My Inconvenient Duke (Difficult Dukes #3)

Chapter 12

Sussex Place

“A hackney, Alice?” Aunt Florentia cried. “Have you taken leave of your senses? You cannot simply—”

“Somebody must go.”

“But where?”

Alice was not at all sure where to begin, but begin she must. “Kensington, it seems. Blackwood will know, but where is he?

Not here when needed. Out all night, no doubt, and recovering from the wretched excesses in a brothel or opium den.”

“My dear, there is bound to be a reasonable explanation. Or an unreasonable one. That is more likely. But regardless of the

reason, it is quite, quite mad to suppose you can find Ripley—on your own, no less. For all you know, it’s meant to be one

of their jokes.”

“Snow was beside himself!”

They’d sent him down to the servants’ hall for tea or brandy or whatever the senior servants deemed necessary to settle his

nerves.

“Ripley failed to enlighten him, that is all,” Aunt Florentia said. “You know those three do not always consider others. They act first and compensate afterward. You have no idea where your brother has gone or why. If he’s done it for a prank, you’ll have made a spectacle of yourself for nothing. You cannot afford a scandal—and that is the least of the dangers. Heaven only knows what sorts of people you’ll encounter. I do wish you’d take a moment to think in a rational manner.”

Alice drew on her gloves. “Somebody must do something. I cannot sit here stabbing a needle into linen when my brother may

be in danger. I cannot.”

Had she been certain Worbury was well away in Bath, she would worry, but not nearly as much.

If only Keeffe were here. And Cassandra. But they weren’t. Neither was Blackwood. Thomas would have to suffice as protection.

At least he was large.

“But we are promised to dine at Doveridge House,” her aunt said.

Doubt twinged. Was this madness, after all? Making mountains of molehills? Impossible to know, and one couldn’t take the chance.

“I can’t promise to be back in time,” she said. “I’m truly sorry to disappoint the duke, but it can’t be helped. Make my excuses,

but you are not to deceive him. He deserves the truth.”

If this sort of thing turned his mind against marrying her, it was better to know that now.

She hurried out of her aunt’s sitting room, down the stairs, and into the vestibule. She heard footsteps behind her: Thomas

in hot pursuit, as required. Another footman standing at the door hastily opened it. She hurried through—and ran straight

into Blackwood.

The impact might have thrown another man back, down the steps and onto the pavement. He staggered slightly, then grasped her

arms, his big hands crushing her sleeves. He set her firmly on her feet inside, and let her go.

She stepped back a pace, aware of the ghost of warmth and pressure on her arms, aware of the size of his gloved hands. For a moment she forgot what she was about. But in the blink of an eye she came to herself, and fear and rage crashed against surging relief.

Blackwood closed the door behind him.

“I knew this would happen,” he said. “I thank my lucky stars for Dawson. Another minute and you’d be charging away in your

chariot like Boadicea, leaving me in desperate pursuit.”

“Where have you been?” she cried. “You’re never there when one wants you.”

He waved away the hovering footmen. They went away, Thomas weeping tears of relief, she didn’t doubt.

“Shall I follow you about like your devoted footman, watching for the next cataclysm?” Blackwood said in a low voice. “Thank

you, but I have enough of that with my friends.”

He was so infuriatingly calm, she wanted to choke him.

A part of her knew she was being unfair, but anxiety fought with reason.

For Snow, of all people, to come here in a panic because Ripley had disappeared? Unheard-of, even in Ripley’s life of extremes.

And for this to happen when Worbury was reported to have left London—in the dead of night, no doubt, headed supposedly to

Bath, which would mean traveling the same road where Ripley lodged? A coincidence? Not likely.

“You were with him,” she said. “Last night. Snow said so.”

“I was. And left him in perfect health and cheerful spirits.”

“Drunk, you mean.”

“No, he planned an early bedtime in order to make an early start today.”

“He never went to bed, according to Snow.”

“Then he found a girl,” Blackwood said.

“She was the bait. For an ambush. I knew it.”

“That I very much doubt. Alice, you’ve let Snow’s panic affect you. If you would take but a moment to reflect—”

“I’ve taken moments! I’ve been waiting this age! Aunt said there was an explanation, but nobody seems to have one. Snow was

altogether in the dark. And when he went to your house, hoping you’d enlighten him, you weren’t there.”

