Duke of Pleasure

  “Exactly.”

  “You can’t expect me to live on nothing!”

  “I expect you to live within your means,” Kyle snapped.

  The younger man drew himself up proudly. “Katherine would’ve been horrified had she known that you would treat me so shabbily after her death. We were very close, my sister and I. For shame, Kyle, for shame.”

  Kyle sighed. “My wife chose to provide you with a steady source of funds from the money I gave her. That was her own charity. I have no reason to continue it. The allowance your father provides you is more than—”

  “Why this odious judgmental tone?” The younger man’s eyes narrowed nastily. “Do you seek to punish me for Katherine’s transgressions against you? For Peter and—”

  Kyle rose, his legs braced apart, his face like stone. “Get out of my house.”

  David stood as well, so fast his chair screeched against the floor. He skittered back like a gutter rat, but he was still talking as if he just couldn’t stop his tongue. “You don’t understand, the way you were raised, the peasant blood from your mother, how a true aristocrat lives. What is expected of us and what we should do for family and—”

  “I understand that if you don’t leave now I’ll strip and whip you myself,” Kyle said, still in that calm, deadly voice.

  David tossed his head and stalked to the door—though it would’ve been a better exit if he hadn’t been in such a hurry.

  Alf watched the door slam behind him and then poured herself another cup of tea. It was nice and strong. She didn’t often drink tea. The tea leaves found in St Giles had already been used at least once, bought out the back door from houses like this one to be resold to people like her. She tipped the little pitcher of white, creamy milk over her cup and filled it half-full of the stuff, and then added two lumps of the sugar.

  She took a sip of the hot, sweet brew and caught Kyle’s eye.

  He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “I don’t guess you can pick your family.” She set her cup carefully back down. “’E was your wife’s brother?”

  He grimaced, gesturing with contempt at the closed door. “David Townes, Viscount Childress. He’s heir to the Earl of Barlowe, but his father is a canny old bastard and knows his son is a spendthrift. Barlowe keeps him on a very tight rein, hence that little piece of melodrama.”

  She nodded, surprised that he’d told her so much. So surprised, in fact, that she pushed for a bit more. “What did ’e mean? That your mother was a peasant?”

  He frowned, sitting back down. “I’d rather discuss the attacks.”

  She looked down at her teacup, hiding her disappointment that he wouldn’t answer her. How could a duke have a peasant for a mother?

  But maybe it was just the viscount’s way of insulting Kyle.

  She slouched in her chair. “Told you just about everything I knew last night, guv.”

  “Humor me,” he clipped out.

  “Very well.” She smirked. “Tell me ’oo you think might’ve ’ired the Scarlet Throat gang, guv. ’Oo wants you dead?”

  Two lines appeared between his black brows. “That’s none of your business.”

  “You’re the one wanting to discuss things, guv, not I. Besides”—she picked up another piece of bread and began buttering it—“Gots a knife wound in this ’ere leg says otherwise.”

  He cursed under his breath as she scooped up a big spoonful of jam and smeared it on the bread. She’d always loved jam, and this was strawberry with lovely bits of the fruit in it.

  He sighed. “The whole thing is quite complicated, and I’m not sure you’d understand.”

  She watched him in amusement as she took a bite of her jam and bread. If she were a highborn lady, she’d have jam and bread and tea every morning for her breakfast. “Try me.”

  “It’s either political—in which case you should be watching for men with Russian or Prussian accents—or…” He rubbed his temple.

  “Or…?” she prompted.

  “There’s a sort of club,” he said at last, sounding reluctant. “I’ve been tasked with bringing them down. They’re called the Lords of Chaos.”

  Alf swallowed the bite of bread and jam she’d taken and dusted off her hands. His words brought up all sorts of questions, but she asked only one. “Tasked by ’oo, guv?”

  He stared at her intently for a moment, and then he stood. “Come with me and I’ll show you.”

