Duke of Pleasure

  He hadn’t felt like this in years. The last time—

  He ran out of the alley and into a courtyard. Even before Hugh could wonder which way his quarry had turned, there was another whistle, and he saw the Ghost darting over the roofs, making for a lane across the courtyard. She obviously had the Scarlet Throat still in sight.

  He slid on cobblestones as he ran to the lane. Someone yelled from behind him. And then he was in another narrow passage. There was an abrupt right-angle turn, and he took it, ignoring the yowl of a cat as he raced by, and then he burst into a courtyard.

  The Ghost was there.

  On the ground, her half cape a black whirl as she danced with her swords, their prey cornered. Something caught his attention about her movements—something not quite right—but as he watched, she knocked aside the man’s knife and placed her long sword against his throat and the thought died.

  She smiled.

  And he was amazed that anyone thought her a man.

  Even under a half mask and wide-brimmed hat, in a man’s doublet, leggings, and boots, she stood so gracefully. Pert chin tilted up, right arm thrust out straight before her, she held the deadly sword tip against the Scarlet Throat’s Adam’s apple. Her left arm was to the side in counterbalance, her short sword in her left hand. She was slim and small, but so quick and ruthless. A man would have to be constantly on his toes with her around.

  She turned her head slightly and cocked it toward him as if to ask, What’s taking so long?

  Of course she knew he was there.

  Hugh strode to stand beside her, looking at the ruffian.

  The whites of the man’s eyes shone in the moonlight as his gaze darted from the Ghost to Hugh.

  “Who hired you to kill me?”

  “I… I don’t—”

  The man’s stutter was cut off with a small cry when the Ghost pressed her sword tip slightly into his skin. Blood began trailing down his neck.

  “’E didn’t give ’is name!” the man said. “Honest! ’E’d be a fool to.”

  “What did he look like?”

  The Scarlet Throat’s eyes rolled to look at the Ghost.

  She jerked her chin at him, her sword pressing into his neck. Fresh blood oozed out.

  The ruffian gulped. “’E were a bit shorter than you”—he nodded at Hugh—“wore a black coat and breeches and an acorn-brown waistcoat, nicely embroidered, that. Black greatcoat. White wig. Talked like a bloody duke.”

  “He was titled?” Hugh interrupted.

  The man shrugged. “Dunno.”

  “What else? Did you see the color of his eyes? How old he was?”

  “Don’t know what color ’is eyes were.” The man screwed up his face as if thinking. “He might’ve been thirty. Or forty.”

  Hugh bit back a curse. “Had you ever seen him before?”

  “No.”

  “Bloody hell,” Hugh spit. “Is there anything you can tell me about him?”

  “Stank of rotten eggs,” the Scarlet Throat said promptly.

  Beside him the Ghost chuckled under her breath.

  “And ’e ’ad a queer sort of mark on the back of ’is wrist,” the man said. “A fish or a whale or a—”

  “Dolphin,” Hugh said, triumph flooding his chest.

  The Scarlet Throat looked confused. “Don’t rightly know what a dolphin looks like.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Hugh looked at the Ghost. “Let him go.”

  The Ghost lifted her sword and the tough was running away almost before she’d cleared his neck.

  Hugh watched her sheathe her swords. He touched his finger to her chin, feeling soft skin, and tipped up her face. He couldn’t tell the color of her eyes in the dark and behind the ugly half mask, but he saw the glint of moonlight in their depths.

  “Who are you?” he whispered, that strange wildness still in his veins.

  She didn’t answer.

  So he did what he’d wanted to do since he’d first seen her tonight, there on the rooftops of St Giles: he bent and covered her mouth with his. Her lips were soft, so soft, and she tasted of wine and honey. He angled his head, drawing her slim body closer, sliding his tongue along her bottom lip until she opened her mouth beneath his. He dipped inside. Once. Twice. Slowly. A seduction. Because he could tell she wasn’t experienced in this. And then she caught his tongue with hers, meeting him as an equal, and a groan rumbled in his chest.

  She was so sweet. So right.