“Lynforde and I decided to view an exhibition of watercolors. If Snow had waited not half an hour, as my butler tried to persuade

him to do—”

“If he’d done so, you wouldn’t have told me.”

“Not until I was certain we had reason to be anxious.”

She wanted to scream. She clenched her hands instead. “Is Snow not reason enough? He owns nerves of iron. Otherwise he couldn’t

have survived two days in my brother’s employ, let alone nearly a decade. He knows him. He wouldn’t panic if he hadn’t a good

reason. He said that after you left, Ripley was too restless to go to bed. He went down to the taproom. Snow fell asleep waiting

for him. This morning he learnt that Ripley had ordered his horse last night. He rode out. And that was the last anybody knew

of him.”

Finally she perceived a faint crack in Blackwood’s calm demeanor. “He took his horse?”

“Yes. Do you see now? Why should he take Lucetta out at all hours, when he planned to ride to Newmarket this morning? Would

he not want her fully rested for the journey?”

Silence fell, rather in the manner of a roof collapse.

In spite of Snow’s out-of-character panic, Blackwood had told himself that this was no more than the usual thing. Among Their Dis-Graces, unexplained disappearances were nothing new. Most often they involved women.

“I was not in possession of details,” he said. “Snow was not as coherent as he might have been when he spoke to Dawson.”

“If we might start out now,” she said, “I’ll be happy to supply such details as Snow conveyed.”

“ We are not starting out. I shall do the searching. Having you along will only complicate matters. You’ll remain here quietly—or

unquietly, as you choose—with your aunt, and let me find your brother. I always do.”

“No.”

“Alice.”

“You will not leave me behind to go mad with worry.”

Lady Kempton burst into the vestibule, huffing a little. “Blackwood, thank heaven you are here. You must make her see reason.”

“What I see is time passing,” Alice said. “My brother is in trouble, and we stand here, talking.”

The scene flashed in Blackwood’s mind again, of the morning at Camberley Place.

Ripley infuriated her, but she loved him dearly.

He remembered the letters she’d written so faithfully to her brother nearly every day, though Ripley was not so faithful in

answering. That was how Blackwood had first discovered Alice, months before he met her: through the letters her brother shared

with his friends—because they were brothers by bonds thicker than blood .

If he were in her place, how would he feel to be left behind?

“Alice had better come as well,” Blackwood said. “She’ll search for him, with or without me, Lady Kempton, no matter what we say or do. Better with me.”

He turned back to Alice. She was dressed more simply than usual, in a fawn-colored walking dress, and carrying a plain green

umbrella. She still looked expensive.

He gestured. “The hat. Send for something unexciting. Let’s try to attract as little attention as possible. While you do that,

I’ll speak to Snow.”

The interrogation of Snow added virtually nothing to what Blackwood and Alice already knew.

“He was calmer and coherent, but it was simply the same story in more intelligible form,” Blackwood told Alice as he turned

the carriage into Baker Street. “I don’t doubt we’ll make sense of it by the time we reach the scene of the crime that didn’t

happen.”

“You don’t know that it didn’t happen.”

“Experience tells me that what happened was a woman,” Blackwood said. “Ripley met up with her and changed his plans. Easy

enough. He wasn’t urgently needed at Newmarket. He’d intended to set out early, but a pretty girl made him set aside his intentions.”

“If that’s the case, I’ll slap him until he cries,” she said. “I’m so tired of worrying about him. I wish I could stop. It

does no good. It changes nothing. You’d think I’d have learnt by now.”

Blackwood glanced at her. She’d exchanged the exciting hat for a more subdued one of deep violet silk. Ruffles framed her face, and a ribbon wrapped about the crown, but no sprigs or flowers sprouted from the thing. The deep brim cast her face in shadow. He hoped it offered concealment enough, and he cursed Society for making concealment necessary.

She ought to be able to search for her brother without worrying about causing scandal and ruining her marital chances. It

was all so ridiculous.

But one couldn’t change the world they lived in. Men could escape it without much trouble. A woman who escaped lost everything.

He’d simply have to keep her as safe as he could, including safe from scrutiny. With the vehicle’s hood up, onlookers would

have to crane their necks and peer inside to recognize her. He didn’t intend to give anybody the opportunity.

All the same, if he didn’t smuggle her back to Sussex Place by nightfall, her reputation would be in tatters.