  Chapter Five

  The White Sorceress and her husband fought the flames, but the fire was magical. It yielded to neither water nor sand nor wind, but burned on relentlessly. She watched as first her husband burned to death, then one by one her four eldest children perished in the flames, screaming for their mother. Finally only her youngest child, a girl of six, remained, clutched in the White Sorceress’s arms.…

  —From The Black Prince and the Golden Falcon

  The problem, Hugh mused as he waited for the carriage to be readied, was that Alf would be off like a shot if he let him. The boy would stubbornly go back to St Giles—and might be dead by nightfall. He wasn’t used to taking orders and apparently had an innate suspicion of those trying to help him as well, if last night’s argument was any indication.

  Hence Hugh’s decision to simply bring the boy with him on his errand to see Shrugg this morning. This way he could keep Alf by his side, where he could watch him and protect him.

  The boy also seemed to enjoy flouting authority—Hugh hadn’t missed that Alf refused to address him properly as a duke. Usually he didn’t pay much attention to the nicety of people addressing him as Your Grace—his men often didn’t, used as they were to his command position in the army. He knew that when his men addressed him as sir instead of Your Grace, no disrespect was intended.

  Quite the opposite, in fact.

  When Alf addressed Hugh in his cavalier manner as guv, Hugh was fairly certain that more than a touch of disrespect was intended. What was more troubling than the boy’s mockery was Hugh’s own reaction: he found he didn’t mind.

  Worse: he found Alf’s teasing rather amusing.

  “This ’er?”

  He turned at the sound of the boy’s voice.

  They were in the entry hall—an opulent room, naturally, with gray-and-green-marbled floors and green fabric walls. Alf had been squinting at the chandelier above—a great, gaudy thing that Katherine had bought in the first year of their marriage—but now he saw the boy had wandered to the grand staircase. He stood staring up at Katherine’s portrait.

  Hugh had the urge to snap at him to mind his manners and get away from the painting, but that was rude. And the lad was merely curious.

  He took a breath and walked over, glancing at Katherine. It was a full-length portrait and she stood in what looked like classical ruins, one arm leaning on a broken pillar. She’d chosen to be painted in a draped white dress, almost a chemise, with an ermine cape carelessly thrown over it. Her mahogany hair—her pride and joy—was undone, cascading down one shoulder, and her head was half turned away from the viewer, the better to reveal the long line of her white neck.

  She was beautiful in the portrait as she had been in life, but Hugh had never thought the painting did her justice. The pose was too static. The artist, however accomplished, hadn’t captured Katherine’s essential vivaciousness. She’d been able to walk into a room and instantly command it, drawing the attention of both men and women.

  He looked at her now and felt nothing. “Yes, that’s Katherine, my late wife.”

  “When did she…?”

  “Last September.” She’d been gone almost five months.

  He felt the quick look Alf darted at him. “I’m sorry, guv.”

  There wasn’t much he could say to that without appearing rude. He kept the portrait up only for his sons’ sakes.

  The boy tilted his head. “I can see Lord Peter in ’er. They ’ave the same eyes. Pretty and blue.”

  Hugh glanced at Alf in amusement. “You
like blue eyes?”

  The boy scuffed his shoes against the floor. “Doesn’t everyone?”

  “I don’t know.” He examined the boy, realizing he knew very little about Alf. “Do you have a sweetheart with blue eyes?”

  “Me, guv?” Alf looked at him, wide eyed, and Hugh thought he must’ve hit on some truth. He’d never seen the boy so flustered.

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Or a lass that you’re interested in?”

  Alf blinked and seemed to regain some of his customary aplomb. “Tell you what, guv, if’n I did ’ave a lass I fancied, it wouldn’t be because of the color of ’er eyes. At least not that alone.”

  “No?” Hugh felt his lips twitch. He really oughtn’t to tease the lad. “Tits or arse?”

  Alf appeared to goggle for a moment. Then he glared. “Arse. Most definitely arse. But that’s not what I’m talking about.”

  “Then what?”