  She laid her palms flat against his chest and pushed. Reluctantly he raised his head and stepped back, watching her. She stood panting, her lips parted, gleaming wet in the moonlight.

  She closed her mouth, swallowed, and rose on tiptoes against him. Fast and hot she kissed him once more, and then she was gone, slipping away into the night shadows.

  Favoring her right leg ever so slightly.

  Hugh narrowed his eyes as he stared after her and finally remembered when last he’d felt the wild, mad joy she provoked in him.

  When he’d believed himself in love with Katherine.

  ALF MADE A face as she turned over carefully in the narrow bed later that night. She hadn’t pulled out the stitches fighting in St Giles, but the stab wound had bled through the bandages by the time she’d made it back to Kyle House. Her leg ached like holy hell. It probably served her right for being so pigheaded, slipping out the window and going into St Giles after Kyle had ordered her not to. But the man wasn’t her master, no matter what he seemed to think. The Scarlet Throats were as much her enemies as his—maybe more so, since they’d been after her for years now. She’d wanted to be there when he’d invaded the gang’s territory.

  And besides, if she hadn’t gone tonight, he wouldn’t have kissed her again.

  She closed her eyes, remembering the press of his hard lips and the thrust of his tongue. He’d been hot and demanding, tasting of the strong drink he must’ve had at his supper. He’d smelled of sweat from running and brawling, but it wasn’t a bad smell. He was a clean man, Kyle. He was warm and big and—

  A scream, shrill and high, pierced her dreamy thoughts.

  Alf tumbled from the bed and was out in the hallway before she’d even considered the matter.

  Another scream.

  She was on the servants’ floor, and a few doors opened, maids and footmen peeking out in nightclothes with lit candles.

  The scream hadn’t come from this floor, though.

  She ran to the end of the hall and down a set of stairs to the floor below—the nursery floor—her bare feet slapping against the wooden boards. A door was open, spilling light into the hallway, and she could hear someone crying and an adult murmur.

  Alf hesitated.

  Should she return to bed? She’d come all this way, though, and Ned had always said curiosity was her failing.

  She tiptoed down the hall and peeked inside the open door.

  It was a bedroom—a child’s bedroom. A banked fire was the only light. Kit was curled tight as a snail in his bed, his arms wrapped over his head. Kyle was pacing, barefoot and bareheaded and wearing only a nightshirt, before the fireplace.

  He must’ve sprinted to get here before her.

  In his arms was Peter. The little boy was weeping still as his father walked slowly from one end of the room to the other. The little boy’s fist was clutching the placket of Kyle’s nightshirt, pulling it open so that black curls of chest hair poked out the top.

  Alf caught her breath at the sight.

  Peter rubbed his small, red face against his father’s big chest as he sobbed, getting the nightshirt wet with snot and tears, and yet Kyle didn’t seem to mind. He simply turned at the end of his trek and paced back again. And now she could make out that he was humming, or maybe crooning, low under his breath, some sort of song. She’d never seen a man do such a thing. She’d witnessed women comforting babies and children often, of course. Women always had babes and children around them in St Giles—at their breasts or bound to their backs or slung at their sides. Women w
orked and walked and slept with their children close by, but men hardly ever did.

  It should’ve made Kyle seem less manly to be doing what was considered women’s work.

  But it didn’t.

  The boy was so small in his arms, pink feet dangling and vulnerable. He looked scared and sad. Kyle’s arms were big and strong and holding him gently against his broad chest.

  The sight made her catch her breath. Made something inside her squeeze, deep in the pit of her belly.

  She yearned.

  Maybe to be that little boy, held so securely. Maybe to touch that broad chest and those black curls, peeping out of the man’s nightshirt.

  Maybe just to be with this man.

  She must’ve made some sound then, for Kyle glanced up and saw her, standing there in the doorway like some beggar before a grand feast.

  And if she’d been dressed as a woman, if she’d been wearing a white dress embroidered with blue and yellow posies, she might’ve swanned into that room. Walked right up to him and laid a hand on his shoulder, just to feel his male strength under her fingertips.

  But she wasn’t a woman tonight.

  She was a boy.