He silently cursed Ripley for disappearing. In answer, his mind busily painted pictures of the worst possible outcome: Ripley

set upon by an armed gang of ruffians... Ripley lying in a ditch... Ripley under an overturned carriage.

“I’ll hold him while you slap,” he said. “He’s ruined my day. I’d planned a peacefully amusing few hours before dinner. Lynforde

and I were to visit Crockford’s new bazaar in St. James’s Street. You might enjoy it. Pickpockets abound. I saw something

in the paper about a fellow caught in the act and sentenced to hard labor. One of your friends?”

“I saw that, and no, my friends, as you call them, are more highly skilled than that sad excuse for a thief. The report said

one of the bazaar’s officers as well as the inspectress watched Mr. Williams make several attempts. He’s been caught before,

more than once. He ought to take up a profession better suited to his limited abilities.”

“I hear the voice of Keeffe.”

“You hear correctly. If you plan to commit a crime, be sure you can do it competently.”

“Madam Proudie’s boys do it well enough, judging by what I was able to observe at Hyde Park Corner,” he said.

“They were splendidly trained,” she said. “If Keeffe hadn’t taught me how they work and what to watch for, I shouldn’t have

realized what they were about. I was amazed that Worbury noticed. Talk of light fingers!”

“And you wish Maggie would teach the boys instead to read and write and aspire to a career less likely to end in Newgate Prison.”

A pause. Then she turned in the seat to look at him. “I do wish it, yes. Great Juno, the demonstration she organized for you

in Golden Square! That is a formidable woman. Imagine what she could do if she applied her talents to philanthropy.”

“Crime is more profitable.” He was aware of her knee touching his, and of the rustle of heavy silk when she moved, and of the pull of longing. Too bad. He would simply have to endure it. He needed to make amends. If this

was punishment, he’d earned it.

“I envy her power, Giles.”

The words jarred him from his descent into self-pity.

“Maggie lives her life in the shadow of the gallows,” he said. “It isn’t romantic.”

“Who said it was? You can’t understand. You’re a man and a nobleman. You do exactly as you please.”

“Not exactly .” She had no idea, and it was better that way.

“Indeed, my heart breaks with pity,” she said. “A few rules about honor—pay your gambling debts, though not necessarily your

tailor and other tradesmen.”

Before he could contradict, she waved a gloved hand. “Yes, I know you three pay everybody because it keeps life running smoothly for you. It encourages service and loyalty. It keeps people quiet and happy. What other ghastly strictures do you labor under? Oh, yes, the onerous rule about viewing gently bred maidens as the Black Death. Because otherwise you might find yourself entangled and—heaven forfend!—inconveniently married... although it’s likely you could wiggle out of the difficulty if you throw money enough at it. But why take the chance, when there are so many willing women in the world?”

“Now I know what this day lacked,” he said. “A lecture.”

“I should lecture a brick with equal result,” she said. “I simply point out how oblivious you are to your circumstances, how

easy it is for you to do what you do. Really, how many rules can’t you break? How many broken ones can’t be mended with money

or influence?”

“Meanwhile, Maggie Proudie breaks all sorts of rules yet commands legions of not merely boys but desperate and dangerous men,”

he said. “I see, Alice. It took a while—I’m rather thick, as you know—but I do see. If it’s any comfort to you, I believe

you would have made a superior criminal overlord, if only Keeffe could have supervised your education from the beginning.”

The laugh broke from her like ice breaking, and he could feel the thaw set in. She turned away, yet out of the corner of his

eye he caught the lingering hint of her smile as she faced straight ahead.

He wished he could take that smile full-on, in the way one lifted one’s face to the sun. He wished... oh, when she looked

at him... he wanted to look back, and look forever, as though he could never get enough of her, of simply drinking her

in.

But looking could never be enough, and wishing was worse than pointless. Wishing was a reminder of lost chances.

Not to mention he’d nobody to blame but himself for being here, sitting beside her, looking and wishing, like a besotted schoolboy.

Still, it was Ripley’s fault, too, for not staying put and doing what he said he’d do, and when they found him, Blackwood

was going to slap him until he cried.

Then they’d both get very, very drunk. And break rules. Because that was so much fun, wasn’t it?