  “Other things.” Alf waved his arms over his head in illustration. “Bigger things. If she laughs and what she laughs at. If babies and little children make ’er smile. If she takes care of ’er family even when they drive ’er wild. And if she likes looking at the stars at night.” The boy set his hands on his hips and glared at him. “Those things are more important in a sweetheart than the color of ’er blasted eyes.”

  Looking at the stars at night? Hugh looked at Alf a little sadly. “Why, imp, you’re a romantic.”

  A blush lit the boy’s downy cheeks. He lifted his chin. “And that’s not allowed, is it? That an urchin from St Giles should have romantic dreams? Is romance only for rich coves?”

  “Oh, it’s allowed,” Hugh said. “Just be sure to take care with your romantic’s soul. I have the feeling Fate doesn’t give a fig where you hail from or what the state of your finances when she decides to crush your dreams.”

  Alf opened his mouth—and then closed it and looked from him to Katherine’s painting and back again. He grimaced in what looked like sympathy. “I can understand why you might feel that way, guv, but—”

  “Actually, you understand very little,” Hugh replied crisply. He was tired of this ridiculous conversation. “Come, the carriage must be ready by now.”

  He strode to the front entrance to his town house, feeling unaccountably irritable.

  Alf, however, made sure to keep up, and as Hugh made to open the front door, the boy leaned toward him.

  “One thing you got wrong though, guv.”

  “What’s that?” Hugh growled.

  “I’m not that partial to blue eyes.” He looked amused. “I like my lasses with dark eyes.”

  SEEING LONDON THROUGH a carriage window was very different from walking the streets, Alf reflected five minutes later. She was on the edge of the fine red leather seat, peering out the glass. Strange to see the streets from inside a carriage. There were the sweeper boys with their brooms ready to clear the way for a penny or two for those crossing the street—and to flick muck on the clothes of those who refused to pay. Here were two ladies, arm in arm, one in a dark-red dress, the other in a blue striped skirt and a jacket. They tilted their heads together as a young officer on horseback rode by.

  Alf was higher inside the carriage, the street sounds muffled by glass. Apart. Not down in the noisy, mostly messy street. Even those ladies in their lovely dresses had to rub elbows with the milkmaids and charwomen they passed.

  She sat back in the seat. Little wonder the rich sometimes seemed to have trouble thinking of everyone else as people.

  She glanced across the carriage at Kyle.

  He sat staring out the window, lost in his own dark thoughts. Was he in mourning for his beautiful, dead wife? She wanted to keep prying, to crack him open, and find out if he was hurt inside or indifferent to that regal, gorgeous creature draped in ermine in the portrait. But that strange moment between them in the hall had passed—the man who had teased her about having a sweetheart had disappeared.

  Just as well, really. He was a duke, her employer, nothing else.

  Except that when she’d been wounded last night she’d fled to him. Not her nest. Not St. John. Him.

  True, the way into St Giles had been blocked and she’d been fearful of more Scarlet Throats waiting for her there, but that hadn’t been the only reason she’d sought out Kyle for safety.

  Even afraid and in pain, she’d instinctively known she could trust him, a man she hardly knew.

  Maybe it was that kiss.

  Alf snorted under her breath. She could just hear what Ned would have said to that thought. Never trust anyone, especially not a bloody toff. It had practically been her bedtime story when they’d lain together, curled tight against the cold. They might talk pretty, but they’re only after what you can do for them, or worse—what’s between your legs. Best trust no one but yourself.

  Well, and Ned, of course, but he hadn’t been around for a long, long time. She’d had to learn to figure out whom to trust and whom to run away from on her own.

  And she trusted Kyle.

  Across from her he sighed and sat up. “We must be nearly there.”

  Alf glanced out the window and realized that the carriage was pulling up in front of an enormous brick building fronted by two tall towers with a clock between them.

  St James’s Palace.

  Which was where the King lived.

  She darted an incredulous look at Kyle, but he was already preparing to get out of the carriage and didn’t seem to notice. Surely he didn’t mean for her to go in?

  But he was looking at her impatiently now.

  She took a deep breath and stood, moving carefully because her leg was still giving her pain.

