it’s too late. I’ve learnt and I can’t unlearn. What matters is, I came

away unhurt, the child will work at a respectable coaching inn, and Blackwood assures us that Worbury won’t trouble the boy

again. I wonder what he has in mind for the Worm.”

“I wonder what business Blackwood had in London that his secretary or steward or solicitor couldn’t manage for him. I thought

Julia had told the dukes to keep away.”

Alice rose from the divan and crossed to the window Blackwood had looked out of. “Jonesy and I were lucky he was here. I might have managed on my own, but not so easily or so well. I was in such a state, I never thought of bribery, the obvious method.

I was too busy wishing I’d remembered to carry a weapon and deciding how to defend myself if she tried to cut my throat.”

“Good grief, Alice.”

Alice laughed and turned back to her aunt. “And tonight we shall attend Almack’s first assembly of the Season, we and some

three or four hundred other elite persons. How many, do you think, in their wildest dreams, would guess where Lady Alice Ancaster

was this morning and what she was doing?”

“None, I fervently hope, my dear.”

Which was as it should be, Alice told herself. This morning had constituted an emergency, a crisis. It wasn’t her life. It

wasn’t the life she needed.

She didn’t regret what she’d done this day. In truth, she’d felt more alive during those morning hours than she’d done in

what seemed like a very long time. She’d made herself truly useful to somebody, and it had been dangerous and exciting and

satisfying.

Almack’s was bound to seem tame in comparison, but tame was the life she sought: the opposite of her parents’ turmoil and her brother’s chaos. She would become a settled matron,

and do more good that way than with a hundred disguises and brushes with death.

Late afternoon

Lord Worbury stormed out of the Fisk Building, Consett on his heels.

“Impossible,” Worbury said. “The notices were everywhere. Ten pounds! And nobody tries to claim it? Nobody? ”

“The boy could be dead,” Consett said. “Or, you know, maybe his mother or father saw the notices and came and got him before

the lawyers were ready. Maybe somebody found him before the notices went up.”

“Mother! If the filthy little bastard has one, she’s a street slut with no idea who his father is or what parts of London

her numerous spawn are infesting.”

Worbury paused and looked about him at the ancient structures surrounding the court. “There was a small crowd, Maycock’s clerk

said. Then it dispersed. Nobody knows why, and nobody is inclined to look into it.”

“Don’t see how they could, if everybody left,” Consett said.

“They preferred not to look into it, more likely. Too much bother.”

Possibly Maycock hadn’t swallowed Worbury’s tale of wanting to assist, anonymously, a family whose son had been stolen. Or

maybe the apathy resulted from Worbury’s failure to pay recent legal fees.

Who cared why? Couldn’t trust lawyers—pettifoggers, all of them.

“Maybe somebody will turn up tomorrow,” Consett said.

“That I doubt. Something’s wrong here, damn them all to hell!”

Worbury left the court to storm along Inner Temple Lane. Before he reached the entrance to Fleet Street, a common-looking

female emerged from a doorway and bumped into him.

“Watch where yer goin’,” she said.

“Get out of my way,” he said, and knocked her aside.

The blow threw her back against the building, her head struck the bricks, and she sank to the ground.

Consett, trying to keep up with his friend, paused, gaped at the fallen figure, then hurried on.

When the pair had disappeared through the gateway, she stood up, straightened her bonnet, and brushed herself off. She drew

from her pocket a gold watch and chain, complete with seals.

“Not a bad day’s work, Maggie,” she said. “Lost a boy but won twenty quid from the big swell and more to come later, got a

good look at this pair, and had an easy dive for gold in the bargain.”

She bobbed a scornful curtsey toward the gateway her accoster had gone out of. “Much obliged, sir.”

With a laugh, she set out in the opposite direction. She made her way eastward through the maze of streets to Blackfriars

Bridge, collecting handbills as she went.