She had been wishing precisely what Blackwood said—that Maggie would teach the boys reading and writing instead of pocket-picking—and

it made Alice wild that he could do this so easily at times. It might be simple coincidence. It might be a clever guess. But

it might be something he did more easily and often than she realized. She might find him inscrutable at times, but she, apparently,

was transparent to him. He could find a way under her guard and make her laugh even when she wanted to throttle him.

She had thought, once upon a time, that they were allies, even kindred spirits. Rules had caged him, very much as they’d caged

her. But he’d broken free of the rules because he was a man and a duke. She, a duke’s daughter, could never break free without

losing the little power she had.

Money was power. Position was power. But a woman’s money and position stood on the shakiest ground, because they depended

on a man. So the world commanded.

The Great World. Good Society. The beau monde.

Her world now.

If that world found out what she was about at this moment and who she was with, she could lose everything she’d spent the last month struggling to achieve. She’d worked so hard to be respectable. To keep all radical thoughts and opinions to herself. To say and do nothing to set gossip mills grinding.

Men didn’t want wives who caused talk. Society ostracized women who were too outspoken—or at all outspoken.

Only look at what had happened to Cassandra last year. She’d had to go abroad again, because she’d embarrassed her family.

True, she’d set off a riot, but that was because she was a woman who’d contradicted a man in public.

Women were supposed to keep out of it, whatever it was.

Not this woman, Alice told herself. Maybe Blackwood could find her brother without her help. But she and he could do it more

efficiently together—the way they’d rescued Jonesy.

She sat quietly now, to let him keep his mind on driving, preferably at breakneck speed. She had plenty of time to think second

thoughts, if she needed to.

Once they’d turned into Oxford Street, Blackwood urged the horse to greater speed. He was a prime whip, because he was perfect

at everything. That was how he’d been trained, he’d told her long ago. All the same, even he needed to pay full attention

in order to make his way as swiftly as possible around slow or stalled vehicles while also dodging two- and four-footed wanderers.

After that they had a short distance to the next turn, at Park Lane.

They soon reached Piccadilly and entered the chaos of Hyde Park Corner. They endured only a brief slowing, though, before they broke out of it into Knightsbridge. The way was busy but not so crowded now as it would be at night when the Royal Mail coaches set out, all at the same time, with stage and post coaches joining the procession.

They passed a series of inns and taverns and the Horse Barracks, where the granite paving stones ended. They sped past the

Halfway House and the One-Mile Stone.

Having traveled this way from time to time on the journey to Camberley Place, she knew that many fine houses stood behind

the walls, trees, and shrubberies bordering the southern side of the road. Otherwise what she observed was foreign territory.

She was still relearning London and its environs after her time abroad.

They sped through Kensington Gore, came to a stop to pay at the tollgate, then continued to the Kensington High Street. Though

it felt to her as though they crept along, the swiftly passing landscape told the opposite story.

“Another time I’ll point out the sights,” he said. “Such as they are. But we’ve not far to go. The inn stands on the corner

of the road to one of the Earl of Lovedon’s country places, Castle de Grey.”

She looked about her, and her spirits sank. Buildings clustered along the road. Beyond them, however, was not a bustling town.

“It’s a great deal of countryside. I’ve been this way time and again, but never considered what I was seeing.”

“Some dozens of inns and taverns and shops huddle along the Uxbridge Road, as you’d expect,” he said. “North and south of

it lie a number of fine estates. More and more areas are being built upon all the time. Still, the place is mainly rural.

Fields and gardens. Acres of farmland. A great deal of productive countryside. It also holds substantial stretches of wasteland

where one finds potteries, piggeries, and brickmakers.”

“Ripley could be anywhere,” she said. “Talk of a needle in a haystack.”

“Good thing we’ve had recent practice with that sort of thing,” he said. “This time we’ve a few advantages. Not so many people.

No venturing into London’s rookeries. Equally important, a man like Ripley attracts more notice than a street child does.

For all we know, we’ll find him at the inn, all amazed at the fuss we’ve made.”

“If we find him at the inn, you will help me drag him to the nearest horse trough and hold his head under water until he gurgles

for mercy.”

“Agreed. But first things first. We’ve raced here with no plan. To begin with, you can’t be you, and I can’t be anybody but

me.”

“ You may have no plan,” she said. “I made one before I left Sussex Place, and dressed for the occasion. I thought carefully about

everything, including the hat you insisted I change. But I couldn’t bear to waste time arguing with you.”

“Since when?” he said.