  Kyle stepped from the carriage and turned to watch her descend, poised as if he might offer help.

  She shot him a glare.

  His mouth quirked up at that, and then they were walking into the royal palace. Alf tried not to stare, but really there was no help for it. There were guards all in fancy costumes and finely dressed people standing about, the ladies in ridiculously wide panniers. The guards seemed to recognize Kyle. A liveried footman hurried over, bowed, and led them through the reception hall and into another corridor, this one less crowded.

  Alf looked around curiously as they walked, wondering if the King himself had trod this hall. Well, he must’ve, mustn’t he? This was where he and the Queen lived. The palace was grand, but not nearly as wonderful as she’d imagined a king’s home would be. For one thing the rooms were smaller than those she’d seen in the few aristocratic houses she’d been in, and for another they were a bit fusty and old-fashioned. Still. It was a palace. Princes and princesses and kings and queens slept and ate and breathed here, almost like real people.

  Eventually their corridor narrowed, and it looked as if they were in the servants’ quarters, of all things.

  Abruptly the footman stopped before a nondescript door, opened it, and said, “The Duke of Kyle to see you, sir.”

  They entered a cramped, crowded office.

  Alf raised her eyebrows at the stout little man getting to his feet behind the enormous desk. He was well over fifty, with a jowly face and sad, lined eyes, and he wore a gray wig with tiny little curls across the front. If this was King George II, he looked nothing like his portraits.

  “Kyle!” exclaimed the man, his cornflower-blue eyes bulging a bit. “What’s this I hear about you nearly being killed the other night?”

  “Your spies are as quick as ever, I see, Shrugg,” the duke replied drily.

  Definitely not the King, then. Alf fought not to feel disappointed.

  “Yes, well, I shouldn’t have to rely upon whispers and rumors for information about your health.” The other man frowned, causing his face to slump into a mass of lines. “I had to tell Him over luncheon and you know how delicate His digestion is.”

  Kyle arched a cynical-looking eyebrow as he took one of the chairs before the desk. “I’m surprised He had any reaction at all, frankly.”

  Shrugg’s look was ch
iding. “You are his son, Your Grace.”

  And that was when Alf realized that they were talking about the King. Stunned, she sank into the other chair before the desk, looking between the two men. She had so many questions, but she knew better than to interrupt this fascinating conversation.

  “One of several and a bastard to boot,” Kyle was drawling.

  “An acknowledged bastard, Your Grace,” Shrugg retorted. “And therein lies all the difference.”

  Kyle waved away that point as if he’d grown tired of the debate—which Alf found very frustrating. “The attack is why I’ve come to consult with you.”

  “Oh?”

  The duke nodded. “It wasn’t a footpad who happened to cross my path. I was deliberately targeted and nearly assassinated by nearly a dozen men.”

  Shrugg sat back in his chair and was quiet for a moment. Then, for the first time, he glanced at Alf. “Who is this?”

  “My informant, Alf, from St Giles. Alf, this is Copernicus Shrugg, the King’s personal secretary. Amongst other things.”

  Alf nodded at the old man, who was examining her closely. “’Ow d’you do?”

  “You trust him?” Shrugg asked without taking his gaze from her.

  “I’d not have brought him otherwise,” Kyle said mildly.

  Shrugg nodded and at last looked at the duke again. “You think the attack was the Lords of Chaos.”

  Kyle nodded once. “Yes, I do.” He sat forward in his chair, his elbows on his knees as he spoke. “I was returning from a dinner at the Habsburg ambassador’s residence, where I overheard a Russian spy delivering probable secrets to a Prussian—”

  Shrugg interrupted with an exclamation.

  Kyle waved it aside. “I’ll send you a report. The day after the attack I hired Alf to find out who sent the assassins after me, and he got a description, but not a very good one.”

  Shrugg turned his attention to her.

  Alf lifted her eyebrows. “The cove stank of rotten eggs. Maybe.” She glanced at Kyle pointedly. “Might not even be the one you’re looking for, guv—I told you that.”

  “That’s it?” Shrugg looked incredulous.