  So she did the only thing she could. She turned and fled back to her room.

  HUGH WOKE LATE the next morning with an aching head and a stiff cock. He squinted at the bright sun streaming in the windows opposite his bed, cursing under his breath. He liked to rise early, but Peter’s nightmare in the early hours had made that all but impossible.

  Now he stretched and winced, wondering if he should call for a hot bath. Sometimes that helped to calm the pain in his temples. Or…

  He closed his eyes and rubbed his right hand lazily across his chest, brushing his nipples, breathing deeply as he felt them tighten. Felt the answering pull in his sac. He flattened his hand and ran his palm down his stomach, across coarse hair to his cock, heavy and hot between his legs. He thought about the Ghost last night, standing so proud and graceful. In tight leggings and boots, her legs outlined for all to see. Her mouth had been sweet and wet beneath his, and he’d made her pant when he’d thrust his tongue between her lips. Had he made her wet in those men’s clothes? Had she gone home and touched herself thinking of him? Stroked her little pussy until she arched and trembled?

  He fingered the head of his cock. His foreskin was drawn back, exposing the sensitive flesh, and he thumbed across the wet slit, rubbing around it, then stroked firmly down and then up.

  Thinking of her, that wild fey woman he’d met only twice.

  She’d been unbound and free beneath her motley. Had her nipples been tight against the inside of her tunic? If he’d opened her tunic, spread the edges wide, would he have found her breasts pale and naked in the moonlight? Her nipples small, dark buds against white skin, waiting to be ravished?

  Would she have smiled so cockily at him as he pinched her tits?

  He groaned softly, spreading his legs so that he could roll his balls in his other hand. Found a good, fast pull on his cock as he thought of her, the ache building deep in his balls.

  He’d’ve bent his head to her, taken a nipple in his mouth, and sucked on it hard. Made her squirm with the same need he had. Thrust a hand down those leggings and found her cunt. She’d be soft and wet for him. Soft and swollen. Moaning with want. He’d rip the damned leggings off and pick her up and thrust into that hot, wet—

  The pain in his head burst white as his spunk overspilled his hand.

  Hugh gasped, opening his eyes, staring at the ceiling blindly as two more spurts sullied his stomach and hand. His heart was thudding, his breath coming in quick pants, and his headache had receded to a dull throb.

  He lay, inhaling deeply as he caught his breath.

  Who was she, the Ghost of St Giles? Who had taught a woman how to fight like a man? Swords weren’t inexpensive. She or someone else had bought her weapons. Had made that costume that fit her far, far too well. Did she have a lover? A husband?

  He grimaced at the thought and rolled off the bed, then padded naked to the dresser. He found a cloth there and wiped his spend from his body. If she had a husband, the man was a fool to let her wander the streets of St Giles alone. To let other men fight with her.

  To let other men kiss her.

  The water on his dresser was cold, but Hugh had been used as a soldier to washing under less-than-luxurious conditions. He hurriedly made his ablutions and was in the process of dressing when Jenkins entered the room with a jug of steaming water.

  “Morning, sir.”

  When not serving as an amateur physician or as part of a raiding party, Jenkins was his valet.

  “Good morning,” Hugh replied. “How are Talbot and Riley?”

  “Talbot has a bit of a sore head, a result of having a chair smashed over his crown,” Jenkins replied gravely. “Riley reports no injury at all.”

  “And yourself?” Hugh looked the older man in the eye.

  “I am well, thank you for inquiring, sir.” A trace of a smile graced Jenkins’s face.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Hugh replied. “Though do examine Talbot again this evening. I wouldn’t want to lose him due to pride.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Jenkins shaved Hugh as he contemplated what little they’d learned from the raid on the gin house the night before. The man who had hired his attackers was a member of the Lords of Chaos, but beyond that they had very little. Why would a man stink of rotten eggs anyway?

  “There, sir,” Jenkins said, wiping the last of the soap from his face.

  “Thank you.” Hugh nodded and shrugged on his coat before leaving Jenkins to his valeting.

  He headed up the stairs to the nursery.

  It had taken over an hour for Peter to fall back asleep after his nightmare. His face had been puffy from weeping, his blond hair stuck to his forehead in sweaty strands. Kit had been balled up, facing the wall in his cot, either asleep or studiously ignoring them both.

  Hugh stopped at the top of the stairs on the nursery floor and sagged against the hallway wall. Sometimes it seemed as if Peter’s nightmares were getting worse, that Kit’s anger was growing, that the whole damned mess since Katherine’s death was insurmountable and he, an army officer, leader of men, behind-the-scenes operator, and bloody duke, should be able to do something more for two little boys, his own sons.

  Goddamn Katherine. Goddamn her for forcing him to make the choice to leave not only his home but the bloody country. And goddamn her for dying and devastating their sons.

  Hugh pushed himself off the wall and strode to the nursery.

  He could hear the boys’ voices as he neared, and then another’s. His footsteps slowed.

  “… But I don’t like mathematics,” Kit said. “I don’t see why I should have to do it.”

  Hugh grimaced. Both boys had a tutor, but since Katherine’s death Kit had been rebelling against his studies and Peter—though he had fewer studies to begin with since he was only five—was following his lead.

  “’Spect it’s because your tutor’s told you to.” That was Alf’s voice. What was he doing in the nursery of all places? And where was the blasted nursemaid?

  “Do you have to study?”

  “No, course not.”

  “Then I don’t see why I should, either,” Kit said, his voice sounding flat and final.

  Hugh frowned and took a step, about to burst in and give his son a lecture, but Alf spoke instead.

  “’Cause your mother loved you, didn’t she.” Alf’s inflection sounded more like a statement than a question.

  Kit answered it anyway, his voice small and sad. “Yes.”

  “Course she did. And your mother—’oo loved you, mind—would’ve wanted you to study,” Alf said. “Otherwise she wouldn’t ’ave got that tutor in the first place. ’Sides, you’re gonna be swells when you grow up, you and Lord Peter ’ere. Fat lot of good as a duke you’ll be if’n you don’t know your numbers. You’ll ’ave to get your butler to do your sum
s for you and then all the other swells will ’ave a good laugh at you and you’ll end up with your face red as a beet and your tail between your legs.”

  Alf’s blunt statement took Hugh’s breath away. No one had spoken to the boys thusly since their mother had died.

  “How come you don’t have to study?” Peter piped up.

  “’Cause my mother didn’t love me,” Alf said.

  The nursery was so quiet Hugh could hear the boys breathing.

  Finally Alf spoke again. “One day, long ago, my mother left me on a corner in St Giles. I remember she said she ’adn’t the money to feed me anymore. She told me to stay there and not to run after ’er because she’d slap me ’ard if I did. So I stood on that corner and watched ’er walk away. I wasn’t but five years old, more or less. Same age as Peter.”

  Hugh closed his eyes. Jesus. He was well aware that there were orphans and abandoned children in London, but the thought of someone he knew having lived through such loss was terrible. More, the thought of Peter all alone and having to survive in London—in St Giles—was incomprehensible. Five years of age was so young—so close to being a babe in so many ways.

  Alf had been a babe. How had he lived?

  “But where did you sleep?” Peter sounded anxious.

  “I got lucky,” the older boy replied. “I ’ad a friend by the name of Whistling Ned on account of ’ow ’e ’ad a tooth missing and ’e made a whistling sound when ’e talked.”

  Hugh heard a muffled giggle from one of his sons.

  Alf continued, “Ned took me in with the gang ’e ran with. Fed me. Took care of me. Made sure I was warm and no one ’armed me. And in return I ’elped out with the gang’s business.”

  “What business?” Peter wanted to know.

  “Robbing ’ouses.”

  It sounded as if both boys gasped, and Hugh blinked.

  “Robbing is a sin,” Kit said, sounding serious.

  “Oh, I know,” Alf replied. “A very bad sin indeed. But you must remember as I was only a wee child. ’Ow was I to know it was such an evil thing, ’elping my friends and feeding my aching belly? The bigger boys would lift me up and I’d crawl in a window and unlatch a door or window for them, and then Bob’s your uncle, they’d be in.”